Francis Upritchard Exhibition

I had a look at this exhibition at the Nottingham Contemporary - primarily to see the Alfred Kubin drawings, but the sculptures were good as well.

Gallery 1: "War Dance" - A collection of sculptures depicting medieval soldiers in martial arts poses:-

Gallery 2: "Hippies and Holy Fools" - more figures, in psychedelic colours:-

In the other two galleries there is a collection of 60 drawings by the Austrian artist, Alfred Kubin (1877 - 1959). The drawings in the exhibition were all made when he was in his twenties, shortly after his suicide attempt on his mothers grave in 1896, and subsequent nervous breakdown.  Unsurprisingly, the  drawings are very dark, showing monsters and visions of hell.

Bestwood Mill Lakes

The dogs enjoyed meeting up with Diane and Otis today for a circuit of the lakes and then a pub lunch. We exchanged the usual pleasantries with this dog walker......and resumed our walk half an hour later knowing the life history of each of his dogs, past and present.

The Womble Trap

One of the minor irritations of City living is that, on most bin days, and in particular in the summer when the student houses are cleared of their unwanted belongings, a small group of scavengers hoik through the rubbish looking for treasure, pulling bags out and scattering their contents all over the street. I politely asked the main offender, "Mrs Womble" to clear up the mess that she had made the other week and she merely looked through me, as if I were a ghost.

As I have been clearing brambles from my garden this week, and as I saw another regular, the "ginger womble" rummaging through one of my neighbours bins the other day, leaving this mess:-
 


I decided to make a womble trap.

Step 1

 Take a large carrier bag and insert a base layer of vacuum cleaner dust then add chopped bramble cuttings

 Step 2

Bulk out bag with some household rubbish

 

  

Step 3
Top off with some bait, here I have used a couple of VHS tapes and an old playstation game. All that remains is for me to lay the trap in one of the student house bins and sit back on bin day twitching my curtains

Pagan Parade

The annual pagan parade passed by