Bank Holiday

For some reason, we get two bank holiday Mondays in May. (I feel they could usefully move one of the into the bank holiday desert which runs from August to December, but they are nice when they happen)

This weekend has turned out to be warm and sunny, and I decided to make the best of the weather on Monday, by visiting one of our local landmarks, the White Horse at Westbury.

Bratton Hill at Westbury has clearly been an important place for a very long time. There is a Neolithic Long-Barrow there, around that the walls and ditches of an Iron Age fort.

It's difficult to give an idea of the hill fort from pictures - the one above is taken from the ditch between the inner and outer wall - the whole thing is very big, and dramatic (and full of sheep)  You can see it fairly well on Google Maps.


View Larger Map

The fort is about 2,000 years old, and it appears that the Iron Age population preserved the Neolithic Barrow inside the fort.

The White Horse itself is believed to have first been carved into the chalk of the hill in the mid 17th Century, although it was re-cut in the 1770's by someone rather better at drawing horses, and since the 1950s it has been covered in concrete, which doesn't require so much maintenace.

I love the new facts one can learn by reading the information boards at places like this. I knew that there are lots of White Horses around the place, and that most of them are fairly modern (Uffington is the exception, being about 3,000 years old).

What I didn't know is that one of the reasons so many 18th Century West Country land owners chose to add white Horses to their hills was that there was a belief that the original, Uffington Horse had been carved by (Or at least on the orders of) King Alfred the Great, to commemorate his victory over the Danes, and of Christianity over Pagans, and therefore the White Horse was seen as symbolic of that fine, upstanding English Christianity personified by King Alfred.

Another reason may have been as a demonstration of more modern patriotism; a white horse features on the coat of arms of the house of Hanover, and of course George I, the first of the Hanovarian Kings of England, came to the throne in 1714, about 25 years before the Westbury White Horse was first recorded.

We shall probably never know, but whatever the reasons for its creation, it's an arresting sight, and a lovely site for a walk.

What I did for the rest of the day

My last post was about my trip to see 'The Hothouse', which was the main purpose of my day trip to London. However, that didn't take all day, I had time to take in a few other points of interest.

I started by going to The Illustration Cupboard, a small gallery/shop, which is currently showing the illustrations from David Almond / Dave McKean's new book, 'Mouse. Bird, Snake, Wolf' .

They are gorgeous (there's a full list, with images, on the gallery's site), and since I got home I have been looking down the back of the sofa in the vain hope of finding £1,500 or so, so I can go back and buy one.(I especially like 'They Made a Wolf', if anyone has a sudden urge to buy me an unbirthday present). The gallery also has lots of other nice art and prints.

My second non-theatre-y indulgence, after the play finished,  before I caught my train home, was more art, at the National Gallery, which has the advantage of being close to the theatre, and of being free, so its possible to call in and spend a little time visiting a few highlights, without feeling that you've wasted the visit.

I spent most of the time I had looking at some of the galleries earliest works, among them one of my personal favourites, the  Wilton Diptych, which was made for King Richard II, at the end of the 14th Century.

I love the way that the angels all wear Richard's badge (even if some of them look pretty bored).  I particularly like the white stag on the back of the diptych.

I also enjoy the other early works - the gallery has a couple of Uccellos (including a delightful St George and the Dragon (which seems to show that the dragon was in the RAF, so it seems a little unpatriotic to have killed it...)

Leaving the Gallery I found that Trafalgar Square was full of many competeing groups of Morris Dancers. Which was unexpected. I'd noticed that the pub I ate lunch in seemed to have an unusually high number of men in white with bells round their knees, but I just put it down to the local clientele!

'The Hothouse'

A few months ago I saw that John Simm was going to be appearing in a play in London, and as I still haven't really got over the fact that I missed seeing his Hamlet when that was on, I decided that this time, I'd make it to see him.

