This is a view from the vintage De Havilland Dragon Rapide which I was fortunate enough to enjoy a brief flight on today at the Duxford Imperial War Museum.
I took lots more photographs while I was there …
This is a picture of me in a very strange place:
It is actually a part of Ernesto Neto’s The Edges Of The World exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. If you follow my blog you’ll know that I like the Hayward Gallery and have featured it here before. (here, here and here)
I took plenty more pictures of weird and wonderful artworks …
This weekend, thanks to a tip-off from a friend I visited Kinetica Art Fair. Having been to last year’s event, I knew what to expect and so I came prepared with my camera.
Immediately, the art afficionados amongst you will have noted “camera” - Kinetica is a very informal event. Photography is allowed as long as it isn’t disruptive and many of the exhibits are interactive.
The artists are usually on hand to discuss their work and are typically very keen to do so. Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie gave me a very interesting walk-through the art/research project on computation models of creativity that he is involved with, for example. I also chatted briefly with Giles Walker who I met at last year’s event when he was exhibiting his pole dancing robots.
So, what did the art look like?
It’s been a while since my last site entry but that’s (mostly) because I’ve been away on a well-deserved holiday to Thailand. I had planned to go away earlier in the year but that didn’t happen due to work commitments. That excuse no longer existed by the end of September, so I made my plans for a holiday.
I chose Thailand because I expected it to be a relatively easy place to travel to and around. I’d decided to travel on my own and to go as an independent traveler, rather than as part of a package holiday or tour group. My concrete plans extended as far as a return plane ticket to Bangkok and three night’s pre-booked accommodation. And even that bare minimum plan didn’t go exactly as it was supposed to …
This is another “watching, not doing” blog entry. Can’t see myself doing this anytime soon:
I took this at the Thames Festival last week. It shows a member of the Free Running (aka Parkour) demonstration team performing a hand stand on the specially built stage. We were also treated to running, jumping and somersaulting from the rest of the team, all neatly dressed in their corporate sponsor’s logo. (Barclaycard - Who, incidentally, caused me a great deal of inconvenience this week, so I’m not feeling charitable enough to give them a free picture advert on my blog.)
Other highlights this week …
This is Albert.
Yes, that Albert. Prince Albert of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria fame, now more famous for their museum than anything else.
OK, I admit they may be quite important but I had a useless history teacher at school and the museum’s what comes up top of the list if you type “Victoria and Albert” into Google. If you really want to see how times change, try typing “Prince Albert” into google and see what comes up first.
So, what’s Prince Albert doing on my blog?
I’ve always wanted to play the drums but never really gave the idea any serious thought as they’re one of the least practical musical instruments ever. Large, noisy and require the use of all four limbs to play, so couldn’t possibly be easy to play, could they?
Not that I’d let the third fact put me off, but living in a flat in London, the first two factors are pretty significant.
The solution?
I recently bought myself a drawing board so that I could do some pencil drawings from the comfort of my sofa. Here is how the most recent one came out:
I’ve altered the colours slightly so that the picture shows up better on the web. The original is in light pencil. The picture is sketched from the left shoe of my pair of Patrick Cox snake skin shoes.
Turns out I’ve owned them for quite a long time, although they’re still looking reasonably decent as I keep them for special occasions.
So, why shoes?
Skate and Date is one of my friend Clare’s bright ideas for getting single people to meet up with each other. Predictably enough, it involves Skating (on ice) and Dating. It’s been a while since I last ice skated, so I thought I’d give it a go.
And after the break, there’s an “action shot” just to prove that I did actually take part in the Skating part of Skate and Date.
It’s been a busy weekend. I’ve been out for each of the last four nights and each of those nights has involved loud music and staying out late.
This picture is from Friday’s Mobile Clubbing event which was held at Tate Modern.
Mobile Clubbing is a bizarre experience which involves turning up at a pre-arranged time and place (pre-arranged via the internet, of course!) and dancing to your personal stereo, along with a horde of strangers. The Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern was a perfect venue for this. Even the artwork currently on display conveniently allows plenty of room for people to dance around in the open space.
And speaking of the “artwork” … I guess it is pretty much obligatory for me to offer my comment. Being fair, the hall was very busy when I got there, so I couldn’t really take in the awesome wonder of a hole in the ground all at once. Being realistic, though, it is a hole in the ground. Neat idea with the name, though - Shibboleth. Only this time I think the Shibboleth is meant to flush out pretentious art critics and not the Ephraimites.
And that was just the start of the weekend clubbing experience …