where art collides

July 6, 2013

3rd Law Part 50 – tomorrow is another day

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: Red Arrows, Waddington — Trefor Davies @ 4:13 pm

The garden is mostly in shade which believe it or not is ideal for such a warm day. I can hear the occasional loud jet fly in or out of RAF Waddington. The airshow is in full swing. It is a perfect day for it though people will need to make sure they wear a hat and drink plenty of fluids. I’m beginning to sound like my mum now.

You have to hand it to the RAF they certainly know how to manage big events. A visit to the airshow gives you confidence that a full scale go to war effort would similarly be handled.

This, as I have mentioned, is a perfect summer’s day. It’s a chill in the shade not doing very much kind of day. That does sound a little contradictory doesn’t it – the contrast of the perfect, ie warm, summer’s day compared with a chill.

I came back from watching the Lions comprehensively beat the Wallabies at Ajax’s house. Most of the folk there were in full drinking swing. Party atmosphere. The barbecue was going and the sausages already cooked for the final whistle. A great day for it but not for me. I am heading to Boston tonight to hear Joe in a concert. It’s the 4^th gig I’ll have seen him play inside a week. In fact this one is a repeat of last Sunday’s concert in Lincoln so I could have legitimately have dipped out of tonight’s do were it not for the fact that as a parent I have a responsibility to see that the lad gets home safe and sound. Leaving him to hitchhike back from Boston late at night doesn’t sound consistent with that level of responsibility.

At the tender age of 51 I still can’t get my brain around the responsibility thing. Being just a big kid it sits strangely on my shoulders. The funny thing is that when I listen to myself talking work type things I hear a person with a lot of experience who has seen it all before.

The time will come when I stand again at the side of the road with a sign saying St Tropez as I did after my first year at Bangor University. It got me there. I didn’t stay long as it was a very expensive part of the world and my budget didn’t extend to the drinks prices they charged. I’m not sure you see people hitchhiking anymore. I might try it sometime for old time sake. Just to show the younger generation how it’s done. I’m sure that students used to have hitch hiking competitions in those days. See who could get the furthest in one weekend. They all expect to hop in a taxi nowadays.

I have to be careful here. Don’t want to sound like some old fart, nosir. Given the choice between a sleeping bag under a hedge and a nice hotel it’s a nobrainer. In fact given the choice between hitch hiking and a first class train carriage that too is a nobrainer. Bob.

I’m even getting a little fussier about my hotels these days. I need comfort. Ideally a pool though I won’t necessarily use it. A nice bar is a definite plus especially if it has sweeping views.

The planes continue to take off from Waddington. The noise competes with the birds twittering happily in our hedge. Different kinds of birds. Steel and feathers. One after worms and the other firing missiles. Predatory both, I guess. There is something vaguely sinister about the plane type of bird when you think of it in those terms. The feathered variety perches comfortably on its nest and the metal monster sits at the end of the runway waiting to hurtle skywards. To kill. Or be killed. Winged fate.

Let us all enjoy our day in the sun. Or the shade. As you like it.

We do have a hammock that has not had an outing this year yet. I think this is the weekend for it. We will also normally have arranged a camping trip by now. I fear that I may not get a night under canvas this year though I do have the Annual Group Scout Camp as a backup assuming I don’t have to go to the mother in law’s 80^th birthday on the Friday night. Ve shall see Meestar Bond.

Like tinterweb the aeroplane represents technological progress. I suppose. I think I’m getting into another of those sombre moods. It’s funny how moods can change just like that. Don’t worry. I’ve already pulled myself out of it. That’s what I call real mental strength. Confidence in my own ability. Comfortable in my skin. Except I could do with losing a bit more weight. Still I kept off the beers this morning and will be glad of it later when I enjoy the concert.

The enjoyment will be greatly helped by the fact that I heard all the pieces last week. You always enjoy listening to music that you already know innit. The finale was the Henry Wood medley that they sing at the Last Night of the Proms. Very enjoyable even if it doesn’t sit well with my non jingoistic Welsh upbringing. I guess you have to put politics aside when it comes to art.

