Ai Weiwei Never Sorry is an inspiring documentary film about the Chinese dissident artist and activist Ai Weiwei. It follows the artist through several of his projects, including a memorial to victims of a major earthquake, his almost obsessive photographic recording of his life and his extensive activism on Twitter. For many years he seemed to escape the censorship and harassment that many of his contemporaries in China faced, but after being imprisoned last year he is currently unable to leave the country.
Ai Weiwei comes across as incredibly driven in his work, but with a great sense of humour. His studio is over-run with cats (the opening scene of the film shows Ai making a sculpture while a cat sprawls across it.)
This film is inspiring, showing how we can use art in well thought out activism to try and change the world, or to at least raise people's awareness.
Ai Weiwei, Never Sorry will be on at the Cameo cinema, Edinburgh next Tuesday 4 September.
As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.
Friday, 31 August 2012
Thursday, 30 August 2012
Book Spine Poetry
Thanks Marianne for inspiring me to do this!
You can see more of my attempts on Over Forty Shades here. And if you're inspired to try some yourself, Edinburgh Central Library would like to see them!
For a particularly impressive and inspiring example, see the poem JoAnne put together over on Titus the Dog.
Advance notice of some readings
I'm reading at the launch of Anti-Zine, the magazine of the Antisocial Writers Club, 7pm, Thursday 20 September at 3rd Door, 45-47 Lothian Street, Edinburgh.
I'm reading 10 minutes of poetry at 10 Red, 7.30pm, Wednesday 3 October at the Persevere, Easter Road, Edinburgh.
Out of Eden, the Wild Places Collapse.
You can see more of my attempts on Over Forty Shades here. And if you're inspired to try some yourself, Edinburgh Central Library would like to see them!
For a particularly impressive and inspiring example, see the poem JoAnne put together over on Titus the Dog.
Advance notice of some readings
I'm reading at the launch of Anti-Zine, the magazine of the Antisocial Writers Club, 7pm, Thursday 20 September at 3rd Door, 45-47 Lothian Street, Edinburgh.
I'm reading 10 minutes of poetry at 10 Red, 7.30pm, Wednesday 3 October at the Persevere, Easter Road, Edinburgh.
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Lovely weather for ducks
I went to Musselburgh this morning. It was raining but as is often the way, the birds didn't seem to mind. I was surprised to see a few swifts still around, flying with the house martins (Our swifts have long gone, but we have no house martins, I wonder if in fact swifts generally stay longer where there are martins and swallows for them to hang out with?). Out on the water there were loads of eider ducks, some of the males still in their eclipse plumage, some back in their normal eider uniform. Further out there were two busy groups of gulls and gannets, fussing around as though they'd found a good patch of fish. There were also a few great crested grebes and a couple of guillemots on the water and a few common or arctic terns diving for fish.
Still lots of lapwings on the Lagoons, which were busier than they've been for a while, with dunlin, bar tailed godwits and ringed plovers joining the lapwings. Not for the first time I wished the Lagoons' bird hides had roofs, it was too wet in there to sit down!
You may be interested to read my article Seasons Turning in Musselburgh on the Lothian Life website.
This afternoon, there was torrential rain here, with thunder and lightning!
As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.
Still lots of lapwings on the Lagoons, which were busier than they've been for a while, with dunlin, bar tailed godwits and ringed plovers joining the lapwings. Not for the first time I wished the Lagoons' bird hides had roofs, it was too wet in there to sit down!
You may be interested to read my article Seasons Turning in Musselburgh on the Lothian Life website.
This afternoon, there was torrential rain here, with thunder and lightning!
As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Salad from the Windowsill
I recently harvested the first batch of salad leaves from our windowsill garden. They were delicious alongside hummus. I think the harvests will be small but frequent!We've got more seeds too, from packets I was sent as gifts.
Monday, 27 August 2012
really my Last review from Edinburgh International Book festival 2012
On Thursday, I prematurely claimed to write my last review from this year's Edinburgh International Book Review. I was wrong, though I didn't know it at the time.
