David Bennett

New Ecards
We have added 21 new images to the site and you can see these most recent additions by clicking here to see our Recently Added Ecards.

Trips Around England
We’ve had a hectic few weeks traveling and visiting various places in England. Some places we intended to visit, and others we just came across on our travels – like Stonehenge (hard to miss) which we had previously visited some years ago.

When we saw the road sign, we decided we just couldn’t pass it by. It was also a lovely day, with puffy white ‘Simpsons’ clouds in the sky.

When we last visited Stonehenge some years ago, we spent some time looking around the site during the day and then we decided to visit it again by moonlight.

I recall that we parked the car on a grass verge with the headlights pointing into a field opposite. That’s when we saw dozens of pairs of shining eyes staring back at us – an unforgettable sight bearing in mind that we were next to Stonehenge.

We got out of the car and could see it was a flock of sheep looking at us – they being interested enough in us to raise their heads from the grass they were munching.

Well this time when we visited, we were rewarded with the sight of the late afternoon sun casting shadows on the standing stones.

Two Weeks In London
We spent two weeks in London just a few weeks ago – though it seems a lot longer since we were there.

When I picture London in my mind’s eye now, I immediately see a crush of people standing on the platform of the Underground as a tube train pulls in.

That’s what comes to mind – not the High street in Finchley lined with cafes; not the wonderful Gelato Mio ice cream parlour at Belsize Park – though the ice cream so delicious that we went back a second time; and not the Victoria and Albert Museum – though the The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 exhibition was worth the visit.

London has an energy that in the past has left me drained, but this time I got into my stride and loved every minute of it – well, maybe not the sight of a packed tube train pulling into a busy station! But I did enjoy the buzz of the place and all the things to see and do.

If you missed our article on Photographing London – here is the link.

The City Of Bath
When I think of the city of Bath which we visited on recently, I picture long rows of sandy-colored Georgian houses – like this street known as the Paragon that was built in the late 1700s.

Bath is very pretty, and despite being quite a small town it is bustling with life. In my mind’s eye, however, I see it as quite ‘strong’ because of it being set against a steep hillside with ranks of pale sandstone rows of houses rising into the distance.

Winchester
We also visited the city of Winchester and saw the grave site of Jane Austen in Winchester cathedral and visited the street nearby where she lived shortly before she died.

Later, we visited the pretty village of Chawton in Hampshire where Jane lived for some time.

We shall have more in a later article about Jane Austen in Winchester and Chawton – so look out for it!

But when I think of Winchester, it is not the cathedral that I picture, but Little Minster Street behind it – perhaps because I liked the way the houses seemed to be peeping out from a gap in the cathedral boundary wall.

Time For Animals
We also visited some animal parks on our trips, and were very lucky to see this rhinoceros and this Roan antelope.

My abiding memories are of a rhinoceros delicately munching grass and of this pied wagtail which was darting around the noses of the antelope as they were browsing.

New Ecards
So with our trips over for the moment, we have – as stated at the top of this article – added 21 new images to the site and you can see these most recent additions by clicking here to see our Recently Added Ecards.

Be aware though that the Recently Added page is automatically updated when we add new images, so what you see depends on when you click the link.

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This is a follow-up to this article on photographing London in which I mentioned the Gherkin building in the financial district in London.

I walked around the area, looking for a viewpoint from which I could show the way that the building curves inwards at the bottom. In other words, it really is a gherkin shape narrowing at each end.

You can see what I mean in these two shots. You can also get an idea of the size of the building, which is 590 feet (180m) tall.

Open Space And Criss-Crossed Girders
The building is covered in glass windows, but not all the way down to the ground. At ground level you see the criss-cross of the supporting girders with the lowest windows and doors set back behind them.

The girders make a kind of porch all around the building.

There is also some open space around the building and only a token fence between it and the pavement, so when you get close to the Gherkin you see this ‘looming yet somehow elegant’ building sitting there on its network of crossed girders.

