Streamlined Duchess at NRM

Coronation class on Flickr: a fab photo (not mine) of the streamlined Duchess on show at the NRM, York.

6229 'Duchess of Hamilton' - streamlined - on Flickr

6229 Duchess of Hamilton - streamlined - on Flickr: a photo (not mine) of the re-streamlined semi.

'Duchess of Hamilton' streamlined

NRM | Collections | Locomotives | Duchess of Hamilton: bloomin' 'ell I never thought I'd ever see a streamlined semi in my lifetime, but the NRM has re-streamlined Duchess of Hamilton! Gotta get to York to see it! With the Beyer-Garratt festival going on in Manchester as well, this'll be a classic year for trainspotters.

Degree show

Bed piece
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

The May Open Houses in Brighton may be the biggest free art festival in town, but for huge quantities of free art, craft and design in one location, the annual Degree Show at Brighton Uni can't be beat. But tirst thing that strikes you arriving at Grand Parade is that Victoria Gardens opposite has become a forest of potted trees (how long before they start appearing for sale at the Sunday Market, I wonder?). It's a project by architecture student Lucy Palmer to find new uses for the Valley Gardens, part of SEEDA's Places from Spaces programme.

The way to get ahead at art school is to confound categorisation. Thus, you'll find installations in Fine Art Printmaking (Shiho Takizawa), sculpture in Fine Art painting (Daisy Jordan and Lily MacClelland), photography in Sculpture (Wix O'Connell) and an Ingrid Plum-style assembly of paper origami birds in Editorial Photography (Harriet Harmer). So, take no notice of which Department you think you're in and just enjoy the work!

As usual I travelled to the top of the building by lift and worked my way down. First stop was Graphic Design and I was impressed by Kyle Bean's disposable cardboard computers and other electronic devices. In Illustration I was encouraged by the amount of pen and ink drawing this year, particularly Emily Maude's illustrations to her journey through Sussex 'From Alfriston to Wilmington'. There was also a lot of paper cutting, Rob Ryan style, in both the Illiustration and Printmaking depts. Critical Fine Art practice is a bit of a weird one and leaves me cold most years, but this we had Esther Springett's 'The Myth of London Road', something I've already participated in, and my favourite of the show, 'Bed Piece' - a tribute to John and Yoko by The Thomas Ferguson Band. Anything involving the Beatles and ukuleles is fine by me. I went through Painting like a dose of salts - nothing much took my fancy, and Sculpture, which often has the most interesting stuff (and best postcards) was a mess. It was difficult to see where one piece ended and another started. Far better presentation is to be found in 3D Materials practice (Wood, metal, ceramics and plastics) full of beautiful soutions to problems you never imagined existed! Ever wanted to grow vegetables in your car? Rebecca Thewlis's 'Car fuel' is the answer. Want a cupboard that expands with your possessions? Marina Ralph has a sycamore and latex cabinet that's just the job.

Photography has the prime spot in the glass fronted downstairs gallery but failed to impress me. I didn't have time to explore Architecture or Fashion. Anyway, give it a go and make up your own mind - I'm rubbish at spotting the stars of the future! The University of Brighton Undergraduate Degree Show is on until Thursday 11 June.

Postscript: not part of the Degree Show but also on is the 1st year sculpture show in the old Music /Local Studies library on Church Road. Far more interesting that the thrird year's show at Grand Parade, and you get to see the inside of this impressive old building that has been empty for so long.

RH & DR, part 2

Northern Chief
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

I have been a little lax on the blogging front lately, tho I've started another one on Wordpress, mainly to learn how to use the thing and put it through its paces. Many of my websites would be better off in the blog format, but the chore of transporting them over is too daunting!

What I didn't blog was my little jaunt on 8 May to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway on a Worthing Coaches coach trip. My last and only visit there was in January 2006, when I didn't manage to get to Dungerness. I was hoping that this time I would - and maybe have fish and chips there. But alas no. The driver announced that we would travel from New Romney to Hythe and back, then have a ploughman's lunch at New Romney, then head home. The journey was rather tedious. I was picked up at Preston Circus (hoorah), then we headed north and along the M25 to Clackett Lane services for a comfort stop (boo). We then followed the Eurostar line towards Ashford and eventually arrived at New Romney where we boarded a train pulled by Northern Chief. Bluebottle was also in steam at the station, heading the other way for Dungerness. At Hythe, I watched the loco turn round on the turntable and took a couple of videos on my Flip Ultra. Then it was back to where we started for a pretty boring lunch. I had a wander about (spotted a static Black Prince) and popped upstairs to the model railway exhibit, then it was back on the coach. Going back we took the scenic route through the Romney Marshes, past the wind farm, and stopped off for half an hour at Hastings where I looked sadly at the out-of-service East Hill Lift and had a quick shufty at the Fishermen's Museum, the highlight of which was the Winkle King. A reasonably disappointing day, but it's always uplifting to see, smell and hear some steam!