He is appearing in The Hothouse, and as I realised after booking, not only does it feature Simm, but also Simon Russell Beale (who I last saw in the cinema broadcast of the National Theatre's Timon of Athens). The rest of the cast is equally impressive:
Harry Melling (best know as Dudley Dursley, but unrecognisable)
Christopher Timothy (who has got somewhat older since playing James Herriott),
Clive Rowe (among other things, he was in the Voyage of the Damned episode of Doctor Who),
Indira Varma (Suzie Costello of Torchwood) and
John Heffernan (I don't think I've seen him before, but I think he is going to be one to watch)

I haven't seen the play before, and decided not to read any reviews before seeing it, so as to see it fresh.

The play is set in an Institution. It's never explained what  kind of institution, whether it is a rest home, a psychiatric hospital, or something more sinister - we never see any of the inmates (patients?), although we hear wails and screams, and learn that they are known by numbers, not names, and that they are locked into their rooms., and everything is run under the distant control of The Ministry

Simon Russell Beale is Roote, the director of the institution, initially merely ineffectual, but as the play proceeds, increasingly, frighteningly unhinged and unpredictable. Simm's Gibbs is coldly efficient, the perfect 'company man', apparently more in control of himself than the other staff members, (and perhaps therefore more culpable) .

As the play unfolds, we learn that one inmate has died, another has given birth, probably as a result of rape by one of the members of staff. We see the hapless Lamb (Harry Melling) subjected to mental and physical abuse in the name of experimentation, and things do not end well.

Despite the nature of the setting and subject matter of the play, it is full of very funny moments - as long as you don't think too closely about what you are laughing at. It's a very strong cast, and well worth seeing.

(oh, and I'm even more disappointed I didn't get to see Simm as Hamlet)

Space Oddity

This is all over the internet, as it should be.

What could be better than Commander Chris Hadfield, real live Astronaut, performing a cover version of Bowie's 'Space Oddity' IN SPACE!

Truly, we are living in the future!

The Wheelie Bin Saga

We have rather a lot of bins.

- A grey wheelie bin, for general rubbish
- A green wheelie bin, for garden waste
- A black wheelie bin with a blue lid, for cardboard and recyclable plastic
- A black box, for newspaper, glass and tins.

Which is a bit irritating, as there is nowhere to keep any of them except on the street in front of the houses, and there is not really enough space for 3 big bins. I was able to get smaller bins for the grey and green ones, but they don't offer smaller ones for the recycling (and really, who produces 240 litres of cardboard and plastic a fortnight?)

ANYWAY, in January, the bin-men broke the lid of my blue-lidded bin.

"No Problem", I thought. "Wiltshire Council has a handy on-line form you can complete to report such things, and they will then replace or repair your bin."

I filled in the form, and received an acknowledgment, which warned that it might take 21 days to replace/repair a bin.

Time passed. No new bin appeared.

More time passed. No new bin appeared.

Even more time passed..

In March, I sent a further mail to the council. Maybe council-days are longer thn normal ones, and "up to 21 days" really means "2 months or more"

I got a response. It seems that my original request had been cast into a deep pit of forgetfulness. But they were very sorry and I would get a new bin within 21 days.

Time passed (again). No new bin appeared.

More Time passed. No new bin appeared.

About 5 weeks after my second request, a brand new black recycling box appeared.

For reference, what I needed was a 240 litre wheelie bin. What I got was a 55 litre box, to replace the completely undamaged and usable box I already had.

I e-mailed the council again. I'm on first name terms with Jonathan in the waste and recycling department, now. He seems nice.

He apologizes. He will  try to sort things out. He warns me that it may take up to 21 days for my new wheelie bin to be provided...

Today, (a mere 121 days after my original request) I looked out of my window to see a crew of council workers removing my old, damaged bin and delivering a new one!

And then, about 90 minutes later, a second crew turned up, with another shiny new bin. I saw them standing outside trying to see how my bin was damaged, and I was only just in time to stop them taking the new one away (I mean, I hadn't had time to get attached to it, but I had stuck some sticky numbers on it to identify it as mine, and I should hate for it to be rejected so early in it's career.

The only thing is.... someone stole my recycling box yesterday, so I've just reported that and requested a new one.

I've got an e-mail back from the council.

