Tag: travel

Why not name Troy, Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul and keep proliferating names for the primary city of the Golden Horn until you reach 10 such names for cities rich in trade that are for ever renewed or ‘renovated’. This blog is about Kenan Orhan (2026) ‘The Renovation’.

August 4, 2026

Why not name Troy, Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul and keep proliferating names for names for the primary city of the Golden Horn until you reach 10 such names for cities rich in trade that are for ever renewed or ‘renovated’. In a description of the renovation of Istanbul under Erdoğan as ‘the simulacrum of progress … More Why not name Troy, Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul and keep proliferating names for the primary city of the Golden Horn until you reach 10 such names for cities rich in trade that are for ever renewed or ‘renovated’. This blog is about Kenan Orhan (2026) ‘The Renovation’.

The ease of modern ‘travel’ can hardly be inspired. Only when ‘travel’ equates to ‘travail’ (hard labour and unforeseen difficulty) does it require that input of strong breath from without.

July 19, 2026

For some travel will always be made to include hard work and uncertainties If you test an AI searcher like Co-Pilot on the origins of the word ‘travel’ these days, you get something like this (what I got today): The validity of some of those sources used by the AI tool can be queried but … More The ease of modern ‘travel’ can hardly be inspired. Only when ‘travel’ equates to ‘travail’ (hard labour and unforeseen difficulty) does it require that input of strong breath from without.

Is it all in the detail? Finding some significance of one’s own in major art exhibitions

July 13, 2026

What do we do to make our time in a major art gallery exhibition significant? In a recent blog (in full at this link) I started thinking about some mental and emotional linking themes that seem to me to relate two extremely different major art exhibitions that I needed, at I felt I needed, to … More Is it all in the detail? Finding some significance of one’s own in major art exhibitions

Let’s pretend we can get in the mind (or guts) of great artists, and consider how Anish Kapoor might translate the question, ‘What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?’ This is a blog preparing to see his new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.

June 24, 2026

Let’s pretend we can get in the mind of great artists, and consider how Anish Kapoor might translate the question, ‘What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?’ This is a blog preparing to see his new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Following your gut to their source: … More Let’s pretend we can get in the mind (or guts) of great artists, and consider how Anish Kapoor might translate the question, ‘What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?’ This is a blog preparing to see his new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.

When the subject is ‘seeing’, why exclude visual art, for that too allows us to ‘see’ in more than ways that are entirely visual. This blog is an explanation of why I go to art exhibitions. This is almost the same as explaining why I feel a need to prepare myself to see them. The pleasures and perils of researched prescience is however a subject in itself. This blog anticipates seeing the new ‘Zurbarán’ Exhibition at 12.00 midday to 13.30 (about) on Thursday 9th July. Will it change my world?

June 17, 2026

Explaining why I go to art exhibitions is almost the same as explaining why I feel a need to prepare myself to see them. The pleasures and perils of researched prescience is however a subject in itself. This blog anticipates seeing the new Zurbarán ExWhen the subject is ‘seeing’, why exclude visual art, for that … More When the subject is ‘seeing’, why exclude visual art, for that too allows us to ‘see’ in more than ways that are entirely visual. This blog is an explanation of why I go to art exhibitions. This is almost the same as explaining why I feel a need to prepare myself to see them. The pleasures and perils of researched prescience is however a subject in itself. This blog anticipates seeing the new ‘Zurbarán’ Exhibition at 12.00 midday to 13.30 (about) on Thursday 9th July. Will it change my world?

There is no need for magical thinking in order to find art ‘that you wish you could experience again for the first time’. Visit art enough and it must reinvent itself. This is a blog on preparing to visit London again for an art-binge-fest

June 11, 2026

It is time for another looking forward period and for some events preparing myself – where appropriate material exists for doing so (a play-script or catalogue already purchase). In those latter cases, I will blog in preparation, Here to announce my schedule (with Geoffee and Baz left behind for one night at home), under this … More There is no need for magical thinking in order to find art ‘that you wish you could experience again for the first time’. Visit art enough and it must reinvent itself. This is a blog on preparing to visit London again for an art-binge-fest

Walking to the ‘The Playhouse’ at Horden from Warren St. to see Hamlet in the First Quarto

May 30, 2026

The walk was short but I didn’t know that when I parked up on Warren Street between Twelfth Street and Eleventh Street (pit villages and towns oft have numbered streets, lined on each sides by redbrick terraces, rather than names – perhaps to emphasise the fact that they housed such numbers of men, in the … More Walking to the ‘The Playhouse’ at Horden from Warren St. to see Hamlet in the First Quarto

What is ‘local’ and what is ‘custom’? Selecting for preservation is the practice of dominance not community. But who selects and who interprets what it means?

May 10, 2026

What is ‘local’ and what is ‘custom’: selecting for preservation is the practice of dominance not community. But who selects and who interprets what it means? Probably Wordsworth is the primary poet who turned his back as an individual artistic sensibility, and he, of course, was called the Egoistical Sublime by Keats,  on global trends, … More What is ‘local’ and what is ‘custom’? Selecting for preservation is the practice of dominance not community. But who selects and who interprets what it means?

We think we have the right to travel long distances based on the convenience to ourselves alone of our choices, but to go ‘cross-country’ was also once a choice about how much we have a right to militate against the country in the interests of congregations of human self-interest represented by towns.

March 15, 2026

We think we have the right to travel long distances based on the convenience to ourselves alone of our choices, but to go ‘cross-country’ was also once a choice about how much we have a right to militate against the country in the interests of congregations of human self-interest represented by towns. Cross-country is now … More We think we have the right to travel long distances based on the convenience to ourselves alone of our choices, but to go ‘cross-country’ was also once a choice about how much we have a right to militate against the country in the interests of congregations of human self-interest represented by towns.

Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus’; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness being burnt in the polluted skies.

November 20, 2025

Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness … More Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus’; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness being burnt in the polluted skies.

What could I do more of? I could allow art and ways of seeing it to challenge me more: a preview of what I expect from the ‘Theatre Picasso’ exhibition at Tate modern, which I see on October 21st 2025.

September 23, 2025

What could I do more of? I could allow art and ways of seeing it to challenge me more: a preview of what I expect from the ‘Theatre Picasso’ exhibition at Tate modern, which I see on October 21st 2025. There is nearly always a debate these days – though perhaps there always was before … More What could I do more of? I could allow art and ways of seeing it to challenge me more: a preview of what I expect from the ‘Theatre Picasso’ exhibition at Tate modern, which I see on October 21st 2025.

Do we give up on one or all of the ‘words that bind us’ at our peril? It might be better to understand why words are multivalent: this is a blog on visiting the Magna Carta exhibition at Durham Cathedral on Wednesday 3rd September 2025.

September 3, 2025

Do we give up on one or all of the ‘words that bind us’ at our peril? It might be better to understand why words are multivalent: this is a blog on visiting the Magna Carta exhibition at Durham Cathedral on Wednesday 3rd September 2025. The exhibition runs from July 11 to November 2, 2025. “To no … More Do we give up on one or all of the ‘words that bind us’ at our peril? It might be better to understand why words are multivalent: this is a blog on visiting the Magna Carta exhibition at Durham Cathedral on Wednesday 3rd September 2025.