Not that politics and art don’t mix. The art of the Russian Revolution for example is very striking and interesting to look at in its political context. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on this point 🙂

The one thing we don’t have that is quite useful for five days a year is a swimming pool in the back garden. I’d quite like one and would be in it now if we had one. My writing would suffer but that is just the price us writers have to pay for wanting a swimming pool. If that makes sense. It’s a law of diminishing returns. Become a hugely successful writer and earn lots of money so that you can afford to buy a pool. Stop writing because you spend all your time in the swimming pool. You can replace swimming pool with other distractions. Holidays in the Caribbean, Skiing in the Swiss Alps, a cruise around the Galapagos Islands. That kind of thing.

A cruise around the Galapagos Islands is never something I’ve seriously considered. I do quite like the idea of a month or so in de Caribbean man. Rum cocktails, hammock between two palm trees in what little shade there is at midday. Charter a yatch. One of those old fashioned schooner types that you anchor off a white sandy bay and jump into the water to do some snorkelling. Little fish swim around you. Taking a spear you catch enough for supper that night. Row ashore and light a fire on the beach where you cook the fish on sticks.

Back to the villa before it gets too late or maybe a night at sea in the cabin of the boat. The waves gently rock you to sleep and tomorrow is another day…

3rd Law Part 49 here

3rd Law Part 51 here

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Lincoln A2Z G8 – Fossdyke

Filed under: A 2 Z — Trefor Davies @ 8:39 am

When the weather is fine you’ll be spending your time just messing about on the river. As the song goes. The Fossdyke isn’t an actual river but hey. Who cares. It is water and if it is a sunny day it is nice to mess about on it.

Most of don’t have that luxury of course for to mess about on the water you have to have a boat. Still like the idea though. I wonder if there is a rush on boats when the weather is fine in the same was as when it snows the shops soon sell out of sledges (bit of poetry for you there).

I suspect not because you can get a sledge for a few quid but a boat is going to cost you quite a bit more, depending on how big you want it to be. The choice of boat size is very important because if you have a lot of people wanting to come on board and the boat isn’t big enough then it could sink.

I realise that this is a very obvious piece of advice but to stray off the path of political correctness for now fleeting moment there are some people out there who need instructions like this to be written in very large font and shoved in front of their face. I’d even go one step further and ask them to sign that they have red and understood the instructions. You’d need a lot of space for the signatures because there would be a lot of them.

Anyway I digress. Boat size, as I say, is important. Especially when the weather is fine because all your friends and neighbours will just happen to call round and slip into the conversation the fact that it’s a lovely day to be out on the water isn’t it? They expect to be invited. That is why you should buy a bigger boat than you think you need. Unless you aren’t particularly sociable or don’t like your neighbours in which case you could just tell them to stuff it.

You do get a lot of boats pootling along the Fossdyke. A walk along the bank, just past the golf course can be very pleasant. Don’t be shy, give it a try.

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3rd Law Part 49 – patterns in the grass

Filed under: 3rd law — Trefor Davies @ 8:04 am

It’s uplifiting. The conservatory doors are wide open. The birds are singing away happily knowing that they have a beautiful sunny day ahead. The lawn needs a bit of a cut but there is no rush. I was going to cut down the undergrowth at the bottom of the garden but I think I’ll leave it until tomorrow. Manyana. I’ve got some lively musing streaming over the wireless interweb. Radio Oxford fwiw.

I realise I should be tuned in to Radio Lincolnshire and news of the Waddington Air Show but an offspring is reading the traffic and travel news in Oxford so I am being a dutiful parent. I’ve been to the Air Show a couple of times and it is a fantastic day out. Long queues very long queues on the roads though so if you’re thinking of going you need to get there very early. Waddington is probably three miles from our house and the cars back up on the road outside us. You have been warned.

I don’t know why we don’t go to the Air Show more often, considering it is such a good day out. The only times we have been are when one or two of the kids has been playing with the school band in one of the hangars. This is the best way to do it as we get a free family ticket and a car pass so that we can park right next to the hangar and not have to join the unwashed masses in the public car park. This also makes it easy to nip back to pick up the picnic.

Although there have been wet weekends for the Air Show on balance the weather has usually been great. On one of our visits one of the kids forgot to bring a hat and I had to share mine. The concept of hat sharing is quite novel I think. Probably not original though. Hey you can’t live your life doing completely new things all the time. Most of it has already been done before – taking a shower, making the toast, cutting the grass. You get my drift.

