What can I say except that I love love love Low.




Low at the Rescue Rooms, Nottingham on Wednesday 25th April.

Their was an excellent programme on the TV last night about a French Banker and Philanthopist called Albert Kahn, who at the beginning of the 20th century financed several photographers to go around the world taking pictures using a new colour technique. He named his collection 'The Archive of the Planet' and he believed that if people could see all these wonderful images it could bring about an end to Wars, as through them a better understanding of different cultures and people would be aquired. A beautiful ideal indeed, equally beautiful were the pictures themselves. The technique used was called the autochrome system. It was created using potato starch, this seems to have given the pictures an organic feel. The colours created, particularly the reds, are absolutely stunning and photo's have an otherworldy ethereal quality to the point that some of them could almost be paintings. Here is a selection from the archive.
(The programme runs for another four weeks on BBC Four on Thursdays between 9pm-10pm.)



Young woman applying make-up, Hanoi Vietnam, between 1914-1915


The young girls who act as chess pieces in a life-sized game of chess as part of a village ritual.


A lemonade vendor, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. May 1913


Buddhist Temple, Tam Dao, Vietnam. June 1916.


The holy bull Nandi or Nandikeschwara, a symbol for joy and honesty and the animal of the God Schiwa. Benares, January 1914.


Ghats (bath places) in Benares, also where cremations take place, January 1914.


The statue of Eros, Piccadilly, London.


London Peace Parade, Knightsbridge, London, 19 July 1919.


Eel fisherman on Lough Lee, North of Athlone, County West Meath, Ireland, June 1913.


Fringe-maker in Galway, Ireland during May 1913.


Woman and child outside the smallest house in Claddagh, Galway, Ireland.(Claddagh being the home of the last celtic community of Ireland.) June 1913.

Well, I'm back at work and I must say quite miserable about it. Last week was great, the weather was super and I got to spend a fair bit of time down the allotment. It's great down there at the moment, the apple trees are blooming and the birds are singing, it's so peaceful that even a days hard toiling leaves you feeling totally relaxed. The whole gardening process is also teaching me something that I severely lack; Patience. I think being a child of the eighties, growing up in front of the TV, being part of the fast food generation, was quite damaging in many ways. Growing your own food gives you a very real understanding that things don't always come on tap, they take time and patience. It helps you get in step with the natural environment, the turn of the seasons.
My first seedlings appeared at the weekend to whoops of joy, this time of year is very exciting. The plot is looking good, I spent most of my time making mulch paths to keep the grass from growing back up and weeding, so it's looking a bit neater.
The wedding all went marvelously, a great time was had by all and on Saturday a few of us went to see Alasdair Roberts playing at the Charlotte. He and his band were great but unfortunately were only playing to about 15 people, our lot being 6 of them and 2 were working behind the bar. It's generally the case at The Charlotte, Leicester's only medium sized indie venue. It's tragic really, so many bands only ever play Leicester once, one experience of the Charlotte is enough, the gigs either haven't been promoted properly or the sound is just awful. And we always end up apologising to the band for the pitiful venue! But nevertheless it was fun, Alasdair Roberts has a very unique, spellbinding voice and he played my request 'Sweet William' so I was happy!
I'm just off to my first Yoga session. I'm on a bit of a health kick at the moment. I've haven't eaten chocolate, cake, sweets or crisps for a month as of today. It hasn't actually bothered me as much as I thought it would but I'm more than ready for a bar of lovely dark chocolate as my month's abstention is now up. Yeay!
And very good news! I received an email yesterday inviting me to do my three sittings for The Method.I can't wait to get on with it but I think I need a little think first. My email was in my bulk folder so keep an eye out everyone, I almost missed mine. Better get going to Yoga!

