Turner blind eye.

And so the Turner Prize exhibits have arrived at The Tate! Jolly good show too!

I really enjoy it. I like the debate that it makes us all have about modern art, and what indeed is modern art. It makes you think, and thinking is good.

And I am sure 'Is Banksy really art?' will be discussed again and again as it always is year after year. Move on people!

Anyway, i feel rather let down by this years entries, especially the work of Cathy Wilkes.

'I Give You All My Money', above, is basically a couple of shop window mannequins sitting next to a supermarket check out.

I pressume it is a comment against rising prices in supermarkets? Perhaps how Sainsburys and Tesco are killing the corner shop? How Cathy can't stop buying Morissonss value chips? I don't know.

But this is the bit that i find a bit strong. I read that a critic liked 'her personal approach to figurative sculpture'

I beg your pardon? Figurative sculpture? Where? I can't see it?

There are so many amazing bits of 'modern art' around at the moment that is way ahead of people like Cathy, but they would never get a look in because they simply aren't on 'the scene'.

Have you seen Slinkachu? That is well considered figurative sculpture! He is pushing modern art way harder than Cathy Wiles ever will.

Don't lose what is good Turner Prize.

The past was wonderful, lets make sure the future is as good!

Ipod clever things

This is ace and must be watched!

Then watch this. It is all soooooooo amazing!!

All brought to you by RJDJ.

I presume they are a collective of beautiful people creating beautiful things!

I love you beautiful people, please continue creating beautiful things!

If there are people this clever out their i think i might give up me day job!

Bite.

A birdy vendetta

After what happened to me this morning, i believe that birds are way clevererer than I ever gave them credit for.

I get back home at about 7.30pm last night after spending a lovely weekend in Dorset and attempt to park Ulrika in The Square close to Chez Hale. Well, due to the selfish people who live near me I had to park on the main road under a tree.

This morning arrives and I go to move the car and find she is totally covered in bird shite. It is in lots of different places, but has all definitely come from the same bird.

I move the car to a more auspicious position, closer to home, then walk past where she was parked and there is no sign of shite on the road, not even a little bit.

So, my theory is that one bird has a grudge, maybe i inadvertently hit said birds cousin or friend and then they openly hold a dirty protest using my car as the canvas.

I promise you, looking at my car it was as if the bird had gone 'have that' then hopped to another branch 'and that' 'and that' 'that’s for Beaky' 'that ones for Tweet' 'and finally' big push 'that’s for Claude, RIP Claude'.

Well, if you are reading this bird, siphoning Wi-Fi from Flat 6, you better stop right now, I know roughly where you live, well, it will be one of the big trees in St Andrews Square, I’m watching you, and you are outside the circle of trust way outside!

Smiley in Surbiton

Found this this morning in 'East London's trendiest suburb' Surbiton.

I do hope that people in Surbiton aren't keeping Nigerian Wild bears in their garden flats.

Perhaps they are good house keepers only to happy to press a shirt or a pair of Chinos.

'Smiley, have you picked up my dress from the dry cleaners, oh, and the bathroom needs a good scrub?'

And i thought Kestyn Lunan was a chef who made cheese and onion crips?

And hang on, Nigerian Bears? Nigerian Wild Bears? Pardon? Do Nigeria have bears? Domestic or wild? Hmmmm?

Where oh where is Dave Attenborough when you need him? In his big house i'd imagine, with Steed, his pet Nigerian Wild Bear.

You lift me up!

How good are our lifts?

Pretty good?

Rather good?

.........

You know when you've been minted!

And so it has begun!

Last night, whilst at the pub - like obviously - a new arrival made its way into my handbag!

A glorious spankingly new 5 pence coin!



Not sure if you have seen but the Royal Mint had a competition to design the backs for a new set of coins that would be put into circulation.

Anyway, the winning design is super as all the coins come together to form The Shield of the Royal Arms, oh yes!

So, i have taken it upon myself to see how long it takes me to collect the set.

I have set up a Flickr gallery so that you can track my progress.

I suggest others do the same, we can have a race to see who can collect them all first. And i will not be asking fiends and family, i will just be checking change from retail outlets and entertainment establishments.

