JUST a few yards from the South Bank and only a short riverside stroll from Tate Modern, an old Victorian tunnel has been transformed into an art gallery that puts even that grand collection to shame.
But you’ll have to move fast if you want to catch it.
The sculptures, installations and living art are gone already. Many of the terrific pictures painted on the walls – or, in a couple of cases, actually carved out of them – are liable to be defaced, maybe disappear, fast.
That’s despite the fact that one of the stars of the show is possibly the most talented, and certainly the most topical, fine artist currently at work in Britain.
I refer, of course, to the “graffiti” artist Banksy, a few of whose eye-catching pieces currently adorn the walls of the Leake Street tunnel, below the tracks at the end of Waterloo station.
There are also some terrific works by other artists with assumed names – Jef Aerosol, Eelus, Toastcat, Vhils – and some apparently with no names at all.
One of the anonymous efforts is a lifesize painting of a homeless man asleep on a bench with a Do Not Disturb sign dangling from his finger. Brilliant.
Other works are variously witty, entertaining, surreal, thought-provoking or overtly political. Some are extremely technically proficient as art. A number are all of those things at once.
A case in point is a typical Banksy, in which a council worker is seen spraying over a prehistoric cave-painting (see above).
Arriving well after the three-day Cans Festival had closed, I missed the undoubted sense of occasion. I also missed the queues and was able to observe the mass of stencil art still remaining without jostling.
Mind you, there was still a significant stream of admirers.
And since this is quite possibly the single most photographed art exhibition ever, what I decided to capture with my lens was mostly the interaction between the artworks and the viewers.



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I've never favourited so many works by one deviant in one visit as I did when stumbling on *ISMAILEREN's amazing gallery. He doesn't have as good a camera as most of us dA snappers, but his jaw-dropping subjects and his deeply intelligent and humane attitude make his array of images of Afghanistan and its people a must-see - one of the few collections on here I'd describe as important. I shall be writing about him at greater length at some point. In the meantime, consider the pics I've picked out here, go see the rest for yourselves - and tell him I sent you.




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The ~Forefathers gallery celebrates the photography of my father and grandfather from 1910 to 1992 and is administered jointly by me and my brother *coshipi



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TORY gains in last week's UK local elections – colossal as they were in terms of vote share – said nothing about belief in David Cameron’s party, but everything about loss of belief in Gordon Brown’s.
It’s ironic that after waiting so many years, not always patiently, for his turn at the tiller Brown should now be letting it slip from his hands so easily. And of course it’s not all his fault – far from it.
When ministers talk about international winds of change beyond their control, they are speaking the truth.
There’s precious little any British government can do about economic tidal waves created by events in America or China.
Not enough they can do about the global warming that may bring literal tidal waves and far greater economic chaos in the years ahead.
More trivially, Brown may also be suffering from simple voter boredom with Labour rule.
With the crucial exception of its support for nuclear power, which was merely confirming an existing bad policy, I think Brown’s government has in fact been a big improvement on Tony Blair’s. Not that that’s saying much.
Will Cameron’s be better than either? Only if you believe Pink Floyd’s escaped blimp was in fact a flying pig.
Still, if historical precedent is anything to go by, Cameron can start preparing for power now.
So it’s about time he started coming up with some real policies beyond seeming to be a jolly good bloke.


IT wasn’t what you might expect from the head of Scotland Yard’s Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office, but DCI Mike Neville has finally looked into his CCTV screen and seen the blindingly obvious.
“Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images. It’s been an utter fiasco,” he said.
Well, that’s one long over-due admission. And here’s another: Some police officers do not want to look through CCTV images “because it’s hard work”.
Not to mention, I should think, mind-numbingly boring. And, in the vast majority of cases, utterly pointless.

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I've never favourited so many works by one deviant in one visit as I did when stumbling on *ISMAILEREN's amazing gallery. He doesn't have as good a camera as most of us dA snappers, but his jaw-dropping subjects and his deeply intelligent and humane attitude make his array of images of Afghanistan and its people a must-see - one of the few collections on here I'd describe as important. I shall be writing about him at greater length at some point. In the meantime, consider the pics I've picked out here, go see the rest for yourselves - and tell him I sent you.




