Recent Blog Posts
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Auction of Pleasures Auction of Pleasures
- From: Glasgow Women's Library
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Description:
There is still time to book for the Glasgow Women's Library Auction of Pleasures, taking place on Friday 17 August 2010 at St Andrew's in the Square.The event is a dinner and auction with some great entertainment, delicious food and lovely people. We also have a fantastic list of auction items which can be viewed here: http://www.womenslibrary.org.uk/261/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Auction-Brochure2.pdf
We really want to make this most of this opportunity to raise as much as possible for the refurbishment of our new home at The Mitchell Library, and where the donors and supporters have been fantastic when it comes to the auction items, we have unfortunately been let down when it comes to bookings and have had a few cancellations. It would be a real shame for all the team that have been working towards this event if we don't fill the venue. The ticket price of £45 (£40 if people book a table of 10) includes a glass of bubbles on arrival, a choice of canapés to start, a gorgeous main course (with fantastic vegetarian option), dessert, coffee and wine. We are not making a profit on this side of things, just covering catering and venue costs, as we want the auction to be our main fundraiser - and with a list of items that includes work from Turner Prize nominated artists, once in a lifetime experiences, meeting some real women icons in the arts field, and so much more, the items really speak for themselves. We have a great line up of entertainment on the night, including performances by The Scottish Flute Trio, Cinnamon Girls, and the sell out artist Terry Neason!
We would love it if you were able to attend the event, but if not could you please forward this information round your networks, to friends, family, colleagues, anyone who might be interested and would be in Glasgow on Friday 17 September, even though I know it is last minute it would be great if we could raise the numbers to fill the hall.
You can find information here, along with an online booking and payment system: http://www.womenslibrary.org.uk/supportgwl/auction/ - Blog post
- 2 hours ago
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Homepage Gallery 09/09/2010 Homepage Gallery 09/09/2010
- From: Tulta Behm
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Description:
Homepage Images
09 September 2010
Every week, one artist's work will be chosen and featured, the only stipulation, that they've uploaded enough (i.e. at least 4) images in the prior week.
It's all about getting your work seen.
Continuing our new series of Homepage galleries, this week we're dedicating the whole of the Homepage to the work of JennyLifeofmeaning.
JennyLifeofmeaning is an Edinburgh-based artist, designer and filmmaker.
Check out JennyLifeofmeaning's showcase, and if you're inspired by her work with information design, you could watch this film on TED of David McCandless discussing his move from a career in journalism into visualising information, the importance of infographics, and why data is the new oil.
In the meantime, head over to JennyLifeofmeaning's profile to say hello! And remember, get uploading your own work for next week's Homepage...
- Blog post
- 7 hours ago
- Views: 11
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SMUTTER SMUTTER
- From: OmarZingaroBhatia
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Description:
Have I become a mere smut-peddler? Follow the link below to discover what insignificant existential crisis I speak of. So far I have had mixed reactions; from "bored are you Omar eh?" to "hmmm......interesting". I'm eager to know what y'all think.
>>-----------------> WWW.ZINGAROMAR.BLOGSPOT.COM
- Blog post
- 12 hours ago
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underground manchester underground manchester
- From: PullYourselfTogether
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Description:
Here's an extract from a new post on in a town so small, the blog about arts and walking by Dan PYT
i’ve always been interested in the tales of the network of tunnels which run underneath manchester. from the supposed nuclear bunker of the guardian telephone exchange which runs underneath the city, to the tunnels arounddeansgate, i find it fascinating. in a city like london the underground is a well known route, much as it is in paris, glasgow and sao paulo to name but a few. yet in manchester, the underneath of the city is hidden away.
- Blog post
- 1 day ago
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Leaving the 20th Century Leaving the 20th Century
- From: D.Agnew
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Description:
When I first heard the Manics were releasing a new single called (It's Not War) Just The End Of Love, I felt a minor sense of exhilaration but this was quickly followed by embarrasment. The Manics always make me cringe. They have done so from the age of 23. The band's latest single while gloriously melodic is lyrically stodgy and indulges in meaningless platitudes. It is a thoroughly decent pop song nevertheless but it will pass through most people's daily lives unnoticed. Anna Friel looks absolutely gorgeous as a sexually frustrated librarian and how they managed to get the brilliant Michael Sheen to take part I'll never know. Although him getting the opportunity to lust over Anna Friel on a chess table probably had something to do with it.
