Gorillas invade Norwich!

My lovely little home city has been invaded by gorillas!  No, not the real flesh and blood ones, but fibreglass ones that stand about 4.5 foot tall, and are each painted with an individual design.  A few years ago we had elephants, now it is 53 gorillas.  The exhibition is called Go Go Gorillas and you can find more info here and follow them on twitter here.

I must admit that I prefer the shape of the elephants, but I am slowly falling in love with the gorillas.  So here are photos of what I think are the best of them.

This is Gordon. He has a bittern on his bum which is a very rare bird, but is found in Norfolk.

  

This is Lily Gorilly.  A beautiful name and a lovely scene:

Gareth. Styled in the Norwich colours, this is a more subtle way to reference the local football team, known as the Canaries:

Boris. Who doesn't want to see Stephen Fry's lovely smiling face:

Gladstone.  I think this is a football referee thing.  He's very sombre anyway:

 Chromilla, with one of the 60 odd (?) little gorillas also around the city:

 Guy. I love this one.  It's an English country garden design, it's beautiful!

 Apples on her bum!

 Chickens and pears, and a hedgehog!

Sunflowers!

But this is Ray.  And I think I love her more.  the design is flawless.  The sun, the fiels, the daffs, the clouds, the colours, it's flawless.

Yo'Man.  Who doesn't love a beefeater?  Unless it's the awful Beefeater from DC comics..

Optimus Primate!
!!!!

Ivan the Iconic Norwich Gorilla.

Juno, a tribute to the Juno beach landings in the Second World War:

Poppyland Hero :

Mack.  I cannot express how much I love this one.  The vibrancy of the oranges and yellows against the black are just amazing.

 Mack's eyes!

Simply gorgeous.

Jungle Jenny. This being an exhibition to raise awareness of the plight of gorillas, it is fitting that one is rainforest themed:

When I find more I'll take more pictures.  There are superhero themed ones too so I look forward to locating those.

They are around till 10th September  so if you can do come visit and see them in person. :)

Manics artwork

I'd like to share some images of artwork from 2 Manic Street Preachers albums.

From the new one, Journal for Plague Lovers:
Despite what some UK supermarkets think, the red on the child's face is a birthmark, not blood.

From The Holy Bible:

Both paintings are by Jenny Saville. I think her artwork is beautiful - there's a lot of tenderness in the images. So I googled her and found more paintings.




She's very good at capturing the intimacy of her subjects, I feel. I find everything about these paintings beautiful - the brushwork, the colours, the moods, the expressions. She is a truly talented painter. I hope to buy a book of her work, it fascinates me.

The people's heroes

The Guardian have a photo gallery up of reader's pictures on the theme of heroes. I would like to draw your attention to the following ones:

Spiderman advocates condoms:

Pretty in character when you think of the anti drug and child abuse comics Spidey has been involved in.

That's one freaky picture of Kurt Cobain:

For some reason the blurb next to the photo on the site focuses on lemmy, but to me, Kurt is the centerpiece of that picture.

(A) Superman:


Everything about that image works. Everything.

Lastly, the Angel of the North:



I would love to see that in real life, it's beautiful. The colours on this image are really striking and clear.

It's well worth viewing the whole gallery, about 10 pictures, and reading the blurbs.

Today's reccomendations

The problem with Playboy
It doesn't cover everything that's wrong with Playboy, but does bring up a lot of good points. I don't have a problem with Playboy as a soft porn magazine, I have a problem with the branding and mass marketing. I think it's wrong that girls, and I do mean girls, not women, proudly bear the logo. I do not think it's something to aspire to, I don't want to brand myself a s a Playboy bunny. I don't wish to be naked for other people to leer at, I don't wish to become a 2D fantasy.

At a hen party last year we all had to wear playboy ears and tails. And dress in pink. I was mortified. Couldn't say anything because otherwise I'd be spoiling things. I just raged inside.

At Christmas my secret Santa in my work place got me a playboy hot water bottle cover. In a feminist workplace. Not as a joke. I also got one other thing which was much much cooler, but I can't remember what it is.

Some words of wisdom from Naomi Woolf, worth cross posting here as it's short:
1. Redefine what being a woman means.
2. Break the taboo around being self-sufficient including in terms of asking for just compensation for your work. And then give money to women’s causes.
3. Never cook for or sleep with anyone who routinely puts you down.
4. Become a goddess of disobedience - don’t be afraid of confrontation, don’t back down in conflict because it’s “unfeminine”.

I'm gonna email this on to a couple of my friends who need to understand they have a right to exist.
We've got the woman's bill of rights somewhere at work. I must dig it out and post it.

Royal Mail to issue a set of 6 stamps commemorating women (From The F Word)
About bloody time. the women featured are as follows:
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson: both the first female doctor and the first female mayor in England
Millicent Garett Fawcett: President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and campaigner for the female vote
Claudia Jones: Campaigner for black rights and founder of the Notting Hill Carnival
Eleanor Rathbone: Campaigner for Family Allowances
Marie Stopes: Pioneer of birth control
Barbara Castle: Campaigner for the 1970 Equal Pay Act.

The links are to Wikipedia so bear in mind the entire articles might be full of shit. I am aware of controversy surrounding Marie Stopes and her views on eugenics, namely that she advocated it. I think I come down on the side of arguing for her to be included because the advent of birth control has been *so* important to women in providing us our freedom.

The first public statue of a black woman in England has been put up. I love it :)
(Does that sentence in the link make any sense?)

The Guardian does a Deaf issue
I recommend reading it if you're hearing and don't know a lot about deafness and Deaf culture.
The Capital D is relevant in this case as it denotes Deaf culture and community, usually applying to profoundly Deaf people. Deafness with a small d is used when describing those who are not part of the Deaf community, usually hard of hearing or deafened individuals.
Speaking of deafness, I joined a signing choir on Monday :) It was harder work than I expected and will replace my weekly lessons and keep me on the ball.

Graffitti and Elephants

The top elephant is called the ancient mariner and you can see the second one is a bee. I;'ve really enjoyed having these around town the last month and I'll eb sad when they're gone (this weekend). I still haven't caught all of them.

Also I was wandering back from work today I noticed some new graffitii sprung up.

Isn't that detailed?

I am so very impressed by this next one:

A bit confused about the 'oh aero' comment, but the art is amazing.