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The ~Forefathers gallery celebrates the photography of my father and grandfather from 1910 to 1992 and is administered jointly by me and my brother *coshipi



Create your own visitor map!

YEARS ago there was a T-shirt slogan which ran: "The trouble with political jokes is that they get elected." This week London became the turkey that voted for Christmas.
It may also have been the week Labour began to lose its grip on power nationally - but I can't really bring myself to get too excited about one centrist party of personal and corporate aggrandisement losing out to another one.
If in the long run it means the rebirth of the Labour Party I was once a member of from the ashes of the parody that took over the name, it might even turn out to be a good thing. But I won't be holding my breath.

I've never favourited so many works by one deviant in one visit as I did when stumbling on *ISMAILEREN's amazing gallery. He doesn't have as good a camera as most of us dA snappers, but his jaw-dropping subjects and his deeply intelligent and humane attitude make his array of images of Afghanistan and its people a must-see - one of the few collections on here I'd describe as important. I shall be writing about him at greater length at some point. In the meantime, consider the pics I've picked out here, go see the rest for yourselves - and tell him I sent you.




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The ~Forefathers gallery celebrates the photography of my father and grandfather from 1910 to 1992 and is administered jointly by me and my brother *coshipi



Create your own visitor map!

HOW far it will go, and how dire the consequences will be, is still open to conjecture and debate. But there can no longer be any doubt that the world is warming up.
The orthodox view is that the main reason for this is an increase of so-called greeenhouse gases – principally carbon dioxide – in the atmosphere. But I have just come across a dissenting view.
According to this version, global warming is simply the continuing thaw after the last ice age. Yes, atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing – but that’s a result of the warming, not its cause.
I’m not qualified to judge the scientific validity of that claim. It does sound, though, like a suspiciously handy get-out clause for the polluters and rapers of the planet. For the large-scale burners of oil and coal, the destroyers of rainforest, the despoilers of the oceans.
But even if it’s true, it’s surely not the whole truth. Mankind is not so easily absolved of responsibility.
I also read the other day, in a respected scientific journal, the idea that civilisation – any civilisation, not just ours – carries within it the inevitable seeds of its own destruction.
Consider for a moment the extraordinary number and complexity of things now available that even a few years ago were out of our dreams.
Mobile phones that take pictures, play music and access the internet. Sat-nav. Fridges big enough to hold a modest party in. DVD players and writers. Internet access good enough and fast enough to download whole films and TV programmes to your home computer. TV sets the size and clarity of an art-house cinema screen.
And that’s just a snapshot of the electrical goods department.
Every time I go shopping I’m struck not just by the existence of all this gadgetry, but by its affordability. And by the nagging feeling that such an explosion of consumerism cannot be viable.
Capitalism and democracy may have seemed like humanity’s least-worst options. But they are not inevitable or forever. If, as the philosopher Francis Fukuyama memorably put it, they are “the end of history”, that can only be because history is rapidly approaching a sticky end.
Will global warming be the force that brings it to a horrid halt? Or will mankind learn, just in the nick of time, to stop its rape and pillage of the planet?
According to some of the experts it’s already too late. Whether by natural causes or our actions, they say, the tipping-point is past. It’s too late to stop the increase in world temperature. Too late to prevent the rise in sea levels that will flood many of the world’s major cities and some whole countries. Instead of looking at ways to head off what is already inevitable, we should be considering how to cope when it happens.
This may be logical, but I can see a flaw.
Two of the most obvious results of the predicted catastrophe are economic collapse and war. And the trouble with preparing for either of those eventualities is that preparing for them is the surest way of making them happen.
If we’re in a car hurtling towards a cliff-edge, it makes better sense to keep trying to apply the brakes than looking for the first-aid kit.
The old adage about living each day as if it’s your last has always struck me as very bad advice. Better, surely, to engage with life as if it’s going on, even if it turns out otherwise.
Looked at as a whole entity, the earth is sick and getting worse fast. Its immune system appears to be gearing up to shake off a very nasty virus that is running rampant.
I’d be rooting for it to succeed quickly and thoroughly, but for one inconvenient fact.
You and I, our loved ones and our possible descendants are all part of the virus.

