Flâneries - Anges et Démons à Lille

The new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras has made a day trip to Lille to soak up some authentic French ambiance easier and far more enjoyable than travelling to much closer destinations in the UK. We went with a group of language students for the Fête de la Musique, which takes place all over France around the 21st June, but were greeted by the unexpected spectacle of twelve giant, glossy black babies metamorphosizing into dinosaurs or reptiles lining the main street. They are the work of the Russian collective AES+F, a group of Moscow artists comprising two conceptual architects and a graphic designer, Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich and Evgeny Svyatsky, plus fashion photographer Vladimir Fridkes.

Their subject matter is often provocative, as with their 1996 Islamic Project presenting visualisations of Western paranoia about Islam and Islamic fundamentalism.

The babies are temporarily installed along the Rue Faidherbe for the four months of the Lille 3000 contemporary arts festival. Made, surprisingly, of polystyrene covered with resin and painted in a brilliant black lacquer, each 6-metre high sculpture is supposed to have taken 200 hours to complete and to weigh a ton. Although said to represent a mutating society mid-transformation, the babies' chubby features are more endearing than sinister. AES+F describe their work as 'an apocalyptic parade that heralds the beginning of a new world of which the angels and demons are the offspring': “Nous présentons une parade apocalypti­que qui ne constitue en rien la fin d’un vieux monde. C’est le commencement d’un nouveau : les Anges et démons en sont les enfants”.

http://www.aes-group.org/default.asp

http://www.lille3000.com/

Kitchen sink dramas 5 - One for sorrow ...

A chattering pair of magpies has provided a dawn alarm call for the last few mornings, but the volume intensified today. Much of the birds' activity focussed on the elderflower tree by my garden shed as they made noisy dives into its thick foliage, alternating with preening and perching on chimneypots overlooking the spot. By early afternoon the cause of their agitation became visible as they were joined on a neighbouring TV aerial by a third magpie, which they proceeded to feed. Their single chick had fledged! One of the pair must have been the predator caught last week in the act of attacking and killing another fledgling - a swift or starling. If, as the RSPB site suggests, a typical magpie clutch is six eggs, then their chicks may have suffered the same fate as the unfortunate fledgling. Magpies feature frequently in myths and literature and are the subject of superstition still, but like their near relatives, jays, they are favourites of mine.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/m/magpie/index.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7316384.stm


This was the magpie fledgling.

In my first job after university as the only French teacher and one of only two female teachers in a boys' secondary modern school in Essex (I thought Hornchurch was in London, which is why I went for the job), I designed and sewed single-handed all the costumes for the school play, which was 'The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew' by Robert Bolt. There were two magpies in the cast, Mike Magpie and Mazeppa, though they were played by the same character. I was particularly proud of the magpie costume design. The knights were rather less fortunate with silver painted string vests for chain mail and purple women's tights. Yet, amazingly, not one of the boys refused to wear them.

Flâneries - les francophones d'ici - le Congolais

J'ai bien de chance de rencontrer presque tous les jours deux au trois francophones qui font partie de ma vie hebdomadaire. Je profite de l'occasion autant possible pour causer un peu en français. Je me suis donc décidée à mettre en marche un petit projet pour enregistrer leurs discours afin d'en faire un dossier personnel photographique et sonore. Le premier participant est mon facteur de deux ans, Dieudonné, originaire du Congo.

Flâneries - Fête de la Courge

Towards the end of October/beginning of November, Montpellier, like many small southern French towns and villages, celebrates the autumn harvest with a festival of gourds - la Fête de la Courge. All colours and sizes of gourd are on show and a varied programme of events attracts many visitors. Knowing nothing of these festivities, I was exploring the Jardin des Plantes in Montpellier a few years back, famed for having the first "jardin médical" in France, established in the sixteenth century and still part of the Faculty of Medicine. The strangest sight caught my eye in the distance - a tree decorated with every imaginable shape of gourd. Magical. Without explanation at the time. The garden was closed to the public for refurbishment, but I persuaded a gardener to let me in to take some photos. This picture has since been published regularly on the local tourism site and in an iPhone guide to Montpellier, but I got an email yesterday asking to include it in a forthcoming book about the Midi to be published in September.

http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=montpellier&sid=all_sights&p=115546&i=115546_2

Nautical bodywork

There's a historical symmetry to the association between ships and tattoos, though sailors traditionally went for designs inspired less by Polynesian and South Seas motifs than conventional cartoons of flowers, hearts and anchors. This aspiring graphic designer is a walking portfolio of his own drawings, testament to his obsession with the iconic Cunard Liners. It's a work in progress.

http://www.designboom.com/history/tattoo_history.html

On my study wall, without the pain or lifelong commitment of the nautical designer, my small tribute to the great steamships is a 1930s souvenir guide to Southampton Docks preserved from a childhood visit by my mother. It cost sixpence (2.5p).

An inside photo shows a leisurely experience of Customs very different from the one twenty-first century travellers endure.