Hey Now Little Mouse

The end of the Shep stay is nigh and in a few minutes I am to make my way to Sheffield for a weekend of furry fun.

It's been great, Shep staying. Yesterday I took him around my home town and he was surprised to find a pint that cost £1.42. Even Fosters in Yarm costs a mere £1.80 (still too much for that muck in my opinion). He also enjoyed a meat and onion pie from Barnacles, a famous chippy in the area.

Today we walked around mima, the modern art gallery in Middlesbrough. I know that modern art is much derided but, like all art, there is good and bad in its stable and I prefer much modern art over portraits of crusty old seventeenth century relics. mima has significantly increased the reputation of my home town and the listening terrace, where you could listen to Swedish poetry whilst overlooking parkland is magnificent. The collections in the gallery are very strong at the moment too and afterwards we had a nice cup of soothing tea and a teacake.

We also watched Control last night, the film chronicling the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. It was a very sad portrait of a man who was completely at loss with life and there were some very poignant moments in the film, particularly around his latter days. I thought the film moved a little too quickly in places ("the let's get married/let's have a baby" stuff could have been more fleshed out) but the artistic and philosophical side of Curtis was brought to the fore and this made the film a very strong piece of work. Indeed, it was very moving.

Hey Now Little Mouse

The end of the Shep stay is nigh and in a few minutes I am to make my way to Sheffield for a weekend of furry fun.

It's been great, Shep staying. Yesterday I took him around my home town and he was surprised to find a pint that cost £1.42. Even Fosters in Yarm costs a mere £1.80 (still too much for that muck in my opinion). He also enjoyed a meat and onion pie from Barnacles, a famous chippy in the area.

Today we walked around mima, the modern art gallery in Middlesbrough. I know that modern art is much derided but, like all art, there is good and bad in its stable and I prefer much modern art over portraits of crusty old seventeenth century relics. mima has significantly increased the reputation of my home town and the listening terrace, where you could listen to Swedish poetry whilst overlooking parkland is magnificent. The collections in the gallery are very strong at the moment too and afterwards we had a nice cup of soothing tea and a teacake.

We also watched Control last night, the film chronicling the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. It was a very sad portrait of a man who was completely at loss with life and there were some very poignant moments in the film, particularly around his latter days. I thought the film moved a little too quickly in places ("the let's get married/let's have a baby" stuff could have been more fleshed out) but the artistic and philosophical side of Curtis was brought to the fore and this made the film a very strong piece of work. Indeed, it was very moving.