Eat your greens

I love spring greens. Steamed lightly, they are sweet and nutty - I could eat a whole plateful on their own - and full of goodness. I recently discovered sprout tops as a winter treat. I've also read that pea shoots are a trendy accompaniment to salads. Preparing a bargain cauliflower reduced at Sainsbury's the other day it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't be discarding the leaves for composting. That got me wondering which leaves are edible and which are not! I know for sure that rhubarb leaves are poisonous. They contain high levels of oxalic acid, also worryingly - according to Wikipedia - found in sorrell, star fruit (carambola), black pepper, parsley, poppy seed, amaranth, spinach, chard, beets, cocoa, chocolate, most nuts, most berries, and beans! Yikes! I also assume that the leaves of the potato, which contain solanine, are to be avoided - tho it's rare to hear of anyone dying from eating green bits of spuds. Solanine is also found in (green) tomatoes and aubergines, so I suppose their leaves are out too. So, what other vegetable leaves can we eat - and which taste good? Beetroot, kohl rabi, celeriac, turnip, swede? What about carrot tops, and the leaves of radishes (yes, says Wikipedia)? Or should they just go to compost? Good old Wikipedia says that nearly 1000 species of plants with edible leaves are known, and lists them here, but this doesn't really tell me what I want to know. Recipes please.

The Hugh Hetherington On-line Hearing Aid Museum

The Hugh Hetherington On-line Hearing Aid Museum: Elizabeth Bennion's rare classic book 'Antique Hearing Devices', published by Vernier Press, is available for $24.95 from this US website.

Beyond the Level

Beyond the Level - Artists' Open Houses, Brighton: the website is now live. it uses SSI (server side includes) for the navigation menu so I don't have to update every bloomin' page if it changes! - hence the shtml! I managed to find a very cheap host www.110mb.com that supports SSI, something a lot of the paid hosts don't even do!

Easter in Ramsbottom

80098
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

Ramsbottom, or Tupp's Arse as we used to call it, or just plain Rammy, was the venue for the 114th Easter Meet of the Clarion Cycling Club. Ian and Sue Bullock very kindly gave me a lift Up North. Ramsbottom is quite near Bury, where I was born and bred and where my sister and family still live. I was able to kill two birds with one stone: attend my first Easter Meet and see my family. Well, three really as Ramsbottom is a station on the East Lancs Railway and I'm passionate about steam trains!

I missed the hill climb on Saturday morning as it started at the crack of dawn and was all over by breakfast. The Conference was rather longer and more technical than anticipated, with the added surprise at the end that the Brighton and Hove Section (aka Bob Harber) was to host next year's meet - in Eastbourne! After this, I sloped off to Rawtenstall, pulled by a very clean and shiny Deltic Co-Co Class 55 no. 55022 Royal Scots Grey (I'm not usually keen on diesels but this one won me over) to seek out Britain's last Temperance Bar and sample a sarsaparilla (80p) and a Black Beer with Raisins (not as nice), followed by the first of many rides on steam trains: behind Standard Class 4 tank no. 80098, which was about to lose its boiler ticket. The other steam engine on duty was BR 2-6-0 Class 4MT no. 76079. I'm not usually excited about Standard locos, but hey! Also I was delighted to discover that I had three free rides on my membership card (I'm usually up for steam galas which are not eligible). Back in Rammy I tucked in to a cup of black peas then set off for Bury behind 76079 and a pint of Black Magic Mild at the Trackside - a bar that boasts 9 real ales, none above £2.40 a pint! Saturday night was an excellent buffet supper, and luckily I had to leave to catch my two buses home before the ceilidh band came on.

