Other creatures – Page 25 – Brian Micklethwait's New Blog

Street Art sells beer instead of political ruination – pro-political-ruination writer not happy

Christine Macdonald complains, in an article recently linked to by Arts and Letters Daily that:

Street Art Used To Be the Voice of the People. Now It’s the Voice of Advertisers.

Given what Ms MacDonald means by “the People” (the people who ruin all the places they get control of), this development is to be welcomed. Compared to ruination by a diverse array of people, all with the same ruinous opinions, advertisers trying only to sell you stuff are a breath of fresh air.

Here is an example of this process at work, spotted by me in Stoke Newington, the day before yesterday:

And here is another van from the same stable, which I spotted and photoed on the same day that I spotted and photoed these other exercises in profit seeking and actual people helping, nearer to the middle of London, while out and about a while back:

Vans like this are different, and thus attract attention. They certainly got mine. Many beer drinkers will surely have been persuaded to wonder what this particular beer tastes like. If it tastes like crap, advertising won’t save your product. But if the product is good but is being ignored, advertising is just what you want.

But, all you graffitists who have sold out or who would like to, be warned. Soon, this style will look rather ordinary, once lots of others have started doing it. At which point people like me won’t photo it any more, and commerce that is trying to attract attention will be on to the next aesthetic fad.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

X marks the spot in the sky

Was out in Bermondsey today, and as usual photoed lots of photos. But the light was dreary, so here is a photo I took in the same place just under a month ago, on February 19th:

Vapour trail weather, which I love. And not just for the vapour trails. In such weather, everything looks good. Those two birds, for instance. They look very good.

Ah, the Summer of February 2019. They don’t make them like that any more, except that they just did.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The Trafalgar Square Mascot Mystery of 2007

Here are three photos I took, on May 21st of that year:

I vaguely recall refraining from showing them here (and there was indeed a here then) because I had no idea what was going on. I still have no idea what was going on. I should have asked more questions at the time.

Some kind of sporting event promotion perhaps?

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Driftwood horse in shop window

There are, in this world, a great many horses made of driftwood. I learned this by googling “driftwood horse”, and I also learned that a major contributor to the driftwood horse mountain is Heather Jansch.

Whether Heather Jansch was responsible for this particular driftwood horse, I do not know, but there it was, in a shop window, in the middle of London. And, as you can maybe see if you know what I look like, I photoed it:

I wasn’t trying for a selfie. I just wanted the driftwood horse itself, with as little in the way of reflection as the light would allow.

After failing to find this particular driftwood horse by googling “driftwood horse”, I tried “driftwood horse shop window”, and I found it, in the form of a photo of the exact same driftwood horse in the exact same shop window.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Man with food

The summer of February 2019 has now ended, but I still have some photo-memories of it to stick up here.

These photos, for instance, of a man whom GodDaughter2 and I encountered in Hyde Park, back on February 15th. As I have already related, there was a lot of feeding of birds going on that day, but before all that bird frenzy, we had already encountered a guy who had taken the feeding of birds (and squirrels) to a whole new level. He wasn’t so much feeding these creatures as laying on a free canteen for them. And they obviously knew this, and greeted him like a long lost friend.

I photoed him and his friends (who included two green parrots), a lot:

You can see evolution taking a distinct turn towards something different, can’t you? The most trusting and friendly and fearless creatures are the ones who get best fed.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The Hyde Park Corner Horse’s Head looking a bit silly

Yes, about that horse’s head sculpture that I showed a photo of here, a week ago.

I complained about how the way its neck was sliced through was maybe too obtrusive a part of the whole effect.

Well look at this other photo I took of it:

Sorry about the bus, but this is my only photo from anything like the angle I need to make my point. Which is, that the severed neck looks like a face, and the horse’s ears look like little arms pointing upwards.

And the whole thing looks like one of those idiotic Olympic mascots.

Not, surely, the look the sculptor was going for.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Feed the birds!

When GodDaughter2 and I took a walk through Hyde Park last week, we inevitably walked past the Serpentine, and next to the Serpentine, there was a lot of bird feeding going on, and I mean a lot. Great screaming flocks of birds, birds of all sorts all muddled together, were assembling themselves around happy humans, who were chucking stuff at them. It was also noticeable how very insistent birds were about checking out strangers, like me, to see what stuff we might have on our persons to chuck at them.

Here is a particularly fun photo I took of all this avian drama, fun because it turned out so artistic, being mainly monochrome (because photoed into the sun) and monochrome is artistic. Monochrome, that is, apart from the bright red feet of one of the bigger birds (also because photoed into the sun – this time with the sun shining through those feet), which makes the photo even more artistic:

But why was all this bird-on-human excitement happening, so intensely and on such a scale?

The answer lay in a shop next to the water. To my extreme shame, I did not photo the outside of this shop and cannot recall what it looked like. I only snapped interior scenes, of intriguing products on sale inside the shop. One of these products was the answer to this bird-human mystery.

The usual feelings that humans have about feeding birds in parks are (1) Hey! Wouldn’t it be fun to feed the birds? But also (2) Don’t feed the birds! It will give them a stomach ache. It might even kill them. Don’t feed the birds! Often there are signs to this effect.

But at the Serpentine, there is a different and non-contradictory regime in place. Feed the birds … this! And all was explained:

I computer enhanced that to make it less dim and dreary, what with the dim and dreary (at least compared to the bedazzlement outside) interior light.

You can bet that the shop assistants in that shop spent a quite large proportion of their day explaining to customers that yes, we know, you want to have fun feeding the birds! But, no indeed, you must not feed the birds human food! So, feed them this food! Fun for you! Food for the birds! Win win!