Mr Thomas's

This popular chippy has been doing a good trade for a few weeks, with well-observed social distancing. Plenty of customers today.

Today's first listen was James McMurty's 2005 album Childish Things, on which my favourite track was the title song.

A powerful 20th century triptych by Otto Dix, Metropolis (1928) can be read in many ways.  In composition and some of its techniques, it resembles a religious triptych of centuries before. The actual subject matter is a contrast between assertive women, many prostitutes, inside and outside a lively jazz club in Berlin, with the grotesquely injured veterans of the first world war.

When the work was painted, Germany was in a state of political, social and economic turmoil. There was violent conflict between left and right. In Berlin especially, a vibrant nightlife enjoyed the rapid rise of American-influenced culture, alien to many traditional Germans. There was also a realisation that Europe, devastated by war, was no longer the economic powerhouse of the world.

The painting's vibrant style contains many oddities of perspective which, with the incongruous contrasting subject-matter, conveys a sense that something is not right.  Cataclysmic change is coming.

Dix was one of the many artists who the Nazis classed as "degenerate" after they came to power, just 5 years after this picture was completed.