Category Archives: arts

arts, books, current affairs, music, natural history, nudism, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

I’ve been reading quite a bit over Christmas, so this week there’s a good selection of quotes; something for almost everyone here …

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.
[Paul Harvey]

If people turn to look at you on the street, you are not well dressed.
[The Economist; unknown author and date]

You can’t prove that there isn’t a magic teapot floating around on the dark side of the moon with a dwarf inside of it that reads romance novels and shoots lightning out of its boobs but, it seems pretty unlikely, doesn’t it?
[Kurt Hummel]

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is in the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements but not with as much strength, though it is deficient only in power of maintaining equilibrium.
[Leonardo da Vinci, The Flight of Birds, 1505]

Newton saw an apple fall and deduced Gravitation. You and I might have seen millions of apples fall and only deduced pig-feeding.
[Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher; Letter to the Times, 12 January 1920]

All dog-lovers must be interested in Lieutenant-Commander Elwell-Sutton’s account of his white whippet which insists on singing to the accompaniment of his (or, may I hope, his young son’s?) accordion – presumably one of those gigantic new instruments, invented, I think, in Italy, which make noises as loud as those made by cinema organs, and rather like them. This dog’s taste is low; but a musical ear is a musical ear.
[Sir John Squire; letter to the Times, 11 January 1936]

They [18th and early 19th century Quakers] became a bourgeois coterie of bankers, brewers and cocoa-grocers.
[Mr Ben Vincent, letter to the Times, 13 March 1974]

[The correct] forking technique is called the Continental method. It’s the method used in Europe as well as anywhere else that the British have killed the locals.
[Scott Adams]

Alice: Would you please tell me which way I ought to walk from here?
Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where –
Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk.
Alice: – so long as I get somewhere.
Cheshire Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if you only walk long enough.
[Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland]

arts, books

Puppets in Aliceland

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For all you theatre buffs out there, here’s something different. I’ve just come across this trailer video for Little Angel Theatre‘s current show Alice in Wonderland which runs until 30 January.

Click the image to play the video or double click for a larger version direct from YouTube …

No, I haven’t seen it yet. We have that delight in store for my birthday.

arts, history, science

Things

Now here’s something for the nosey and the magpies amongst us.

The Wellcome Collection in London wants your Things. Yeah not very specific is it! Well that’s the point.

Henry Wellcome was one of the world’s greatest collectors. On display in [the] Wellcome Collection you will find more than 500 objects from his original collection of over one-and-a-half million, spanning centuries and continents.

And now the collection is running a “community project” (my expression, not theirs) to add a modern perspective to this collection.

The project runs from just Tuesday 12 October to Friday 22 October. You are invited to go along between these dates (except Monday 18 October; the Wellcome is closed on Mondays) to give or loan a “thing” as long as it is smaller than your head. If you can’t get there in person you can always send in a photograph of your “thing”.

Alternatively you can go along just to gawp at the trash exotica other people have given.

But what should you take along? Well anything as long as it is no bigger than your head (there are a few other sensible restrictions like no explosives; see the terms & conditions) although the advice is to take a “thing” which has meaning for you. It doesn’t have to be valuable, or beautiful, or collectable … just something with meaning for you. And if that means you can’t bring yourself to part with it then by all means loan your “thing”.

This sounds like a fun project, much in the spirit of Keri Smith’s How to be an Explorer of the World.

More details on the Wellcome Collection website.

Now to decide what I take along …

“Things” runs from 12-22 October (except Monday 18 October) at Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE. Opening hours: 1000-1800 (Thursdays until 2200; closed Mondays).

arts, books

Shakespeare's Globe

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Shakespeare’s Globe, originally uploaded by kcm76.

On Tuesday evening we took a group of Anthony Powell Society members and friends to see Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe Theatre in Southwark. Fortunately we had seats under cover for it was a horrible wet evening – it tipped it down with rain throughout the first half and everyone standing in the Yard got well and truly soaked, as did some of the actors.

Notwithstanding the play was excellent, as one expected of the much acclaimed 2008 production by Christopher Luscombe. It was a most excellent romp and the cast gave every impression of thoroughly enjoying themselves too.

Not having been to the Globe before, I was surprised at how attractive a theatre space it is and it certainly works well for the dramatic sweeps of Shakespeare. I had been warned that the seating was just traditional wooden benches and to take a cushion. However I didn’t find the benches uncomfortable even without a cushion, although I did hire a back-rest which was for me more uncomfortable than not having one – the angles were all wrong for me and I discarded it in the interval.

