Bridget Riley

Yesterday, after I had blipped Adrian, I went out to join a group of people I had never met before at the local board-gaming cafe. What jolly fun that turned out to be! I shall be doing that again!

Today, after a chap had visited the flat to replace the smoke-detector, I hopped onto a series of trains into That London to meet up with my pal, J, and to enjoy the penultimate day at the Bridget Riley retrospective at the Hayward Gallery. Oh My! What a treat! More my kind of thing than J's, so I bought the tickets and he bought the fish & chips afterwards.

We retreated to the Old King's Head in Borough which I last visited in November 2018 with Arachne when we had been soaked to the skin watching Armistice remembrance shenanigans at the Tower of London. On that visit, when the pair of us entered the pub dripping wet, a kindly local asked if we had swum across the river.

I was thrilled to discover that the ladies loo is entirely decorated in the 1980's ubiquitous “running chicken” tile. Back then they were in almost every pub loo, and despite the fact that they were designed to look like random marble, in one of four possible orientations they look like a running chick. The law of averages suggests that you would be unlikely to find vast expanses of that tile laid in that orientation, but it was obviously a popular joke among tilers to do exactly that, and here in extras is a surviving example.

That particular tile design was available in a range of bathroom-appropriate colours, but general practice was to tile the ladies in pink and the gents in blue. That way, no matter how much you had imbibed, you would be immediately aware if you had accidentally gone through the wrong door.

What I particularly loved about the attention to detail in this pub loo is the choice of wallpaper in the tiny lobby between the service corridor and the loos themselves. Categorically a nod in recognition of the tiler's handiwork. The tiles are probably over 30 years old, the wallpaper a lot more recent. Someone here is cherishing their heritage.

So apologies to Bridget, but anyone can find images of her stuff online, but a search for “Running Chicken tile” produces no worthwhile results.