You’d never get anything done if it all had to be new and original. Spend all your time doing nothing trying to think of something new. I suppose you could cut the grass in a different way. Make interesting patterns with the lawnmower that gradually disappear as more of the grass gets cut. That would be a valid “new thing” because each pattern would be different even if the concept might not itself be new. You can’t spend all your time cutting the grass in a new way though because once cut the grass would need to be left a week or so to grow back to a cuttable length again. You could cut if very slowly but I don’t think it would fly. You are going to have to think of other things.

Paining a big landscape watercolour could be one way of doing it. Unfortunately I’m not a very good artist. Also I don’t have any watercolour paints and in any case this is just a mental exercise. You don’t actually have to do any of the things being discussed here although I’m not stopping you. You should let me know what happens. Take a pic of the grass half way through the mow for example and send it to me on Twitter. Simple to do and a highly effective way of sharing. I might even retweet it if I thought it was good enough to share. You could find that everyone on the planet ends up seeing your picture of the pattern in your lawn. Not that everyone is online yet but I’m sure someone would print off a copy and post it somewhere public so that everyone else could see.

The only drawback with that level of publicity is that you would find your house besieged by the press all wanting to take “exclusive” pictures of your lawn. You would spend all your time doing interviews and never have enough time to cut the grass. If you charged a fee for the interview you might be able to afford to hire a gardener to cut the grass for you but that would somehow defeat the object of the exercise. I imagine, and this is pure hypothesis you understand, people would even hire airplanes to fly over your back garden for photographs of your lawn. Google would redo its satellite shot of your house to incorporate the pattern on the lawn. How cool is that. Pre-pattern images of your lawn would begin to sell at a premium although that would not last long because we all know how easy it is to copy images on tinterweb.

This whole sad line of reasoning is of course built on the premise that there is actually a pattern to be viewed so you’d better make sure you don’t finish cutting all the lawn like I originally suggested and leave a pattern. Think how disappointed everyone would be if there wasn’t one after all the fuss. You would start getting adverse comments on Facebook and Twitter. People can be very cruel you know. It may all stem from jealousy and their own pathetic inadequacy but that is real life.

The alternative is not to stick your head above the parapet. Don’t do anything original. Nobody will then notice you and you can go to your grave in soon to be forgotten ignominy. You may get a few people along at the funeral. The odd passer-by and a priest, if you are that way inclined, paid to do a job of work.

“Shed not a tear for this departed brother for he was not different.” You may now cry if you think that person is you.

3rd Law Part 48 here

3rd Law Part 50 here

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July 3, 2013

3rd Law Part 48 – pee haitch ee double yew

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: Andy, Barcelona, busker, Murray — Trefor Davies @ 9:04 pm

Pee haitch ee double yew. That’s what ah say. Just been watching our Andy at Wimbledon. E went two sets down but recovered to win three two. It went to seven five in the final set. Close man. C lose. Phew.

Don’t know why I’m talking like that. Andy is Scottish although as is ever the case the English media says he is British, which of course he is too. At least until the Scots vote for independence, dig a big trench the other side of Hadrian’s Wall and float off into the sunset.

I know I know Scotland isn’t exactly going to float off. It’s mostly made of granite. Faaar too heavy, man. Waaay too heavy. There I go again. It just slipped out. Funny innit? Funny strange not funny haha. Innit. I like the word innit. It lets me slip into a pseudo colloquial yoof tongue, if I may put it like that dear boy. Or girl. It’s almost certainly the BBC equivalent of colloquial yoof, if there is such a thing.

I know this because I once went to visit my Uncle Mick in South London. His instructions included details of which tube to get off at and then which bus to catch. It was on the bus that I discovered the true London yoof accent. I can’t call it Cockney because it bore no relation to the chirpy Cockney Pearly King type of accent which threw in the odd frog and toad and gawd blimey guvnor bless ya.

