Landscape behind a petrol station, Santa Monica; music in public places

Landscape behind a petrol station, Santa Monica, oil on card, 13.1 x 10 cm - available

Another beautifully sunny day.

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Today I became annoyed about music in a shop: I love music and the stuff they play in shops and restaurants is rubbish. In bars they often play it at such a loud volume that is it difficult to converse without shouting: I don't understand what's wrong with silence.

Moveover, I like to be able to choose when I hear music. There is a campaign against this aural pollution in the UK, but I don't know if there is one here in Brazil.

I often ask for music/muzak to be turned off. There are several usual responses-

1. Patronising, pseudo-concerned: "don't you like this music?" The best response here is, "No. Please turn it off". Usually when you get the pseudo-concern it's a technique to fence you off.

2. "Sorry this is our policy". No further discussion: muzak stays on.

3. "It isn't up to us-it's a head office policy"- muzak stays on. Ask to see the manager and are briskly told the same thing, and given a whole load of bollocks about some survey they did.

4. They turn it down, but not much. So you ask again. If they think you're going to be bolshy, or leave, or you are certain to spend a good sum of money or are the only client you've a good chance of getting the music off alteogether for the period you are there.

5. They turn it down for about two minutes, then turn it back up- as if you won't notice! In this case you ask again. And again, until they realise not to take the piss.

6. They turn it off altogether. This happens occasionally.

7 "But the customers/clients prefer it": an amusing thing to do on getting this line is to ask one of the other customers near, "do you mind if this muzak is turned off". They invariably say "I don't mind if they turn it off, no problem", and continue with whatever they are doing.

As with all complaints, the thing is to be cheerful and polite. This is often difficult as the muzak itself is such an irritant. I often don't enter places with muzak but sometimes they are impossible to avoid.

The Dunes, again

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The Dunes II, oil on card, 13.1 x 10 cm  AVAILABLE FRAMED

I walked from Avenida das Rendeiras to Joaquina Beach today across the dunes- it's only tricky near Joaquina where there are some pools to circumnavigate.

The landscape has a definate lunar quality, with craters, strange succulants and bright purple flowers. Above: lapwings, shrikes and a kestrel.

The Magic Mountain

The Magic Mountain, oil on card, 8.8 x 12.6 cm

Painted in UDSC: one of the amazing hills surrounding Florianopolis, its charms still unspolied by construction.

I feel that I have made some technical breakthroughs recently in my understanding of how to use oil paint. The smallness and rapidity of these little pictures allows me to feel able to experiment.

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This picture is the part of a series of mountains: I am considering re-organising the Postcards from Florianopolis set - perhaps by breaking it into themes: highway, sea, houses- as it will shortly become too large and unwieldy.

The Dunes

The Dunes, oil on card, 13.2 x 10.1 cm - discarded

I'm not sure if I've entirely captured the strange beauty of the dunes: I'm going to come back here for sure: they are behind Avenida Rendeiras, in Lagoa.

The sand is incredibly white, and then the sun beats on it and it makes your eyes sore to see it. The vegetation here is peculiar, sparse, like the nair on a balding man, and the land rises and falls in irregular clumps, with some swampy areas. Birds, often lapwings, fly about cawing.

The Infidel (2010): review- 2/10

A Muslim London Taxi driver discovers that his birth parents are Jewish: meanwhile his son intends to marry the daughter of an extremist Islamic cleric.

There is enough material here for a very fast, funny short film, but instead we get a lengthy one in which cultural cliche after cultural cliche is labouriously worked through.

This is simply too narrow, and unsurprising a basis for comedy, which should at some point has to touch more closely on observed experience.

Omid Djalili does his best but even his energetic performances cannot save the film from tedium.

Adventureland (2009): review- 7/10

A young man plans to spend his summer travelling in Europe before going to graduate school but, because of his father's demotion works in an Adventure Fairground to save money.

There, he meets two amorous girls and a married philanderer, among others.

This is a elegant coming of age film with fine acting and wit but few real surprises.

He's Just Not That Into You (2009): review- 6/10

A girl negociates dating: her barman friend advises.

Another anti-rom-com rom-com.

I wasn't bored, the central idea is diverting enough, and the girls are pretty, though I can never really recognise the people in these films, who are lacking in some core fundamentals of personality, as if they were designed by advertising agents for Cosmopoitan magazine readers.