BOOJUM! - Today We Are Arty

Quick, While The Sun Lasts!
     Be advised that Conrad and Darling Daughter were today up early - Conrad sacrificing a lie-in, note that well, witnesses - in order to attend an art exhibition in Manchester.  It turned out to be in a building no longer used by my Still Coyly Un-Named Employer but where I'd done training, and fallen asleep at a meeting*.  This was the soggy vista visible from the car at 10:20 a.m.

Not the Somerset Levels yet still soul-shrivellingly dismal

 After over 20 minutes of waiting we gave up and prepared to get wet during our 15 minute walk to Federation House - and then the rain stopped.
     Darling Daughter Super Sally was profoundly grateful for this since it stopped Conrad coming out with "What was that song New Musik had about thirty years ago?  World of water!  Ho ho!" and "Who had a hit with "Love Is All Around" back in the Nineties?  Wet Wet Wet!  Ha ha!"
     The gallery was nice and warm, too, which was very much appreciated after the disgustingly chilly damp outside.  You want a glimpse?  Say no more:

The view from back here.  Serendipity

I shan't bombard you with a panoply of pictures, but here's one to be going on with:

No that is not Conrad's hand shaking!  That's art

You know what?  It looked better in person

The Ukraine
     Apparently there is an audience for BOOJUM! in The Ukraine.  Conrad hurriedly collates what he knows about the Ukraine, which isn't much.  Capital city is Kiev.  Used to be the breadbasket of the Soviet Union because of "chernozem", literally "black earth".  This is incredibly fertile soil that you can slice, put on toast and eat - well, almost.  There are vast swathes of this soil across the Ukraine.  What else?  Well, spoken Ukrainian isn't quite the same as Russian. Oh, yes - Chernobyl.  The beginning of "Return Of The Living Dead IV" filmed there and is easily the creepiest bit of the film.
     Aha!  Mikhail Sholokov - author of a series of novels about the Don Cossacks in the years leading up to and beyond the October Revolution -

8loody hell I love this Sigur Ros album!

- which don't really toe the Soviet line and makes one wonder how he ever got them published.
     I could Google for more Ukranian facts - which would be cheating, so I shan't.

The Ukranian flag

The inspiration: chernozem

Back to art!

Heath Robinson
     An artist, who was famous for his amazingly ramshackle drawings of elaborate machineries that might just work, e.g.

I'm crap at making pancakes.  I'll take two, Mister Robinson!

Well recall yesterday, and those posts about Les Dawson and Clint Eastwood.  Heath wanted to draw lovely wonderful pretty things like this -

Beauty.  Beholder.  Eye of.

Okay, not conventionally pretty - but you get my drift?  He didn't want to be put in a pigeonhole**.


Back To Music!
     Listening to "Simply Arabia - The Classics" a few days ago, I was struck by a similarity between the ululating, long wailing vocals on some songs and similar wailing vocals in Bulgarian folk songs (most notably Nadka Karadjova on the utterly sublime "A Lambkin Is Bleating"). Is this a coincidence?  Perhaps not.  Recall that Bulgaria long laboured beneath the Ottoman heel; Turks are not Arabs but I bet there are musical similarities.
     I didn't really enjoy "The Classics"  :( .  "Belly-dancing" is more easy on the ear, and "Chilled With A Beat" is definitely the best - Arabic-fusion, if you like.  In fact it reminds me of Dissidenten's "Sahara Elektrik" mix of electronic and traditional.

Atomic fusion.  Close enough

That's Quite Enough Of That!
     I refer, gentle reader, to this:

Your life-expectancy, madam, is not enhanced by perching thus

"Life's Too Short To Wear A Boring Car"??? Sorry but all cars are inherently boring to Conrad.  They are metal boxes with a wheel at each corner.  You put the go-juice in and the magic box under the bonnet moves you from A to B.
     That is all.

And To Finish -

Cuddly.  No, sorry, I meant "Creepy".  Creepy

Cuddly toys from the exhibition.  Serendipity!

*  It was an extremely hot room, mind you
**  This is an odd phrase now I mull it over.  We may dissect it in future.