I DID IT MOTORWAY

Everyone knows that the best time to drive across the M62 is during a sunset. Apparently when the bridge was built it was the largest of single span in Europe at that time and the cost of that stretch of motorway cost one million pounds a mile. Would it have been too hard to put signs at 100-meter intervals along its length that read ‘DON’T HOG THE MIDDLE LANE’?

45 POINTS ON A TRIPLE WORD

After a week playing the iphone version of scrabble, we decided to crack out the board and tile version found in a box! This wasn’t your ordinary scrabble though. It was 50^th anniversary limited addition version including velvet tile bag! There was something strangely unconvincing about the certificate of authenticity inside the box (stictly 40,000 sets made). It is rather vexatious how any apparent discernment of articulation you thought you had desultorily turns into a benign vocabulary of four letter words made of no more than two syllables when the scrabble gauntlet is laid down. 

Scrabble from a box on a Saturday night. Note the 70’esque room décor also. 

BACK TO THE OLD SKOOL

This weekend was spent house and dog sitting in Huddersfield.  Much of the area where I lived used to contain many large empty mills. Recently these have been systematically flattened for new housing estates. An old school can be found among the large open spaces and new houses. I think the building was used as an old people’s home before it fell into complete abandonment. There were plants beginning to break through the tarmac of the old playground. 

These are some bat boxes that were put up around the empty site. I think if I were a bat I’d prefer to live in a creepy old mill rather than a tiny wooden box. Then again, the humans on this site are paying thousands of pounds for the privilege. 

KNOT IN HAM

The last few weekends have been taken up by monotonous bar work in order to save money for our upcoming trip to New York. However, this Saturday we were both free so headed out for a fun filled day in Nottingham. After navigating the city's network of A roads, we ended up parking in Broadmarsh Shopping Centre's car park. We were truly spoilt for choice concerning multistory car parks, but this was as good as any, I suppose. Emerging from the car park into the shopping centre, we were greeted with the largest and most confident Wimpy I have ever seen. I began to think that in the short journey from car seat to commercial concourse, we might have traveled back in time.

Giant Ticket, surprisingly easy to lose.

It was then to the Nottingham Contemporary to see an exhibition of woodcut prints by Gert and Uwe Tobias. The gallery seemed to be full of children; a barrage of discarded prams and empty haribo packets obscured one of the prints. There was a storybook zone in the first gallery room, complete with over enthusiastic storytellers reciting classic kids novels to disinterested 20 month some things. It was nice to see the gallery actively involving the little guys with their exhibitions, but (without sounding like a grumpy old man) the guy parading around dressed as a zebra posing for photographs a little disturbing and even more distracting. The artwork itself was a range of large and some small-scale prints using bold shapes and colours involving references to contemporary and tribal symbolism. The resulting images contained some amusing characters and monsters, perhaps too scary for kids?

Below street level at the NC you will find a room known as the SPACE. This houses traveling exhibitions and its large volume allows for some unique commissions. Last time we visited there was a huge inflated female astronaut that you could walk inside of. The entrance of which could have been more tastefully positioned (unless that was the point and entrants were physically forced aware the gender of this astronaut). 

This time we were greeted with; the much more potentially offensive “Fifty buildings in 50 years, great modern architecture in the East Midlands”. Considering what I mentioned above about the dynamics of the SPACE, this exhibit lacked in ambition unlike the buildings presented by it. I guess this is down to the fact that it is a traveling exhibition, designed to appear in many different spaces (including Leicester’s High Cross Shopping Centre). Nevertheless, it was interesting to read and, judging by the reactions of other viewers, relevant. Most of all, we had fun with the colored spotlights!

The weather was not great and (as I said before) we were saving money, so we had a quick play in the fountains in front of the council house before heading back to the car. 

This small abandoned building (possibly a pub or a shop) made up part of the outer limits of a tiny square housing the alfresco diners of the annexing restaurant.

After seeing the exhibition we decided to find some of the featured buildings so it was off to Loughborough and Leicester!

and you thought hanging baskets were 'naff'

The show piece EFTE clad ‘Thor’ missile canopy was annoyingly disappointing at forgeing a futuristic beacon for National Space Centre, moreover creating a context of a future dystopia waste land complete with foraging ‘survivors’ on the outreaches of the car park.  

'survivors'

HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE IN VENICE

Here are a selection of drawings that were done as part of a 5^th year project entitled ‘Home and Social Life in Venice”. The site used is archetypical of the many Campi found in Venice, that are the basis of the city’s urban fabric. The site was annexed by the imposing Chiesa san Barnaba and the square in front has been the location for many films including ‘Summer time’ (1955) starring Katherine Hepburn. A canal with towpath ran alongside the length of the site leaving a narrow, yet interesting space to work with. The programme was meant to confront the issues of living in Venice including the vast numbers of tourists that can be found there. In my case as a response to the site’s history as a place of gambling and gaming, I decided to model an international Bridge tournament (The Venice cup) hall with local bridge club facilities.