I then won a Twitter competition for tickets to the Book festival event with Susannah Clapp talking about the life and works of Angela Carter. It was a fascinating event, Clapp is Carter's literary executor and spoke insightfully about Carter's work and her own book, A Card from Angela Carter an illustrated memoir about the writer. But that event, excellent as it was isn't what I'm going to review here.
After that event I managed to get a last minute press ticket for Robert MacFarlane talking about The Old Ways his book about walking. He was in conversation with Stuart Kelly and they covered a lot of ground in their discussion as well as MacFarlane reading several passages from the book. They talked about paths and journeys really having no beginning or end and the parallels between land art and path-making.
MacFarlane had put together a slide show, which included some haunting black and white photos of the coastal causeway at the Broomway in Essex. There were also photos from his visit to the Shiants (which some of you may remember from my review of Sea Room, Adam Nicholson's book about those islands). This lead to discussion of sea ways, the hidden paths across the water that in many cases have been used for generations. Going even further back, MacFarlane talked about finding the prehistoric footprints at Formby that Jean Sprackland had also mentioned in passing earlier in the festival. When the talk moved to the politics of walking in Palestine, MacFarlane said that some of his friends there felt that the connection they felt with deep time as they walked through the ancient landscape of the area, helped them to see political unrest in a different perspective.
This was the only event I went to at this year's Book Festival that had a sign language interpreter, Rachel. She was brilliant, even giving a very fluent interpretation of what seemed like a challenging passage from Old Ways that she hadn't been shown before (MacFarlane at the last minute, changing his mind about what to read!). I don't understand much sign language, but it is always so beautiful to watch.
Thanks again to Edinburgh International Book Festival for another excellent event and to Clicket for arranging the press pass and tickets!
As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other pages, where you can find out more.
I then won a Twitter competition for tickets to the Book festival event with Susannah Clapp talking about the life and works of Angela Carter. It was a fascinating event, Clapp is Carter's literary executor and spoke insightfully about Carter's work and her own book, A Card from Angela Carter an illustrated memoir about the writer. But that event, excellent as it was isn't what I'm going to review here.
After that event I managed to get a last minute press ticket for Robert MacFarlane talking about The Old Ways his book about walking. He was in conversation with Stuart Kelly and they covered a lot of ground in their discussion as well as MacFarlane reading several passages from the book. They talked about paths and journeys really having no beginning or end and the parallels between land art and path-making.
MacFarlane had put together a slide show, which included some haunting black and white photos of the coastal causeway at the Broomway in Essex. There were also photos from his visit to the Shiants (which some of you may remember from my review of Sea Room, Adam Nicholson's book about those islands). This lead to discussion of sea ways, the hidden paths across the water that in many cases have been used for generations. Going even further back, MacFarlane talked about finding the prehistoric footprints at Formby that Jean Sprackland had also mentioned in passing earlier in the festival. When the talk moved to the politics of walking in Palestine, MacFarlane said that some of his friends there felt that the connection they felt with deep time as they walked through the ancient landscape of the area, helped them to see political unrest in a different perspective.
This was the only event I went to at this year's Book Festival that had a sign language interpreter, Rachel. She was brilliant, even giving a very fluent interpretation of what seemed like a challenging passage from Old Ways that she hadn't been shown before (MacFarlane at the last minute, changing his mind about what to read!). I don't understand much sign language, but it is always so beautiful to watch.
Thanks again to Edinburgh International Book Festival for another excellent event and to Clicket for arranging the press pass and tickets!
As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other pages, where you can find out more.
Saturday, 25 August 2012
Discover Organic
I seem to be having a lot of luck in winning things at the moment! I was delighted to win this cookery book from a Twitter competition run by Dads Cooking Tonight.