The Manics and teenage hyperbole will never be separated. In many ways they were the closest I ever came to joining a cult. As a shy Scottish teenager I can vividly remember reading their biographies, listening to CDs and reading selective works of George Orwell, Jack Kerouac, Slyvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg. On becoming an obsessive fan in the late nineties, I fully immersed myself in the DIY fan culture and began collecting all of their albums, books, t-shirts and videos at record fairs in Aberdeen. Not having any money I could rarely afford to buy their handmade early singles but every month I would go just to look at the Situationist artwork or bootleg videos. During the granite wintry months, I would stumble in with a Aberdeen football scarf and make friends with Clash fans in vintage punk jackets covered in snotty white tipp-ex . Despite knowing I didn't have any money to feed my habit, I go back return every month because obsession compelled me every time.
What I ask myself is would this happen now? Sure you have vinyl obsessives and niche dance guys looking for old records to pillage, sample and plunder. Otherwise all you have to do is type in a few words into Google and every interview, demo tape and muffled remark is available free online. Something worthwhile has been lost with progress. Even it is just my memories. Time passes and once the last dregs of teenage angst were drained out of me, it became very difficult for me to follow bands in the same way as before. In fact I find it near impossible to have any musical hero's anymore. Because while I still love music, I lost the awe factor in my mid-twenties and it is never likely to come back.
The last time I saw them play live was at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange in April 2005 and I vowed at the time that this would be my final gig and I would never see them again.
The Manics reached their saturation point years ago though and it felt strange seeing them live again. There was something serene and ghostly calm about them, previous landmark singles that were once powerful statements had now become cabaret and were played with a jukebox familiarity. The Holy Bible songs were absolutely amazing, especially Of Walking Abortion and If White America, which were like vicious snarling scabs and for blurring white seconds I felt like I was obsessed and eighteen all over again. They ended their set with a crashing version of Motown Junk, which started off with Paradise City by Guns and Roses and it was coolest send off ever! The thudding drums whipped the crowd to a chaotic frenzy and it was the perfect ending to a heavenly evening. It was the goodbye moment I had always wanted.
By keeping to my word I've managed to keep my memories intact. In a way I actually admire their resilence and how they've managed to maintain keep their profile up after 20 years on the road. It is quite remarkable really because it is not like they were ever musical pioneers. Although I've now come to realise that indie music is for kids really and this can lead to a lot of heartache when you get older.
- Blog post
- 1 day ago
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Call for Entries - BRIDGING TH Call for Entries - BRIDGING THE GAP - Short Documentary Competition
- From: Scottish Doc Institute
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Description:
Scottish Documentary Institute is pleased to announce that Bridging the Gap 8 is now open for applications!We are looking for Scottish-based filmmakers to make ten minute documentaries on the theme of SHIFT. We want films to be told in the first person – either by the filmmaker or the main character.
12 ideas will be short-listed on the basis of the proposal and supporting materials. In the following weeks they will be developed and honed further through weekend workshops so that they can be pitched to a panel of experts who will commission the final 5 projects in December 2010. The films are intended for distribution in cinemas and festivals and to be delivered by April 2011.
Who can apply?
This scheme is open to all filmmakers based in Scotland, and particularly aims to bridge the gap between training/graduation and a first commission, and those filmmakers who have not made films for the big screen. We are especially interested in filmmakers from diverse and under-represented backgrounds. We cannot accept applications from students in full time education.DEADLINE: 6 October 2010
For further details please visit our website or email Flore on f.cosquer@eca.ac.uk
- Blog post
- 1 day ago
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Boredom, underrated? Boredom, underrated?
- From: gailtolley
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Description:
I've been pondering the link between boredom and creativity.
Several years ago I read an interview with the writer Philip Pullman. I remember little about it apart from one quotation which has etched itself in my brain, where he said something to the effect: 'I don't want excitement [in my life] I want days and days of solemn monotony.' It appealed to me at the time, this desire for a slow-paced life filled not with variation and energy but quiet contemplation.
And this week, quite by chance, in the way that fate sometimes likes to tie up loose ends, I stumbled across Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet. It is a journal of sorts by an accounts clerk who lives a simple life on his own, defined by regularity and monotony. Yet his writing, contemplating his existence, reveals an interior life that is rich and insightful and at one with the way he has chosen to live. It is a wonderful and refreshing antidote to our contemporary obsession with success, so narrowly defined on superficial experiences, fame and fortune.
