Flight of Fancy

05 Monday Aug 2013

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aldous huxley, and Elsa Schiaparelli, architecture, arts, Diana Mosley, Edith Sitwell, Faringdon Folly, Four and twenty blackbirds, George III, Gertrude Stein, Henry James Pye, HG Wells, Igor Stravinsky, John & Penelope Betjeman, Lord Berners, Nancy Mitford, Salvador Dali, Sergei Diaghilev

Sunday 4th August 2013

Faringdon Folly

Entry £2

If you drive along the A420 from Oxford to Swindon, you’ll spot a hill on your right just before Faringdon. Its not the largest hill you’ll ever see, or the most prepossessing, but the turret that pokes out of the top of the Scots Pines gives a clue as to its interest.

The hill’s history massively pre-dates the turret, as it was fortified by supporters of Matilda sometime during the Anarchy (1135–1141) – her campaign to claim the throne from King Stephen – but was soon razed to the ground by once he’d won the war. Oliver Cromwell fortified it again in his unsuccessful campaign to defeat the Royalist garrison at Faringdon House, during the English Civil War.

It wasn’t until 1935 that the turret, or tower if you’d prefer was built, and that dear reader is where the fun really starts! Continue reading →

In The Gallery

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by laurencereade in L

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architecture, art gallery, arts, London, millenium bridge, people watching, Roy Lichtenstein, Tate Modern, tate modern london

Sunday 12th May 2013

Roy Lichtenstein; A Retrospective

At the Tate Modern, London.

Entry £14

This might come as something as a surprise to you, but I really like art galleries. Yes, there are the obvious artistic qualities to the work of one of the great American exponents of Pop Art, but there’s far more to a trip to an art gallery than just the exhibits.

The Tate Modern has the advantage of a stroll over the Millenium Bridge from St Paul’s Cathedral if you take the tube to either Mansion House or St Pauls stations. But the interest starts as soon as you enter the gallery.

In my normal trips round the world’s football grounds I see, well football types. I know them, I understand them, and in many cases I like them, but artistic types are a whole new breed, and I find them fascinating! It was a shame that the gallery didn’t like me taking pictures, understandable if I were looking for pictures of the actual Lichtenstein works themselves, but if you want reproductions of those, there are no end of books available, or better still come to the exhibition, it really is excellent.

But look out for the people too. There’s the culture vultures, studying every brush stroke, and there’s the gaggle of sixth form art students, who feel they ought to be there. There’s people like me, the tourists eager to learn something, and look out also for the pensioners on their Sunday out. Then there’s the parents to whom it hasn’t occurred that for a 5 year old the art gallery is nothing more than an adventure playground.

But the people I found the most interesting were the poor souls who were employed to mind every room. In today’s digital age it’s impossible to enforce a no photography rule, short of banning every mobile device. It was almost written on their faces, “Be involved at the cutting edge of art they said…Britain’s best gallery for Modern Art they said… Now look at me- stopping a tourist taking a picture….” I felt for them even if I was part of their problem.

I smiled as I exited via the gift shop (isn’t that the way these days?) but I did enjoy the genius that is a Lichtenstein colouring-in book, and the great advantage of having a coffee in the Tate Café is that the people watching needn’t finish!

The Art of Engagement

18 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by laurencereade in U

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arts, Metro, New York Subway, Solna Centrum, Sweden, T-Bana, talking, Tokyo, transportation, tube, underground, Vastra Skogen

I’ve travelled on quite a few underground trains over the years. Firstly, and most frequently in London, with its 1930’s Art Deco feel in the suburbs, gradually being replaced by the jam-packed chaos of anything within the Circle Line. Then there was Tokyo at rush hour, where it was packed. I felt like a red (sunburnt) ant, in a colony of black ants, but the system runs with split-second efficiency. The New York subway, a dangerous place in the movies, has now been cleaned up, but I’m sorry to hear that the one day “Fun Pass” has now been discontinued by MTA.

So many designs for so many cultures, and so many different lines, colours, and even ticketing arrangements. However they all have one thing in common, no-one speaks on them! Maybe its the claustophobic element, you are shut in and underground. My ex-wife hated the London Underground so much I learned London from above ground as well as I learned it from below, years earlier at university. Above ground, the world has more space, and so people have their personal space, and so can engage with each other on their own terms.

There is one exception to this unspoken rule, and that is the Stockholm underground. Here, real effort has been made to give people something to look at, and by osmosis something to talk about. These photos were taken at two adjacent stations, Solna Centrum, and Västra Skogen, and they’re not untypical of any other station on the SL network that’s underground. By the way, if you’re wondering whether the engagement is due to the tunnels being shallow, think again, the escalator at Västra Skogen is the longest in Western Europe!

So what would it take to get people to talk? I’m not convinced sculpture on the tube would make much difference, after all the excellent Poetry on the Tube has being going for years, with the vast majority ignoring its couplets and meter. Perhaps its just the rules of engagement that need altering, starting from tomorrow. The trouble is I drive to work!