The cage was unlocked all along

I'm currently listening to Zoey Van Goey's album "The Cage Was Unlocked All Along" which came out recently. I'd somehow come across them a while ago and was vaguely keeping an eye out for the record. Anyway, if you go over here you too can listen to lovely songs about subjects such as hiding in basements and teaching English in Japan...and then decide to buy the record too.

Elina Brotherus

While I was trying to get from the Tate Modern to Elephant and Castle to meet Adrian and Heather (no mean feat without the help of Sean the Irish Satnav) I got sidetracked by an exhibition of photos in a gallery called the Wapping Project (their website is here, but I do not understand it - there are a lot of arrows...) I was very taken by the photos, which turned out to be by a Finnish photographer, Elina Brotherus (her website is here - it's perfectly coherent).

I was a bit put out when one of the gallery people asked a man standing nearby if he wanted to see the price list, but didn't ask me. How could she be so sure I was actually a duffle-coat-clad scruff and not an eccentric millionaire? Anyway, here are some of the pictures I particularly liked:

I'm not looking for a new England

I unearthed my Kirsty McColl CD the other day; it includes "A New England" which has the fantastic lines:

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites,
it's wrong to wish on space hardware,
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care

Morag has suggested that wishing on space hardware is much the same as praying to the face of Jesus in a toilet door in Ikea, but I think the Ikea thing is definitely worse...

Pygmy goats, black holes and the crystal house

I headed down to London on Friday to visit Jonathan and Jacqui in Stoke Newington. It was an altogether artistic outing, starting off in Jonathan's studio in a room upstairs from the Library - here he is with some of his recent paintings:


And working on a new sound-thing...


We also observed pygmy goats (which were oddly spherical)...

the almost-obliterated Banksy:


and a white-(ish) deer (clearly a sign that I should set off on a quest)...


So the next day, generously equipped with an A-Z and an Oystercard, I set off into London. Some of the shops were not as glamorous as I'd been led to believe:



But the Millenium Bridge was lovely:


I wandered over it to the Tate Modern:

to look at the black hole they currently have in captivity:


Looking into the abyss:

Looking out of the abyss:


Underneath:

I think it would have been more effective if I hadn't hung around taking photos outside it for ages, giving my eyes the chance to dark-adapt. Despite that, I did manage to walk into the side unexpectedly. It turns out that black holes are kind of velvety on the inside...

Anyway, having defied the laws of physics and escaped, it was off to meet up with Adrian and Heather to see a copper-sulphate encrusted flat that I'd been hankering after visiting for the past couple of months:




Adrian and Heather and the sparkly walls:


Looking very Mulder-and-Scully:


Isn't it fantastic? However, for some reason the folk in charge would not let me move in, so I ended up back at Jonathan's drinking from a spidery mug:

Paddington Brave

Night Lights #2

Night Lights

Lens