Take, for example, Pessoa's comments on travel:
"If I imagine something, I see it. What more would I do if I travelled? Only extreme feebleness of imagination can justify anyone needing to travel in order to feel... In Madrid, in Berlin, in Persia, in China at the North and South Poles, where would I be other than inside myself, feeling my particular kind of feelings?"
And on the cover of The Book of Disquiet there is Philip Pullman's neatly printed name, alongside lavish praise for the Portuguese writer. Suddenly I see where Pullman was coming from with that comment he made in that one interview I read many moons ago.
All of this is just an elaborate way of opening up the idea of boredom... dead time... the unexciting... the monotonous... Is it all so terribly underrated?
We seem to always be looking for stimulation but perhaps, like for Pullman and Pessoa, creativity can come from the opposite? - Blog post
- 1 day ago
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EIBF Goodbye: In Support of th EIBF Goodbye: In Support of the Not the Bookers and the Brave
- From: TaxidermyMouse
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Description:
The Book Festival is over and the signs of Autumn are coming hard and fast. It’s cold, again. Charlotte Square is a mess. Everyone has the flu. Even as I write this, I can feel my bones seizing up and hear my subconscious telling me that it’s time to hibernate, again, soon.
This year, the book festival was brave. It did things it had never done before. In a time where funding is being pulled left, right and centre, it would be easy for an established festival like the EIBF to stick to their guns, sit on their laurels and hide, but they didn’t.
Instead, they brought out a programme that was rich and varied, with more of my favourite writers than I have ever seen before (and that’s after working for four literary festivals over six years) and a selection of exciting new events.
From Unbound, which filled the Spiegeltent with music, writing and tons of people every night, to their fantastic guest selectors, to their fantastic social media presence, they were really on the ball. They showed what a book festival could do.
As the Booker prize was announced today it made me sad that they did not take risks with their selection. There was no Mitchell, no Christos Tsiolkas, no spark. Though I appreciate the work that literary novelists do, I ultimately believe that authors who appeal to a wide audience do great things too. Be it Scarlett Thomas or (dare I say it) Stephenie Meyer, these guys are really reaching and affecting a large group of people. Neil Gaiman tells a great story about how he was once asked by a literary novelist at a festival how he made his living, to which he replied, ‘I write books’. The novelist was incredulous that Gaiman could support himself solely through his writing. This is something that has really stuck with me. It makes me happy, then, to see the Guardian running the Not the Booker prize, which allows people to nominate the books they feel are deserving of acclaim. The shortlist is currently being contended, but you can read the original longlist here.
Seeing the range of books submitted for consideration is joyful; just look at it! Comics sit happily next to literary novels, which in turn are making friends with science fiction stalwarts and popular fiction. It’s very similar to what you see in this year’s book festival programme, and it’s a trend I hope to see continuing.
And so I am going to look forward, to when the winter is over, when Charlotte Square has been re-sod, and my bones stop hurting. I can’t wait to see what next year’s book festival, and Not the Booker, bring us..
- Blog post
- 2 days ago
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Trying Out Some Stuff Trying Out Some Stuff
- From: Hitch
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Description:
This lovely cover of David Bowie by Emilie Simon seemed ideal matched with the footage, all of which was taken from the Creative Archive available through BBC, Open University and the BFI among others - I think if I were to use this in anyway in my final project I would rerecord the audio as an instrumental, simply violins. Basically the video is just messing around with ways of displaying the concept of 'Psychogeography', and I think if will re-edit the footage in with other things -rollercoasters, traffic, city movement in general - but I like how occasionally the audio becomes discordant as the audio attached to the original footage comes through.
PhD Testing Out Footage from Richard Hanrahan on Vimeo.
- Blog post
- 2 days ago
- Views: 11
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MoveStream 02 with annotations MoveStream 02 with annotations is out!
- From: jeannette.ginslov
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Description:Jeannette Ginslov interviews Islandic cartoon artist Ingi Jensson & German choreographer Heike Salzer, 11 June 2010 at the Dansehallerne Copenhagen Denmark, about their dance video installation work that resides on several sites and cities, in a variety of formats and also on an internet platform.
Is this a work that bends cinema? If it is, how?
What traditional modes of presentation is the work challenging? Do all these formats, platforms and sites, break and challenge the viewers perception of dance video? What parameters did you change in order for these works to exist on different viewing platforms? What kind of viewing experience does the viewer have and expect or are these expectations challenged?
