art | Arcticterntalk.org

Archive for the tag “art”

01 Dec 2017

Early morning drinking at airports and the waste of alcohol

Airport lounges are never dull places. In general if you seek rudeness you can expect to find it. Folks pushing in to grab the food and generally taking up seven chairs. Some of the fashion sense is also dubious . Anything free is pounced upon in a hawk like manner.

If you have followed my blog you will recall articles on early morning drinking at Scottish airports. So I will not repeat my thoughts here. Today however a totally new rant. Waste. Anyone travelling to USA will be highly familiar with the waste of food there purely by being served gigantic portions. What is less common is waste of alcohol, after all it is relatively expensive there . Today however it is the waste of alcohol here in Uk. Terminal 5 lounge where for fortunate passengers food and alcohol is free. I had no intention of writing a blog at 9 am but was struck by two men essentially having poured and wasted numerous drinks. Five to seven glasses at various times. At a guess mostly different types of champagnes. Why? Society is not in a good place if this is a behaviour that is common. End of rant . Except to comment on the lady next to me who either has an unfortunate ring tone on her phone announcing texts or emails, the sound of a steam train[ I think] or alternatively an unpleasant gastric situation . Needless to say the ring tone is set to extra loud. Good morning

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, alcohol costs, alcohol Scotland, art, awful fashion, BA first class lounge, BA lounge, early morning drinking, Heathrow, Heathrow BA lounge, holiday, illegal redcurrants, london, terminal 5, Terminal 5 alcohol, travel, USA redcurrants, vacation

28 Nov 2017

1 Comment

Vienna is a Black and White place. The power of BW photography

Sometimes black and white photography conveys far more a meaningful resemblance of a city than colour. Sometimes not.

In winter Vienna is cold and often a wet place. A few photographs that attempt to convey what Vienna in November is.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, art, aviation, BA, black and white, black and white photography, food, Heathrow, holiday, london, photos, Photos of Vienna, rain, travel, vacation, vienna, Vienna in winter, Vienna Sofitel, weather

10 Nov 2017

FA cup First Round. The grounds are hardly crowded. Why ?

The media are full of the glamour of the FA cup. Sadly for many if not most teams that glamour is somewhat tarnished.

Not everyone is aware that the FA cup starts in August and ends in May. The early qualifying rounds are a god given chance for nonleague teams to make a small amount of money from the moderately attractive prize money on offer. By the time the first round rolls round in November the media suddenly awake with their stories of candlestick makers and funeral directors somehow managing to combine a job and a nonleague football career. Curiously they manage that on each of the other 364 days. As overheard at the recent Met Police FA trophy game a player when asked if he was playing on Tuesday simply answered negatively as was working. As Moriarty famously said in Sherlock “ that’s what people do”.

The glamour of the first round however comes with sadness too. The crowds at many grounds , sometimes famous grounds in FA cup parlor, were poor if not pathetic. The reasons may be varied. Clubs that decide not to offer deals and retain normal charges . Clubs that poorly advertise. Clubs that simply do not care as the league club imagines that the prize money more than compensates.

Let’s take a look at the winners and the rogues gallery. Starting with the rogues;

Colchester. We all recall Layer Road and the Leeds cup tie. The crowd v Oxford City a pitiful 1775. Oxford won 1-0.
Coventry. A crowd of 3370 saw a 2-0 victory over Maidenhead.
Charlton. Another ex-premier league side . A crowd of 4494 saw a 3-1 victory over Truro. Around 1000 were Truro fans
Blackburn. Premiership winners . A crowd of 3710 saw a 3-1 victory over Barnet
Wimbledon. There has been enough miserable moaning from the club over the last few years about MK Dons and Franchise FC. The famous FA cup winners persuaded only 3394 paying spectators to attend their game against Lincoln City who had an incredible run last year. Terrible in my opinion. Need I continue.

So where were the decent crowds? The nonleague sides playing at home. Hereford who are a reincarnated club but with great cup history had 4712 watch them defeat another nonleague side AFC Telford. Almost matching the highest crowd of the round at Luton v Portsmouth. 5333.

What realistically can be done? There are three options

Do nothing and watch the history and glamour of this great competition die
Allow the FA to subsidise prices for the first two rounds such that the maximum ticket price is £10 or less and children are free
In the first round seed all nonleague teams to have home advantage

To do nothing is not an option.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, art, aviation, beer, bees, brentford, brentford fc, Brentford Football Club, carshalton fc, FA, FA Cup, football, griffin park, holiday, london, met police fc, murder, nonleague football, rain, ryman league, ryman south, surrey, travel, vacation | Leave a comment

10 Nov 2017

1 Comment

An hour in Newcastle on Tyne

As with many trips there is never enough time to see a city properly . But if you have an hour just walk down to the quayside area . The choice is walk along the Tyne. Walk over a bridge. There are plenty to choose from.

The lower level bridge is my favourite for no good reason. One is undercover and the smell of urine is not far away. But a few curious aspects. The padlocks are interesting. To read the inscriptions . Compare the different types. Wonder how many of the couples who placed them here are still together?

