Michael Owen - Absolutely the Hottest Football Player on the Planet

So, something on football - why not!

Michael Owen is without question the most handsome and sexiest football player alive, maybe even including dead players! Well, maybe dead is debatable, given the state of corpses. If you disagree, it's probably cos you had a big bowl of crazy for breakfast.


Michael was born 14th December 1979, in Chester, Cheshire England. And at present, he is a striker with Newcastle United.



Over his career, he has scored 40 goals in 85 games with various teams, and as such he is the fourth highest scorer of all time. For me he is the very highest scorer of any time. Tho perhaps I'm referring to something else.


And as he gets older, he looks hotter and hotter.


Don't you reckon! I haven't aged half so well. Though I must say, I started off with a slight disadvantage ... !

The Lewis Chessmen - Medieval Cartooning

The Lewis Chessmen - Norse Craft in C12 Scotland

The Lewis Chessmen were found sometime prior to 1831, 15 feet down a sandbank in a small dry-built stone chamber at the Bay of Uig, west coast of the Isle of Lewis, Scottish Outer Hebrides. There are 93 pieces, forming parts of four or five chess sets, with two complete. Most are made of walrus ivory with a few of whale teeth.

The chessmen are believed to have been made in Norway in the 12th century (perhaps by Trondheim craftsmen, where similar examples have been found), at a time when that Scandinavian country ruled groups of islands off the coast of Scotland. They are believed to have been transported to wealthy Norse settlements on the east coast.

They are now mostly in the British Museum with some pieces in the Museum of Scotland.

Now to my cartooning theory.

These pieces were probably for wealthy Norse game-playing ex-pat's in the upper British Isles, both adults and children. Thus their meanings did not necessarily need to be given in a somber realistic mode. The figures strike me as somewhat comically presented - wide-eyed, squat, and at times gesturing most melodramatically, as with the rooks or beserkers (below, extreme left) who bite their shields in battle fury. I think I get this look when I do road rage. Must check in the rear view mirror next time! Maybe I bite the top of the steering wheel?


This cartooning mode is also reflected in the non-realistic scale of things to each other - the knights ride teeny tiny horses (aka Anthony, 'Sex in the City'). Though of course they may be Shetland ponies - it would be the right place!

The kings below seem suitably but exaggeratedly stern, grave and dignified. The queens as well, but their hand-on-right-cheek gestures appear to signal some kind of softer nature, more emotionally able to react with compassion when warranted. Like the Virgin Mary of Christianity, an approachable and caring interceding figure.


I am particularly drawn to the bishop-ey person, center stage in the display below in the Museum of Scotland. Very Lord of the Rings-ish - Gandall, I think.


Also worth noticing are the intricate and intertwining Celtic designs on the backs of the chairs in which some figures are seated. And also seen on the pawns, as tombstones, in the first photograph above.

The British Museum sells exact replicas of these rare and extraordinary pieces, and I have lots of them - just wandering mysteriously about my home!

An Anglo-Saxon Gold Coin - So?

Ninth-century gold coin depicting King Coenwulf (796-821) of Mercia (British Museum)

I was wondering why I got so excited reading a piece by Anita Sethi on a medieval coin in The Guardian, Feb 9th 2006. After all, we are only talking a coin, abet a gold one.

Then I thought of diamonds ... and the four C's that so seriously excite - colour, clarity, carats and cut.

So I decided there must be something similar for gold antique coins - perhaps four R's:

• Rarity - only eight British coins are known between 700-1250 and this one has the added excitement of being the oldest known example of gold currency showing a British monarch, with the added bonus of being in near mint condition
  

• Reference - to a particular historical figure, that is King Coenwulf, the ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia from 796 to 821

• Romance - of gold treasure lost - in antiquity - and found - in Bedford in 2001

• Record - the coin was sold to the British Museum for a world record £357,832

With such high ratings in the four R's, no wonder I was so intrigued by the article!

Travel Update - Returning to Australia

Probably back home on the 23rd or 24th of October.

A two month holiday has evolved into nearly six. And brought about experiences that I could not have begun to imagine. I have always understood life's opportunities need to be seized when they are presented. Or serious and debilitating regret can follow.

Wondering what's in the future - it seems so blank at the moment. Maybe I'll be on the first plane out ... somewhere. But uncertainty is something to embrace. Not fear.

Keep you posted!

Winner - Best Short Joke Competition 2007

A 3-year-old boy examined his testicles while taking a bath.

'Mom', he asked, 'Are these my brains?'

'Not yet,' she replied.

Travel-Life Update

Kinda got seriously stuck here in the Philippines. I came for a shortish stay and now it's five months and still going. Go figure!

I've just got myself a new and small studio just out of the central plaza area of Baliwag, Bulican. And finished the curtains, tables and chairs, crockery, etc thing. It has a balcony over-looking some old houses and their lush gardens. And the 'palenke' or daily market is absolutely huge and only minutes away.

The gay scene vibrant and I seem to have become a central member. I guess this must be part of the explanation for digging in!

I'm living above an internet cafe so expect lots of posting from now on!

