Look What The Cat Dragged In!

Kirsty came up with that heading, so don't blame me!
Kirsty, Kelly and David descended on us last night. They came from Gibraltar and Spain to celebrate the New Year in London. And why not? The fact that it's -2 degrees outside and there's a tube strike looming won't put them off. We were all young once you know!

Merry Christmas!

OK, so there's no point having a blog unless one rabbits on endlessly about what a wonderful time was had, what marvellous family and friends were met, what fabulous presents were exchanged - so why should I be any different. Christmas morning saw the opening of lots of prezzies. I couldn't match for Ellie her fabulous gift of a flying lesson for me to take later this year - but she hopefully appreciates the usual socks, underwear and historical novel! At least I remembered not to buy saucepans. Nathalie came up trumps with a course in learning to play the piano - and I spent over two hours practising yesterday! I haven't done this since the days of Hilda Farrell LRAM circa 1960, so it was quite a challenge. At least 'Buy a Broom' has been replace by 'Ode to Joy' as the first recognisable tune to come up with. Then it was off to Trudy and James for Xmas Day - Click on Xmas to see a few photos, but don't forget to come back here! On Boxing Day we had the world and his wife around. Or at least those that could fit through the door - Mum, Barbara, Brian, Nathalie, James, Gordon, Diana, Andrew, Helen. Then after a long Tuesday battling against traffic on the M25, it was back to work on Wednesday. And it eventually started to snow - as promised. The picture is of Harriet teaching Nathalie how to conduct an operation. If you look closely, she's actually removing a rib. It took Nathalie 5 years to get to that stage! Merry Christmas.

Installation Art

I was first inspired to construct an original work of art during a trip to the Saatchi Gallery in London, where I gained an appreciation of modern art at its finest, as demonstrated by Tracy Emin with My Bed and by a room full of 20:50 motor oil. Suitably smitten, I decided to create my own branch of the genre – Garage Sculpture – and now have the honour to unveil my newest creation, Teetering On The Brink, a work which has evolved in the deep recesses of my mind over many months of blue-cheese ingestion and which was completed in a dramatic display of artistic expression last Sunday afternoon. The central theme is the conceptualisation of space in the sense of ‘more of’ (i.e. to get the car in.) For some time now, the accumulation of domestic furniture, old paint cans and sundry detritus has expanded to fill the void, forming a profoundly negative access scenario of a vehicular nature. Bound impenetrably by the six planes of constraint (four walls, ceiling and floor), space/time itself seemed at risk of imploding. In order to bring light to this dark void, I freed two large sofas to a more comfortable and fulfilling future of domestic service in Guildford. What remained were the ingredients of my new sculpture, individually meaningless but when bound together by an irrational mind, probably the finest oeuvre ever laid.
The base of the work implies solidity and is formed from a small wooden unit acquired from one Auntie Audrey in olden times. Having seen service chez nous in recent years as a telephone table, it was cast aside to make way for a new television. Its inclusion here is a mark of appreciation for unstinting valiant service through the decades. The hint of peeling veneer perhaps indicating its own lachrymose acceptance of fate. Next, both vertically and sequentially, appears a refrigerator. Fully serviceable yet unwanted and unplugged, this appears as a savage indictment of our throwaway society. However, as a model of the ‘Beko’ variety, its Turkish manufacture also makes a positive statement of peace between Europe and Asia and sets an example to us all. Above this, we encounter the complex and unsettling coffee table, cantilevered as if to defy gravity but just held in place by a dolphin see-saw, a mere child’s outdoor toy. If the dolphin could speak, would it be demanding its own blog? The topping-off of the sculpture comprises pre-formed shapes of expanded polystyrene, solid yet flimsy, inviting the viewer to wonder what appliance these shapes once protected – and what became of the cardboard box that once constrained them. The enigma is thus complete.
Offers are invited from prospective purchasers of the work, which is available only in its single original form. Sealed bids, for not less than 25,000 Euros, should be forwarded to the webmaster by 1st April 2006. Free installation will be provided anywhere in England and Wales. Buyer to supply own Garage or corner of Gallery.
artistic links:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tracey_emin_resources.htm
http://thinkingaboutart.blogs.com/art/2005/01/saatchi_gallery.html

Blog surfing

I've no idea what this Portuguese site is about, but they seem to be having fun!
� a vida ( a picture's worth a thousand words...)

