Punk - a trip back in time

Hello again

The Haunch of Venison Gallery in Burlington Gardens has done it again. Their latest exhibition, Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper is fantastic.

It captures a moment in time during the seventies when Punk scene burst into the public conscience. The moment when the country first had to face up to the snarling, spitting aggression of anti-establishment, the in-your-face names of the bands, the mad hair, chains and safety pins. Punk was a new movement that took no prisoners, it didn't want to be liked, didn't want your respect and definitely didn't want your approval.

The exhibition is a collection of posters, fliers and fanzines from the early days of Punk; a fantastic mixture of uprising, anger and innocent naivety.

The style and quality of the imagery really do two things: 1) it demonstrates how Punk really did come from the underground and rose up to challenge society and 2) it demonstrates how far graphic design has come in that time.

The early posters are handmade and then photocopied using images cut out and pasted onto a master, often with hand-written instructions about where, when and how much the gigs were. In terms of quality (not content), these are the sort of posters my young children make today. These fliers & posters were really crude; both in the sense of them being graphically unsophisticated and often in the sense of being vulgar. But that is part of their charm, punk challenged everyone, it was deliberately over the top, it wanted to upset you, it wanted to get under the skin of the establishment and it succeeded.

In the (slightly) later posters, you can see how the record companies must have seen the pound signs flashing and seen the opportunity to take advantage of the situation. They instinctively brought in the professionals to promote the bands and take them to the main stream. In the sense of the punk movement and music this must have looked like "selling out" but the upside of this is that they took the graphics to a different level and produced what are now iconic images of the 1970s eg the Public Image Limited and the Sex Pistols branding .

A really interesting half hour in an excellent gallery, just off Jermyn Street. Go and see for yourself.

Until next time...

Watch out for evil Guinea Pigs!

Hello again

I need to tell you about a terrifying experience I suffered this weekend.

My daughters have a Guinea Pig each; Polo (nearest the camera) and Cookie (in the background).

On the whole, I have no issue with their existence alongside mine, the girls love them, my wife loves them and they in return love the girls and my wife. When the girls or Teresa walk past the cage, Cookie and Polo put their front paws on the cage and tweet hellos to one and all.

It's not the case with me though, I get angry chirping noises. That aside, the pigs and I get along ok and although I occasionally try to buy there affection with celery or broccoli, we all know the real truth

On Saturday, I was sitting on the sofa minding my own business, fiddling about on my iPad whilst the girls and my wife had the Guinea Pigs out for a cuddle on the same sofa (I don't cuddle the pigs, I'm not keen on all that scratchy, scrabbling they do). Then, without any notice Polo leapt from my daughter, straight onto my throat. It was terrifying, like a flying fox jumping from one tree to another or that film with the vampire bats attacking the man. Shocked and terrified, I screeched like a little girl "get it off, get it off" only to see my wife and daughters laughing hysterically at the situation. After a few moments Daisy (9) picked it off me, still laughing.

The girls believe it was "just trying to say hello" but in hindsight, I think the Guinea Pig was giving me a warning - a bit like Chukky in the Child's Play horror film.

My card is marked

Until next time.

Bowood House

Hello again,

I had the pleasure of visiting Bowood House in Wiltshire last week. It is a really good example of an English country house, garden and park and well worth the time for a visit. We had the added pleasure of being escorted round the house by Lord Lansdowne who's wonderful enthusiasm really brought the history to life.

Like a lot of country houses, it has had a very chequered past with layers of history built by the family and, to top it off the parkland was designed and built in the 18th Century by Capability Brown and contains one of the best cascades in the country, designed by Hamilton.

Go see it

Until next time...