Life's about experiences. These are mine.
A couple of years ago Reading Town Hall played host to an art work called Gaia by the artist Luke Jerram. Essentially this was a giant inflatable ball with an image of the Earth printed on it and suspended from the ceiling, slowly rotating to a soundtrack. I’m sure that Jerram wouldn’t describe it in …
When I was on the university campus the other day, visiting the new World Reimagined globes that had been installed, I made a slight detour to visit one of the ugliest buildings around— the Region 6 War Room. I didn’t know that this even existed until I stumbled across this video which highlighted it and …
Continue reading “Region 6 War Room, Reading University, Reading”
On New Year’s Day this year, we went over to the university to check out the globes that had been installed to create an art trail on the campus. This was part of a wider national campaign called The World Reimagined which had globes all over the country. You can read about this initial visit …
Continue reading “The World Reimagined Global Trail, Reading University (Updated)”
On this cruise, there have been two days at sea to fill. The first one was easiest as it was the first day, and so there was a whole ship to explore. Also, the weather was great, and so many were frying themselves on the decks, leaving the lounge spaces inside free for those of …
On almost all cruises you end up in a destination which is smaller than the rest, or further out from the action (Piraeus for Athens or Civitavecchia for Rome for example). Haugesund was that stop on this cruise. The town was 20 minutes from the cruise port, and while it would have been walkable, we …
Nestled at the end of the Aurlandsfjord is Flåm, a tiny place that is known predominantly for one thing and one thing only— the train to Myrdal. Does anyone come to Flåm for anything other than the railway journey? I very much doubt it. I certainly didn’t. Too Much Information When we were planning our …
We don’t normally go on organised excursions laid on by the cruise company because, quite frankly, they don’t represent very good value for money. Often you can do the same trip for half the price by doing your own thing. However, that’s not always possible, and today we took a coach trip from Olden, where …
Continue reading “Norway 2025 – Day Four – Briksdal Glacier”
When we awoke this morning, we were already docked in Stavanger, Norway’s third-largest city, a place of 150,000 people, making it less than half the size of my hometown of Reading. Stavanger has grown on the back of fishing, oil, and tourism, the latter as the gateway to the fjords. The cruise ship, of which …
There’s a lot to be said for the comfort of familiar things – a favourite place, a much loved song or a film that lifts you – and it can be very discombobulating to do someting that on the outside appears to be the same but is actually very different. I guess that this is …
Continue reading “Norway 2025 – Day One & Two – Comfort in Repetition”
Reading Museum has one small exhibtion space, the John Madjeski art gallery, that they put to good use displaying a number of interesting exhibitions each there for about six months. Previous ones had all been more traditional art type exhibitions and the last of which was Art Stories where recent works of art acquired by …
Continue reading “Reading’s DIGITAL Revolution, Reading Museum”