Shot and edited
Jeannette Ginslov
Produced
Walking Gusto Productions
September 2010 - Blog post
- 2 days ago
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FREE BUSES TO AGK! FREE BUSES TO AGK!
- From: YucknYum
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Description:
Join YNY on the 18th of September to toast our inaugural AGK (Annual General Karaoke) in the Dundee City Chamber Suite, 7.00-12pm.
*FREE* buses will depart from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen on the night but spaces are limited:
ABERDEEN
Leaving from Project Slogan @ 6pm
EDINBURGH
Leaving from the ROXY @ 5pm
GLASGOW
Leaving from St. Vincent’s Place @ 5pm
All buses will be returning to the same spots in the wee small hours of Sunday.
To book a seat on one of the buses email agk@yucknyum.com with your city of choice in the subject line. Seats will be given on a first come first served basis so be quick! - Blog post
- 2 days ago
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Flotsam and Jetsam Flotsam and Jetsam
- From: Neil McGuire
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Description:
I'm interested in how quickly things do or don't sink within central station. Therefore this is a quick experiment at resurfacing a blog post (here)
- Blog post
- 3 days ago
- Views: 28
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Introducing: GLASGOW DIALECTOG Introducing: GLASGOW DIALECTOGRAMS
- From: MitchMiller
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Description:
Even if the 'form' was already well known, previously discovered, carved from 'commonplaces' before the interior poetic light was turned upon it, it was a mere object for the mind. But the soul comes and inaugurates the form, dwells in it, takes pleasure in it...
From The Poetics of Space
If you want to impress someone with an idea (and deflect any difficult questions) there is no better idea than to agglutinate and make up a word. Exhibit A: the Dialectogram!
Glasgow Dialectograms explore the use of illustration as record, but also the belief that we all have an 'interior poetic light', a capacity we all have to create poetic images from the world around us - to infuse an object with meaning, importance and significance. Superficially a pastiche of scientific, anthropological and architectural illustrations, Glasgow Dialectograms depict the public, private, personal and unexpected parts of the city by creating an extremely detailed schematic style drawings. These include both subjective and objective information into a single piece. They show facts, thoughts and feelings. They use a deliberately loose and organic ‘anti-architectural’ drawing style to describe not just what it is there, but who uses it, what a particular space means to someone, and how relationships between people shape their environment. The term ‘Psycho-Geography’ applies, but put simply, they are made by talking to people, sharing ideas and processing them into visual forms – a diagram, a dialogue, a dialectic, but also a dialect of technical drawing – hence, Dialectogram...
Enh - It's probably best if I just show you and quit with all the theorising. This is a preliminary drawing for a dialectogram of an office in the Red Road Flats in Glasgow that should give a feel of what I'm trying to do.
Over the next few weeks and months I will be documenting the progress of the project as I attempt to draw three 'damned' urban spaces in Glasgow:
Glasgow’s Showland: My home turf. This will pick up where my first drawing (featured in How'S the Ghost? at Market Gallery and in An Tobar in March 2010) left off. Check the thumbnail out to take a look -
There are around 54 such places in the Dalmarnock, Bridgeton, Carntyne and Shettleston areas of the city. I will draw another two yards and redraw Backcauseway to depict changes over periods of time (as caravans move on and off, according to the needs of work, or changing family relationships) and use the medium to shed light on a hidden, and at times much misunderstood community. As I belong to it, this will also be the aspect of the project where I am most subjective, and will struggle to ‘universalise’ certain experiences and feelings about these places.
Red Road: I have already been invited by the Red Road project (subject to securing appropriate funding) to visit the scheme and meet with its workers and tenants. They would like me to produce 4 drawings of individual flats, floors and offices in the block using the basic technique piloted before. As this deals with a municipal space, one bounded by much more rigid architecture, this will require an adaptation of the basic approach first used in drawing the yards.
The Barras: I have long been a fan of the legendary market and would like to produce 4 drawings showing floor plans of the markets and highly detailed compositions of individual stalls, with the full cooperation of the market traders.
I have a wordpress blog but will keep posting to Central Station, for those who might be interested!
- Blog post
- 3 days ago
- Views: 27
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New Goods New Goods
- From: SuchandSuch
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Description:
After a lovely and fun packed month our opening exhibition is now at and end (shed a few tears) but do not fear as from Friday 10th until Sunday 28th September we will be showing New Goods, an exhibtion of small drawings and paintings by Alex Gibbs, Callum Monteith, Catherine Johnston and Mathew Swan.