The book is beautifully designed with a nice hard cover, lots of photos and nicely laid out recipes. It also has lots of extras, in addition to the recipes. These include a potted history of organic food, quotes from well known people as to why they love organic and brief articles from the celebrities who have shared their recipes in these pages.
I have to say my first impression of the recipes was, oh my goodness, that's a lot of meat! I knew the book wasn't vegetarian and in fact had entered hoping to win it as a gift for someone else (who isn't vegetarian!). Plus of course, some recipes can be adapted - I'm sure you could substitute mushrooms for the prawns in the Spicy Prawns with Apple and Mint Yoghurt Chutney or even for the beef in the Asian Beef Salad and end up with something equally palatable (I'm certainly willing to try). But Braised Lamb Steak and Roast Chicken are shockingly meaty dishes for this veggie (which isn't a criticism of the book, it's much more about my dietary preferences and what I'm used to seeing in the pages of veggie cookbooks.) More seriously, I have a feeling that reducing the carbon footprint and environmental impact of one's food by going organic naturally fits with going veggie too so I expected an organic cookbook to be a little more veggie friendly.
Having said that there are some excellent veggie recipes in here - the Roast Tomato and Basil Pesto Pasta looks amazing, as does the Tofu and Shiitake Stir Fry. There's a whole array of delicious deserts - including Plum and Cardamon Brulee and Chocolate and Amaretto Panna Cotta. A couple of the recipes include elderflowers, which can be gathered from your local elder bush, bringing in foraging, which I recently talked about here and here. You can't help too but love a cookbook that includes a Treasure Hunt Salad and an ultra simple recipe for Tomatoes on Toast.
So, if you're not a vegetarian and you're wanting to learn more about organic food, this is a highly recommended book. If you are vegetarian though, you will probably want to search out a specifically vegetarian recipe book.
Discover Organic is published by Organic Food UK.
The book is beautifully designed with a nice hard cover, lots of photos and nicely laid out recipes. It also has lots of extras, in addition to the recipes. These include a potted history of organic food, quotes from well known people as to why they love organic and brief articles from the celebrities who have shared their recipes in these pages.
I have to say my first impression of the recipes was, oh my goodness, that's a lot of meat! I knew the book wasn't vegetarian and in fact had entered hoping to win it as a gift for someone else (who isn't vegetarian!). Plus of course, some recipes can be adapted - I'm sure you could substitute mushrooms for the prawns in the Spicy Prawns with Apple and Mint Yoghurt Chutney or even for the beef in the Asian Beef Salad and end up with something equally palatable (I'm certainly willing to try). But Braised Lamb Steak and Roast Chicken are shockingly meaty dishes for this veggie (which isn't a criticism of the book, it's much more about my dietary preferences and what I'm used to seeing in the pages of veggie cookbooks.) More seriously, I have a feeling that reducing the carbon footprint and environmental impact of one's food by going organic naturally fits with going veggie too so I expected an organic cookbook to be a little more veggie friendly.
Having said that there are some excellent veggie recipes in here - the Roast Tomato and Basil Pesto Pasta looks amazing, as does the Tofu and Shiitake Stir Fry. There's a whole array of delicious deserts - including Plum and Cardamon Brulee and Chocolate and Amaretto Panna Cotta. A couple of the recipes include elderflowers, which can be gathered from your local elder bush, bringing in foraging, which I recently talked about here and here. You can't help too but love a cookbook that includes a Treasure Hunt Salad and an ultra simple recipe for Tomatoes on Toast.
So, if you're not a vegetarian and you're wanting to learn more about organic food, this is a highly recommended book. If you are vegetarian though, you will probably want to search out a specifically vegetarian recipe book.
Discover Organic is published by Organic Food UK.
Friday, 24 August 2012
A Beautiful Etegami
I was delighted recently when DosankoDebbie created this beautiful etegami artwork in response to one of my haiku. I was even more delighted a couple of days ago to receive the original artwork itself in the post! All nicely laminated to prevent postal related damage. Thank you Debbie, what a lovely thought and what a beautiful piece of art!
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