Weather forecasters are predicting a rather cloudy day today with occasional outbreaks of rain. Showers are also expected to put a damper on outdoor activities tomorrow, though there will be some sunny spells to look forward to But nothing could upset these children yesterday. All that mattered was no school and no homework.
Photograph: Edward Webb used a Canon Sureshot A1 underwater camera with Fuki 200 film. Sean Kinsella, the 14-year-old boy who ran away to America with his best friend’s mother, has told US detectives that he had been having a “romantic” relationship with her for a year. Buoyant mood: Children were making the most of their freedom yesterday at Parliament Hill Lido in north London.
As the last schools closed for the long summer break, children everywhere were heading for the traditional fun spots. And the only cloud on the horizon lay in the elements themselves. It stands alone in the last room of the exhibition and, I have to say, it seems like an appropriate note on which to end.ICA, The Mall, London SW1 To 28 Sept (0171-930 3647). Here he exhibits a range of modernist furniture that looks elegant enough, but which, on the lounger at least, has a sunk ridge that would hit the base of the spine and render the thing impossibly uncomfortable. His work is described as “resolutely functional” but it is shown here under a “Do Not Sit” notice.
Not, I think, a post-modern joke, more like a flaw in the making.One can, however, sit on The Great Flood, a new sculpture by Turner prize nominee Sarah Lucas. I say sculpture because she says sculpture, but all it is really is a working loo signed with a gold marker pen. “Is it,” asks the notice that accompanies the exhibition, “a step beyond Duchamp’s `Fountain’, a laconic metaphor for the body, or just a plain piece of plumbing?” I’d go with the latter. He draws influence from classical minimalists such as Part and fusion pioneers such as The Mahavishnu Orchestra; he is constantly re-evaluating himself He’s also very funny. “The muse has no interest in press cuttings,” he notes.The next day, at a radio interview for a Gaelic station (he barely speaks a word), the presenter chirpily inquires what they do for a living. His music, traditional Irish “by accident of birth, I suppose”, is possibly a vehicle in the search for the soul “It is like a missionary thing,” he says. Like the Blues Brothers, perhaps, on a mission from God?”Yeah, that’s it!” he grins, ambiguously.
“I’ve actually played in that theatre, with my dad’s band – the one in the last scene…” His dad’s band, The Tulla Ceili Band, 50 years old this year, is the most venerable in Ireland. But seriously…”Look at it like this – the evangelists today speak to more people than Jesus ever did and they’ll have a minimal effect by comparison. I was reading this interview with someone who was saying `I’ll always be known as the bass player from KajagoogooPlaying hundred-seaters and really communicating to those people, and paying his way through life, is all he wants. Both he and Dennis have been through the rock’n'roll mill and now they’ve found where, for them, it’s at – soul music.