The views are also good of all the other bridges. When you reach the far side you are in Gateshead. And it does seem as though you have left Newcastle.

This is a great city and a friendly one too. Well worth an hour wandering around

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, art, food, football, holiday, london, newcastle, Newcastle bridges, Newcastle crowne plaza, travel, vacation

02 Nov 2017

Berlin in Autumn. Is it worth a visit?

Berlin is a fascinating city with history and architecture to rival any city in the world. The question is given the high prices is it worth a visit in the autumn?

Unfortunately the greatness of the place and the short days with darkness coming from 4.30 pm meant I would not be positive in spending money to come here.

The city was wet and muddy meaning that walking through Tiergarten was not a pleasure . Queues everywhere to get into any historical building and few smiles to be seen. Prices were also expensive. In a small cafe not in a popular area a cheeseburger cost 10€ and a large Americano coffee 5.90€.

In a lesson for other cities though there were few cars to be seen in the city centre.

On the positive side a good transportation system and decent if wet and muddy pedestrian walkways.

Would I return again in autumn? Definitely not. Cities like Riga and Prague offer far more for far less at this time of year .

The street art is not too shabby though tucked away in small side streets.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged art, autumn break Berlin, berlin, Berlin In autumn, berlin marriott, Berlin Photos, Berlin transportations, british airways, expensive coffee, graffiti, london, marriott hotels, street art, tegel, tiergarten, travel, vacation, walking in Berlin | Leave a comment

12 Oct 2017

1 Comment

Gothenburg Harbour . Sunrise and Sunset

The area around the harbour on the south side is essentially a Science park and a Radisson hotel. But at sunrise and sunset it comes to life . A few photographs .

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, art, cobra, Harbour Gothenburg, holiday, hotels gothenburg, london, radisson blu harbourside Gothenburg, science park, sunrise photo, sunset photo, travel, vacation

09 Oct 2017

1 Comment

Cardiff Street Art. The Dragon Roars

One of the best aspects of street art is the surprise to find it where least expected. A quick nighttime walk around Cardiff was enlightened by finding some dragon street art next to the Millenium Stadium. Sadly only I phone photos in the dark but quite amazing still the same.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged art, cardiff, dragon street art, football, graffiti, graffiti art, millenium stadium, street art, travel, vacation, wales

13 Jul 2017

Cricket at Arundel Castle. Sussex v Leicestershire 2017. The Dogs enjoyed it.

Cricket is an unusual sport in that in the county games it takes four days to get a result (sometimes) and fans generally are less passionate about their own county than in other sports. a nice aspect is that many counties take a few games away from their main headquarters and take them to “out grounds” which are often cricket festivals and well supported. Sadly the crowd this year was smaller than in other years possibly due to the downturn in the success of Sussex cricket club over recent years.

A few photographs from a day in the hot sun. Some action photos including the wicket of Luke Wright, one of the most entertaining batsmen I have seen in 2017. A few folks hiding from the sun and a rather hot dog enjoying the sun. In fact cricket is one of the few sports where dogs are usually welcome and Arundel is am example of a ground with plenty of shade, walking space, and grass. A good place in fact to bring a dog, although this year with temperatures around 25c dogs were mostly seen in the shady areas.

Hot dog.

No Sun Allowed

Arundel Castle Cricket was not at full capacity in 2017

1K4A2336 1K4A2351

The Ice Cream sellers were amongst the most important folks in the ground

1K4A2493

1K4A2362 1K4A2413 1K4A2471

Luke Wright the ex-england batsman is bowled

1K4A2517 1K4A2515

A great name for a cricketer. Will Beer.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged apple, are dogs allowed, are dogs allowed at cricket, art, arundel castle, arundel cricket, beer, beer at arundel, beer bowling, beer photo, county championship cricket, county cricket, division two county championship, dogs at cricket, dogs in sun, friends of arundel, hot dog, humour, innovation, leicestershire cc, luke wright, photo cricket, photo will beer, sports, suntan cream, sussex, sussex ccc, sussex v leicestershire, will beer, will beer cricketer, work | Leave a comment

21 Jun 2017

1 Comment

The Queens Crown Travelled to Houses of Parliament in its own car. Is this correct in 2017?

For once I am speechless. This is 2017. What springs to mind is the senseless waste of public money. The pure daftness of the idea. Just why?

The crown travelled in a car with its own security escort.

As imagined many folks had things to say on Twitter. Including myself. To summarise views. Medieval nonsense and grotesque display of wealth that might be regarded as highly insensitive in current times.

The tweet that wins the prize though is this

”Queen’s Speech: where you hear about prioritisation of mental health services, then watch as a crown gets taken away in its own car”

But why was she not wearing her crown fir the first time in 43 years for the Queens Speech? The event came too close to the Trooping of the colour to allow sufficient practice and rehearsal. But not to worry. The crown was within eyesight of the queen to her right.