And that was Christmas

My dad doesn't have the best of luck, for our 2nd Christmas with him in a row, he fell ill for the big day itself.

Perhaps we're just bad luck charms? More likely I suspect his love affair with eating seafood on Christmas Eve may have played a part on one or both occasions. To be fair though, the 1st time was a combination of slightly warm prawns from Whitby and the crazy proof navy rum consumed that night. The 2nd time was more bad luck, perhaps related at least a little bit with a defrosted fillet of Plaice that was consumed, but more likely being in contact with someone who recently had the winter vomiting bug could have done it. Bless his cotton socks, he was still trying to do the cooking preparations when he just couldn't keep it in any longer and spent most of Christmas day in the bathroom and looking as pale as a sheet.

The 4 of us remaining rescued the preparations and Norngirl took charge of the cooking and we still ended up with yummy feast. We went buffet style on the table so I went for a giant Yorkshire pudding pile variety of presentation. It was delicious!

As well as the unexpected which threw the day out a little, we all managed to sit around the TV to watch Dr Who which I thought was very good, well structured and heart warmingly festive. The falling from the edge of space and being dead but only bruised on the outside did seem to push the need for a plot device a little far. Multiple fractures and a bit more of a pizza appearance seemed more likely but at least it was only for a little more dialogue and to probably not scare the children watching.

The rest of the Christmas period flew by, on boxing day we went to the pub to watch the football; Leeds were thrashed by Notts Forest and it didn't make easy viewing. Hopefully the lack of fight and skill was more a hangover of the Ken Bates era.

The best moments were getting a little bit of down time here and there with Norngirl as well as tasting lots of nice beer. Other highlights were visiting people and heading to a couple of tourist attractions.

One of the places we visited was The Hepworth Wakefield.

Being able to walk over the river on a springy bridge to get to it was great fun and there is a cool junk dude hanging from a crane by the river Calder.

The gallery itself has lots of space but very little content that grabbed my attention. I liked the medical drawings though they were all rather samey samey after the first 10 or more. My favourite artwork was the collection of images showing scenes of Wakefield as it was in the past.

If you've read my views on art before you'll know I'm not a fan of a lot of modern art and the majority of the pieces displayed here didn't win me over. By the time we had walked through all of the galleries it seemed to me that a lot of modernist sculpture (where it isn't self evident as to what it is) ends up looking like a case of someone creating something and then assigning the context or label to the form after the fact.

In fairness, I thought a lot of the Barbara Hepworth sculptures were quite good as they are sculptures that appear to have some coherent idea and design behind their creation. The museum itself is free entry so you've nothing to lose (time aside) by heading down to it.

If I dare say so myself, still not as good as my 'Using 2 Dominoes to balance the rest of dominoes and the box too' that I made on the table at my dads house when I was bored.

The building the gallery is in, it's boring grey facade aside, was rather modern and well thought out, the windows were huge and the views of the river were my highlight for me.

The other place we visited was the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds. The medical museum was more up my street. Though it's £7 admission for an adult there was plenty to see and it engaged us initially by picking a character which you then find out more about and end up seeing how long they lived and how long they ended up living for.
There was plenty of interesting things, a part about disability and people's perceptions, another about improvements made in medical science. I even got to try on a pregnancy empathy belt as well as find out lots about how medicine was in the UK before some major breakthroughs - like anesthetics.

Our time in Yorkshire was soon up and we were back on a plane and landing onto the runway at Belfast City Airport. Over the next couple of days we had a re-Christmasing in North Belfast which involved perhaps a little too much alcohol.

Time flew by and we didn't get much downtime, Norngirl only managed to get through a book or two instead of her usual libraries worth. The biggest surprise was a shock result in a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Also the news that we're going to be getting a pet cat! Norngirl okayed it with the landlord and surprised me on Christmas day with a photo of items bought for our feline to be. We’re planning to adopt a cat from an animal sanctuary so hopefully it’ll be a nice improvement in life for the cat too.

Christmas 2012 was busy but benign and hopefully the kick start into a great year ahead.

May is so last month right now

So totally (how's my 'cool kid' act going?), but here is the quick summary in photos:

We were building up to our holiday but there was still time to catch a bit of the Belfast Marathon on the way to work in the week leading up to it.

We also had another Film Festival evening at our friends where it was Joss Whedon night (Buffy/Firefly/Angel/Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog) and we decorated some cupcakes. Not that we ever need an excuse to indulge but with a cup final, a holiday and my birthday all looming there was time for a little bit of the red stuff.

Then came the Irish Cup Final where Crusaders played away to Linfield at Windsor. The Crues almost managed to overturn the odds but full time football yet again paid dividends for the Blues and that gave us, well, the blues :(

Back at the social club at Seaview after the game, and, even though we lost, it was a heros welcome back for the side after their valient efforts - afterall, win lose or draw, we're all in it together.

Eventually, as you no doubt know by now, we made it to Alcanada (near Alcudia) in Mallorca. More on this later too.

The week after we got back, the wind really picked up and things usually there for safety about town started to get cordoned off as they blew over.

We then had another Film Festival night at our friends where we had a nomy meal, watched a 1988, 3 part Dr Who involving lots of Daleks and had a great laugh.

And yes, cheese deserves sonic screwdrivering!... maybe it'll taste eadible to me after a few years of being sonic'd!

Late in May, I went for a wander around down by the flyover and the edge of the Lagan near the Odyssey. There I found a sculpture celebrating East Belfast called 'Let's Twist Again' that I'd gone past in a motorised vehicle or two before but never had chance to get up close to see.

The brownfield site of the Sirroco Works that will could soon be growing an inner city forest given the size of some of the weeds!

A signpost that wasn't doing too much better in the feeling run down stakes.

A dead, yet still pretty jellyfish... hrmmm, I wonder why it is that some dead things look horrible and others look like they belong in an art gallery... Damien Hirst could probably get it looking all life-like again in no time no doubt!

Last but not least, the weather was showing signs of improvement close to something approaching summer again as I walked home:

...and then it was June :)

Belfast Street Art

Just following on from the post last month, here is a little more graffiti from around the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast - well I say graffiti - in this case I think it's better described as street art, especially with those colourful pieces of art that must have been commissioned.

Just around the corner of the same building as the owl and the purple girl with eyes wide open (from this previous post) lives another purple faced portrait with closed eyes:

Hiding further up North Street in a slightly run down car park is a fun wall of bright colours and characters:

Amongst the flats facing St Anne's Cathedral can be found this odd bottle like Frankenstein's Monster...

Along Donegal Street can be found a shop decorated from shutter to wall...

And last but not least, cutting down towards Henry Street you'll run into the decorated walls of the Black Box and surrounding buildings:

The things ya find having a wander!

Belfast Graffiti

Walking around Belfast City Centre (amongst the mixture of great and horrible architecture) some real gems of art can be seen and they're not stuck away at the top of the Museum after having millions of pounds spent to bring the works to town. Here are my favourites:

I've not a clue who the artist is but they're very close to one another - on what is a seemingly derelict building, whoever spray painted it did a brilliant job of cheering the place up!

Not all graffiti seems to be arty though, someone with a sense of humour gave me a smile with this one. I've heard of the Why Bird Stop, The Poppy Stop and the Playground Stop but if you head down Royal Avenue at the moment you can find The No Entry Jelly Stop:

To be honest, I'm not usually one to appreciate graffiti, the usual stuff I see seems to be found on bus stops and tends to look like a big doodling mess:

Gaming at Catalyst Arts, Belfast Festival 2010

Norngirl pressed the bell. Having never been here before (let alone down the street we were on) we thought we had maybe arrived at a time when the place was closed. We knew it was the right place though as there was a big poster on the door. Puzzled, we were starting to doubt ourselves a little but then at the last moment the door opened and a friendly, smiling lady led us up a few flights of stairs into an art galley. The main attraction wasn't any regular art though, this was the world of Gaming, to be more specific - Catalyst Arts Gaming, an event put on by the organisation for the Belfast Festival.

So there we were on a rainy Saturday being introduced to an art gallery full of games we could play. There were retro video games and classic board games. On our left, Giant Draughts (checkers), Chess, Scrabble and other games. To our right several games consoles (a Sega Megadrive 16bit, N64, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2 and Gamecube) set up on individual TVs. Behind them a Foosball table and on the walls; game posters and game themed paintings.

The place was quite quiet, just a couple of other people around so we pretty much had a full choice of what to do. Our first choice was the Foosball table. Table football/foosball or whatever you want to call it can get quite frantic and as soon as we had started we were both struggling to keep one hand on the goalie and like crazed organists waiving our other hand back and fourth between the remaining handles. We tried our best to keep that little ball heading away from our goal but it was a futile endeavour. Lucky for me though I finished victorious, muwhahahaha.

Once our game was at it's end we moved on to the video games. On the Megadrive is was a game of 2 player Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I have to explain at this point my wife Norngirl has completed Sonic on the Sega Game Gear several times so before the excuses continue - Yes I lost.

In my defence I'm a Nintendo child having played on my cousins as a kid from an early age then eventually I was lucky enough to get a Nintendo Entertainment System as a joint birthday and Christmas present when I was about 8. After that my next console came when I saved up my pocket money for a few months and with Birthday money to top it up I was able to buy myself a 2nd hand SNES - that was about 1997 when they were starting to wind down making games for it. I love the SNES, it's my favourite console and ever since that day I've collected 2nd hand games for all Nintendo Consoles, so I am indeed a Nintendo nerd and totally addicted. Sadly, I only ever played Sega at friends houses so never found my way around the 3 main buttons of a mega-drive controller, an odd number of buttons in a line on a control pad just doesn't seem right to my fingers. At one point as Knuckles was already checking into an overnight hotel recuperating for the challenges of the next level, I had Sonic stuck in some pinball purgatory and ended up timing out to his golden ring dropping death.

Moving on and sadly Goldeneye on the N64 wasn't up and running at the time and I didn't want to start messing with it or know if it was the console or the cart or the TV but at any rate I didn't have my tools with me if the console or cart needed a clean (If you collect things that are old and dirty you get used to this). So we moved onto the other consoles.

I headed for Tekken 2 on the PS1 whilst Norngirl tried Space Invaders on the PS2. We tried the other games, one was a Warner Bros game, maybe Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck or on something on the Gamecube. The other a game on the Dreamcast that I'd never seen before, some shoot-em-up at any rate.

After losing our numerous lives in many amusing ways, from being popped by orbs of energy to falling into the abyss that always seems to be a never ending pit at the bottom of a screen, we headed to the oversized floor draughts (Checkers) and had a quick game. I ended up winning though a little unfairly given Norngirl wasn't too clued up about the rules before we began to play. Understandable too given we don't own a board and she hadn't played for a longer time than many of the consoles in the room had been in existence.

Winning or losing we had a good time and were very glad we went along. As a display I would have loved a SNES or a NES there, there was oddly a SNES game on the table so maybe they have one? I dunno. but whichever it was still pretty awesome to have such a venue set up to play games. The lady who had shown us up on the way in kindly gave us a quick overview of the Art Gallery and explained that normally it is contemporary art on the walls and they planning on a move down to a lower floor which will undoubtedly given the amount of stairs improve access.

I didn't know this at the time as we only heard about this free event through word of mouth but it turns out that Catalyst Arts have been providing a cultural outlet in the city for 16 years and per their website they are a non-profit, members-based organisation, good stuff.

If you might be interested in heading along to play some games, do head down to the 2nd floor of 5 College Court Tuesday to Saturday between 11am-5pm next week (it finishes on the 30th October) and press the buzzer if the door isn't open. Good times and more buttons await those who do :)

An abstract of abstraction. Dedicated to Sean Scully

After a recent trip to the Ulster Museum and a baffling face-to-face meeting with what appeared to be some simplistic large scale doodling, I thought I would give creating some abstract art a try. An attempt to see if there is more to the world of rather basic looking non-representational abstraction art (or whatever else you want to call it).

I immediately hit a problem. If I try to splatter some binary paint about in a manner that takes abstraction to a level used by Sean Scully, I would surely be taking and reducing ideas out of context and turning them into something simple like a block of colour. That is almost like creating a one off personal code of expression, the key to which is known only to myself. Therefore its unlikely to be very inclusive to a wider audience. Sadly, I wasn't helped much when I tried to dig deeper.

To help me describe what I found, I think this is most helpful, a YouTube video interview entitled: Sean Scully Reveals the Power of Abstract Art, where in response to the question, "Why did you choose abstraction?" Scully states:

 "Well it's quite simple really, I think if a representational painter wants to show the things in the picture, and with an abstract painting what in a sense you are trying to do is make everything happen at once". 

Besides making very little sense, this hinted to me, that whilst representational paintings mean something and are provided within an understandable context, non-representational abstract paintings likely mean nothing - much like the very words regularly branded about trying to describe them. This is because they can obviously mean whatever you want it to mean - it has little to no context.

He also goes on to mention an Abstract painting "should be, could be, possibly, a moment of revelation". Alas, if this is what this form of art is about, I've hit the spot because I had a revelation creating mine, and that revelation is that to me, its all a lot of water vapour. Maybe I'm not clever enough on the 'required level' to understand, but going by my logic, this form of art is nothing more than declaring simple and easily producible works as being a stimulus to provide a means to reflect. The whole existence of this art would therefore seem to be similar to the reason that I enjoy staring up at the clouds in the sky and day dreaming. Except its use seems confined to people who like to restrict their reflections to basic patterns and in confined spaces. Each to their own I suppose.  I'll not go on about it any longer.

With all this in mind, I decided to mess around, for about an hour in total, using Microsoft Paint to create something in a 'blocks and stripes' style, a style somewhat similar to Sean Scully's but with a hint of representational art thrown in. Feel free to reflect on them a while...

Mulder and Scully - the Cow Abduction

Skully

Skulduggery

2 Man Scully

Bits of Belfast - Part 5 - The Ulster Museum

Perhaps a little later than we had hoped, we finally took the opportunity to visit the Ulster Museum which had reopened last October after a multimillion pound refurbishment. So, on what was a a bright but cool Saturday, 5 of us met outside the Ulster Museum. We were eager to see what might have changed and what new things we might learn.

After the traditional quick photos with the sculptures outside the building which included a new wobbly one. We entered into a bright area with the welcome zone ahead of us, a new shop to our right and the new café to the left. We headed left, we were very hungry and needed some sustenance to help us around the exhibits. The long café had two counters, one near the front serving snacks and the other towards the rear serving hot food. We headed to the hot food counter and took a look at the menu. The old café that was on the top floor has been relocated. It was helpful to now have it here on the ground floor and the size was a change for the better. Sadly though, the increase in floor space also seems to have resulted in an increase in prices and a reduction in drinks sizes. I have a pet hate with café's that think a 200ml glass bottle is fine to go with a meal and charge accordingly. On the plus side, they serve wine and beer so its not all bad. The food was also very good quality and I did see jugs of water availible.

After our food, which was very tasty, we headed to the welcome zone. My first impression was that it was a change for the better, it seemed more light, airy, modern and welcoming. We were kindly handed maps from a member of staff that depicted the 4 main areas that we were set to discover.
That discovery, even in such a public place, is at some level individual to yourself and what you choose to look at. To review every exhibit in close detail would take quite some time, so although some things aren't my cup of tea or maybe even the brew of choice for  my friends, it's still definitely worth a visit to see for yourself. So I'll not spoil the ins and outs of what we saw too much. However I'll quickly try and sum up what I thought were the best and the worst aspects of the experience.

