Category Archives: Art and architecture

Apr 15 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Urban scene

At the Namibia Craft Centre

Saturday 13th April 2024, 2.10pm (day 4,615)

Craft centre art, 13/4/24

A weekend spent in Windhoek to transition to this new country (the 49th different one I have ever visited, incidentally). Had I known this was possibly the world’s most low-key capital city, particularly on a weekend, I might have replanned slightly, but I’m not complaining. The best lunches in town seemed to be available at the Namibia Craft Centre on Tal Street (recommendation…) and you can also look at some decent artwork, and buy some rails, if you really want.

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Mar 29 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Richard Cobden and St. Ann’s Church

Thursday 28th March 2024, 9.40am (day 4,599)

St Ann's Church, 28/3/24

In Manchester, but not my usual parts of the city, so a chance to bring some different views to the blog. The statue of the Dead White Male is of Richard Cobden, and until just now I had no idea who this person was so I have read up about him. It sounds as if he was something of a radical dude, campaigning for years for the repeal of the Corn Laws (which kept the price of bread artificially high and impoverished the masses for the benefit of a few rich landowners), free trade and pacifism. So, go Richard. St Ann’s Church, behind, is a rather noble building as well.

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Feb 04 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Urban scene

Mural on Jarvis Street

Saturday 3rd February 2024, 1.40pm (day 4,545)

Jarvis Street mural, 3/2/24

One thing I noticed when I was last in Toronto was that the city has some very good — and very large — murals. This one is on the corner of Jarvis and Carlton Streets. Yes, the telephone wires are a little annoying but this was my best effort at capturing it.

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Feb 02 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

The CN Tower, attempt 1 (aborted)

Thursday 1st February 2024, 1.40pm (day 4,543)

CN Tower in cloud, 1/2/24

Not as exciting a photo as was planned for the day, and certainly a less extensive panorama, but the reasons for this can be gathered by inspection of the top of the picture. The observation decks of the CN Tower (still the tallest building in the world outside of Asia) were swathed in cloud, making the jaunt to the top, if not pointless, then rather less of an attraction than it might have been. But the woman on the gate did advise me that I could just reschedule my timed ticket for another day — which was very civilised of her (some major tourist attractions would have just said ‘tough shit, sucker, lump it’). So I shall return on Monday. And if it’s cloudy then?…. it will be what it will be.

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Jan 23 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Moon over the North Campus

Monday 22nd January 2024, 3.25pm (day 4,533)

Moon, North Campus, 22/1/24

Students from a quarter-century or more ago will know the UoM’s ‘North Campus’ as ‘UMIST’ — but this institution has long been merged out of existence, and quite a few of its buildings, like this one beside the Mancunian Way, have stood derelict for years. But there’s still an aspirational feel to this shot — climb the ladder and jump over the moon? And let’s get some blue sky into things. It’s been altogether too grey lately.

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Jan 21 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Interior

Subway, Motherwell

Saturday 20th January 2024, 1.30pm (day 4,531)

Motherwell subway, 20/1/24

My first ever visit to Motherwell, in Scotland, which I can tell has been through its periods of post-war reconstruction as there’s something intrinsically 1960s about subways (I mean this in the British sense of a ‘pedestrian underpass’ rather than the American one of ‘underground railway’). There was a definite craze to build them around that time. This one’s been quite well decorated, something I probably fail to capture here.

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Jan 09 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Landscape

The Midland Hotel, Morecambe

Tuesday 9th January 2024, 11.20am (day 4,520)

Midland Hotel, 9/1/24

The Midland’s second appearance on the blog, after this shot, 2,627 days ago– which is less vivid, and I prefer this one. It’s nice that we’re getting some sunshine, which in the last few weeks of 2023, was at a premium. 

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Jan 08 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Urban scene

Swansea mural

Saturday 6th January 2024, 3.50pm (day 4,517)

Volcano Theatre mural

The day had various different, good elements to it, and I couldn’t decide which of them should make the blog: so let’s go with the scene caught in passing, an Other People’s Art moment which I liked a lot. Seems to totally fit the Spanish text below.

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Dec 27 2023
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

The Kelpies

Tuesday 26th December 2023, 1.30pm (day 4,506)

Kelpies.26/12/23

The Kelpies are sculptures a hundred feet high that sit beside the M9 motorway in Falkirk, Scotland. They are certainly impressive although I don’t quite see the point. Yes, it would be nicer if the pylons weren’t there, but never mind, you are meant to be distracted by the penetrating stare of the one on the left, while the other does that whole head-tossing thing, all in tons of steel. 

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Dec 24 2023
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Coatbridge: a ‘most dismal’ town?

Saturday 23rd December 2023, 1.25pm (day 4,503)

Coatbridge tower block, 23/12/23

After a month where I felt I’d barely left the house, time to go a-travelling again, and this is Scotland’s first appearance on here since we came back from our holiday in July. Coatbridge, a few miles east of Glasgow, has had a bad rep down the years; notoriously polluted and run-down in the early 20th century, and arguably, in decline ever since, in 2007 it was apparently voted ‘Scotland’s Most Dismal Town’. But we passed through today and I thought it was OK. The Stalinist apartment-block architecture doesn’t give it glamour but it at least gives the photography some interest. Not to mention the stadium of Albion Rovers FC just down the road, but that’s another story, for a different social medium.

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