Sunday was the highlight of the weekend with a car trip to the Clarion House Cafe, the other side of Burnley. The weather was glorious and we were able to take our 50p pints of Clarion tea outside and enjoy magnificent views over the Pendle hills. Other more hardy lycra-clad Clarionettes had cycled there, a leisurely 40-mile excursion with plenty of challenging undulations. On the way back we took a wrong turning in Burnley and stumbled across rows and rows of boarded-up houses and shops - a scandal. Afterwards, Ian and Sue joined me on a round trip of the ELR and were delighted to be pulled by a loco (80098) built at Brighton Works in 1954. After a drink in the pub next door (with its own bowling green half way up the hill) we repaired to the Annual Dinner. Unfortunately I had to leave before the speeches.

As the next day was Easter Monday, there was another opportunity to ride on steam trains. This time I did the complete round trip, including Heywood. It's not the most attractive part of the journey and I spotted several gangs of disaffected youths being talked to by hi-vis clad policemen. Later I read in the Bury Times that kids had been throwing stones at the trains. Heywood however is a good place to take photos of the engine changing ends. 80098 had gone and was relaced by a rather ugly USA S160 2-8-0 no. 5197. Why is it that foreign locos always seem to have an excess of pipes and other accoutriments bolted on all over the place? I finished off the day with a pint of Old Moor Porter in the Trackside.

On Tuesday, on the recommendation of one of the Clarion officers, I went to view a fabulous exhibition of Walter Crane's work at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester entitled 'Art and Labour's Cause is One'. A whole bay was devoted to the Clarion, with letters and artwork - and a photo of the Clarion 'van - including the National Clarion logo and various versions of the popular poster 'A Garland for May Day 1895'. I was joined for lunch by Lois, Pete and Joe up from the Peak District, and we also enjoyed the Subversive Spaces show - joe got told off for touching a Sarah Lucas dining room and my favourite was a video of a bloke with a drumstick rattling it on railings. Wednesday was a quiet day spent in Bury, visiting the splendid art gallery, buying black puddings and whinberry pie - and watching the art deco Hornby Buildings being demolished! The journey back south on Thursday was completed in a record time of around 4 hours (taking the bus to Manchester rather than the expensive tram and taking a wrong tube train!), for the grand sum of £13.20 on Virgin.

IoW steam railway

Water tower
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

The visit to the Isle of Wight steam railway was the climax of a very pleasant cycling holiday with the Clarion. We'd cycled 28 miles from Ryde to Totland youth hostel, a lot of the time on disused railway tracks - the one along the Yar valley being spectacular and teaming with wild life. And another undulating 18 miles to Wootton, where after lunch six of us headed to the station to put our bikes on the 2.31 train to Smallbrook Junction. Aren't guard's vans a good idea? We paid £5 for a single. The train was pulled by Hawthorn Leslie 'Invincible', an 0-4-0 industrial saddle tank. At the main station of Havenstreet, we had 15 minutes to dash round the museum, shop and shed. We saw Barclay 0-6-0T 'Ajax', Hunslet 0-6-0ST Austerity No. 92 'Waggoner' and British Rail Class 05 0-6-0DM No D2554 plus a few others in bits. No Terriers. The official website is here. Then it was on to Smallbrook Junction, which is no station at all - just an interchange to the Island Line, which uses old London tube train rolling stock - from which we got the tube to Ryde Pier head and the Fast Cat ferry. As we crossed the Solent, the sea mist closed in - we missed our train home and had to wait an hour for the next one. Smallbrook Junction has no way out and a woman volunteer, who was very impressed by Jim's ex-BR hi-viz jacket and whistle, was in charge of both platforms.

Sheffield Hallam University Library

There are two copies of my new book on the shelves of Sheffield Hallam University Library!

TUNNELS.. Official Underground music

TUNNELS.. Official Underground music on MySpace Music: saw DJ Ben Langham, aka Ben Phaze on BBC Breakfast this morning. He makes young person's 'dance' music from sounds sampled from London's Underground railway!