Check out the Such and Such blog www.suchandsuchstudio.blogspot.com for details and to find out more about the artists.
- Blog post
- 3 days ago
- Views: 12
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Euro - Vision? Euro - Vision?
- From: AmyLB
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Description:
It's hard enough to concentrate; to make the work, find a venue and rally a crowd, right? It's tricky enough to haul your peers away from their beers and into a gallery, theatre, cinema or co-op, right? Let alone engage with a European audience..
But what about the artistic scenes simmering simultaneously across Europe? When we look further afield we see a plethora of parallels to our own close-knit creative community. Besides the whole 'single land mass' thing Mainland Europe's got going on they've sure got sure got a knack for drawing in the crowds.
Now, thanks to the internet's international scope and budget air travel (cue enraged eco warriors) Glaswegians enetertain our continental cousins more and more regularly. Hailed for their hospitality Glaswegians thrive on the social aspects newcomers present. Never let it be said that the Glasgow's creative undercurrent is insular. Reciprocal projects are perpetually underway between, say, a Glaswegian film-maker and a Dutch writer, a French performance artist and a Glaswegian musician.
Taken to its logical conclusion then, this Euro-wide mentality requires a base, a focus, an international profile and a programme of events to get people together. Potential collaborators can catch up, converse about key social and political issues and cook up ideas for future creative endeavours.
Pooling practitioners from various countries, backgrounds, disciplines and philosophies the IETM Autumn Plenary taking place across Glasgow 4-7 November presents opportunities to forge ties, view high calibre contemporary performance art in a ream of citywide venues, listen to live music and drink whiskey into the early hours. Make sure your voice is heard in amongst the crowd.
IETM Glasgow is a city-wide international performance arts convention and artistic showcase and is one of the most strategically significant cultural events in Scotland's 2010 calendar. It will be an excellent forum for networking, education and exchange, with up to 600 performance arts practitioners from 45 countries attending. In addition, the IETM Glasgow artistic programme is open to the public and will feature over 70 performances by many of Scotland's top performance companies and directors in a range of venues across Glasgow.
The theme for IETM Glasgow is 'Voices' and the programme will address topical issues - strategic, political and operational - that impact on the day-to-day work of arts practitioners all over Europe.
IETM is Europe's largest network of its type (see www.ietm.org) and its plenaries are attended by contemporary arts practitioners (performers, directors, administrative staff) working across a range of genres (theatre, dance, music-theatre, installation, film and video and new writing), as well as representatives of venues, funding bodies, policy makers and institutions. The talks programme will be delivered by leading industry experts, practitioners and academics and social events planned include the welcome reception, late night meeting point, final night party and final day brunch. The Scottish public are invited to join visiting international delegates for the 4 day artistic showcase.
IETM Glasgow is sponsored by anCnoc Highland Single Malt - www.ancnoc.com. - Blog post
- 3 days ago
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Agents of Change : Ghost Villa Agents of Change : Ghost Village Project screening at EdinDocs
- From: :Derm:
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Description:
The Ghost Village Project will have its first Scottish screening in the Friday Docs session at the EdinDocs film festival.
Please come along and see it as part of an exciting mix of short documentaries.17 September · 18:30 - 22:00
Edindocs at Church Hill Theatre
Edinburgh
EH10 4DRThe Ghostvillage Project was created over 3 days on the west coast of Scotland. 6 artists - Timid, Remi/Rough, System, Stormie Mills, Juice 126 and Derm - were given free reign to paint in an abandoned 1970s village.
Working together on huge collaborative walls and individually in hidden nooks and crannies all over the site the artists realised long held dreams and were inspired by the bleakness and remoteness of the site.
Drawing on the history of the village the artists' stated intent on completion of the project was to populate the ghostvillage with the art and characters that it deserved. - Blog post
- 3 days ago
- Views: 16
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Photo blogging fun! Photo blogging fun!
- From: HollyRowanHesson
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Description:
Hello lovely CenSta peeps - I have a blog at www.hollyrowanhesson.co.uk/blog - why not swing by and say hi?!
- Blog post
- 3 days ago
- Views: 17
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A CenSta Top 5: Street Art A CenSta Top 5: Street Art
- From: CenSta
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Description:
This week's Top 5 is all about street art; colour, geometry and place all combine to great effect here. Did we miss something? Add it to the comments below.