My goodness I haven't posted for 12 days, time sure flys. It's particularly bad of me because in that time I have gone over to the dark side. I've gone and gotten myself a myspace account! This is something that I have always been a extremely dubious about. Really my joining was down to boredom, an afternoon of playing, making a pretty page, choosing my favourite things, but now, there is no turning back. I've officially joined the Myspace Generation.
Actually so far it's been a pleasant experience, I've had some nice messages from friends, who are afar. I'm not too sure about the commenting aspect yet, as one of my friends put it; leaving comments on peoples myspace pages is a bit like talking loudly on the phone when you're on a train, and all that 'thanks for the add' business I find a little strange. But I like the way you can link to a band's myspace and that you generally get a sample of their music, it's good for discovering new stuff.
To add to my internet empire I also made myself a Cafepress shop. Cafepress is a great idea, basically you just upload your artwork and choose a product, they take care of the production and sale and you receive the amount you choose to add to the basic price of the product. I figuired I have nothing to loose so I may as well give it a go. You're given a URL (http://www.cafepress.com/moonpieart) for your shop and the site has it's own ebay style marketplace where you're designs can be found by the search tags you give to the design. The only trouble is their is an enormous amount of competition in the marketplace, thousands added everyday, so I figured really you need to bandy around the shop URL as much as possible, how I do this, I don't know but myspace, I guess, is a start and I've addded the links to the sidebar here.
Anyway must dash, I'm off to the wedding of my good friends Rob and Laurie and have ironing, hair straightening, make up plastering and general panicing to do. Check out this link, the old folks are fighting back!
The Zimmers

Away with the fairies....again...

I've been on a roll recently with the books I've been reading, each has excitedly led to another. My friend, knowing I've been reading Jeanette Winterson, recommended Angela Carter and this one seemed the obvious choice, being a book of retold fairy tales.
It really is wonderful book, the writing beautifully conjures up the dark and mysterious atmosphere that lies at the heart of fairy tales. Helen Simpson, in the introduction, wrote; "It is obvious that it was the landscapes and imagery of fairytales that fired her imagination - bloodstains and raven's feathers on snow, moonlight on a dust-grimed mirror, graveyards on Walpurgisnacht. The stories in The Bloody Chamber reverberate with deep and unmistakable imaginative pleasure."
Here's a taster, this is the first paragraph in the short story contained in the book called The Erl-King.
"The lucidity, the clarity of the light that afternoon was sufficient to itself; perfect transparency must be impenetrable, these vertical bars of a brass-coloured distillation of light coming down from sulphur-yellow interstices in a sky hunkered with grey clouds that bulge with more rain. It struck the wood with nicotine-stained fingers, the leaves glittered. A cold day of late October, when the withered blackberries dangled like their own dour spooks on the discoloured brambles. There were crisp husks of beechmast and cast acorn cups underfoot in the russey slime of dead bracken where the rains of the equinox had so soaked the earth that the cold oozed up through the soles of the shoes, lancinating cold of the approach of winter that grips hold of your belly and squeezes it tight. Now the stark elders have an anorexic look; there is not much in the autumn wood to make you smile but it is not yet, not quite yet, the saddest time of the year. Only, there is a haunting sense of the imminent cessation of being; the year, in turning, turns in on itself. Introspective weather, a sickroom hush."
Kind of makes you glad it's springtime. I've also been enjoying the art of fairy tale books. Their seems to be quite a few resources on the web, the website linked from my sidebar being a particularly good one. Here are some that I've come across.









And to stick with the theme, almost in the realms of the fairy tale, today my wishes were granted when I managed to get a ticket to go to that magical city that appears for three days, only to disappear again into the mysterious Somerset countryside. In other words I bought a Glastonbury ticket. Eeeaaak! I'm doubly excited cause it not only means I'm going to the festival but that I'm going to see the Who! Woohoo!
All in all it's been a great weekend, I had a night out dancing on Friday, a hen party last night, today I planted some seeds (carrots, parsnips and leeks, it's an Earth/root day) watched an excellent film called 'Junebug', read a great book called 'The Jesus Mysteries; Was the original Jesus a Pagan God?' (which is very convincing) and although I should really be getting to bed with work tommorrow, this is only going to be a three day week and next week is a free holiday because the building closes, and so I'll get a little time to get down the plot (that is, if I haven't come out in chicken pox, but that's another story.)