Out Shopping Today,

but before then,

 Diana was fascinated by the ice,

 and marvelled at what was normally water,

 that we pass almost everyday,

 we made our way past the church,

 the snowdrops putting on a good show,

 the hostas still covered with frost, 

 and this was where we were going, 

to Crystal Palace to call into Crystal Palace Antiques, we were looking for a drinks cabinet, alas no luck with that, but we did buy a art deco mirror and small cabinet, which will be delivered over the weekend,

 in the evening we were out, 

 walking past the church,

 which was nicely illuminated,

 we were on our way to Bromley to meetup with Mahendra and his wife Asmita for a meal, 

 at the Crown on Mason's Hill, Mahendra treated us to a wonderful meal, many thanks Mahendra,

 then a surprise, the owner Rin called by to say hello and treated us not only to a round of drinks, 

 but a round of Indian desserts, and delicious they were too,

and a surprise, you get to keep the bowls and lids they come in! after the meal Mahendra dropped us off home, on the way Indian music was playing in his car and I mention that literally this morning I was listening to,

 Eena Meena Deeka as I was writing the blog, Mahendra knew both the male and female artists that performed the song, arriving home and after thanking him and saying out farewells, we had a few from Poirot and then for us we were of to bed.

Japanese Manhole Covers,

we have mentioned them,

 once or twice before, and here they are again, this time being celebrated by not one but two festivals,

 the extravaganza's will include everything from actual manhole covers and manhole cover goods (like doormats, miniatures, collector cards) to manhole cover cookies and snacks, 

 Japanese manhole covers are packed with history, culture and design, which makes them the perfect subject to celebrate,

so if you are lucky enough to be visiting Japan or live there, headout to the Japanese Manhole Cover Festival happening in Tokyo,

 above manhole cover macaroons, actual manhole covers from all around Japan, as well as collector’s items, will descend on Tokyo this coming weekend, the festivities are taking place on the ground floor of Shinjuku Takashimaya department store from February 1 – February 3, 2019,

and here are some manhole cover biscuits, the second the second exhibition is going on right next door at Tokyu Hands Shinjuku, on the 7th floor, you will find a section dedicated manhole cover goods and collectables, which will be open through February 24, 2019, as I am typing this two thoughts occurred to me, firstly how long would these covers be in place in the UK before somebody nicked them? and secondly in these PC times can I still say manhole or should it be peoplehole?

I Love Looking At Neon Signs,

like the one below,

a photograph I took in Walking Street, Pattaya, over the years I have seen moving neon signs, but never a sculpture, where the neon moves,

 until now,

it is a work by the New York City-based artist Tavares Strachan,

 titled 'What Will Be Remembered in the Face of All That is Forgotten', 

  the circulatory system is a glowing reminder of English scientist Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to the field of science, mainly the discovery of DNA’s molecular structures,

but here is the thing, in Strachan's sculpture the neon flows mimicking the flow of blood, the work was originally included in the solo exhibition Seeing is Forgetting the Thing that You Saw at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco, which examined individuals whose names have been omitted from common accounts of history despite their great accomplishments, Strachan, in partnership with LACMA Art + Technology Lab and SpaceX, also recently launched a sculpture honoring Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first African-American to train as an astronaut with NASA. Although Lawrence never made it into space, a 24-karat gold urn with his bust titled “Enoch” will orbit the Earth for seven years in a sun-synchronous orbit, You can see more of Strachan’s sculptural work, and keep up-to-date on the location of Enoch, on Instagram, what an amazing sculpture it really is.

What To Do With An Old Piano,

that did not work?

 was the question Ukrainian band Brunettes Shoot Blondes asked themselves after they bought it,

 and the answer was simple, recycle it,

 the group secured twenty instruments to the inside of the piano and its sides so they could effectively play each as they pressed certain keys,

so rather than having a backing group,

they just have to hit the correct keys for their performance, what a neat idea, but did it work? judge for yourself from the video above of their latest, Houston, You can view more of the band’s performances on Instagram and Youtube.

Many Years Ago,

I enjoyed watching American football,

in fact along with Chris from Brighton we travelled in 1986 to the first ever official NFL game at Wembley between the Chicago Bears and the Dallas Cowboys, back to watching the sport, the American commentators were a huge part of the game itself, listening to many games Nick Murray Willis took some of the things said in NFL games completely out of context and illustrated them with scenes of everyday life, great fun.

I Started The Day,

with a walk to the shop,

 a blu-ray disc had arrived for us, plus there were a few other things that were there we wanted to pick up,

 like this Worldwide version of Trivial Pursuits,

which I won, also I managed to beat Diana in our best of three cribbage we play, after our evening meal it was feet up for a few game shows, followed by the film, The House With A Clock In It's Wall, which enjoyable, but it seemed to lack that certain something that would have put it in the same league as say Hugo, a real favorite of ours, a couple from Poirot and we were as it neared the midnight hour we were off to bed.