The only thing which was slightly irritating were the students continually wandering in and out of the Yard – however authentically Elizabethan that may be. And a couple of roast chestnut sellers in the Yard would have made the experience complete!

The Globe is not a cheap evening out (what theatre is!) unless one chooses to stand in the Yard, but it is well worth going to as it does work pretty well for Shakespeare and is an experience worth having at least once. Despite not being a great theatre-goer I’m certainly glad I went.

The photo is a panorama of several shots I took during the interval from our seats.

amusements, arts

Auctionalia

This month’s collection of the weird and wonderful from our local auction houses.

Mid 29th century Oak cabinet with two drawers fitted for cutlery above a cupboard flanked by barley twist columns.
[Do we get the time machine as well?]

Five pieces of pewter incl. a tobacco jar, a large musical jug, 2 brass  and wooden folding rulers, […]
[I think I find the idea of a musical jug even more alarming than the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation]

A ceramic flat back-two damsels and knave in boat, pair of brass candlesticks […]
[Surely if he’s in a boat with two damsels he’s a knave by definition]

Quantity of Shelley tableware ‘Chelsea, 2 Copeland Spode Italianate bowls, metal dog nutcracker […] 2 sets  boxed silver plate butter knives […] quantity of buttons,
wood planes etc.
[Implements for opening metal dogs or for cracking the mutt’s nuts?]

Glassware including a charmingly enamelled French milk bottle with wire closure, a pair of 19th century large tumblers, 5 cranberry wine glasses, and 6 other pieces
[I’m curious as to why the French enamel their milk bottles]

An early 18th century iron cannon retrieved from the Thames at The Woolwich Arsenal. The  barrel is approximately 68″ long with a bore of 3″
[Just what I need to adorn the loo]

A rare mid 20th century Songye “Kifwebe” mask (Democratic Republic of the Congo), this important mask was made for a dignitary of the Bwadi Bwa Kifwebe society, the ruling group of the Songge tribe, the heightened striations in white signifies death and reincarnation (there is a monogram atop the left eye, possibly the original wearer/owner).
[Well this auction house does specialise in ethnographic artefacts]

Charming William IIII rosewood cabinet upper section comprising glazed cupboard beneath an ornate gilt metal gallery above 2 frieze drawers and cupboard base flanked by Corinthian half columns raised on a plinth.
[This has to be the pièce de résistance … I can’t even picture what it might look like!]

The taxidermist’s art was also in evidence, with:

A stuffed canary
A stuffed ferret
Pair of stuffed Jays mounted in a glass cabinet
A Victorian arrangement of two stuffed owls under a glass dome

arts, history

Project Gargoyle

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An project in Leicestershire is hunting down gargoyles in order to help understand the region’s gothic art. Project Gargoyle has been set up to create a brand new resource capturing Leicestershire’s wealth of medieval sculpture.

Volunteers are busy taking photographs of figurative church carvings such as gargoyles on around 300 local churches. No-one currently knows exactly what is there but the project expect to uncover around 10,000 carvings ranging from gargoyles pulling faces or poking their tongues out, to ones depicting the Green Man or dragons.

The information collected by the project will become a digital resource offering fascinating insights into medieval minds.

The project is being supported by the County Council, the church dioceses and the local archaeological society.

More information at Medieval News or from Leicestershire County Council.

arts, beliefs, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me: because of their zen-ness, their humour, or their verisimilitude.

Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting and … ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to “walk about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?
[Wassily Kandinsky, 1910]

The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.
[Chuck Palahniuk]

It doesn’t matter what you’ve got in your pants if there’s nothing in your brain to connect it to.

Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

… the result of some wobbly high-heel work at a drink addled giggle-fest.
[Alison Cross]

arts, history, photography, science, topographical

Queen's Beasts at Kew


Queen’s Beasts at Kew, originally uploaded by kcm76.

You’ll probably want to look at this in a larger size.

We went to Kew Gardens last week, with an American friend who was staying and had a free afternoon to do something different. While there I fulfilled by wish to photograph the ten Queen’s Beasts in front of the Palm House. The beasts represent the genealogy of Queen Elizabeth II. They are (from L to R):
• White Greyhound of Richmond
• Yale of Beaufort
• Red Dragon of Wales
• White Horse of Hanover
• Lion of England
• White Lion of Mortimer
• Unicorn of Scotland
• Griffin of Edward III
• Black Bull of Clarence
• Falcon of the Plantagenet

These aren’t great photos, so I’ll probably redo them next I go to Kew.

And there’s a bit more about the Queen’s Beasts on Wikipedia.