I think that makes for a much more successful design than would have been the case if the windows had continued to encase the structure right to ground level. Then I think the building would have had no ‘bottom’. It would have looked more like it was rising out of the ground with part hidden below – perhaps like a ballistic missile being launched from its underground silo.

The Church Of St. Helen’s
Meanwhile, just a few tens of yards from the gherkin there is the Church of St. Helen’s dating back to 1633. It was damaged by the same IRA bomb that blew out the front of the Baltic Exchange building.

As I mentioned in my last article, following the explosion the Baltic Exchange was demolished because it was considered too expensive to repair and the Gherkin building now stands on the site of the Exchange.

Luckily, the church was repaired rather than being torn down.

It is not hard to imagine this church set in a maze of narrow, winding streets. Those streets have gone, and the rebuilding that is happening in the area now is on a massive scale.

New Steel Skeletons
Just across the street from the church there are the steel skeletons of new buildings that growing over and through the streets. Looking at the steelwork, it is not hard to think of some robot world where the buildings build themselves and march ever onward.

It’s a small thing, but one of the more interesting way to enter Somerset House is from Victoria Embankment by the River Thames in London. The usual entrance is off the busy road named the Strand, but there is a back staircase (at least it feels like a back staircase) from the lower level of the Embankment.

Then when you come from the quiet below into the foyer and out onto the courtyard, you are hit by the full force of the fountains, the quadrangle, and at the moment by Ai Weiwei’s huge cast sculptures of Chinese zodiac figures.

The Chinese Zodiac
The are twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac, that progress in the order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.

In the Chinese zodiac, the years progress through the zodiac and so do the months and even the days. So a person might be a certain animal of the zodiac for his years, and another animal for his or her months, and so on, and and every person is a mixture of these.

The traditional Chinese understanding is not so much that a person is formed or moulded by his or her zodiac but rather that a person is perceived by others as the embodiment of his or her zodiac combinations.

And unlike the Western concept of time where it is thought of as being linear, the traditional Chinese understanding of the progression of time is that it is cyclical. So when the months come around, they really do come around.

It has always interested me that two people can stand side by side and yet occupy entirely different universes – at least so far as their concept of how time is progressing.

Apparently Ai Weiwei’s sculptures are based on the zodiac symbols that were stolen from the Summer Palace in Beijing during the time of the Opium wars in the early part of the 19th century.

I read recently that Ai Weiwei made a comment about how fitting it was that the sculptures should be shown in Somerset House – a building that was just being built at the time that the Summer Palace sculptures were being stolen and spirited abroad by colonial powers.

It reminds that, as always, there is a gentle prod from the artist – about freedom and domination.

On Poles
The way the animals are on poles reminds me of the trophies of some bloody battle. And these are not cuddly representations – even the cuddly rodent has big teeth, as you can see.

On Tour
The sculptures started their tour in New York and I don’t know what the setting for the exhibition was there, but in London on a sunny day with kids running in and out of the water fountains, it felt just right and just the kind of thing that Ai Weiwei would have liked.

Ai Weiwei Detained
Ai Weiwei is being held by the Chinese authorities and has not been seen since his arrest at the beginning of April.

It is not as though he is a marginal figure, unknown outside the art world who can be ‘disappeared’ without anyone noticing or raising questions.

For example, he was the artistic consultant in the design of the ‘bird’s nest’ Beijing National stadium that perhaps you remember from the 2008 Summer Olympics.

So what does the future hold for him? There is Until recently there was an interesting article in the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper in April. Here is an extract:

Ai Weiwei is an activist. As a maverick of Chinese society, he likes “surprising speech” and “surprising behavior.” He also likes to do something ambiguous in law. On April 1, he went to Taiwan via Hong Kong. But it was reported his departure procedures were incomplete.

Ai Weiwei likes to do something “others dare not do.” He has been close to the red line of Chinese law. Objectively speaking, Chinese society does not have much experience in dealing with such persons. However, as long as Ai Weiwei continuously marches forward, he will inevitably touch the red line one day.

This is the second article on Ai Weiwei. Click here for the article on his ‘One Hundred Million Sunflower Seeds’ exhibition.