Cricket

I think it is rugby that is played by men with funny shaped balls.  Cricket is a bisexual game played by both men and women.  I may not be that great at it myself, though I am getting more practice as time goes on.  My children play - 1 boy and 1 girl.  They both love the game but have had the most terrible season, with all the rain.  Scotland is maybe not the best place to play cricket!  Though it IS a good place because there are so many opportunities for them to play - we just need it to stay a bit drier ...  It has rained a lot this summer and both are starved of games.  Now we are off to Vancouver for a few weeks where I believe they have a cricket team.  We will have to look it out.  If I find it, I shall blog it.

A Bit More World Book Night

World Book Night is collating giver stories for a blog.  Definitely worth a read. Particularly the one about the 57 year old woman who cannot read and write.

http://www.worldbooknight.org/wbn-blog

World Book Night

This week Monday was World Book Night.  A charitable event created by publishers and the book industry to encourage reading.  They aim to give away 1m books.  Some direct and some via "givers" who nominate themselves online and say which of 25 titles they would like to give away.  If successful the giver has 24 copies of the chosen book delivered to a library or bookshop, they pick them up and then give them away.  Last year I had The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark - a crucial book as it was reading it and being so amazed by its structure that I decided to study English at university.  This year I have Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  While it has no claims as lofty as Jean Brodie in its impact on my life, it is a terrific book and one I have always loved, partly because of its reflections and links to Jane Eyre - my all time favourite book.  I hope Jane Eyre is on the list one day!

For more information about World Book Night go to www.worldbooknight.org

A week in the Lake District

We had vowed never to return to the Lake District after counting 80 people on top of Haystacks one summer weekend, but the lure of a family get together with great walking thrown in was just too much.  We spent the week in a gorgeous house just near Shap, in spitting distance (though we didn't) of the Lakes.  For some of the party it was an introduction to hill walking - though maybe doing Striding Edge on Helvellyn in the snow was not the most sensible walk for a novice.  But they enjoyed it and we had a few days of great hills in the snow and with brilliant views in between some nice family time.

I didn't take my camera on this walk, which was a mistake.  We were up the High Street - a great ridge walk up and then superb views across the hills.  I had to take this on my iphone and really regretted not taking the camera.  It still looks fab though.

Next stop - a quick southerly Munro at the beginning of May when I will take my camera!

More Industrial Iconography

As the art project continues, we have had a visit to the new Riverside Museum in Glasgow.  As a design, this museum is gorgeous.  It has been created so beautifully and thoughtfully.  For example, the area that is devoted to Clyde shipbuilding has a superb gyrating machine that carries models of the notable ships built in the area.  It is mesmerising and as each ship passes a plasma screen, details come up about it.  But most amazing is that as you leave the area of the museum, there is a huge picture window that gives a view of the Clyde and all the old shipbuilding warehouses and cranes. So you immediately know you are at the point of living history.  A brilliant piece of design.  Secondly, there is a fabulous reflection of the Tall Ship - Glenlee - in the glass wall of the museum.

My daughter was photographing the Pilcher Bat - an example of design that changed the world, I am told.  The Pilcher designs are known for being the original aircraft that actually flew.  A pity that he died in the process!  The one in the Riverside is a copy and is a bit incongruous as part of the exhibition as the Riverside focus is on Clyde shipbuilding and wheeled transport - so, as the only aviation exhibit, this looks lovely, but is not relevant to the rest of the museum. The original Pilcher Hawk - the best known and the first, is at the Museum of Flight in East Lothian, but is not currently on display.  The curator told me when I called that it was likely to be moved to the new Museum (see other posts!) in central Edinburgh when they open some more galleries.  We hope so because despite their obvious (death-inducing) faults, they are wonderful designs.

Bridges

It has been a weekend of bridges this week.  My daughter is collating photographs for her Higher Art and wanted some pictures of industrial objects including bridges.  So we went out to South Queensferry - a lovely out of town trip for another day with more time in it - to take pictures of the Forth Bridge.  See below.  What a wonderful piece of Victorian engineering it is!  If I am honest, however, from a design and symmetry point of view, I prefer the Road Bridge which is more majestic.

We also went to the National Museum on Chambers Street.  I have written about this before as it has recently reopened after a major refurbishment and looks fantastic with some real thought about how the collections overlap and about the design of the collections, creating shapes and images.  However, we were mainly in the Museum of Scotland section which is relatively new, but not part of the refurbishment.  This is a picture of what I consider the most interesting thing in the whole museum (apart, maybe from the Lewis Chessmen).  It is a piece of the original Tay Bridge.  Badly built and beset by troubles, the bridge collapsed into the Tay in 1879 killing everyone on board the train crossing it at the time.  This piece of bridge was found in a house in Broughty Ferry!  It is the way the end of it is ripped, as thought it were made of plasticine, that amazes me. A really fascinating close up of how even what seems to be the strongest of things is actually pliable and breakable.

Happy Birthday Mr Dickens

"I have in my employ a literary man with a wooden leg" - my favourite Dickens character is Nicodemus Boffin.  While some Dickens can be hard to read , he would have benefited from a firm editor, there are some great characters and brilliant plotlines.

The picture is nothing to do with Dickens.  I just thought this page was rather bleak without anything more picturesque on it.  This is actually a very good drawing of Elie in Fife done by a good friend.