Happy Earth Day!

This March marked the tenth anniversary of the BTCV Green Gyms. These gyms were not something I was aware of until I heard a report about them on Women’s Hour over the Easter weekend, but they seemed such an eminently good idea. Being a mild environmental pioneer, recycling as much as possible and encouraging / bossing / guilt tripping my housemates to do likewise, I decided to look into this a little further. I’m now thinking that I would like to attend one of the London green gyms with some of my colleagues, who, like me, are on our company green team.

The idea of the gyms is to incorporate exercise and becoming a little fitter with a worthwhile environmental task, be it clearing a woodland path, slashing weeds, or trimming a hedge. The free gym session starts with some basic warm up exercises, followed by instruction on how to use the tools at your disposal and information about the conservation task you’re going to do. To finish off, there are a few cool down activities. The whole “workout” lasts approximately three hours.

There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment for these dual-serving positive initiatives of encouraging a healthy lifestyle, whilst also promoting going green. A new swimming pool in Harrow is to be filled by rainwater alone. Reuters News and The Times have both recently focused on the need for town planners to create environments that encourage walking and cycling, rather than driving. This is so obviously the way we have to go, if we’re avoid to becoming obese monsters who use up all the earth’s resources and drown in the icecap meltwaters… which may serve us right, but would not be very enjoyable!

It makes so much sense to create as many initiatives as possible that promote a healthy lifestyle (fighting the current obesity “epidemic”) and environmental awareness (encouraging us to think about our lifestyles and how they impact upon the planet). So much of healthy living is, by its very nature, green. Walking or cycling as opposed to driving, eating natural and locally grown produce, which has not been transported miles, pumped full of conservative agents and heavily packaged. I look forward to being inspired by the next such initiative.

News and views

First thing’s first, given my last, rather old now, post, I guess I should mention how very sad it is that Shannon’s stepfather, Craig Meehan, has been charged for possessing indecent images of children. However, for all those who contributed to her search, I still think it was so wonderful that she was found alive and well.

And, despite Zimbabwean elections (when will Mugabe be got rid of – it’s so close now and yet still feels so far away), BA PR disasters (what were they thinking?) and pro-Tibet riots when the world is supposed to be “uniting” around the Olympic torch (the riots being a really good and important statement); there are still bits of news that show human nature in its most positive light.

One of these last week surrounds the tragic air accident, when a Cessna jet crashed into a house in Farnborough, Kent on Sunday 30 March. The owners of the house which the aircraft destroyed, Ed and Pat Harman, were so admirable when they visited the wreck of their house. All they could say was how sorry they were for the family and friends of the accident’s five victims (David Leslie, Richard Lloyd, Mike Roberts, Christopher Allarton, and Michael Chapman) and how grateful they were to be alive. Hardly a word did they mention about their – not comparable to the victim’s family and friends – but definite loss, the house in which they had spent the majority of their married life and brought up their two sons. I find this selflessness in the light of a general horrific tragedy, which was in a small part theirs, incredibly impressive and reassuring about the good and resilient side of human nature.

A proper reason for a party

I am so, so happy that Shannon Matthews has been found alive and well.

It's so rare for that to be the outcome once a child is missing for over three weeks. The whole situation was beginning to become eerily like that of Madeleine McCann and it would be so awful to go through all that as front page headlines yet again. Also, it was really humbling and inspiring to see all of the Matthews' friends and neighbours, who had taken it upon themselves to contribute to the search for Shannon, properly celebrating her discovery. Whatever controversy concerning her family situation, her abduction and the length of time it took to find her now arises, it feels like those, who for no reason other than huge empathy for her family, took upon themselves to contribute to her search, have been amply rewarded, as they justly deserve. It is inspiring. I am pleased that amidst other elements of the news story, the parties and celebrations surrounding her safe discovery, are being focused upon in such a positive light.

