Any Point

Some people have been giving me grief about not doing any blog posts. I didn’t even realise anyone read it. So to prove I am not dead, here is one.

It’s Christmas. Personally I am not a fan of bringing an outside tree inside and sticking lights on it, I think in makes us all look like bloody idiots. And all that sending folded up bits of cardboard to everyone we know, what’s all that about? But I do applaud London for doing a good job with the old decorations this year. Lets forget Oxford Street, which has done the same old crap of sticking up some twinkly Disney movie promotion.

Regent Street has gone for this techno, interactive globules, which are supposed to change colour depending on the movement of people and temperature etc. I’ll believe that when I see it, it just seems to flicker a bit if a bus goes by, and that could be down to dodgy wiring, but it is a good effort none the less.

Carnaby Street always do a good job, and they haven’t disappointed this year again, with huge paper chain. (top pic)

My favourite, however, is Covent Garden, which is truly enchanted, and not the Disney kind of ‘Enchanted’ either. With the smell of roasted chestnuts and the classical music busker’s, it is a place I would like to take my Old Dear to for some mulled wine and a mince pie. There is also some great big art, of which I am always a sucker for, in the form of huge baubles. They didn’t used to be in a cage to begin with, but I suspect drunkards have been frolicking with them too much.

And here is the Brixton entry. Nil Points.

Just seen this on telly, I think it is awesome, it is called ‘Turning The Place Over’ and it is ironic that it is situated in Liverpool where most places get turned over at some point

It is a sculpture by local artist Richard Wilson that utilises engineering usually used in the nuclear industry to rotate a section of a derelict building in a dramatic fashion, turning it inside out. It has been done to herald the 2008 Liverpool City of Culture.

I like a bit of big art, but I am also too northern not to mention the cost, and this was set up at £450,000. The installation will only be up for a few months until the building is demolished, and I just think someone has made a shed load out of this, because I  know as a piece of engineering, that didn’t cost nearly half a million quid. Maybe Richard Wilson did really well out of it.

Wasn’t Richard Wilson that old git who kept moaning on telly and said “I don’t believe it?!”

I had a day off work, I spent it on the South Bank with the wife in the sunshine and went to the Antony Gormley ‘Blind Light’ exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Loads to see there, stuff mostly exploring the human form, and/or space, and concentrating on uncomfortable spaces, like ‘Space Station’,  a 27 ton steel structure, that seems to be balanced on one corner. Gormley must have woke up one day and said to himself, ‘right, the next piece is going to be metal, it’s going to be massive, it’s going to have loads of sharp corners and square holes’ If he did say that, then he nailed it.

‘Blind Light’ is very much like having your eyes tight shut, and you know when you can see those spots and lines and probably some of the last bright thing you saw before you closed your eyes? Well, it’s like that, but the negative of it, it is weird. I wish I was in there by myself and in silence to get the full effect though. ‘Blind Light’ is supposed to be disorientating, not for my missus, I got her to go in, and she stood by the door, when I encouraged her further in, she said ‘you must be joking, you can’t see a bloody thing in there! I’ll stay right here where I can see the exit and I know how to get out thanks’

The best of it all was ‘Event Horizon’, I am sure you all know of the human casts that appeared across the skyline of London, but viewing them from the terraces of the Hayward Gallery gives the best impact as they are all looking back at you from as far away as 1.5km. It was top seeing kids and adults alike pointing out into the distance and counting how many they could find, I am sure it is exactly what Gormley would have hoped for. I don’t know how long they are to stay, but I hope that at least some of the 27 will stay for good, like his ‘Another Place’ on Crosby Beach.
 
It was a brilliant exhibition, don’t miss it.

Top tip, buy your tickets online, the queue was about 50-60 people long, and we got to walk straight past it, and straight into the exhibition.