Not all it's Cracked up to be..

Right, I can't claim to understand all modern art, and I'm from the same school of aesthetic criticism as are many people from the Midlands, (chief amongst them my sister and Paul), where we speak as we find. ("Well, in't it just some bits o' metal and teabags?")

But I do try. After all, I have a degree, and so by law I must spend some of my down time being cultural and nodding sagely at stuff.

And so here is Shibboleth in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, an installation by Doris Salcedo.



It's a big crack in the floor. Quite deep, and running the length of the building, it starts off very thin...



...and widens...



...splits...



...goes off down dead ends, presumably to get that woman's shoes...



...and finally disappears under the wall at the other end.



It's meant to make us think about racism and colonialism. Which it really doesn't, because it's exceptionally easy to step from one side to the other, in precisely the way that I imagine it's not if you're on the receiving end of racism. It was, of course, impossible for anyone in a wheelchair to cross it at certain points, but she doesn't claim it's about that.



Maybe I missed something.

What it was making people think about (me and all the snatched conversations I heard while I was there) was exactly how she did it. Pneumatic drills? Moulds? Poured concrete? Screeds? (and how will they fill it in again afterwards?)

And of course, if it is supposed to say something about modern society, what it really says is "How stupid are people these days that an army of guides has to hand out leaflets telling them not to fall down it?"



And how to get your camera back...

At last!

Wishes can come true...

Long, Long Ago in Sherwood...

I suppose I'd be looking grumpy too if I'd been on pause for 14 and a half days...



My Sky+ obviously has issues and clearly I have a lot of catching up to do before I can watch X-Factor...

A Choice of Spiritual Experiences...

Having looked at the Nottingham Arena website - not for any particular reason, just because it was less than three random clicks away from something I really was looking at - I now have to decide which of these events I want to go and see...

But hang on...

Does one of them seem like the odd one out? Has one of the over-25s gone solo? Perhaps one of them will help me understand my higher purpose in life? *

If so, I think it's more likely to be Bill Bailey than any of the others.

* Apparently, 50 Cent realised his higher purpose in life after being shot in the face nine times. I didn't get as far as reading what it was...

Back at the Bison...

...but this time as a Panther!

And also this time with Paul and Nikki (who are fellow official Midlanders who had been promising to come along to the blood-and-violence-fest for a couple of years and have finally got around to it...) and Tina and Chris (who aren't, and hadn't...)

My sports reporting is not brilliant and not really knowing the few rules there appear to be don't make it all any easier to understand, but anyway, first there was an almighty punch-up between two of the players, then they scored and then we did. That's how it ended, and five minutes of fairly fast and furious extra time made no difference, so it was down to penalties. Of which we got more in than they did and that's how you win.

You can't take pictures while they're playing because they move faster than the shutter does and the photos look like this:



...but if you wait till they've won and they get presented (for some reason) with their honorary pack of Fosters, you get them to stand still long enough while they look smug and victorious...



...to get a photo of the whole team.

* Well, the whole team apart from the one who punched a member of the other team in the face and had to go home. Good, wholesome fun.