I couldn’t even begin to describe the London yoof accent to which I was witness. This is partly because in reality I am quite a sheltered individual. Although my travels have taken me to a big chunk of the world these have been in the splendid and luxurious isolation of posh hotels and trendy bars with taxis to ferry me between the two. I rarely encountered the yoof although I do once remember taking the sun outside a hotel in Los Angeles and a guy sauntered by and asked me for money. People don’t know how to cope with such situations. I declined the request (it was not an offer as such). He moved on and I retreated to the safety of the hotel lobby.

I saw a similar scene in Barcelona last weekend. An old peasant woman came into the carriage proffering two packets of paper tissues which she was trying to sell. I call her an old peasant woman so that you can try to picture her in your mind’s eye. She had a walking stick and grey hair and looked totally forlorn. She might not have been an actual peasant but she certainly looked the part.

Everyone in the carriage studiously ignored her. I didn’t know the form. Was she part of an armed gang that ripped you off once you got your wallet out to slip her a few coins for the tissues? Were the tissues nicked in the first place? Fortunately she studiously ignored me. I looked the typical tourist – shorts sandals tee shirt and tattered straw hat. Maybe she only tried to sell to locals. We were all uncomfortable with the situation.

I’m not saying that a tattered straw hat is typical of the tourist because I don’t think it is. Most tourists pride themselves on wearing more standard headgear such as baseball hats that say “I love Barcelona” or “Hard Rock Café”. Obv the Barcelona bit is because we were in Barcelona. It would be different in Blackpool, Bognor and Biarritz, to name but a few “B”s.

The old peasant woman got off the carriage at the next stop and a short while later a cheery bloke got on with a karaoke machine on some sort of hand trolley. He switched on the machine and proceeded to sing a song. He was busking. I felt instantly comfortable with this guy and gave him forty cents. Having forked out I then felt comfortable in taking photographs of him. I don’t think anyone else gave him any money but he got more than did the old peasant woman.

Off he went and I soon arrived at my stop. I never saw him again. Bit melodramatic eh? Thought I’d chuck it in. I never see most people again. I matters not. Who cares? Some people I want to see again. A few mates, my family etc I’m feeling some kind of mood change in the air here. The violins are about to kick in. There is some dramatic music in the offing. Maybe a few crashed piano chords.

I pause for reflection. The music dances lightly in the background, not intruding. I can hear it but it doesn’t get in the way of my thoughts. Sometimes I think I can also hear waves crashing against the beach. They keep coming. Slowly the sound of the waves gets louder and with it the orchestra builds up to a crescendo. The final notes crash into place and gradually drift away leaving me exhausted. My head is slumped forward and my arms hang limply by my side.

Slowly I come to. I look up, catch my bearings and walk offstage left (that’s right as you see it). The audience, for one moment held captive by my performance, springs to life and reacts with thunderous applause. I do not return to the stage. By this time I have left through the stage door and hailed a taxi to take me to the airport. Changing quickly in the back of the cab I cleverly alter my appearance and disappear.

Here is consternation back at the theatre and the audience gradually dissipates to the bars around the square where they spend the rest of the evening talking about the ending of the show and thinking how strange it all is. The next morning my disappearance is in all the press. A global search is set in place but they never find me.

I am in a remote cottage just beyond the line of the surf where few people go and where the locals do not talk to people they do not recognise. I am the once exception. They take me in as one of their own, referring to me as “the bloke in the cottage beyond the surf”. I spend my time meditating and working on my book.

Each morning I swim in the sea and am completely happy with my life. One day a ship appears on the horizon and anchors in the bay. A rowing boat comes away from the ship and heads towards the beach. Captain Cook wades ashore the last few feet and brings me some trinkets as tokens of his peace and goodwill. He also claims the beach in the name of the king at which point I have to tell him he is a few hundred years late.

