Rather Odd Post

I'm staying in London for the next two months, involved with family events and work projects here. Any spare time's been spent exploring hidden corners of the city and going to places I might have missed. And somehow everything has come out a bit crazy, mostly in a good way I'm glad to say.

For instance,  I caught Agnes Meyer Brandis at an art show called The Republic of the Moon in a crumbling old building by Oxo Tower in London, S.E.1.  Brandis is based in Berlin, a city I always find exciting, and I loved her Moon Geese installation at the show. They're real geese and she has quite a touchingly close relationship with them.  She hatched a flock then lived with them night and day until they became "imprinted" and thought she was their mum.  Then she took them to Siberia to train them for a trip to the moon, based on a 17th century description of doing just that.  

This was a lengthy exercise, well planned and beautifully filmed in an almost dreamlike way and showing a crazy but somehow delightful adventure as the geese went through their astronaut training. There was  essential theoretical work of course.

and also practical. See how they follow her out to the flying machine which might take them all to the moon, (according to what the man said in the 17th century)

and here they are investigating unusual materials they might encounter in Space.

The installation also includes a mission control room, portraits of the geese and all kinds of other things.  I snapped these pictures off the film, but it's the sort of thing you need to see yourself,  so if you are in London before 2 February, it might make a fun little trip.  It's free and some of the other artists' work is well worth seeing.  Details here.

Our children's book project is taking up quite a bit of time.  No more classes with the kids, sadly, but there is a huge amount to do. I have new respect for children's book publishers!

I attended a relative's Unbirthday party a short while ago.  She didn't want her party on her real birthday this year for various practical reasons, so had it a bit later.

Here's small fry blowing out the candles. She is five and was VERY excited and nobody cared that it wasn't the right date.

Anyway, my own birthday is 14 January but I didn't celebrate it.  I'm having an Unbirthday later on too, in a nice month. My cousin tells me that will make me a year older as I'll have two birthdays in one year. I say it'll make me several months younger, because I won't have my birthday for ages yet.  (I prefer my version). I'll want a sensational cake for my party, but I don't think I could match this one,

which is on the illusion pages of Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka.  Look at the top of the cake and you will see it's an optical illusion design.  Wow!  Akiyoshi's page has some intriguing images. I'm hoping to do a project involving optical illusions, but it's in the planning stage at present, and I turned Akiyoshi's page up in course of my research.

Oh, and the BBC. We heard more from on high this week, but not enough, so basically we're st-i-i-ill waiting.    Here is a picture of the Oracle of Delphi -  that's obviously what we need.

T and I went to an ice sculpture contest at Canary Wharf, London's newest office district which can look very beautiful at this time of year and has a surprising amount to see - it's not quite all about making money.

My favourite sculpture in the show was created by the Irish contestants. It's an ice ship in an ice bottle. It was very chilly and a bit rainy but we were entranced at how skilfully they created their ice sculptures, with hardly a moment's hesitation. I still haven't worked out how they got the sailing ship INSIDE the bottle. 

 

And out for a walk with a young relation who was very keen to catch a squirrel. I snapped him quickly on my phone,  so it's not a very clear action shot, but I like it. Of course the squirrel got away with no problem at all, even though you might be able to see that it was holding most of a sandwich about a third as long as itself!