Bard!

Another gorgeous hot summer’s day which has me fretting about climate change, even as I bask…

M and I headed into central Manchester and it felt like being on a weekend break somewhere in Southern Europe - which was rather welcome, given that we’re not planning to travel overseas any time soon.

We’ve waited months to see the ‘Grayson’s Art Club’ exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery https://manchesterartgallery.org/exhibitions-and-events/exhibition/graysons-art-club/ and were initially thwarted by lockdowns and then by an inability to get tickets. But finally, the great day has arrived! It was lovely to see the show and to be reminded of some of the excellent artwork produced by the British public, including a range of celebrities and professional artists, not to mention Grayson and Philippa Perry themselves - as featured on the TV show that was one of my highlights of lockdown.

Afterwards, we wandered over to Piccadilly Gardens for the final day of the ‘Big Ben Lying Down’ installation by Marta Minujín https://mif.co.uk/whats-on/big-ben-lying-down-with-political-books/ which features a recumbent recreation of the Clock Tower at the Palace of Westminster, incorporating 20,000 political books (see Extras). This being the last weekend of Manchester International Festival, all 20,000 books were being given away to the public, and we were keen to take advantage of the opportunity to grab a freebie!

As we were queuing to enter the tower I spotted the poet, playwright and Chancellor of the University of Manchester, Lemn Sissay www.lemnsissay.com whose memoir ‘My Name is Why’ I read a year or so ago. After yesterday’s failure to secure a blip of a ‘person of note’, (er, not that M *isn’t* a person of note, I hasten to add!) I was determined not to let this opportunity pass me by, and managed to pigeonhole Lemn and ask for a photo, which he acceded to very sportingly!

Although Lemn was one of the authors whose books were available as part of the installation/giveaway, I actually opted for a copy of lawyer and academic Phillipe Sands’ book ‘East West Street’ which links back to the city of Lviv which, as mentioned in yesterday’s blip, was were some of my forebears came from.

Here’s Lemn Sissay with ‘What If?’ https://youtube.com/watch?v=hy7xBojgYLg