2. Luring Law - Acrylic On Canvas by Conzo
4. Unamed. Lyken Love. 2010 by Lyken Love
5. blockhead by pussydomesticus
- Blog post
- 3 days ago
- Views: 330
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Boswell in Space: Interactive Boswell in Space: Interactive Documentary
- From: ejlenn
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Description:
The ancient philosopher certainly gave a wise counsel when he said, ‘Know thyself.’ For surely this Knowledge is of all the most important… A man cannot know himself better than by attending to the feelings of his heart and to his external actions, from which he may with tolerable certainty judge ‘what manner or person he is’. I have therefore determined to keep a daily journal of which I shall set down my various sentiments and my various conduct, which will be not only useful but very agreeable.
James Boswell,
15 November 1762
Such a busy time I'm having just now- and lots of interesting things still to come, but most of all I am looking forward to the rather charming and eccentric project Boswell in Space, for which work will begin at the end of September. I have a lot to live up to (see above quote) as I will be taking on the documentary stylings of a great writer/observer of human character, James Boswell. If you want to know the ins and outs of the project, read Mitch Miller's blog here. But for my part I am expecting to eke out the drama from this bizarre ride, bring the characters we encounter to life and find beauty in some odd corners of Britain. Not much to ask then! But I am looking forward to the challenge and to meeting some inspirational collaborators.
I am interested in the narrative aspect of the documentary, for while there will be plenty of facts and historical elements, there is also the story of the journey to tell. I recently wrote about American road movies for The Drouth magazine, where I explored the fascination between the motion picture camera and the rolling freeways of the US in the last century of American cinema. I find that celluloid is an aesthetically pleasing, modern medium for travel, and I wonder in the post modern days of high definition, if movement blur has lost something of its esoteric quality. Online documentary or what the industry is calling ‘interactive documentary’ has yet to find a familiar format. This makes it incredibly exciting for me to think of all the elements that can help construct the journey; animation, photography, film, sound and writing will all play their parts, but the task is a little daunting!
There have been a couple of interesting documentaries this year that have approached their subjects with multimedia methods. American: The Bill Hicks Story dispensed with talking head shots in favour of quirky animations which brought a young Bill Hicks back to his childhood years through animated photography. Amy Hardie’s Edge of Dreaming enters the filmmaker’s subconscious through beautiful animations and reveals some of her darkest thoughts. Online, I’ve looked at Maisie Crow’s multimedia project Hunger: Living with Prader-Willi Syndrome which is a simple but very effective use of photography, sound and moving image. These are all techniques I’ll be considering in the depiction of Boswell in Space, as we hope to create an interactive experience for the viewer, and make some room for online passengers on this picaresque adventure.
- Blog post
- 4 days ago
- Views: 34
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In Search of England In Search of England
- From: D.Agnew
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Description:
Despite having no real affinity for the South East, I have never been shy of visiting its historic market towns. In recent years I have travelled to Canterbury, Dover, Brighton, Eastbourne and more recently Cambridge. On arriving at the Cambridge train station and walking a mile and half towards the historic city centre, I realised I was deluded from the outset. Deluded by my own expectations, where I always hope to find an H.V. Morton version of England but leave disappointed every time. Almost immediately on arriving in Cambridge, I was reminded of a previous trip to Canterbury, where I went in search of Geoffrey Chaucer but found myself overwhelmed by the awesome triumph of American consumerism.
Canterbury Cathedral is curtained off by medieval walls but is surrounded by a pedestrianised shopping centre full of New Labour corporate chains. Such is the grim familarity of these stores, I often find myself dangerously nostalgic for a golden era I never knew, and regretting the triumph of motorways and supermarkets. Behind the sparkling windows of discount signs and fairy lights, is the banal realisation that almost every town centre in England looks exactly the same. When visiting the Roman cities of Bath and York, the corporate chains are still there, but you will find bourgeois gift shops, walking tours and posh delicatessens serving chocolate in sweet plastic bags.
Cambridge offers a similar gift shop experience and on exploring their beautiful university colleges, it is still possible to find a postcard moment from selective angles. While Cambridge has largely maintained its medieval architecture and religious landmarks. Most traditional local stores appear to have disappeared and replaced by the likes of Boots, Clinton Cards, Slug and Lettuce, H&M, Top Shop and Costa Coffee. These stores represent economic growth, jobs and progress. Everybody uses them. Its just a source of regret that you can now close your eyes in any English city and be virtually anywhere from Newcastle upon Tyne to Southend upon Sea.
- Blog post
- 4 days ago
- Views: 10
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