Juan Muñoz at the Tate

I've had such a lovely couple of weekends in London, actually getting out and about and enjoying it. It reminded me of how easy it is not to do much in London over the weekend - just potter from one party to another and deal with the hangovers the next day.

But if you do make that effort - there's so much going on in this fantastic city on every level: culturally, socially, politically and so on. It’s culturally that I’m interested in here.

Last weekend, my youngest sister and I headed to the Tate Modern and Juan Muñoz's exhibition. It was a gorgeous day and lovely to walk along the South Bank. I hadn't been to the Tate Modern for ages and was reminded just how impressive it is. I hear that the architects are from the same company (Herzog & de Meuron Architekten) as that which has worked on the Bejing bird’s nest Olympic stadium, which itself looks pretty incredible, whatever your feelings about the rest of the Bejing Olympics.

Back to the Tate. The crack is definitely worth seeing - wiggly its jagged way across the whole vast Turbine Hall. It's great seeing everyone enjoying it too - adults looking it in, taking photos of it, sitting or lying around it and chatting, whilst children run, jump and fall in it, more or less managing not to hurt themselves. A friend of mine crafted a photo of himself clinging to it for that "cliff hanging" moment, or, to recreate a brilliant birthday card I've seen a few times of a man seemingly clinging to a ledge, which is actually just the pavement post a very heavy night. This friend commented on the success of the crack as its interactivity with its audience. He thinks the only other Turbine Hall exhibition that has matched it was The Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson, which incorporated a lingering mist, a mirror over the entire turbine hall ceiling reflecting the space below and a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of lamps and reflected to create an impression of a whole sun. First, it led its viewers to respond and react to it more than does most art. The mirrored ceiling prompted people to spend ages looking up, staring at themselves, or lying on the ground and making silly shapes. Secondly, it too was talked about in the media and not just because it required safety warnings!

Last time I went to the Tate – many, many years ago now, it was Louise Bourgeois’ giant spider, which occupied the enormous space. This was the first of the Turbine Hall exhibitions, which were sponsored by Unilever for the next five years. Talking of Louise Bourgeois, I wish I had made the effort to make it to her more recent exhibition at the Tate, which another friend of mine told me was brilliant. Unfortunately, that was during my non-cultured time!

To return to Muñoz, his exhibition was great. I loved the metal, smallish sculptures of spiral staircases and balconies themed on common scenes in Spanish towns, which were in the first room. I could happily have one of those on my wall. However, that did end my desire to own, as opposed to just enjoy, Muñoz's art because his anonymous, almost human figures do become increasingly sinister. They are often hidden or partially concealed so that you can't fully look at them. Or, their eyes are shielded by gill-like covers. They are human enough that they're familiar, but still alien, being either dwarves, or having round bases in place of legs and such like, which is enhanced by their odd expressions. Particularly menacing characters were the two hanging figures, who looked so uncomfortable and contorted. Also, the five seated figures who appeared to be participating in an evil convention.

A friend of mine found the Terracotta Army-esque room very creepy. It is full of huddles of identical figures – 100 in total. They have the same head with the features of an Asian man, the same odd smile and the same clothes, though worn in different styles. I didn't have an eerie sense from them because they were smiling and I found their smiles convincing. Plus, I liked being able to walk around them and look them in the face, which was so difficult with most of the other figures.

It was certainly an intriguing exhibition. I knew nothing about Muñoz. Now I know that most of his sculpture, of which he created a vast amount, was done between 1980 and 2000. He worked in a variety of mediums (iron, bronze, plastic, wax) and in different styles. He was always interested in space and the human interaction with it, which appealed to me with the staircase sculptures, but not the human figures, especially as they were never quite human. Yet he managed to make his work oddly appealing in its purity and its pleasing texture. Having seen the wonderful Henry Moore sculptures at Kew, where you are able to stroke, sit on, walk through and clamber over just about all of them; I was sorely tempted to do likewise to some of Muñoz’s. It was not to be, but I’m very pleased to have gone along in any case.