Aboriginal Painting - Current Abstract Visions

Emily Kame Kngwarreye Untitled, 1992. Synthetic polymer paint on canvass 61.0 x 50.5cm

Much of more recent aboriginal painting has moved way from bark to acrylic on canvas. And Germaine Greer has spoken of this in terms of such latter day artists being captured by the European Gallery-Dealer system. A world-wide phenomenon in so many guises.

In this context and anecdotally, I’ve heard of canvasses being prepared and colours selected by city-based dealers to take to Utopia, a remote outback aboriginal community including printmakers and painters. Of a shed being hung with prepared canvasses and artists instructed to paint their way round the room. And of a representative of a certain Sydney gallery taking a gift of a patent leather handbag to Emily Kame Kngwarreye! Perhaps imagining such a present would reflect the artist’s growing reputation in the art world, in Australia and overseas! I only hope Emily said ‘The only thing this is useful for is putting yams and berries in!’

But what interests me in this bark and acrylic-canvass work is its non-naturalistic representation. And trying to understand the semiotics involved, which is particularly tricky across cultures.

The Emily above makes meanings, in abstract form, about yam tubers growing underground.

And the Rover Thomas below constructs an ariel ‘view’ of country where the artist lived. The essence of that landscape, reinforced by use of its actual earth pigments. Certainly three hills can be identified. And perhaps plains moving away from those hills. But abstraction moves in and interpretation is needed. Why dots? And dot-enclosed areas filled in with colour or alternatively further dots? And why is the crown of one hill dotted in and those of the other two not? Lines of dots suggest contour lines on a topographical map. But now of course I am just speculating.

Rover Thomas ‘Artist’s Country’, 1988. Natural pigments on canvas. 61 x 76cm

Whatever the complexities of understanding these works on canvas, they seem very much to appeal to our present formal Western aesthetic, balancing out form, line and colour in ways that delight us.

The painting I have is on the right:

And I wonder where its pair is! Mine seems sadly to miss its mate, I often anthropomorphise!

Traveling round Zambales, Vigan, and 100 Islands

I drove north of Manila to Zambales, Vigan and the 100 Islands.

Zambales for a few days cos a friend offered a fab house overlooking the ocean:



And then Vigan cos I'd often planned to go there, a trip never realized. The city has the best preserved Spanish colonial 'bayan' (town centre) in the country, with 'kalesa' (horse-drawn carriages) functioning as taxis.


This CBD is full of rather grand old mansions:

And more humble houses:

Some of the former have been evocatively re-furnished. You have the sense that this 'frozen' scene could suddenly come to life, with the original C18 or C19 owners walking in and asking what you doing there:

The lighting in two and three, remeniscent of C17 Dutch interior painting, is as much the product of the photographer as the moment! Calculating art-ster!

Finally, on to the 100 Islands and something much more athletic. Though the act of traveling round is, in itself, not for couch potatoes!!!

So, the hotel restaurent there, set over the ocean:


And a vantage point for the islands:

The start of a day trip round the islands:

Landing on a deserted beach, and climbing for a view back over where we landed and our boat:

Followed by snorkling and kayaking. And eating and sun-baking.

Post Script

In Vigan Zoo, I realized a life-long dream - getting up close and personal with an orangutan, a couple in fact:

They were so gentle, fixing my gaze with theirs and spontaneously holding my hands and stroking my face. I was totally blised out. And I mean totally.

Dante's Nine Levels of Hell

Okay guys, a general knowledge question about a place that has always gotten a lot of rather bad press. Hell. Now these are the levels:

Purgatory

Level 1 - Limbo

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Level 6 - The City of Dis

Level 7

Level 8- the Malebolge

Level 9 - Cocytus

And these persons are those goin' there, no way they won't! :

The Treacherous, The Gluttonous, The Virtuous Non-Believers, Heretics, The Wrathful and Gloomy, The Violent, The Lustful, The Prodigal and Avaricious, Repenting Believers, and The Fraudulent and Malicious and Panderers.

So who ends up in which level?

When you're done, how bout checking:

Purgatory - Repenting Believers

Level 1 - Limbo - Virtuous Non-Believers

Level 2 - Lustful

Level 3 - Gluttonous

Level 4 - Prodigal and Avaricious

Level 5 - Wrathful and Gloomy

Level 6 - The City of Dis - Heretics

Level 7 - Violent

Level 8- the Malebolge - Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers

Level 9 - Cocytus - Treacherous

How did you go? Weren't you surprised 'gluttony' is worse , spiritually speaking, than 'lust'! Perhaps this is your view of things anyway!

If you want more info bout any denizen type, just click on the level cos it's a link.
But if you just want a 'ready reckoner' to specifically place yourself ... :




To finish, a couple of modern visions from the Red Nose Gallery - 'Hell' and, to comfort and distract those definitely going to Level 9, 'Heaven':

'Hell'

'Heaven'

See you there!

Sullivan - Provincial Paradise

Do you happen to know the way to THE most beautiful panorama in the world?

I've just happen to have stumbled across it. The journey to these Elysian fields - a little of the C18 provincial city of Sullivan, Baliwag, Luzon, Philippines - is:





They say 'See Naples and die' - they were wrong. Well, they only had part of the story.