This article first appeared in the Ipswich Evening Star. You can find more of my column pieces and other writings at my site: AidanSemmens.co.uk

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I'm scarcely the only one to notice his astounding work, but so many of my recent "wows" have been occasioned by the amazing *erdalkinaci I felt I had to give him a special feature. His work is not always comfortable, but it's always viewable and thought-provoking, both as raw journalism and aesthetically. Go take a look.
Here are a few tasters:



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The ~Forefathers gallery celebrates the photography of my father and grandfather from 1910 to 1992 and is administered jointly by me and my brother *coshipi



Create your own visitor map!

IT’S not, perhaps, the most obvious thing for a community to get upset about. But in one British town the people are solidly behind a petition to keep their traffic warden.
And you don’t have to scratch too far beneath the surface to see why.
Stromness is tiny, about 2,200 people. Its few streets are narrow, without pavements as they pass in irregular lines between the stone-built shops and houses. Yet it’s the second-largest centre in the Orkney islands, and being the main ferry-port has thousands of visitors passing through each year.
Out of season it’s a charming little town, but just one or two cars illegally parked could cause chaos when it’s swarming with summer visitors. So axing the post of a single part-time traffic warden could have consequences beyond the imagining of the suits in far-off Inverness, where the decision was taken.
Trouble is, the suits don’t have much imagination. And neither, it would seem, do either of Orkney’s two sleepy little local papers.
For though both have carried letters on the subject from irate Stromness folk, neither has picked up what seems to me a cracking local story – and possibly even a national one.
I wonder whether Orkney Today’s new editor will sharpen up its act and create more serious competition for the long-established, staid Orcadian?
I’m sure I would have done – if I’d decided to bite the bullet and go for the job when it was advertised a few weeks back. And assuming, of course, that the paper’s owners actually want it sharpened up.
They may think sleepy and dull is how the good folk of Orkney like it. Perhaps it is.
For far-flung as it is, scattered off the north coast of Scotland, at the meeting-point of the Atlantic and the North Sea, Orkney is already a community under some threat from outsiders and their ways.
In a week there, we found the Orcadians very friendly and chatty. But well over half of those we met had accents that originated well south of the border.
Wonderful as Orkney is – its landscape, its wildlife, its history, especially its prehistory – it has little that might appeal to most young folk as a place to live and thrive. Which may partly account for the place gradually emptying of local people and filling up with slightly older English ones.
Interestingly, in these times of English paranoia about immigration, the northern Scots are worried about depopulation. They positively welcome immigrants, be they English, Asian or east European.
Individually, they also seem very welcoming of visitors. But overall, as in most places, the effects of tourism are a mixed blessing.
While sheep and cattle farming, and of course fishing, are still very apparent, the tourists are the prime cash crop.
But for all its ancient, timeless beauty, tree-less, wind-blown Orkney is a delicate, fragile place.
The Ring of Brodgar – a 5,000-year-old ring of standing stones as large as the famous circle at Avebury – is just one of Orkney’s many breathtaking prehistoric sites.
To walk alone among the stones at sunset, or in the cold wind and snow, is a truly magical experience. To do so in high summer among a crowd of others must be rather different.
At such times the signs requesting that you stick to the path must be crucial. Especially as the surrounding heather is, like much of the islands, important for birdlife and in the care of the RSPB.
Amazingly, the Orkney capital, Kirkwall, is second only to Southampton as a British stopping-point for cruise liners. On one day last year James Dewar had to move on 11 tourist coaches which were blocking the road at Brodgar.
James is the traffic warden whose job has just been scrapped. In his absence, heaven knows what chaos will ensue.
(Expect Orkney pics to follow )

This article first appeared in the Ipswich Evening Star. You can find more of my column pieces and other writings at my site: AidanSemmens.co.uk

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I'm scarcely the only one to notice his astounding work, but so many of my recent "wows" have been occasioned by the amazing *erdalkinaci I felt I had to give him a special feature. If there's any one gallery on dA I could happily give s to the whole of, it's his. It's not always comfortable, but it's always viewable and thought-provoking, both as raw journalism and aesthetically. Go take a look.
Here are a few tasters of his work:



************************

The ~Forefathers gallery celebrates the photography of my father and grandfather from 1910 to 1992 and is administered jointly by me and my brother *coshipi



Create your own visitor map!