Finding it difficult to hide his disappointment he turns around and tells his crew they must be off. “There be no rich pickings he me lads”. That night in the local pub I tell the villagers about my encounter. They look horrified at each other and ask me never to mention the incident again. There is something dark going on in this village. However I don’t like that kind of story so I’m going to move on to talk about the annual festival of St Eugenie that is held on the village green every August. Another time…

3rd Law Part 47 here

3rd Law Part 49 here

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Beauty on the Tube

Filed under: poetry,travel — Nigel Titley @ 1:42 pm

Filmy ferns at Farringdon
Harts tongue and shuttlecock,
Clinging to the brickwork, nodding in the breeze

Brunette-haired beauty,
Gets on at Barbican
Doing her mascara with a swift, sure hand

Regimented white tiles
March across Moorgate
Unrelieved by posters, or warning signs

Catenaries of cables
Sinuous and serious
Line the walls of Liverpool Street, purple and red

At last arrive at Aldgate
Ancient city gate
Floral tributes, staircases and journey’s end

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Electrical illusion

Filed under: poetry — Tags: SIGPOET Series — Jim @ 10:45 am

Immediacy alludes power,
Glimpsed through slatted bits;
Drawn close we matter,
Yet power rests unmoved;
On the boldest shoulder,
Benumbed by glare;
Guns unaffected,
By people who care.

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July 1, 2013

3rd Law Part 47 – I was up at half past three

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: tiredness — Trefor Davies @ 8:21 pm

Tiredness is not normally a productive state of mind. I thought I’d see what came out. Tonight I am tired. Not dead beat tired, almost asleep on my feet tired. Just a been up since 3.30 am tired that I could probably shrug off or delay for an hour or two by going out and getting some fresh air.

Apart from the 3.30am start, which was to take our youngest to school for a Y8 trip to France (ohohiho) I went swimming on my way to work and then did a 10 minute stint on the rowing machine when I got home. The physical exercise has I think contributed to my fatigue and I would be most surprised if I didn’t sleep soundly tonight.

The sleep of the dead? Not quite. I’m sure if necessary I would wake up. You know. If the burglar alarm goes off in the middle of the night or there was a terrific explosion just down the street from our house. Don’t ask me what caused the explosion. It was just a massive bang and I did not care to nip outside to investigate. I guess it could have been a plane crash. We are very near to RAF Waddington. Heard nothing about it on the news though so I guess I’ll have to accept that it was totally a figment of my imagination. Not something that could come out of a mind in a state of extreme tiredness I suspect.

Hmm. I don’t know where this is taking me. That of course is part of the fun. The step out into the unknown. The great leap of faith. Takes some courage to do that sometimes. Either courage (mon brave) or the feeling that you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. Did you like the way I slipped a bit of French into the conversation. It seemed the right thing to do. I’m obviously being influenced by the fact that the lad is by now in France.

I quite fancied going on the trip myself. Taking off and leaving everything behind. Over the years I’ve often romanticised about taking off to Skegness for the afternoon when I should have been in work. I also quite like the idea of dropping everything and drifting around the world, seeing where the tides take me. Only problem is the mortgage, the kids, the job etc etc etc. I put down the thre etceteras there but actually the three reasons I gave for not taking off around the world, or to Skegness, are exactly those initially articulated. There is no need for further material contribution to the discussion.

There is one thing you do need to know and that is we do not have a pet dog. That barrier to going away for a long trip is therefore not present. Had we had a dog we would have had to leave him in a boarding kennel for an indeterminate length of time. In my mind that is no way to treat your best friend, your most faithful servant. Good that Rover can be both innit? Yes the dog that we don’t own is called Rover, or not, depending on whether you believe me, or not.

If it wasn’t calledRover I think that Aubrey would be a suitable alternative name. Rover makes me picture in my minds eye an animal constantly on the move. Sniffing smells in a variety of nooks and crannies as he makes his way around the garden/house/visitor attraction. That assumes they let dogs into the vistor attraction. He could be a guide dog I suppose but then he wouldn’t be mine as I am not blind and in no need of a guide dog.

Aubrey on the other hand, and before I forget, is somewhat more languid. He has large floppy ears and big eyes that often gaze up at me saying “do you really want me to do this?” Aubrey is not to be confused with Oberon. I have no idea who or what Oberon is. Might even be a bar of chocolate, likely containing some kind of nut.

I never used to like nuts when I was a kid. I do now. My dad used to have a big bowl of mixed nuts that he would crack open on Christmas Day. Use kids would volunteer to work the nutcrackers for him, or at least I did. Can’t speak for my sisters. Can’t actually remember. I also remember that dad used to get crate of pale ale for Christmas. The bottle tops used to have a detachable plastic lining that dad would remove and use it to affix the metal bit to our tshirts like a badge. Funny what you remember. I don’t really remember that I was wearing a tshirt. I can’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old. The clothes I wore then don’t fit me now and even if they did they would probably no longer be fashionable. I’d a chucked them ages ago on that basis.

