Degree Show at City & Guilds of London Art School

I really should have put this on here weeks ago as the show finished on 21st June, but I just didn't have the time. I did try to tell friends that this year's degree show was jam-packed with good stuff and I hope some of you made it down there. A big thanks to my sister, who is just finishing her second year in stone and wood carving there (she's bloody good, by the way, so make a date for next year when it'll be her turn!) for telling me that the show was on and introducing me to so many of her lovely fellow students. 

I bought a couple of things and one of them is hanging on my wall right now (top left by the wonderfully talented Stephanie Batiste). The other two I bought are by Alex Virji but I won't be getting them til August as he has a show on from tomorrow in Stoke Newington so, if you are in the area, why not go have a look. 

I would have bought more if I had the money and walls that were big enough (Hatty). And I really enjoyed some of the installations, which don't normally interest or move me at all. So well done and good luck to everyone...

Here's a link to help identify some of the others artists shown below.

Oh, and two of the images shown below aren't art at all, just me taking arty pics. Can you spot them?

I'm in Smoke!

The latest issue of the wonderful Smoke magazine came out this week, albeit two months late.

If you haven't yet picked up a copy, then you really should get with the programme, if only to read Matt Haynes's lunatic musings. Anyway, this issue has four, yes four things, contributed by moi. As well as a whole page of coal hole covers, the three photos shown here have also been found fit for inclusion; a monkey in Holloway, a Kensington lion rampant, and Normas Snorks who I am reliably informed is AKA a docker's mistress. 

Smoke gets in your eyes

I have today (July 2nd) posted another Urban Sightseeing piece for Londonist. The indoors smoking ban has been part of our lives for a whole two years now. How time flies. And most of Europe has followed suit. I have just come back from a holiday in Turkey and I hear it's due to come into force there too later this month. 

Click here to read the Londonist piece and access all my previous ones too.

Zodiac signs

Here's my alternative take on the 12 zodiac signs:

Aries: Upper Street, N1; Taurus: Butcher's sign, Jonathan Street, SE11; Gemini: Pair of identical boot scrapers, Whitehall, SW1; Cancer: Face of a Hammersmith & Fulham cigarette butt receptacle; Leo: The Drill Hall, Chenies Street, WC1; Virgo: Art Deco relief, John Street, WC1; Libra: Thames House, Millbank, SW1; Scorpio: Scorpion Shoes, Camden High Street, NW1; Sagittarius: Connolly's, Chiswick High Road, W4; Capricorn: The Goat, Knightsbridge, SW1; Aquarius: Fountain at The Long Water, W2; Pisces: 452 Holloway Road, N7.

Pub pairs

Most pairings in pub names are fairly easy to understand like 'Dog and Duck', 'Rose and Crown', 'Bull and Gate', Adam and Eve', but there are also some strange ones, some of which are shown below, such as 'George and Vulture', 'Red Lion and Pineapple', 'Fox and Anchor' and 'Hat and Tun', though considering its location, the last one might be a pun on 'Hatton'. And the jury is still out on the derivation of 'Elephant and Castle'. It's a Book About has some great info on that particular name and lots more beside. Any further feedback or info welcomed.

And lots more London pub pics here.

This isn't what the Govenment

I have just loaded up my latest Londonist post and the images I have chosen to use, as shown here, are all linked in some loose way to the mess that the government is in at the moment.

By the way, the heading here is the title of a track from the album 'Baby I'm a Want You' by Bread. Mum used to have the LP. I loved it. It's also got 'Everything I Own' on it, which Ken Booth covered and took to No.1 in the 70s. But got some words wrong thus destroying the whole meaning of a fundamental and beautiful line. Then Boy George went and copied Ken's version rather than go back to the original lyrics... How we despaired! (And I still do.)

Click here to see all my Urban Sightseeing posts

Gillette ghost signs

Here are my nine London Gillette signs. Some of them aren't immediately obvious as they are hidden behind other ads for newspapers, remedies and matches. 
Click the montage above to view it at a larger size, or to see each one separately click here.

Clockwise from top left: Grays Inn Road, Peckham, Kings Road, Stoke Newington, Dalston, Kilburn, Spitalfields, Acton, and in the centre, Clapham.

There are others I know of in Willesden and Southwark, and maybe a few more, but I haven't taken any photos of them myself (yet!).

Brymay ghost signs

Last week I found another Brymay Matches advertisement poking out from behind a hoarding along South Lambeth Road. There seem to be more Brymay, Hovis and Gillette ghost signs than any other brands in London, and I thought it would be nice to group them together. So this one is the first of the three. 

Reading clockwise from top left: Shepherds Bush Green, West Brompton, New Cross*, Harringey, Upper Holloway, Acton. Ravencourt Park, Lambeth, and in the centre, Fulham.

*Credit: CarolineLD / Caroline's Miscellany