Whatever Our Written Language Is,

we all tend to take it for granted,

so how did our written language come about? some letters have appeared relatively the same for millennia, while others, like U, V, and W, developed much closer to our own time period from a single character, enter Matt Baker of Useful Charts who creates helpful visual guides that condense hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of years of history into streamlined flowcharts, His poster Evolution of the Alphabet looks at nearly 3,800 years of the alphabet’s evolution, tracing it from Egyptian hieroglyphs (c. 1750 BCE) through Phoenician, early Greek and Latin, and finally to the present forms we use today,

He explains in great detail these systems, and their evolution in greater detail in his video above “History of the Alphabet” you can view more timelines of historical developments on his website, Youtube, and Instagram, the design was created in association with his Writing Systems of the World chart which takes a look at 51 different writing systems from around the world, Baker has each of these prints for sale on his website and Etsy, it seems strange that just 500 hundred or so years ago we would have difficulty in understanding people from our our town or village.

I Thought With Spring Nearly Here,

we would look at the world of fashion for this year,

 Dutch fashion designer Iris Van Herpen most recent collection, Shift Souls, was showcased at Paris Fashion Week,

 in a statement on the brand’s website about the collection, Van Herpen explains that she was inspired by the fluidity of identity change in myths, particularly from Japan,  

 the stories “gave me the inspiration to explore the deeper meaning of identity and how immaterial and mutable it can become within the current coalescence of our digital bodies.”

 Van Herpen also collaborated with artist Kim Keever to design fabric patterns based on his liquid color cloud photographs,

 many of the pieces in Shift Souls were created using laser cut fabric pieces to form abstracted birds and human faces, emphasizing the designer’s interest in the mutability of the human figure,

 You can see more of the designer’s collections on Instagram, 

 well I have to say some of these look really nice, 

and not as way out as some of the fashions we have featured before,

above is the video of Shift Souls on the runway, photography by Filippo Fior.

You May Have Heard Of The Shibuya Crossing,

for no other reason, 

than it is the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, this is it above in action, and what reminded me of it was this, a GIF made by graduating art student Shun Onozawa as part of his graduation thesis project, titled “Movement Act,” a total of 16 balls are loaded onto a star-shaped platform that continuously “juggles” the balls from side-to-side. The 16 balls move back and forth from 8 different directions, all passing through the middle, yet never colliding, 

after building out the hardware, Onozawa spent 4 months testing his contraption and making slight adjustments until he finally arrived at the golden formula that would allow all 16 balls to continuously move through his device without ever colliding, Onozawa happens to also be a juggler so he was able to combine his hobby with his art studies in creating his graduation thesis project, Onozawa is a graduating senior at Tokyo University of the Arts, which is currently hosting an exhibition of senior thesis projects at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, the exhibition is open to the public through February 3, 2019, what a neat GIF, I keep looking as I am sure one will collide, but they never do!

It Must Be An Age Thing,

I often remember times of my youth,

things I have not thought about for 40 or even 50 years ago, and this is one of them, Car 54 Where Are You? it played for a couple of years from when I was 11 years old, from the IMDb site it comments,

'Car 54 Where are You? is one of the funniest TV series to ever appear on television. The chemistry between the dim-witted but affable Gunther Toody (played by Borscht-belt stand-up comic Joe E. Ross) and his cultured but painfully shy bachelor partner Francis Muldoon (played by the pre-Munsters Fred Gwynne) rings true in every episode. You definitely get the feeling watching this comedy that these two cops are closer than brothers. What really makes this series outstanding though is the superior writing and the supporting actors. Al Lewis (Grandpa on The Munsters), Wally Cox, Nipsey Russell, Godfrey Cambridge, Charlotte Rae, Ossie Davis, Jake LaMotta (the subject of Scorcese's 'Raging Bull'), Rocky Graziano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jack Gilford..these are just some of the well-known actors and personalities you'll see when watching this series',

although the series only aired for 2 seasons YouTube seems to list all episodes,

these three I have posted here,

at random, but if you like them as much as I did then you will be in for a treat, memories, I must be getting old!

Great News,

this morning,

 to add Diana to my bank account and register her with a doctor, we have to prove that she is here and living with me, her name has to appear on a utilities bill, which has been more than a little difficult to do, but this morning a letter from Bromley council regarding our council tax appeared, so off to the bank,

 which is opposite the war memorial and Beckenham's art deco designed and built cinema, all went well, at first, after a 20 or 25 minuet question and answer session, plus lots of typing it happened, many regular readers will know I have a dreadful time with anything electrical, and being in the bank was no exception, the assistant with a look of exasperation look up and said the fateful words, 'the computer has crashed, I am sorry we are going to have to do it all over again!', me and electrics, we left just after the hour passed that we had arrived, I pitted the people in the now large queue that had built waiting to see an adviser!

 off to the doctors surgery next, by now it was getting late and the sun was going down, casting long shadows, but these flowers  looked so nice in the sun Diana took a photograph of them,

 and nice they were, happily all went well in the doctors, everything is still hand written there, so no electrics to contend with, well I suppose we might have had a power cut, but thankfully did not,

past the church, so a spot of shopping in Marks and Spencer's, then home for our evening meal, a few quiz shows, a couple from the Poirot box and we were off to bed.