Actually that isn’t true. I’m not known for chucking clothes. I always feel I’ll fit back into them one day. Funnily enough last year I lost quite a bit of weight and now do (yes indeedy) fit back into quite a number of shirts and trousers given up a long time ago. Some of them I didn’t even remember I had. Must have known deep down I was right when I said I’d get back into them. Some kind of built in instinct. Like cows have when they lie down because it is about to rain.

Or racing pigeons. Not that racing pigeons lie down when it is about to rain. As far as I know. I meant like racing pigeons know where home is and head straight there not passing Go or stopping off at the George and Dragon pub for a pint of mix and a packet of peanuts. When I say mix I mean mild and bitter and not anything containing brown ale. Not sure you see either mild or brown ale being drunk much these days mind you. I do like a pint of bitter.

3rd Law part 47 was brought you by “I just can’t get enough of them 3rd Law blues, oh yea”

3rd Law Part 46 here

3rd Law Part 48 here

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Patrons

Filed under: poetry,random — Tags: SIGPOET Series — Jim @ 2:02 pm

Succumb, my loyal populace!
Line up and be defended;
Together I am stronger,
And my enemies extended.

My watchers are amongst you,
But fuss not at their goal;
Enjoy the playground made for you,
The freedom I bestow.

I tell you where all dangers lie,
You need not be afraid;
For every foe you know about,
Are traps already laid.

My strength lies in your weakness,
Your weakness in my power;
Critics flip as fawning patrons,
Come the zero hour.

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The Art of Government

Filed under: the art gallery — Rob Wilmot @ 1:58 pm

As a Crown Representative for technology, working out of the Cabinet Office, I get to attend meetings in some interesting and unique places around Whitehall. As a painter myself, I’m often impressed by – and sometime in awe of – the artworks that hang on the walls and stand in the halls of Government buildings. It’s also interesting to see that few people stop to look and consider the art around them – probably because they’re used to it being part of their day-to-day lives.

An example of this struck me when I was checking in with the security office for a meeting at Admiralty House. Directly above the security officer’s head was one of the finest portraits of Samuel Pepys that I have ever come across. In fact, I’d seen it in an art book as a child, but to see it ‘in the flesh’ as it were, was quite a thing for me. The security chap was more than slightly bemused by my gawping at the picture above his head; a picture he must have seen everyday and therefore took no real notice of.

This got me thinking about who actually ‘owns’ these pictures and who is responsible for managing such ‘assets’. One quick search on Google gave me the answer. The works belong to the nation and are managed by the Government Art Collection; which comes under the umbrella of The Department of Culture, Media and Sport. I was delighted to see that they provide a website which is centered on a pretty well designed searchable database. It’s not clear how comprehensive this database is (for example I couldn’t find the Pepys portrait in there), but it kept me engaged for a good hour or so, and there’s a wonderful diversity of classic and contemporary work listed.

I’m going to be tweeting pictures (where I have permission) as I come across any I like. You can join me on this journey of discovery by following me on Twitter @robwilmot

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June 30, 2013

Panoramic images of Barcelona

Filed under: the art gallery,travel — Tags: Barcelona — Trefor Davies @ 9:36 am

In years gone by we would have sent postcards home from a holiday with pictures of what we have seen – castles, beaches, pretty cottages etc etc etc. Nowadays we just take pictures with our phones and post the best to Facebook et al.

This post is a selection of panoramic views of places visited in Barcelona. Click on each one to enlarge. That’s all.

View from the waterfront.

