rhyme & reason

Despite the duff ear, my love of Radio 3 is waxing. I may even have to get a t-shirt made.

Recently, the Beeb have improved their iPlayer site and now users can select their favourite shows so these shows are ready and waiting as soon as you enter the site. (Unfortunately, my overseas buddies might not be able to access the shows - which is a pity - but fair, I suppose, as BBC content is funded by UK taxpayers).

I have discovered another gem of theirs, Words & Music. I've avoided it until now because it sounded dry and up itself. Basically, it's a mix of spoken word and music selected for a theme. I feel a bit short changed on the music, it's often only a clip, but the words are the thing, a reading from a novel, or a piece of poetry. It's a wonderful way for a relative illiterate like me to hear poetry and I wonder how it would work on my mp3 player, randomly selected in shuffle mode. I might acquire a few clips and find out.

I was quite taken by the poem, Machines, by Michael Donaghy. It was read on the show by an actor from the Archers (a chronic radio soap where nothing discernible happens to a community of farrrmers) but I discovered that Donaghy was happy to perform his own work in his time and so here he is performing Machines.

My Ear Deceives Me

I've got this ear. Recently, it's developed a condition which I believe falls into the ETD category. Eustachian tube disorder, which sounds like something the transport workers' trade union might organise for commutors north of Watford. It's also given me glue ear which I can't shift.

Googling for remedies, I read that dairy products may make matters worse by increasing mucus output so in an effort to reduce dairy I thought I'd try substituting rice milk. On its own, I found it tastes like regular milk that's ever so slightly on the turn and with a spoonful of sugar added. It's not too bad if you like yoghurt and stuff, which I do.

However, it doesn't really mix with other foods like milk does. First, I tried making porridge. The result neither looked like porridge nor tasted at all pleasant. Secondly, I added it to my morning coffee. This proved worse: it totally failed to complement the bitterness with the usual creamy smoothness I look for, but it did give it added sweetness. That would be fine if I took sugar in my coffee - I could add fewer spoonfuls - but I don't.

Luckily, I've been taking my Redbush tea black for some time. I'll try the soya milk next but I won't get my hopes up.

Tony Meeuwissen

It's easy to overlook the exhibition space in our small town museum. In a modest room tucked around the back of the museum gift shop, I found a small exhibition by local artist and illustrator, Tony Meeuwissen. I say local because I see he lives in the county, but as an artist he's certainly global. His portfolio includes book covers for Penguin paperbacks, record covers, and postage stamps. It was really delightful work; deep, rich and colourful.

I could have bought a framed limited edition print, one of a series of illustrated playing cards, but every one I picked had a tiny red dot underneath - I presumed this meant he'd sold the lot. I could have asked, I think he was there, at least there was a man being pressed to sign a book for a customer, I didn't know what he looked like and, anyway, when I next looked the man was no where to be seen.

On a table were three books of original sketches for sale, real doodle stuff but nicely done. In the front was a few words describing his way of coming up with an idea, basically throwing doodles down, all the time thinking outside the box and letting his imagination run riot until a germ of an idea presented itself. It's consoling news for compulsive doodlers like myself; all I need now is to give up the day job. Or first find the courage to do so.

street photographer

Had this little beauty in my inbox this morning, an invitation to join a community, the Street Photography Now Project, in association with The Photographer's Gallery, London, and Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, authors of Street Photography Now. (Unfortunately, it involves posting our efforts on Flickr - why they didn't set up their own unique platform, I really don't know.) The gist is, they'll post a weekly instruction for you to take to the street, make an image, and upload it to their Flickr group. You don't need a squirrel monkey; just a camera, a town, and a lot of brass neck.

Here's a brief slideshow promoting Howarth and McLaren's new book which contains some fun, funny, and inspirational photos, and the kind of thing I imagine they're looking for;

Street Photography Now from Johanna on Vimeo.

Addendum: Seems to be a bit confusing over at SPNP's Flickr page. I've found this which seems to be where the prompts are. Then you have to marry it up to the right Flickr group. Why, oh why, oh why et cetera et ad infinitum....

sirkka-liisa konttinen and the north

BBC Four is back on form this month with a series on The North [of England]. As a ''Southerner'', I have to be careful what I say about The North. I mean, I don't actually get up there much but, from what I know, it's all right. Largely my experience of it has been through the media of film, predominantly black and white ones, and books. I'm pretty sure both of these skew the true nature of The North, and its folk, but, to its advantage, gives it an extra sense of romanticism and strength; it makes for good art.

The series introduced me to the work of Finnish photographer and film-maker, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. This is a photographer to know as he obviously knows about photography, its potential and its purpose. In the 60s she came to Byker, a working class area of Newcastle on the verge of being pulled down to make way for improved housing. The young Konttinen fell in love with the community she found living in the terraces and moved in. Then she began photographing her neighbours and their neighbourhood. Then last year she returned to make portraits of newer residents of Byker Wall, the estate which replaced the condemned Byker, this time in colour.

Her portraiture is a work of genius; she manages to capture the finest of lines between the formal pose and the candid. Only the genuine expressions of the ordinary people in her images give away the unstaged nature at that moment of capture, and what Cartier-Bresson must have meant by the ''decisive moment''. Have a look at the family portrait with their bull terrier, above. It featured very briefly in the programme, and it turns out to be her own favourite.

I love the structure of this composition, the way the subjects are placed in the room as if she was setting out to paint the scene, not merely snap them. Yet they seem, at that moment, to be totally unconscious of the artist: the playful interaction between dog and master, the open wonder in the upturned face of the young daughter set against the knowing gaze of her older sister. Perfect.