Coin it in!

Tony and The Lakes

Lovely Mother Hale and I went to the Lake District at the weekend.

It really was something rather spectacular.

I had been before but never realised how totally amazing it is up there.

Landscapes to rival Scotland I tell you.

Well done England! Well done indeed.

Anyway, lovely Sister Hale suggested that lovely Mother Hale and I pull in to just north of Liverpool on our return to see Antony Gormley’s 'Another Place'.

Well, might I ad lovely Sister Hale was right to suggest that lovely Mother Hale and I pull in to just north of Liverpool to see Antony Gormley’s 'Another Place' as it was fabulous.

There are apparently 100 bronze statues of Tony splattered across the beach, although we only saw 6 as the tide was in.

They really are very very eerie as they appear to be waiting for something to happen. They all look very pensive as if an attack is imminent, or they have lost a mate and waiting for him to return over the horizon.

Please, if you are anywhere close go see them.

I was also saying to Mummy what an odd bunch of people you were going to get on the beach in question.

Holidaying Scouser’s exclaiming - 'forkin hell Stevie, where'didya put the forkin schuncreeem?'

And posh art critics announcing - 'Yes, Gormely has triumphed at creating a synergy between man and nature by simply changing the perceptive of life, delivering celebration that inconceivably brings together creed and race, helping the pre-Raphaelites of bygone eras coherently consider epilating stiff obtuse curves and forms'.

Well done Tone, you have brought people together.

Oh, finally, small children playing with raw sewage.

Thanks just north of Liverpool, i enjoyed you immensely.

Squat and Gobble!

Pete and i went for some food at Squat and Gobble on Tuesday.

The food, as always was wonderful, but the best bit was when i got the receipt.

Rather than reducing a baked potatoe with chesse and beans to 'BKDPOTCHEBEN', on the receipt it just says 'GRUB'.

Rather than turning a fresh fruit smoothie into a 'FREFRTSMO' it just says 'GUZZLE'

Again, well done creative people, you make me smile alot more than perhaps i would need to on a Tuesday lunchtime, and, i smile alot, believe me.

That's it, as you were.

I said, that's it!

Go!

Go on!

Get off, go here for example, or even here.

Another football rant!

I can only apologise for the way i am going on and on and on about my hatred of football, but here comes another rant.

It would appear to me that these billionaires who keep buying up English football teams are just playing a massive game of Championship Manager.

I can see them sitting at their massive computers dragging and dropping the most expensive players in the world into their little interactive team sheet.

'I want him, and him, and him, ohhh, and he sounds good. Hmmm, 12 million left for a goalie, yes, yes, him, i like his name'.

Then a minion makes all the calls and Shaikh-In-Stevens gets the team he wants, without any discussions with managers or other staff.

Its ridiculous!

And, did you hear that Ronaldo is going to Man City?

Again, i can see one of these billionaires going, 'Ronaldo, he's good isn't he?' Probably thinking he is getting the other Ronaldo.

And when that other Brazilian bloke moved to Man City instead of Chelsea, i can see that the Man City owner just saying 'Offer him a bit more than Roman offered him, go on, shooo' And he gets his man.

Its stupid and it is making football look even more stupid.

Hurray, keep it up rich people.

Sun Tunnels rock!

I was watching TV last night and a program was on about Scluptures, and on the show they started talking about Land Art.

Land Art is basically where artists use the landscape as part of the idea or even as the canvas itself.

With that then in mind, they were showing some of the work of Nancy Holt.

Now, our Nancy came up with this amazing idea of placing 4x9 foot high concreate tubes in the Utah desert. These would be known as Sun Tunnels.

To most i am sure they look ugly, unappealling and dull, but to those in the know they offer something very magical.

During both the summer and winter solstice's they align perfectly with the sun as it rises. Not only that, but the 4 tubes have holes drilled into the top of them in the formation of 4 different star constellations, so when the sun is out, as it usually is in Utah, you can walk across the stars.

Like i have said before, aren't creative people lovely, they give you nice feelings.

Well done Nancy Holt, keep up the good work as you are lovely and you look very nice indeed.