100% free

100-free.jpg
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

I was going to be harsher about this packaging, but have since mellowed. People get very confused about percentages. I've seen cleaning products and shampoo for example advertised as 100% free. That doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it at all - it means you'll get twice as much for your money. Or in the case of these stock cubes, two for the price of one. The thinking goes: you're getting 200% for the price of 100% therefore 100% is free. Or, each pack is half price, so you are getting 50% free. Times that by two packs and you arrive at 100% free. Or more accurately, 100% extra free. Some people don't think you can have more than 100% - you can't for example have more than 100% of a cake - that'd be more than one cake. 'He gave 110%' is a jarring phrase used to describe a footballer or an athlete trying a little bit harder. But if you blow up a photo 200%, it's twice the size of the original (well, four times really, but that's another story)! BTW I was rather hoping that Infinity Foods (where I got this) would have had an offer on the salt-reduced versions of these, but alas no.

Wikipedia

Chatting to my coffee chum Adrian the other day over a toasted teacake at Capers got me wondering how many of my mates have Wikipedia entries. Mine was a struggle to establish - and it's not out of the woods yet! I was deemed not notable enough at first and various friends had to find citations here there and everywhere to back it up (you're not allowed to amend your own entry, which is very frustrating)! Well, Adrian Oxaal probably has the biggest entry. He's followed by my social secretary Peter Chrisp. Fellow Brightonian Marek Kohn also has an entry, but after that we're struggling! People you'd expect to have entries don't: no Dan Thompson (it was apparently deleted), Foz? Foster gets a mention both under The Monochrome Set and David Devant and his Spirit Wife but not under his own name! David Bramwell is in there but only as the real name of Dave Spikey! Then we are into the territory of acquaintances: I was at school with Peter Skellern and we both came to London in 1965. I worked with Nick Crane, at a Gomshall architects called Hutton + Rostron in 1977, both of us writing entries for the Barbour Index. My Time Team editor Steve Platt gets the briefest entry. I'm sure there are others - let me know - I'll continue to search.

Froggy threesome

froggy threesome
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

After a winter of my garden pond looking very barren and empty - and for several days coated with ice and snow - suddenly the frogs are back! I can hear them plop into the water as soon as I come out the back door, but if you're patient they will eventually surface again. The other day I counted six of them! Where have they been? There is even already an early blob of spawn in amongst the reeds.

Holman Hunt

If there were a heaven it'd be a bit like standing in the Manchester [City] Art Gallery surrounded by almost everything Holman Hunt ever painted! I've waited years to see an exhibition devoted to my favourite painter - I've been to all the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood round-ups over the years and shows featuring Millais, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Alma-Tadema, Lord Leighton, all the Victorians and Edwardians. I travelled up to Manchester especially for this and I wasn't disappointed. Holman Hunt was the most consistent of the Pre-Raphs - he didn't go downhill in later life like Millais and was infinitely more commited than Rossetti, even tho I love them both. He was probably the least scandallous too, tho he did marry his sister-in-law! His paintings may not be as pretty as Rossetti's and their moral and religious themes may put you off, but in my opinion he represents the highest ever achievement in painting - nobody even comes close, before or after (well OK, maybe Vermeer, Ingres, Dali and Glenn Brown). Holman Hunt wasn't a photo-realist - if you look up close at one of his big works, you can see his hand in the brushstrokes and even pencil under the thin layers of paint, but what is astonishing is the bright saturated colours he used. A square inch of painted textile or wood shaving is a psychedelic whirl of intense luscious pigment. He makes the Impressionists look drab. He does however suffer from the same thing that made prog rock unfashionable in pop music - too much going on! And I'm not sure I like his use of soft-focus sometimes, as in 'The awakening conscience' and the horrible 'Triumph of the Innocents' with its babies in bubbles. Gerhard Richter, the American Pop artists and Hyper-realists do it better. To see his true genius, look at the landscape backgrounds of the big 'uns or smaller informal works, like 'Fairlight Downs - Sunlight on the sea' 1852-8 (in the collection of Lord Lloyd Webber) a shimmering sea traversed by a steamship (putting it in HH's present), with the remarkable device of a stick thrown to a dog shown in mid-air! This was painted near Hastings about the same time as 'Our English Coasts' - the one one with sheep on the Downs straying onto the cliffs with the stunning back-lighting. His cropping of the sheep in this one anticipating the snapshot-inspired compositions of Degas. It was great to see all three versions of 'The Light of the World' - we even had the actual lantern HH had made, different piercings representing different faiths. Many of the other big 'uns I'd seen before. Like the prog rockers, many of HH's paintings had been on world tours, and he made a fortune from prints. A rather unimpressive monochrome photogravure (tho HH is said to have touched up 300 of them in black chalk by hand!) by Goupil and Co of 'The triumph of the innocents' was on show in an impressive frame, made by C R Ashbee and the Guild of Handicrafts for C R Horsfall's Ancoats gallery. According to the caption, commentator Alan Crawford (who?) said: 'It is hard to imagine an object more strongly associated with the vanished ideal of social reform through art than this, with its reproduction from Holman Hunt, its quotation from Ruskin [beautifully calligraphed on vellum from The art of England, Chapter 1], made in London's East End by reformed craftsmen, to bring the light of culture to the poor of Manchester.' Hmmm, ever so slightly patronising? The exhibition was free and also includes two spoofs by Steve Bell! My only gripe is the 25 quid publication described as a catalogue. It was produced by the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where this show first appeared. Despite being full of interesting articles and colour pictures (which could have been a tad bigger!) it doesn't list the exhibits, and it includes pictures not in the exhibition, as I found out when I examined mine in the cafe. I didn't realise for example that there are (at least) two versions of 'The shadow of the cross'. The Manchester one was on show, but there is also a smaller one in nearby Leeds! (And a third I've since learnt is owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber.) There are also (at least) two Ladies of Shalott. What I need from a catalogue is a trainspotter's guide to where all his works can be seen. It was great however to see the self-portrait from the Uffizi and John Ballantyne's portrait of HH in his studio looking like a Victorian Vivian Stanshall in his oriental robe, hat and big ginger beard! Moving Manchester's Holman Hunts next door freed up some wallspace in the main gallery. I'm not good as spot the difference but it looks like most of the gaps have been filled with Millais's dull later landscapes. Manchester Art Gallery (they seem to have dropped City from the name) is a treasure at any time. The Valettes alone are worth a trip to the land of L S Lowry, Joy Division and The Smiths - the foggy streets of this grim Northern city (like on the day I visited) were always waiting for his style of urban Impressionism. And there's an accompanying exhibition of works on paper by the PRB, Burne-Jones and the underrated Ford Madox Brown, he of 'Work' in the main building. The exhibition closes on 11 January. The nearest Holman Hunt to Brighton BTW is the dishy 'Bianca' at Worthing Art Gallery, currently on loan to the above exhibition.

