The Word of Ward

London is one of the world’s great art centres. Lots of art fans are currently descending on the city from all over the globe to take part in or see the colossal Frieze art fair. This is a great event but visitors should know that there is a lot more to see. Most of London’s established art scene is in the West, North or middle of the city but huge amounts of exciting new stuff is coming out of the East. An area of hip and trendy struggling artists, writers, musicians and unemployed.

In the depths of East London there is a mini hub for all this emerging art called Vyner street. The first Thursday of every month there is a bit of a party with the collection of galleries that line the street opening late to admit lots of excited and slightly inebriated art fans. It’s good fun and cultural to boot.

Of particular interest is an exhibition of Thai modern art called Origin-Originality at Forty7 Gallery, 47 Mowlem Street (Off Vyner St). You don’t get much Thai modern art in the West, so this is an ideal opportunity to see some and buy some. It will be worth millions soon. One of the artists has already featured in a Christie’s Auction, so you’d better get in quick as Southeastern Asian art is very ‘in’ right now. This exhibition looks great, the art is intriguing and the whole thing is on from the 4th-14th October. It is curated by the superb Nim Niyomsin. If you are here for the Frieze art fair or just like art generally, you should check the area out. It’s where it’s at.

Here is a link that will tell you all you need to know about the background to the exhibition, the artists involved, and where all the excitement will be happening. http://www.origin-originality.blogspot.co.uk/ There is also info at the bottom of this page.

Here is some of the art:

Maitree Siriboon

Peerawayt Krasaesom

Tatiya Udomsawat

Here are some details:

About First Thursdays and the area including Gallery Forty7:

http://www.firstthursdays.co.uk/galleries/forty7-gallery-7coco

I love Flight of the Conchords. My wife stumbled on their TV show one night and then persuaded me to watch an episode and I was hooked. If you don’t know it, you definitely should. They are a couple of New Zealanders that started by doing comedy songs – a genre that is usually pretty bollocks but not in this case. The Flight of the Conchords began as a comedy radio show on the BBC and then the genius that is HBO turned that into a TV show in America. The music is brilliant and the sitcom was hilarious. Sadly they have not been on our screens for ages.

Until now! … You probably saw that coming. They have released a new clip and a new song for red nose day and it is as good as ever. If you don’t like this, you are without a soul. Come back Flight of the Conchords!

Oh yes, and support red nose day if you live in a country generous enough to have one. Or at least one that can spare the cash.

In case you want more Flight of the Conchords stuff, or are curious about them, here you go. Man, I’m nice. Here is them on stage at some American show.

Here is their homage to Bowie. Alright man!

Object hits Jupiter

I’m sorry if you find this boring but I find it incredible and it is my website. I love space related stuff as it is all so damned epic. Things are ridiculously huge or far or heavy. Jupiter, for example, is absolutely fucking massive. It has twice the mass of all the other planets combined. It is this mass that has saved the Earth about a million times (just a personal estimate based on nothing).

Well, as the above picture shows, that figure is now roughly one million and one. The other day an amateur astronomer was filming Jupiter for some reason. He happened to catch the above explosion as it twatted into the huge gas giant. If that had hit the Earth you would be reading this in the afterlife (they must have internet in Heaven but there will be a lot more blocked sites than Hell).

This is the Earth compared to Jupiter:

Earth and Jupiter compared

So we would be doomed. So I just wanted to say, thank you Jupiter.

This is astounding. I seem to be posting a lot of videos recently but I can’t help it as people making awe inspiring clips. And this is one of the best ones. This video is made by a lot of very clever people who are advancing our civilisation and should be applauded from every rooftop.

I hope deep down that the more the Mars rover explores, the more humanity’s collective brain will look out to the stars and will focus less inwardly on all the petty squabbles, greed, politics, conspiracy theories and all the other shite that makes mankind a less impressive species. This video is of the Mars Curiosity landing on Mars and looking around for the first time. The final bit is a picture that someone made up of a composite of reflections of the Rover’s face. So you can see what it looked like. For some reason I was reminded a bit of Wall-E crossed with Short Circuit’s Number 5.

Imagine parachuting onto the surface of Mars. Now press play…

As I am currently going through a Bond theme right now, I thought I might as well include this clip. It’s pretty cool. I’m impressed that Sky is launching a Bond channel although after the first week what are they going to play? Is it just going to be a permanent loop of all the Bonds? Actually that would be good. Bond rules. Enjoy.

Bond is back! I got excited just typing that. Skyfall is the latest Daniel Craig outing, and it looks damned awesome. I love a good Bond film and am thoroughly enjoying this new ‘reimagining’ of him as a character.

If you are a regular reader it may not come as a surprise that I enjoy films that are chock full of hot women, exotic travel, gadgets, guns and explosions as these feature highly in my everyday life. Apart from the explosions and guns sadly, as they are frowned upon in ‘politically-correct-gone-mad’ London. I have fired a few guns though – we shot a lot of them at school and a few years ago I fired a huge selection in the jungles of Vietnam (as a tourist, not a ex-vet on a flashback). I also enjoy a fireworks display. Plus, when I was a teenager some mates and I put some cans of deoderant in the school bonfire which then exploded and my Tshirt caught fire. So I’m pretty close to Bond’s lifestyle.

Anyway, enough of my exciting life. Here’s Mr Bond: