Wednesday 31 July 2013

Team GREAT Britain



I have no idea how they got this 70-foot ocean racing yacht into Trafalgar Square but it certainly looks impressive. 



Team GREAT Britain (no idea why the ‘great’ is not in lower case) will be taking part in a 40,000 mile circumnavigation of the globe. 17 races altogether across the world’s oceans. The race starts from St Katherine’s Dock on 1st September.


I’m sure Nelson would be impressed.


Saturday 27 July 2013

Katharina Fritsch sculpture on fourth plinth




The latest piece of public art for Trafalgar Squares fourth plinth is a large blue cockerel by German artist Katharina Fritsch. It is ultramarine blue, made from glass fibre reinforced polyester resin and stands 4.72 meters high.

The merits of the piece never seem to be the point so long as a huge amount of interest is generated and there were certainly a lot of people taking snaps while I was there. Not sure they actually looked at the sculpture, other than through an i-phone lens, but I guess that’s no more than it deserves.




The PR nonsense surrounding the sculpture is about ‘challenges to masculinity’ and some tenuous French revenge theory over the battle of Trafalgar. Perhaps if they used the fourth plinth for some worthwhile art they would not have to result to cheap publicity. The newspapers seem to have used more double entendre than a Carry On film to report on the ‘Hahn / Cock, 2013’ sculpture.   




Boris, never one to miss a publicity opportunity or steal the limelight, unveiled the work, slipping into Carry On territory with his usual stand-up routine.