Suet pudding

Since I stopped eating meat nearly 30 years ago (I confess I'm not vegan, nor vegetarian, cos I eat the odd bit of fish) there have been food items I've missed. I used to have dreams about liver, like the grilled liver and chips with a fried egg on top we used to have in the cafe over the deli at Boggi's in Clerkenwell. I have fond memories of salt beef sandwiches with mustard from a shop that seemed to serve nothing else, in Fetter Lane. One thing I used to love as a lad was steak and kidney pudding, with tinned peas and a ladle full of brown gravy, as served in that cafe over a shop on Kay Gardens, when we wagged off school on a Friday. They did meat puds in tiny tins too, I seem to remember from my student days. The nearest to it was a wild mushroom suet pudding from Terre a Terre one Christmas freelancers lunch a few years back. Gorgeous! Since then we've seen veggie haggis and black pudding appear, tho I'm not conviced by the V Pud - tastes nothing like the real thing! Veggie food has come a long way since that brown slop they once served at Crank's. Thank goodness for Linda MacCartney and Quorn. I love pies and pasties and still mourn the demise of Sainsbury's Savoury Pasty. Yes, I know you can buy cheese and onion pasties ('do I have to spell it out!') and Waitrose do a lovely hand-crimped vegetable one, but I crave that MEAT taste! Linda's Country pies are a great stand-by, but frozen products seldom come out right with me. Recently Quorn have been releasing various pastry slices, including Minced beef with onion (not available in all supermarkets I'm sad to say) which I quite like but examining the shelves at Asda the other day my heart stopped when I spotted the new Quorn Beef style and ale pudding! And yes, it does taste like I remembered, and you don't have to boil it up in one of granny's stockings for hours on end! They do a mince and onion version too (but curse their packaging that makes every product look alike!). It's a dream come true. So what's next on the wish list? If they can do haggis, which is mostly cereal filling anyway, it can't be too difficult to produce a veggie faggot? Come on Mr Brain, what are you waiting for?

