Gompertz Hurts Hertz



Loading Gantry for PLUTO - Keith Henderson

That there Eighth Doctor was on TV the other day doing a short programme about hidden art. This is part of a BBC initiative called Your Paintings which aims to digitise much of the hidden public art that is either in storage or on display only in private areas of public buildings. The above picture caught my eye because my mother worked on PLUTO towards the end of the war. The following picture was also interesting because I've walked through the hangar in the scene and it was still full of aircraft. Sad to say they were Nimrods, all of which are now just piles of grey scrap.



Avro Lancaster Bombers at Woodford - Charles Cundall

However, the main focus of the programme was an almost forgotten war artist called Albert Richards who was killed in 1945 at the age of 25 when his jeep ran over a mine as he was trying to find a position to paint a picture of the retreating German Army. Although many of pictures show military subjects, quite a few show the routine side of life in the forces as the one below shows.


 Building a Hutted Camp - Essex - 1941 - Albert Richards

Richards' death, (the manner of which reminds me of Robert Capa's demise) is as poignant as that of any of the superstar poets from other conflicts and obviously left the Art World without a great talent. All of this comes about because a surreal self-portrait of Richards has been put on display in the recent refresh of the increasingly-inaccurately-named Permanent Gallery at The Walker in Liverpool. What with that and the new Magritte exhibition at The Tate (20 quid to you mate), we are really being spoiled for culture in this town at the moment. It's not all Shell Suits you know. Anyway one more picture from the war to finish with.



Multi-spindle Drilling Machines on Aero-Engine Work - A.S.Finlayson



First Try at a Julian Opie Style Picture

PJ Harvey in the style of Julian Opie

Not original I know and I'm not sure why I've suddenly decided to have a go at this but I'm quite proud of it. I was expecting to see loads of examples out there - maybe there aren't many people in the Venn Diagram of Peej/Blur/Pop Art fans.

Checking the Level at the Reservoir

Little Moreton Hall

Main Hall Windows

Marton Church

Wedding Car

Gamine Ultra

Adventures in Numberland has been pushed to the stack as this has arrived hot off the library man's van and despite the whinging over the supposed inaccuracy about the derivation of the phrase "Sleep Tight", it is a moreish and informative book stuffed with much more than the already-generous content of the BBC 4 programme which it accompanies. It appears that the BBC is far more prudish than Lucy Worsley in that she not only seems to delight in the juicier delights of home life but devotes whole chapters to them, though of course Pepys and friends have already alerted us to the historical predilections for rumpy-pumpy. The book manages to cover all classes though for obvious reasons, royalty and celebrity elbow their way in by virtue of being more recorded. From the show, it is obvious that the author enjoys joining in reconstructions but manages to avoid seeming like just another extension of the heritage industry.


And what else goes on? Well I still have a hole in my head .. which is nice, though it's doing it's best to become an ex-hole and I don't need to go back to see Mr Consultant for a couple of months. However along with the hole I have a dinge as well though I was warned.

No Flies on the Roman

This pair need their own series. I'd watch it. Then again, nearly all the characters in this episode need their own series. There were maybe a few too many threads in A Good Man Goes to War but that is no matter - it kept us interested and laughing. All back to mine in a couple of months for Let's Kill Hitler. Yes - lets - despite what happened in the book by that nice Mr Fry. Oh well I know technically they didn't kill him did they.

Anyway as you may have guessed from previous posts I have had a lot of time on my hands and of course none of this has been filled with me actually creating anything but I have managed to read quite a lot. I'm currently just about to finish Paradoxical Undressing by Kristin Hersh - the eloquent diary of a year in her life at the age of around nineteen. Next up is Alex's Adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos.