……..nuff said. Just listen.

Mind you – spent most of the evening listening to Goldfrapp – quality, as ever. That hour or so watching them rehearse at the Eden Project will live long in the memory. Cornwall – always, always, happy days.

I was emailed this today. I find it both moving and remarkable. The video shows the winner of “Ukraine’s Got Talent”,  – but don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a talent show.

Kseniya Simonova, 24, draws a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II.  Her talent, which admittedly is a different one, is mesmeric to watch. The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about $130,000.

Read this little preamble about what is being presented:

She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.

Kseniya Simonova says: “I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears.. And there’s surely no bigger compliment.”

Here’s the link to the video.

My hopes for yellow lines are dashed

Random events in a road near you.

On Sunday evening, admittedly after a few beers, I wandered home to discover an 9ft sign at the bottom of our road. Thinking I must be dreaming I photographed it. Wandering on, I got excited about the fact that the council had finally come to their senses regarding commuter parking in our road. Sadly not. By the following evening the sign had disappeared again, and no yellow lines had materialised. Due to the fact that it had fallen over, it did however use up a parking space for a day – which pleased this author. Little things.