They say it may take up to 21 days to replace my recycling box......

A Good Weekend

I had a bit of a shitty week, one way and another, so I was determined to enjoy the weekend, and to do some fun things.

If you've read my last post, you'll have seen that I spent parts of Saturday exploring Bristol via art. On Sunday I went for the arguably less high-brow option of  going to see the new Iron Man film.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet so will keep it vague.

I enjoyed the film - it's more about Tony Stark than it is about Iron Man, I like the way it references the Avengers Assemble film, and the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously. I loved Ben Kingsley. And the little extra at the end of the credits.

There were a couple of things I didn't like- I would have liked a little more backstory for one or two of the characters, and there were a coupe of points at the end which left me going :-/ but on the whole I think it's a good, fun, film.

Also, there's lots of stuff getting blown up.

These Pages Fall Like Ash

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Nick Harkaway (@Harkaway) tweet about a project which both he, and Neil Gaiman have contributed to, together with Tom Abba and Artists' Collective, 'Circumstance'.

(Picture (c) the project)

The project, 'These Pages Fall Like Ash'  is an interactive story, part book, part city exploration with downloaded content, part personal imagination.

I booked a ticket (or bought a book, depending how you chose to look at it) and on Saturday travelled to Bristol to take part.  I picked up my book (beatifully packaged) from the Watershed, and got started.

The book is a beautiful little thing, made from wood and paper, and it tells two stories, or two halves of one story, one set in the Bristol we know, the other half set in a parallel city, with characters who may, or may not, know and remember one another.

The book also contains clues to locations within Bristol, at which you can download further parts of the story, using a smartphone or tablet. You have to find the right place; the content is stored on hidden hard drives, so you have to be in the right part of the city.

I wasn't able to complete the whole story (?stories) - the project hasn't been finished yet, there is still some digital content which hasn't yet been uploaded, and I had trouble with a couple of the sites, but it is a very interesting concept, and it caused me to look at the city in a way I hadn't done before.

I must have passed the hairdressers in St Nicholas Street numerous times, but had not noticed the veiled bust, for instance.

I hope I shall have time to go back and revisit while the project is up and complete, to finish the stories, but if I don't , I think some of the digital content will be available as a pdf once the project is over.

And I believe that there are plans for other, similar projects in other cities.

It's definitely an interesting and innovative piece of art, and I'm glad I joined in.

Very Old Things

Some time ago,I booked tickets for two of the British Museum's headline exhibitions for this year: - Ice Age art and Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, so Saturday morning saw me on a train to London, to visit the BM and see them both.

Phoenix

I started with Pompeii. Well, to be truthful, I started with a very nice lunch at a lovely little French bistro not far from the Museum, but after that I went into the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition.

I was lucky enough to able able to visit both cities, about 18 months ago, together with the Archaeological museum in Naples, so I was not sure whether there would be many things I hadn't already seen (although of course I had no problem with seeing them again!)

Kitchen Mural

The exhibition is arranged by rooms, a little as if looking around a Roman house -  starting with the street, and moving in to an Atrium, Bedroom, Kitchen, Garden and so forth.

Many of the items were familiar - the 'Cave Canem' mosaic, for example, and the portrait of the Baker, Terentius Neo, and his wife, (which is the headline poster for the exhibition), others were less familiar.

 I don't remember seeing the more technical exhibits, such as pipes and valves which looked startlingly modern, or the fountain head in the shape of a rabbit, before.

There were also various pieces of furniture which I had not seen before - the poignant carbonised cradle, for instance (I'd seen it in TV documentaries, but not in person), a small household alter, and personal items found with some of the bodies, such as a surgeon's implements, a child's charm-bracelet and a key.

There were also items such as loaves of bread, dishes of figs, pomegranates and grain, all carbonised, and therefore preserved for over 2,000 years, which are just astonishing!

Garden fresco

One of the most dramatic and memorable parts of the exhibition, however, has to be the Garden frescos - 3 walls of gardens, with gorgeous and life-like plants and birds.

