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Mmmmanchester
I went to the Whitworth Art Gallery last weekend to see the Thomas Joshua Cooper exhibition. Fabulous seascapes in black and white, all taken on glass plates using a wooden 19th century field camera - inspiring stuff.
However, on the way out, I became distracted by the shop and all the lovely things they sell in there. Just look at these fabulous postcards of Manchester that I found! They appear to have been produced by these people who have a sense of humour about all sorts of places. There's even one that looks like it was created by Adrian. Brilliant!
Posted on September 30, 2005 | Comments (2)
Busy...
I am so glad that I'm only this busy at work once* a year. So many days have gone by that I almost forgot I had a blog! How do people fit all this stuff in? Any spare moments are spent attempting to read newspapers/magazines/crappy novels rather than exploring teh interweb. I think it's just because I need a break from the screen after so many hours at work. So, next month things should be back to normal. I hope.
*at the start of the academic year in September.
Posted on September 22, 2005 | Comments (1)
A-levels all over again
I have enrolled on an evening course once again. This year it's a 30 week course, and I'll have to take it all a bit more seriously than last year. This year, it's AS level Photography.
Hopefully the first evening will be a sign of things to come as our beginners 'homework' involves researching Martin Parr and William Eggleston, and I have prior knowledge of and own books on both. Just got to sit down and look through them again now.
Posted on September 18, 2005 | Comments (8)
It's no good
Last week I finally got round to watching the Depeche Mode live DVDs that I bought in the sale a while back. Devotional is still as wonderful as it was when I saw the show live (twice) in 1993 and certainly warranted a replacement of my worn out VHS copy. However, One Night In Paris only confirmed the feeling I had after watching DM during their Exciter tour. The set list was a badly chosen collection of songs with terrible pronunciation during the main vocals of most tracks from Dave Gahan - I'm waiting for the naaaaaaht to fall? - which left me feeling rather disappointed. The DVD was no better than the live experience as you could see Dave's new Andy-Serkis-style gurning close up and it became more and more obvious that, without Alan Wilder and with Martin Gore becoming a pseudo guitarist, they really are becoming quite a bad live band. I bought tickets for their next tour thinking that I'd regret not doing so if the new album is cracking, so I'm just waiting to see now. It doesn't look good...
I watched CD:UK and Top of the Pops on Sunday with the sole purpose of seeing them perform their new single. Unfortunately, these performances seem to have indicated the end of an era for me as, if Precious is the best track on the new Depeche Mode album (as you'd expect from a first single), they really have become incredibly dull. I'll save my final judgement for the full album that I will definitely be purchasing but, on this evidence, it looks like I may be trying to sell my tickets for the March gig next year on eBay. The last time my "favourite band" crashed out of favour was when the Pet Shop Boys ruined years of good work by releasing Go West. This time it's been 15 years for me, and the band in question have just gone a bit rubbish rather than totally pants - I think this'll hurt more.
Posted on September 13, 2005 | Comments (5)
New Thinking
I think it's fair to say that getting excited about the release of an album or a film is pretty normal behaviour. Getting excited about the launch of a newspaper, however, might be a little on the strange side. Still, that's not going to stop me from admitting to you that I am actually looking forward to Monday, for once in my life, because I will be able to get my hands on a copy of the new look Guardian.
When The Independent first went tabloid, I went out and bought a copy out of interest. However, two years of working for GNL had left me with a certain expectation of a newspaper that even a more portable version of another product simply couldn't live up to. On occasions I will still buy the Indy (for a particular article, or if there are no Guardians left), but I always feel like I'm getting better value for money from The Guardian even when I only read the smaller parts of it. the G2 section is often worth the cover price alone. I discovered that my fruitless search for a magazine that was interesting to read had been in vain because what I wanted was there in G2 all along. If only the news section wasn't so damn big that I needed a large table or expanse of floor to spread out on.
Well, despite being extremely shy of capital expenditure whilst I was working for them, the big-wigs at GNL finally decided that, although tabloid wasn't for them, broadsheet was definitely dead so they were going to have to spend some cash and make some big changes. So, from Monday, The Guardian becomes the UK's only 'Berliner' size full colour newspaper, with a bit of a snappy redesign too. I knew the size change was coming, but the new masthead grabbed me by the throat when it appeared in my inbox this week. Changing the size is one thing, but a total re-vamp? Just as well it looks so bleedin' good. Full colour on every page with the ability to produce double page photographic spreads, stapled magazine-sized G2, separate sport section every day, new Film & Music section on Fridays... Mr Potter, wiz zis newspaper you are reely spoiling us!
"With age, we grow up
We gain knowledge
We get wiser
We also shrink a bit"
And we also get excited about silly things. For someone who prefers to by CDs rather than download music because she likes something tangible to hold in her hands (and clutter up her house), a better version of my favourite newspaper to hold instead of having to stare at it on the same screen that strains my eyes all day, is a marvellous idea. Just as well the council collects paper for recycling from our homes these days.
Posted on September 10, 2005 | Comments (5)