Rooftop view at the Hotel Jazz

Placa Reial just off La Rambla

Park opposite Sagrada Familia

Castello Montjuic

View of port from Castello Montjuic

More Montaljuic view

View from restaurant Xalet de Montjuic

View from top of Park Guell

Another Parc Guell view

Barcelona waterfront

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To the glory of God

Filed under: the art gallery — Trefor Davies @ 6:10 am

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Sagrada Familia

Filed under: travel — Tags: Gods — Trefor Davies @ 5:55 am

There was a time when efforts to please gods involved human sacrifice and the building of large temples. Fortunately as humanity notionally grew more civilised this evolved to just building temples which were duly adorned with the creations of the finest artists and filled with the music of the best composers. There doesn’t seem to have ever been a shortage of cash available to fund such projects. Plenty of the faithful dutifully emptying their pockets on a Sunday and rich men buying their place in heaven.

Whatever you might think of the whole subject, religion has undeniably been the stimulus for some of our most enduring cultural output and most iconic of buildings. Religion has helped to shape the world in which we live.

For some considerable time now this has no longer been the case, at least from a cultural perspective. The best composers and artists freed from societal shackles are no longer limited to works of praise and have moved on. From the perspective of an outsider this means that the merits of contemporary religious cultural output are apparent only to those engulfed in those religions.

The one exception was the Sagrada Familia which I came across in Barcelona this week. This is a truly astonishing building designed by Spanish architectural genius Antoni Gaudi. It is almost disingenuous to call the Sagrada Familia contemporary because whilst the building is still under construction the design was started in 1883. In that respect it probably catches the tail end of the long era of great religious arts.

Notwithstanding that because it is still being built I feel justified in labelling it modern. Coming from Lincoln my benchmark is Lincoln Cathedral. Sagrada Familia is one of the few buildings that comes close to the magnificence of Lincoln Cathedral. Tops it even!

My daughter Hannah and I visited Barcelona last week and Sagrada Familia was on Trip Advisor as the number one tourist attraction in town. Being tourists we did the right thing. Initially we did the wrong thing. We just turned up. That doesn’t work. The queues to get in were two or three deep and stretched maybe a couple of hundred metres. There was no queue for the “internet advance purchase” entrance.

I considered switching on roaming and buying the tickets there and then. I figured that those queuing must be digitally ignorant or digitally impoverished. However the act of switching on roaming would have meant financial impoverishment so we cut our losses and elected to use the free WiFi of Hotel Jazz and come back in the morning.

The one thing that stuck in my mind was the strong high steel fencing all around the church to stop freeloaders sneaking in. We have to remember that this is a church. The idea that it has to have fencing around it to keep people out seemed very strange. I accept that they are still having to pay for the builders so I won’t dwell on the point.

The next morning we walked past hundreds of people to the front of the queue, flashed the booking reference on my phone and were in. Sorted.

Once inside you really do see why Sagrada Familia is the top attraction and has been labelled a World Heritage site by UNESCO. The building truly is awesome which I’m sure is part of the plan. It has also been designed to be fit for purpose with Biblical stories woven into its fabric and the layout pitched at the functional requirements of the church.

Aside from the grandeur what really stood out was the number of tourists ogling the place. You couldn’t move without getting in the way of someone’s photo opportunity. It was almost like a religious Disneyland. Guided tours thronged.

The nave was roped off so that people could go and sit and contemplate. This deference to spirituality was policed by a somewhat effeminate looking man in a red jacket who shoed people away for ducking under the tape to reach a seat and insisting they went around to the correct entrance at the back. He also quite rightly made me take my hat off.

It was easy to imagine the place on a Sunday, full of flock lead by gold bedecked incense swinging clerics. They were nowhere to be seen on our visit although we saw a couple of nuns doing the tourist thing.

The Sagrada Familia though, has hidden depths and behind the altar was a small window that let you look down into what was presumably the crypt. Here we caught a glimpse of where the hard core praying was done. Rows of wooden benches populated with people sat in front of a priest. We couldn’t hear what was going on but it was clearly a church service.

It was almost as if the church within a church was where the real action took place with the outer shell being the cash generative façade. Presumably those in the inner sanctum had not had to pay the 14.80E entrance fee to the basilica (19.30E with tour of the towers). Maybe they had an annual pass or their own separate, heavily guarded entrance.

Moseying on, looking perhaps for a coffee shop, we found a vending machine. They missed a trick there. Perhaps they didn’t have the space. Eventually we came across the souvenir shop. I bought a book and a fridge magnet and we went on our way.

Sagrada Familia is worth a visit but buy your tickets in advance and beat the queues.

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