Changes

This is most clearly expressed in ''The Eightieth Birthday Party'' where an aging ageing artist's grand-daughter brings her partner to the feast. The party is full of the slightly disapproving family and the over-fawning art-world savants. Irritated by the swarms of children, or simply perplexed and bored by discourses on the theories of perception both narrator grand-daughter and Jonny (the beau) are at a loss until the real artists arrive.

Thus are they rescued from a world that should be familiar to them, into one which is alien, but where , in the absence of preconceptions and judgement , they find themselves comfortable and invigorated. Survivors like her grandmother from an earlier, more bohemian age, the artists sit in the corner and drink whiskey and talk about life (which is the foundation of art) rather than pontificating about that reflection of life called art. After the party, the artists, narrator and boyfriend wander the city, sit on the quayside before eventually making their way back to her place for the last of the red wine and whatever is in the fridge… all the while talking and talking. Echoes of Vladimir and Estragon in their assertions that ''you can't have everything in life'' countered by '' you have to set your sights high because it always turns out a little lower''…