HEADS BELOW!

One of the weirdest piecs of public sculpture currently on display in the metropolis is this falling cascade of masonry frozen in time.

Created in 2009 by Richard Wilson, RA and entitled 'Square the Block', it adorns a corner of the London School of Economics.

Personally, I wouldn't walk underneath. Just in case...

Images: Brian Sibley © 2010, uploaded with my flickr Photostream

FOOTBALL CRAZY

There's no escaping it: the 2010 FIFA World Cup starts today and whilst I realise that, for millions, this is going to be a month-long ecstatic orgy of footie, I'd ask the media to spare a thought for those benighted souls such as myself who simply cannot - however hard we try - identify with Bill Shankly's famous quote: "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you it's much more serious than that!"

Certainly that seems to be the case with those global sponsors for whom, for the next few weeks, football represents a serious commercial investment...

And since Signor Ronaldo also has a sponsorship deal with Armani...

...we oughtn't to be surprised if manufacturers of intimate bodywear weren't also providing us with a sporting excuse for keeping an eye on the ball...

POLITELY COUCHED

As part of the Barbican Art Gallery's The Surreal House exhibition, running from today until 12 September, I will be taking part in this evening's Fairytales events and, from 18:30-19:10, will be 'On the Couch' (the actual one belonging to Sigmund Freud, no less!) in conversation with Bryan Talbot, award-winning graphic book author and artist whose works include Alice in Sunderland, talking about about Lewis Carroll and his surreally nonsense realms of Wonderland and Looking-glass World.

DOOR-STOPPED

What part of...

DO NOT OBSTRUCT THESE DOORS

...did the bricklayer not understand?

Photos of permanently obstructed doors in St Thomas' Hospital complex, Westminster, London © Brian Sibley, uploaded via my flickr Photostream.

BUST STOP

Last call for the current
CAPTION COMPETITION

Tell me Who said What to Whom...

FISHY CATALOGUE

In my recent posts about Ronald Searle, I didn't mention his wonderful cats.

I am not really a 'cat-person' (with the exception of Zebedee and Dylan to whom - most of the time - I don't have an allergic reaction) but I love Searle's felines: knowing, devious, lazy, lustful: basically human-types in cat-suits!

Another devoted admirer of Searle's moggies (and the rest of the cartoonist's human and animal zoo) is my long-time friend, artist, animator and mosaic-maker Martin Cheek who recently produced a witty series of Catfish portraits: decidedly fishy felines that captures the eternal bond between the cat and its favourite food.

Even though it's not a Friday, I'm serving them up for your enjoyment...

And this Fish-face is made up of five fish - can you find them all?

DOCTOR IN TROUBLE

Anyone see last night's episode of Doctor Who?

Written by no less a luminary than Richard Curtis, it had the Doctor and Amy helping Vincent Van Gogh destroy a mostly invisible alien chicken-monster that was rampaging through the cornfields disturbing the crows, peeping out of the windows of the church in Auvers and generally giving the ear-slashing, suicidal painter a bad case of manic depression?


At the end of the programme, a sensitive, caring BBC Voice offered a telephone number for any viewers who felt in need of help or for whom the programme had raised issues or concerns that they would like - in confidence - to discuss.

Well, frankly, yes I did! I wanted to know how anyone had allowed this dull, boring, misbegotten, self-indulgent, pile of Gallifreyan garbage to ever get on air!

Depressing? I'll say!

RE: SPEKTOR

With every day I live, I become increasingly aware of just how little I know. This could easily be a depressingly negative realisation, but I prefer to look upon it as a constantly renewable potential for discovery. The discoveries tend not to be momentous but small and rather particular and I savour (rather than regretting) finding out things that I never learned or, because of the constant rat-raciness of life, simply missed...

For example, we were having dinner in our local pub the other evening when my ears tuned into the background musak, drawn to a curiously haunting voice that sounded as though it ought to be familiar, but which wasn't.

Enquiries revealed that it was Russian-born composer, musician and singer Regina Spektor, who - I now know - has been making music that has caught people's imagination for the past nine years but of whom I was unaware.

Never mind, better late than never (as we should all keep telling ourselves till we let go of that the last-ever breath) and I'm now a confirmed Spektor fan. You probably already know her songs by heart, but if it just so happens that don't, then let me introduce you...

This is Regina Spektor and Samson...

A BEAR-FACED IMPERSONATION

Writing of Paddington the last month sent my mind back thirty years - heaven help me! - to watching Paddington Goes to the Movies, a delightful featurette-length episode of Film Fare's animated TV series based on Michael Bond's lovable (but trouble-prone) bear....

Like the rest of the stop-motion animated series, the film featured a three-dimensional Paddington puppet alongside a cast of drawn-and-cut-out humans with narrative and voices provided by one of the great storytellers of his age (and a not inconsiderable classic actor to boot) Sir Michael Hordern.

The 'special' tells how Paddington, caught in a rainstorm while shopping, tries to take shelter in the local Podium cinema where the 1952 musical, Singin' in the Rain is being screened...


Refused admission (not because he's a bear but on the grounds of age!), the impressionable bear takes a peep through an emergency exit, sees Gene Kelly's celebrated "singin' and dancin' in the rain" number...


...and immediately goes into his own homage homage performance of what is one of the best-loved and most recognisable sequences in cinema history...


For copyright reasons, I'm unable to show you the film on this blog, but - if you've never seen this delicious little gem - then follow the links below to watch it on YouTube...

Paddington Goes to the Movies - Part 1

Paddington Goes to the Movies - Part 2

And, on the subject of Singin' in the Rain pastiches, I just have to add the classic sketch by the great British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise who presented a 'rainless' version of the film's titular song-and-dance routine which featuring a loving recreation of the original set and (by Ernie) Kelly's choreography, but with only the Policeman (the hapless Eric, of course) getting wet...

Hope you have a fine - and rain-free - day, today!

BUSTED!

Look! Just what you've been waiting for! Another chance to sharpen your wits and contribute to that much-loved Sibley-blog feature, the----

CAPTION COMPETITION!

I snapped these three Ancients in mid-conversation on one of the walls of Chiswick House, London, but I couldn't quite catch what was being said...

Please let me know what you think the topic of conversation was about and Who was saying What to Whom...

Answers via the Thoughts facility below this post.

Closing date: Tuesday 8th June.