Barcelona

You can tell it's the final week before Christmas, 'cos everyone (OK - me) is sitting around waiting for the Big Day to come and not being quite sure what to do in the meantime - buckle down to a hard day's work or go out for a few drinks. Today, the team decided to do the Christmas thing. We actually had our main 'do' in Hamburg a few weeks back, but some of the team couldn't make that, so today was a good opportunity for them to catch up with the rest of us. So - Tapas at the Barcelona bar it was - but we had to squeeze it into a legitimate lunch break (or near enough.) Anyway, I'm typing this whilst still under the influence of a bottle or two of Rioja de la Casa, helped down by large raciones of chorizo, paella, cortillas, pollo, calamares etc. Tracy took some photos on her mobile, which I'll upload as soon as she's worked out how to do it. (Update - Brilliant - well done Trace!) In the meantime, Merry Christmas Ev'rybody!

Funeral Music

A friend of mine died earlier this year and, at his funeral, we all sang Abide With Me like spectators at an FA Cup Final, then sent the coffin on its way to the strains of Days sung by Kirsty MacColl. Now that, thought I, is how I would like to go. Probably to the original version by the Kinks, but it's hard to be choosy when you're not actually around. Just remember my wishes please. Anyway, it also made me realise that I'd actually been planning my funeral music over many, many years. Is it just me, or does everyone sometimes hear a piece of music and think 'that's just what I'd like them to play? ' Years ago I sang in a school performance of Brahms Requiem and took a shine to Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit, thinking that would be ideal! It means 'You now have sorrow' which I suppose might be inappropriate if the congregation are cheering my demise to the rafters, but hey, whose funeral is it anyway. And the cost of the solo soprano can come out of the estate. Later on, much of Elton John's material had a certain appeal - Funeral for a Friend, Candle in the Wind, Song for John (if I'd been born a John). In researching 'curtain music' today, I discovered that the UK press had run articles on the same subject last month following a survey by the Co-op. Here's a particularly good account: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/archives/2005/11/17/curtain_music.html
Anyway, Time to Say Goodbye, lie back and await your own suggestions...

Blog Surfing

Work has been a bit quiet today so I’ve spent some time blogsurfing (or whatever it’s called) checking out what others are getting up to in the blogosphere. I followed quite a few ‘next blog’ links on the navbar, read some of the Top 100 blogs listed on Technorati – http://www.technorati.com/, then tried to fathom out why anyone would find ‘memes’ interesting, let alone contribute to one. http://thedailymeme.com/ has links to most of them, including photo challenges for the brainstawmers amongst us.
Finally, I settled on Post Secret http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ and then spent a good hour or two checking out some postcards mailed in to the author’s Washington address, bearing the happy/sad, depressing/uplifting, funny/unfunny secrets of their anonymous writers. The blog doesn’t actually show any images at the moment, as the best have apparently been published in a book, or are available at an exhibition currently showing in Georgetown. But you can find past ones for free on Flickr or through Google Images – just enter Postsecret or Post Secret as a search term and voila!
Overall it has been an enjoyable day. Bob brought in some bagels and cheese for lunch, and now I only have a couple more hours to kill before going home.
Roll on the weekend!

Turpidity

So anyway, I was trying to come up with a name for this blog. Turpin, Turpins, The Turpins and good old Turps had all been taken, as had Turnips for that matter. I've always assumed the name comes from the Latin turpis, meaning disgraceful. That's where "Turpitude" comes from - anything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals. But then again, some say that the name comes from an Anglo-Norman French form of the Old Norse personal name þórfinnr, composed of the elements þórr, the name of the god of thunder in Scandinavian mythology (see Thor) + the ethnic name Finnr'Finn'. Our claim to fame is that the name was borne by the Archbishop of Rheims in the Charlemagne legend - when it was probably chosen as one of the self-abasing names adopted as a mark of humility by the early Christians. For more on this fascinating subject see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin
Anyway, "Turpidity" is also derived from turpis as in the concept of someone displaying moral turpidity. However, turpidity is also used to describe water which is muddy, thick or unclear. In this sense, it's really a corruption of "turbidity", from the latin turbidus, meaning unclear, confused and disordered - and not to be confused with turgidus, meaning swollen - or, in the context of language -pompous, overblown, and grandiloquent.
So there we have it. A new blog which may, over time, express thoughts and views ranging from the humble to the grandiloquent. Clear as mud eh?