Peter

Feb 182013
 

It was well worth braving the half-term hordes at the Hayward Gallery for this.  Standouts were Carlos Cruz Diez’s Chromosaturation (a blue room, a red room, and a green room, sort of), Olafur Eliasson’s Timeless Garden (fountains frozen by strobe light in stop-time animation), and James Turrell’s Wedgework (a Rothko built from light).

I was strangely soothed…

A Turrell Wedgework

A Turrell Wedgework

 Posted by at 7:25 pm
Jan 212013
 

With London-Edinburgh-London coming up in July, I thought I’d repost my long account of the 1997 LEL.  This year’s route will be somewhat different—a bit less flat—and the event will be on a much larger scale, but I think this account still gives you a sense of what you can expect.  I rode a recumbent trike on this LEL, although nowadays I usually ride a conventional bike on events.

Dave Lewis, an AUK legend who died last week, features in the story, dispensing bonhomie and encouragement, as always.  Here he is sampling my trike:

Dave tries my trike

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 5:52 pm
Apr 172012
 

…and keep your eye to the skyline.

Lycanthrope's Pig (Don Van Vliet, 1984)

The mighty Barfko-Swill corporation, which mostly releases old Zappa stuff, has just released the original version of Captain Beefheart’s Bat Chain Puller, long resident in Litigation Hell.  Most music that I buy these days is in digital form—and mostly contemporary—but I’m glad I made an exception for this.  Sleevenotes by John French and Denny Walley, both scarred veterans of this incarnation of the Magic Band, are funny-sad and shed semi-affectionate light on the old monster.  And genius, inconveniently enough.

 Posted by at 10:08 pm
Apr 062012
 

This article is about my first-ever 600km event, in 1995.  The Brimstone, allegedly, was named after a butterfly.  Here it is:

Brimstone

This may be one of Shawn the organiser’s little jokes.  The permanent version of the Brimstone is called the Hellfire.  There is no butterfly called the Hellfire.  Now read on… Continue reading »