One and Other - Day 11

Photos from the afternoon of Day 11 of the project. A carnival atmosphere prevailed in Trafalgar Square through sun and showers. The crowd were far too good-humoured to justify the comparison of some critics with the spectacle of public executions past - an occasional heckler, but no baying mob. Watch the action and inaction on the live webstream at: http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

2.00 - 3.00pm Anonymous -listened to his ipod and did little else except throw the occasional paper aeroplane. The legend on his t-shirt read 'There are at least 2 views', though this didn't apply to opinions of his performance.

3.00 - 4.00pm Under_Surveillance sat in a rainstorm under his umbrella writing on a laptop, presumably making a point, though not in an interesting way

4.00-5.00pm Bushewacker, aka Tim Bushe, a London architect, gave the crowds something more interesting to watch, taking only 45 minutes of his allotted hour on the plinth to make a 360 degree drawing of Trafalgar Square inside an acetate tube to support hft, Home Farm Trust, a charity that cares for people with learning difficulties. The drawing is to be auctioned on ebay from 24th July: www.ebay.co.uk/ebayforcharity

The handover

5.00-6.00pm Rosemary -auctioned her artwork for a dyspraxia charity

Plane spotting

People spotting

Honeymooners

Seven-seven

Photos taken 07/07/2005


Aldgate roundabout, looking towards Aldgate tube station

TV outside broadcast vans arrive and have to park up outside. The entrances to Aldgate East tube station are closed.

Four years ago as I turned right into Whitechapel High Street opposite the Whitechapel Hospital, the first rapid response emergency vehicle was setting out, sirens blaring, and the emergency helicopter was taking off from its roof. I thought there must have been a serious road traffic accident. It was just after 9am. By the time I reached my office right over Aldgate East Underground entrance, the sirens were non-stop. Rumours were rife: there had been a serious incident underground at Tower Hill station, it was a power surge, a Tube train crash. Helicopters and sirens were relentless. Whitechapel High Street was blocked off at Aldgate roundabout. Our doorkeepers got out a portable TV from somewhere. The news of the first bombing came through, then the next and the next. Disbelief. Then the bus at Russell Square. It felt like a war zone. It was. By 10.00 mobile networks were down and landlines were intermittent, the speculation being that security services had closed the networks, though this was later denied. One colleague who had been on the bombed Aldgate train in the first explosion later described the horror of being guided along the tracks past the injured and dying in the dark of the tunnel. He wasn't able to return to work for many months and took early retirement the following year, still traumatised. My line manager lost his beautiful niece. Today a permanent memorial to the 52 murder victims was unveiled in Hyde Park.

On location in Islington

Today I took a day's leave. It turned out well. The temperatures in London were in the nineties (Fahrenheit); I got the dress I'd had my eye on for months in Karen Millen at the Angel for a real bargain (the sale price was already down from £140 to £96, but the price ticket said £69 in error and so I saved £80!); and I was stopped by a good-looking young black guy on a bike who said, "Don't I know you?"... It was one of my ex-students from the Pupil Referral Unit, who I'd not seen for ten years and who's really come good. Big hugs and real pleasure in his success. A good day in a bad week when my post was deleted and I have to compete in a pool for my own job. So, wandering the streeets of Islington on a weekday when I would usually be sitting, like now, in front of a computer, I discovered life on location and captured a couple of scenes on the pocket camera I carry around everywhere with me. Two adverts being filmed. One for O2 in Highbury Barn and the other for a fashion shoot (or popcorn advert) outside the Screen on the Green.

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.