The exhibition does include a small number of the famous casts - one of a guard dog, and others of a family of four - parents and two young children, but the exhibition focuses on life rather than death. It's very interesting, and I'm glad I went.

(There are more pictures in the Evening Standard's review, here, and on the Museum's own website)

After this, I wandered upstairs to visit Noggin the Nog   the Lewis Chessmen, and a few other bits and pieces, while I waited for the time-slot for my entry into the Ice Age exhibition.

One of the things I like about the British Museum is how big it is, and how much stuff there is, so if (like me) you have a poor sense of direction, you tend to wander down a corridor, or turn a corner, and stumble upon the Mespotomanian Queen of the Night, or a glazed brick guardsman from the palace of Darius of Persia (both of which I saw in between Pompeii and the Ice Age..)

20,000 year old Bison sculpture

The Ice age exhibition was, to me, a little bit of a disappointment - they sell timed tickets, but seemed to have been greedy and overestimated how many people could reasonable view the (mainly small) at once. The exhibition itself is also fairly small. The curators have added some modern pieces, such as Matisse sketches and a Henry Moore sculpture, to highlight how close the relationships between modern and ancient art were.

Despite my grouching, there were some lovely pieces - a beautiful bison, and a lovely horse. And the swimming reindeer, which is part of the permanent collection, and one of my favourites.

It's fascinating to see the skill and accuracy of the sculptures, and to realise that they were created with nothing but bone and stone tools!

An interesting day. Long, but I'm glad had the chance to see both exhibitions.

(Edited to add. The British Museum has created an app to allow you to visit the exhibition vitually, if you can't visit in person.)

Mitch Benn's Reduced Circumstances

Regular readers (if any of you are regular) will remember that I have several times been to see Mitch Benn, and as he's now touring, I got the chance to see him again, at the Rondo Theatre in Bath.

I like the Rondo - it's tiny (I think it seats about 80), so no matter where you sit, you're close to the stage, and it's run mainly by volunteers.

I like Mitch Benn, too. This gig was part of his 'Reduced Circumstances' tour - just Mitch and a small guitar, no band, and with slightly more in the way of stand-up and slightly fewer songs than previous gigs I've seen. He talked about his very dramatic weight loss,  about food as an addiction (and the difficulties of going 'cold turkey'!) and also talked about believers and atheism, and performed a series of new and older songs. (I have now heard Bouncy Druids song live, which was fun, and comes with commentary about the Olympics)

As those who've ever been to pone of Mitch's live gigs will know, he will take suggestions from the audience, just before the interval, about local or national news events, and write a brand new song during the interval, based on those suggestions.

This week, of course, there is only one News story, and there was a pause before anyone mentioned it... (Mitch commented that waiting to hear Jeremy Hardy on the new quiz, on the subject of Thatcher finally having died, would be worth hearing...) as was Mitch's song, which managed to include references to slasher movies, bedroom tax and Korea as well as the Iron Lady's final departure.(assuming of course that someone remembered the stake, and she is in fact gone for good)

It was a Good Gig. And it's near the start of the tour, so lots more chances for you to see it! Go. book here.

Things that Glow in the Dark

Tonic water and glass in normal light

So, about a year ago I heard about Uranium Glass (also known as radiation glass, or vaseline glass), which is made with small quantities of uranium, causing it to glow under black light, and I wondered, vaguely, whether the drinking glasses which used to be my Grannie's, might be made of Uranium Glass, but I didn't have any source of ultraviolet light to test it with.

Uranium glass in UV light

And then more recently I learned that the quinine in (proper, non-diet) tonic water also glows in the dark, under black light. I learned this in the context of realising that one can make G'n'T jellies, and who wouldn't love a glow-in-the-dark alcoholic jelly? (Well, my family, it turns out. I made some G'n'T jellies at christmas and it turns out that the flaw in the plan is that if you don't much like jelly, adding gin is just a waste of gin. Maybe if I'd had an ultraviolet light so it glowed in the dark we'd have liked it better)

In these circumstances, it was only a matter of time before I acquired a UV light and started to play..

Today was the day it arrived. And it's a weekend, so I was always going to be having some  gin, so I'd have an excuse to play with tonic water...