The Two Wrongies

Watching The Two Wrongies last night - two lovely funny dancers who perform much of their act naked (except for rubber bathing caps) - made me wonder when nudity began to lose its shock value. When I were a lad naked flesh was rare and highly charged - we only had National Geographic, Amateur Photographer and library books detailing expeditions to far off hot places to pour over. I think I remember seeing dancers from Sierra Leone on tv once - with bare breasts! - in black and white! The annual Bury Fair had a Nude Show, that was always closed on the opening night so as not to embarrass the Mayor. For sixpence you got to see a foul-mouthed compere introducing tableaux of perfectly still naked ladies recreating famous paintings. The only book in the school library with the word 'fuck' in it was a well thumbed copy of The Cantos of Ezra Pound. If you did come across a copy of Spic, Span or Health and Efficiency in the playground, the nether regions were always air-brushed out. We had to wait for Paul Raymond's relaunched Men Only in the 70s to see pubic hair for the first time! At college (1965-68) I discovered that foreign films, especially those of Fellini, usually contained some nudity! And my first full frontal was Arthur Lowe's wife (or was it matron) wandering empty school corridors in Lindsay Anderson's If. Then there was a trip to a Soho strip club with the rowing club, where a Wilfrid Bramwell character behind a hatch served up Nescafe from a small tin as we sat in cinema seats to watch ladies, moving this time, remove their clothing. But it was the late-60s and soon there was hippy nudity mostly everywhere. There was Hair and Oh! Calcutta!, though I saw neither, and then we got Page 3 girls - and some of the early ones were quite attractive and artistic, quite unlike the plastic busty teenagers we have nowadays. It is said that John Ruskin, having been brought up with marble statues, was so horrified when he saw Effie Gray's bush on his wedding night, the marriage was never consummated and she ran off with Millais. He'd have been very happy with today's Hollywood waxings. Nowadays, along with easy access internet porn, there are nudist beaches, the World Naked Bike Ride every June, and The Two Wrongies. They were a delight and not a bit embarrassing, down the Basement last night - lithe dancers with a sense of humour, in the Liz Aggiss mould. We saw them on stage, dancing beautifully, and 'backstage' chatting and changing what few clothes they had. Highlight was the 'air sex' competition in which three highly accomplished members of the audience mimed foreplay, the act itself, and cigarette afterwards. Hilarious.

Billy Cowie

I'm not a big fan of video installations, dark rooms in art galleies, audience participation - or dance for that matter - but for Billy Cowie, I'll not only make an exception, but be first in the queue. 'The revery alone', part of the Dance for camera festival 2008 is his best yet: seven minutes of mesmerising movement - on the ceiling! After donning spirit spex at Lighthouse, you are invited to lie flat out on yoga mats in a dark room, there to watch a naked dancer hanging on to the wallpaper. Truly [literally] amazing. It's on until 11 December. Also worth seeing is MyrioRama by Jeremy Radvan over the stair well - him drawing to a dancer's movements (reminiscent of his show down the sewers a while back). But you wouldn't get me down the dirty hole that was 'Burrow Me' even if there were wall-to-wall real naked ladies inside!

The Brothers Quay

The exhibition of work by the Brothers Quay (or Quay Brothers as they are also known) at the University of Brighton gallery - Inventorium: the Pharmacist's prescription for lip reading puppets - is truly [literally] amazing. It's a collection of scenes from their animated films shoehorned into boxes, cabinets of curiosity, theatrically lit with big lenses to look through that make the interiors even more Tardis like, and which direct your gaze to pertinent details. Largely overshadowed by Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, to whom they have created a homage, the American twins are perhaps best known for their 1986 film Street of crocodiles, based on a novel by the Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz. The creepy boxes full of bark, crystals and talcum powder populated by Bellmer-like robot dolls, look as if they will come to life any minute, which they do, in their films, also showing at Cinecity around Brighton now. You almost expect Foster and Gilvan to pop out from behind them at any second. Apart from the 'Powdered ejaculation of a stag (at the time of rutting season)', a line of which we are invited to snort and is currently sustaining Peter Chrisp, the other highlight is 'Eurydice - She, So Beloved', a work based on Monteverdi's Orfeo in its own room which also contains a coffin of pylons and more bark. This mostly live action dance piece was quite long and dark and would have benefitted from the addition of a comfy chair for the more elderly connoisseur. But it's not often we have an exhibition of this importance in town - go see it! It's on until 20 December usually until 8pm, but closed on Sundays!