Paintbrushes are new dumbbell!

My very lovely Mummy came up yesterday to help me decorate both my kitchen and bathroom, they ended up looking simply wonderful, but it was not the art of painting and decorating that i wish to talk about, it was what happened next.

We started very leisurely, bit of breakfast, then bit of a shop for stuff, then a bit of lunch, and then it started proper. We spent a good 4 to 5 hours painting, filling, rollering, sticking, fixing, cutting and dying and might i say, this morning i feel worse than any gym workout! My arms ach, my legs are stiff, i hurt!

So, i had a thought.

I have come up with ideas for gyms before, but feel this has more legs, big butch muscular legs.

Gyms should have an area in them where you just paint and decorate and do general DIY, then you are learning as you exercise.

Then, you create a keep fit collective that goes out and does places up. You submit a form and 'Pain and Decorate' come around and do your gaff up!

Brilliant!

Anyway, that's it, bored now.

Jedi don't believe it!

Check this out!

I always said Darth Vader was just a load of hot air!

Amazing!

That's not a knife!

Is this for real?

It is a £500 Swiss Army Knife with 85 gadgets and 109 features and it weighs 14 stone!

I have no idea why you would ever purchase this.

The idea of the Swiss Army Knife was it had lots of uses in a very small package. This is bigger than a toolbox!

Pointless, pointless, pointless?

Let me know if you think not.

Look what the stork brought us.

Pete and i have had a baby.

Please please please go and have a look at beautiful Theresa, and take in the story of our love!

Congratulations all round i think.

Unboxing you say.

What sort of man am i?

I have only just uncovered unboxing!

What a brilliant brilliant thing!

Unboxing is basically normal everyday average people filming themselves unboxing things and then uploading them to YouTube.

Go and have a look for yourself.

They really capture that moment when you get through the cellophane and touch the box for the first time.

Awesome!

I am not average!

I was rather excited this morning, for I found out that I am not in any way average!

When you get off the train at Waterloo probably 400 people are shepherded into a very small space. This morning I chose to take note of a lot of the people who I was being corralled with, and I am happy to say I am far from average.


Fig 1. Average Man?

Most men around me wore glasses, had short hair, with some product, regardless of age, were indeed my height, that is average, wore a blue or grey suit, had a smallish head, non-tanned skin and generally looked very very similar, but didn't look like me.

Thanks Michael and John Aver'age, you have made me happy and this cold summers morning.

The Large Hadron Collide

Make sure you say goodbye to all your loved ones on Wednesday morning, as the earth might very well have turned inside out by Wednesday lunchtime.

Have you heard about The Large Hadrom Collide?


This is just part of it.

A bunch of scientists have built one of the biggest experiements ever (27 km's long) to see if they can replicate The Big Bang. So hold on top your hats.

By 'end of play' Wednesday we might all be molten plasma. Cool.

I would totally love to be the person who flicks a little 99p plastic switch to turn it on.

'Ok Steve.....in 3....2....1.....' ~click~ (Steve shuts eyes, tight)

Good luck everyone, let's hope we make it to Thursday to see Nicholas Lyndhurst in Goodnight Sweetheart, it's the one where Gary is summoned to court in the present day to answer drink-driving charges resulting from a binge in 1941, one of my favourites.

See ya.

Trek off!

I went on my first trekking expedition, yes I think we could call it that, over the weekend and my how I enjoyed it.

Myself and 2 other budding explorers, Mr Bonnington and Mr Hillary set off into the shadows of Snowdonia to conquer one of its many peaks.

With tents, food and unfortunately no insect repellent we took on Cader Idirs, a 3000 foot mountain laying south of Snowdon itself, and might I say we conquered. It really was the most amazing 24 hours period.

It was so amazing knowing you had everything you needed to survive whatever the weather, and in true Himalayan style, we even stopped for a cup of tea before taking on the main summit.

The downside to the entire event was that I have been bitten over 100 times, most are on my head so people probably think I have some disease. I have got through a big tube of Savlon in the last 12 hours.

Anyway, get out there, do it.

Trekking is the best thing I have done for ages! Loved every minute of it and can wait for the next assault.