ABC Wednesday: W is for Wheelhouse

The Wheelhouse is a narrative show which unfolds inside and around a circular set as it rolls, with the audience walking alongside.

It is described as being "A gently comic dystopia, set in a different time where everything has a new value and survival relies on sharp eyes, quick hands, and, above all, friendship. Stunning design, theatrical acrobatics, and breathtaking moments of risk, all housed within an exquisite, hand-built structure."

It was commissioned as a walkabout by Without Walls in 2008 and funded for development into a full show (2011) by Applause. With Direction from Flick Ferdinando.

This flagship show by Acrojou has been seen in 13 countries and arrived in Llandudno in September 2015 as part of the Llandudno Arts Weekend LLAWN03.

More of my photos from LLAWN03 can be found on Geograph.

A contribution to ABC Wednesday.

M is for Medicine Show

As part of LLAWN03 Mr & Mrs Clark were in Llandudno to present their Medicine Show.

The show combines song, dance and a dark sense of comedy to entertain, ridicule and provoke good health practice.

Members of the audience are cured of bad auras and returned to a state of utopian happiness.

A contribution to ABC Wednesday.

Magic with Balls

This post originally showed a brief video clip of a local magician. Although taken quite legally and with verbal permission I have since been informed that the artist's agent now owns his image and I will be sued if I do not remove it. I can't be doing with the hassle so have removed it - it's his loss not mine.

Poem of the Day

I've just discovered that my poem Mid-December was pod-broadcast recently by Poem of the Day.

You can listen to it at http://podcast.sonibyte.com/audio/8861.mp3

Now I didn't give my permission for this so technically their publication is a breach of my copyright. It is a good reading (albeit in an American accent) and I am not complaining about the broadcast as such. I just wish I had been informed beforehand.

The poem was found either on the Famous Poets site, or another whose URL I won't quote.

Recently the poem was published on Mrs. Nesbitt's Place but she correctly first sought my permission.

I discovered that another website had also published my poem. On complaining to them they apologised and inserted a link back to the Famous Poets website.

I then discovered it on a certain blog and left a comment thereon pointing out the error (of not requesting permission before reprinting copyright material) although I did not request its removal. The webmistress concerned apologised by email (she had, it seems, discovered my poem neither at Mrs. Nesbitt's Place nor on the Famous Poets website but on the other aforementioned website), but to cover her embarrassment deleted my comment from her blog and replaced my poem with one from a long-dead author.

I rarely refuse any requests to reuse my work (be it poems or photographs) but I do always insist on proper copyright acknowledgement.

ABC Wednesday - V is for Vroom Vroom

I wasn't sure what I was going to post for V until I saw Babooshka's Flying Bike. It reminded me of the motorcycle display team I'd watched two years ago. Vroom vroom, I thought, hearing the sound of roaring engines in my head, time to get those photos I took out there.


In 2006 we took a cruise visiting the Baltics. I started a blog to publish pictures from the trip and recount our adventures. See Baltic 2006. Half the journey has been recorded but I got busy with one thing and another and hit writers block with it. Bits and pieces of the story have appeared elsewhere including two posts here about Oslo.

At the end of the cruise we stayed overnight in Southampton before flying home to Manchester the next day. You can read my Trip Advisor report on the hotel.


The hotel was about a fifteen minute walk from the village of West End to where I went to buy some sandwiches and other provisions for lunch. I discovered it was Carnival Day, so later in the afternoon I went back to enjoy looking around the stalls. Highlights were eating strawberries and ice-cream in the refreshment tent, being invited to sit in the shade by members of the organising Hamble Valley Rotary Club and watching the No Limitz Motorcycle Display Team in action.


The displays were excellent and these photos don't really do them justice and I'm sorry it has taken me so long to get around to thanking them for providing an enjoyable end to our cruise holiday.

My other ABC Wednesday V posts this week are ~~ Village Fete at Hyde Daily Photo ~~ Video Footage of Hyde 1947 at Old Hyde ~~ Vintage Cars at Sithenah

To visit more ABC-Wednesday V posts go to Mrs. Nesbitt's Place.

Herbert Kuhner reads poems by Alter Brody

Herbert Kuhner reads poems by Alter Brody and poems on Artie Shaw and Sol Yaged.

Filmed in New York.

Read Five poems by Jozo T Boskovski translated by Herbert Kuhner.

Read a memory of Jozo T Boskovski by Herbert Kuhner.

Read Three Long Island Poets, Charles Fishman, David Axelrod and George Wallace, translated into German by Herbert Kuhner.

ABC Wednesday - Q is for Qaqortoq

Q is for Qaqortoq


Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!


It was on July 11th 2005 and you can read an account on my 2005 Cruise Journal.


The hillsides of Qaqortoq are covered in buttercups. Around the town are several stone sculptures. These are part of the Stone & Man Project. They date from 1993 when Greenlandic artist Aka Høegh encouraged Nordic artists to create shapes and reliefs from natural stone formations.


The fountain in Qaqortoq is the only one to be found in the whole of Greenland.


We were treated to an impromptu concert by the local choir Erinar Soqatigiivi, led by Mrs. Pitsi Høegh, the manager of Qaqortoq Turistforening. Most of the songs were based on folktales which the leader recounted in detail and with much humour. The choir sounded something like a cross between a barber-shop quartet and a Welsh Male Voice Choir. I bought a copy of their CD Tuppalleri Tarneq. It doesn't seem to be listed anymore on the Atlantic Music website, so I hope I'm OK letting you hear this sample track Ullumi Juullerpoq.



A slide-show of six photos + one-line haiku can be found at Haiga Online

My entire collection of 27 photos can be viewed at Qaqortoq 2005

ABC Wednesday - M is for Manchester Art Gallery

Last Thursday I met up with Juliet Wilson who was down from Edinburgh. As she relates on her blog Crafty Green Poet, we visited the Manchester Literary Festival event Victorian Lines at Manchester Art Gallery.

Art Treasures in Manchester marks the 150th anniversary of the largest art show ever seen in Britain. The original exhibition, held in 1857, was an incredible achievement for the city and an extraordinary artistic event. It was visited by eminent Victorian writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens.

On Thursday afternoon David Gaffney took us round the exhibition, stopping at selected paintings and photos to read microfiction pieces and stories he had written inspired by the exhibition. Some fifty people turned up to listen to him. His stories were humorous in the main and full of off-beat characters such as the Victorian boy bought on Ebay, the man with a prescription windshield, the complete forger and a ghost.

The Gallery provided portable chairs for use by visitors. These were a real boon for those of us who couldn't have stood listening to the speaker for almost an hour. Without them, I'd never have stayed the course. In the photo above you can see the chairs stacked outside the entrance to the exhibition.

Fee Plumley has also briefly reviewed this event on the MLF blog.

on balance

on balance
dance is all about
timing

words & photo © gerald england, 2007

in response to the "balance" theme at One Deep Breath.

These dancers were entertaining us outside our hotel room in Crete.