It turns out that my glasses are uranium glass...

And tonic water does glow in the dark.


And you know what? Drinking a G'n'T out of the glass, you can get some very pretty effects!

Radioactive Gin and Tonic

Well, it kept me amused for a time!

I understand that the level of radioactivity involved in Uranium glass is so low it doesn't present any health risk (unless you grind up the glass and inhale it)

The Crane Wife

I've written before about Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, one of Bath's two splendid independent bookshops. They host wonderful author events (the last one I went to was with China Mieville, which I blogged here )

On Tuesday night, they were hosting the Patrick Ness, to celebrate the publication of his new novel, The Crane Wife. I missed Patrick when he visited for the publication of 'A Monster Calls', so I was particularly pleased to be able to get tickets this time!

And to meet some old friends and acquaintances - I knew that Cheryl was going to be there, what with our having bought the tickets together, and it was nice also to see Tamzin, (although my terrible face recognition skills meant I was confused for a moment, there)

As usual, the evening began with music from The Bookshop Band - with two new (and only just completed) songs inspired by the book. They were wonderful.

Patrick Ness

We then had the interview with Patrick, who apparently wrote the book at the same time as writing a new teen novel, (and has vowed never to do that again). The novel is inspired by a Japanese folk tale of the same name, which Patrick learned while a child in Hawaii. It's not one I am familiar with, but he made the point that, unlike most fairy tales / folk tales, it begins with an act of kindness, not an act of cruelty, so he was interested to explore the ideas of how a kind man would react to / deal with his  desires.

The interview also covered other points - the fact that people are complicated ("People are Legion") and don't conform to simple stereotypes; one of the reasons why Patrick rarely writes out-and-out villains, the need to write from the heart - drawing on real emotions.

He read us a bit of the new book (with a few interpolated comments - "I said 'penis' to a room full of people') then there were some questions, followed by delicious food from Made by Ben, and mingling, then further questions, and book recommendations, from Patrick, and the bookshop staff, and guests. Recommendations included Cat Valente's books,(the 'Fairyland ones, pluis Six-Gun Snow White,  Wildwood, The Armed Garden, Shadows on the Moon ,and the Cannongate Myths series.

Then the evening ended with Patrick signing copies of the Crane Wife and others of his books, with, inevitably, more conversation. A thoroughly fun evening.

Easter Weekend

I decided to go down to Devon for Easter weekend, to visit my parents and relax and unwind a little.

It was, inevitably, still cold, but also sunny, which made a nice change. And as it was a sunny day, we decided to go to the seaside, to the (Baggy Point end) of Woolacombe.

There were some brave souls surfing (although not, I think, with much success. The waves were big, but irregular and unpredictable) We stuck to the walking along wearing thick coats option, which was more comfortable. We also decided against having an ice cream. Even though it *was* the seaside.

Saturday evening was, of course, the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who - and my lovely parents arranged dinner to fit round it (and even brought me a pre-dinner drink as I watched!)

On Sunday the clocks went forward, and as it was Easter Sunday, there was a church service to ring for, which of course felt as though it was an hour early.

The church did look lovely, though - the church yard is full of daffodils and crocuses and primroses, and the sun was out.


After ringing, we went for a walk locally, through the beech woods, where the old railway used to run.

It was cold, but there are some lovely views. And lots of primroses and snowdrops in the hedge-bottoms. (We even found one violet, but it was the proverbial shrinking violet!)

I really enjoyed being able to relax and unwind. The house is so quiet - I love lying in bed listening to the birdsong, and the calling of the tiny lambs in the field outside, and I enjoy watching all the different birds which come to the feeders outside the living room windows.

The most frequent visitors are a gang of goldfinches, but there are also lots of sparrows, blue tits, great tits, chaffinches, a greenfinch, and blackbirds and thrushes (mostly on the ground under the feeders) I'm told there is a coaltit sometimes, although I didn't see it this time, and there is a very territorial robin, too!

Oh, and I got a lovely chocolate Easter Egg despite being officially grown up!