Black Friday? Black Friday Weekend? Black November?

Black Black Black!! I see black!
In the past few years a relatively new shopping period has taken over our high streets. It's called Black Friday and as far as I can ascertain, this is the term given to the first shopping day after the Thanksgiving weekend in the US when Americans were actually out spending their money again, thereby taking the sellers out of the red and into the black vis-a-vis their bank statements.
I became properly aware of it a few years ago when I took part in a selling fair in the Salvation Army hall close to Oxford Street the day after Black Friday and noticed no-one was coming inside to see all our fine hand-crafted wares. Outside I witnessed a river of shoppers almost glued together at the shoulders moving like a ice floe along the pavement in tunnel vision 'sale' mode. Shops were enticing customers to spend by offering discount prices – this confused me because it was a Saturday and the term is Black Friday. I joked that the following year it would probably be Black Friday Weekend, and then Black Friday Fortnight and then by 2018 it would be Black Friday Month.
Well, that's exactly what seems to have happened. The ads on the TV tell me just that – it's Black Friday November! Or Black Friday Month!
This make a pub's 'Happy Hour' lasting from 6-9pm seem almost pathetic!
Anyway. Here are some black things I have spotted above and along London's streets:

Friars and statues, a bell, a boot scraper, a taxi, a bull, a postbox and Stewy's dog

Today – Frozen In Time procession – Blackfriars, London SE1

I do love a good procession or parade.
And this one promises a "gigantic metal animation".
I stupidly missed that big elephant in Trafalgar Square about eight years ago and I really miss the wonderful parades that used to happen at the end of the Thames festival every September, so let's hope this makes up for it.
See you there.
Parade: 4.30–7pm
Nearest tubes: Borough, Southwark
More info here

From six of my Blackfriars Road photos

FOUND at the Foundling Museum – curated by Cornelia Parker

Here's interesting... in amongst the lovely historical artefacts and artworks at this small but evocative museum there are exhibits by sixty modern artists that respond to the theme of 'FOUND'.
Cornelia Parker (no relation) has brought together an eclectic panel of people who have all come at this idea from different angles. The exhibition runs until 4th September.
The Foundling's website will tell you more, but not too much or else there'd be no surprises.
Seeing Cordelia's image of a piece of an old leather shoe brings to mind a post I wrote two years ago when I FOUND (see what I did there) lots of bits of shoe leather on the foreshore near Blackfriars Bridge south side.
Here's a pile of other stuff I FOUND on the foreshore at Limehouse.

At the Foundling gift shop there is a selection of my jewellery made from clay pipes which perfectly fits in with the FOUND theme.
Some pics of the museum here.

Beachcombing at Blackfriars

Here are some pics from last October when I met up with a few friends under Blackfriars Bridge for what I call A Forage on the Foreshore.

I particularly liked the time-weathered large wooden stump. I thought finding a beached comb was rather ironic.

As you may be aware, I am always on the lookout for fragments of nicely eroded clay pipe stems for my jewellery – we also picked up various pipe bowls from different periods of history – note the different sizes and shapes in the pic. Malcolm found one with flowers on it – I now wonder if these are roses and it could have been from The Rose Theatre which was nearby...?

Click here for an account of previous gathering.