The Art of Waiting - Part One

Part one? Yes, I have two stories about the art of waiting. Today I'm going to tell you one.

It was last Saturday. We were at the Queen's Theatre, a dark and empty shell, with crumbling walls, on which were being projected various moving images made by people of varying degrees of artistic talent.

A woman in a black coat came up. Hello, she said. I'm the curator of this grainy mishmash of arty pretentiousness. Feel free to look around.

Actually, she probably didn't say the middle bit.

Then she said, if you are still around at four o'clock, two of our artists are putting on a demonstration of their work over there in the corner.

We looked at our watches; it was half past three.

At four o'clock, having looked at everything for longer than it deserved in order to oblige the woman in the coat, we approached the corner, where a row of plastic chairs was being assembled. Six or seven people had materialised, and the two artists. We sat down.

The artists were two young men. One, in brown trousers and a green jumper, stood behind a desk on which there was a turntable connected to an Apple laptop, and some vinyl records on a stand. Above his desk was suspended the wide end of a roughly handmade white cotton cornucopia or sounding trumpet, on a frame, which gradually diminished to become a long white ragged tape that the second artist, who wore a pale blue suit, wound several times around his neck, before sitting down at a table, on which were several small items of haberdashery, some pincushions containing threaded needles, and some coloured inks.

Now that I have set the scene, may I invite you to practice the art of waiting? Yes, if you are here this time tomorrow, I shall tell you the rest. Sit down, don't go away.