In the history zone:
I thought that it was great to see that recent history being introduced. The troubles section is nice to see in a way. A positive sign that those times are hopefully just a part of history with a hangover. It was quite a simplistic display and although informative, it didn't really seem that accessible. Also, it probably wouldn't hurt to focus on some good news stories, of achievements in the face of adversity. It's not like life stopped during the latter half of the last century.

The History Interactive Area was fun and the kids in there seemed to be having a great time. On snaffling a computer terminal and viewing the list of videos and images that were available to watch. I tried to find something about Irish League Football. The only football related video I could find was some footage from Windsor Park of a Northern Ireland international – I'm not sure who picked the videos, but whoever did must have thought a lot about Motor Sports and Rugby. I'm sure a lot of other sports are feeling slightly neglected too. The choice and depth of information available regarding the past is maybe something that can be expanded and developed?

I really liked the other history sections. There was one exhibit in-particular which thought was great. It was within the Plantation to Power-sharing area and had touch buttons which lit up towns on a map showing the size of towns over time and allowing you to see stage by stage the increase in population of towns and city all across the island. In another room I also learnt that Larne aka Ulfreksfjord has a Viking heritage. Other than that the general theme was that lots of people had a habit of drowning. Swimming instructors must have been a rare commodity that were over looked in days of yore.

Further into the history zone can be found what is arguably the star exhibit. The 2500+ year old mummified remains of Takabuti. Now complete with a video and model of the resident ancient Egyptian lady's head. Sadly the intrigue and allure of this exhibit that could be used as a focal point of the entire museum is still understated and somewhat stuck away and I agree with the points expressed by Alan in Belfast who raised the a good question; why wasn't the film showing in an adjoining room with seating? On entrance to the room, the view of the glass box encasing the mummy is obscured by a large informational sign. The information and other artefacts displayed, as with most of the museum, are better presented in comparison to the old Ulster Museum but in this section compared to the likes of the Armagh Planetarium or W5 there still seems a discrepancy. The ability to wow and draw people to an exhibit isn't quite the same in this section, something that does seem to have been addressed a little better in other areas. It seems largely due to the fact there is still so much in such a small space. The exhibits were very much more interactive than the old though and much more like the standards set by other large museums elsewhere in Europe. A good change even if I might think there is still room to improve.


In the Nature zone:

This section was a huge improvement on the old. The displays and information areas were much more interactive and in the fossil section the screen showing videos of prehistoric era's was well worth a watch. From learning of the history of the land we walk on and the changes that brought about the landscape we know well today, to the animals that inhabit that land. An area helpful to remind people that we, as humans, are a recent introduction to the mix Northern Ireland and the world has been subject to many guises. Some of those guises are beautifully brought to life within these exhibits.The Nature Interactive area seemed popular, located in the area where the café used to be, it had some comfy seats and like the other interactive areas, lots of books and other resources, plenty of hands on objects too.

The other highlights for me were the viewing area of the bird feeders and botanic gardens. With binoculars freely available to use and seats to rest your tired legs on it was a nice break. The other great area for me was the Earth's treasures. Set in a dark room are an array of spotlighted geological samples from of various crystals, gemstones and other pretty rocks. Some truly brilliant colours and shiny things that anyone with magpie like tendencies can get on-board with.


In the Art Zone:

First the positive... there is an Art Interactive Area and it has a brilliant view out over Belfast and of the cave hill, I managed to find an open window and took a couple of snaps. Also for the seemingly few arty fans of Sean Scully's work, you might have a field day.

Now the negative... 1 artist, 1 theme and more floor space than I believe is really warranted, dedicated to this egotistical indulgence of simplistic abstract art, at least when put in relation to the importance of those exhibits obviously not on display at its expense.

Don't get me wrong, a few pieces might have been interesting, but several huge rooms that contained only one form of expression, one basic style. Well, it was all too much of too little. We tried to get why so much of it was here - we looked at the paintings, we looked at their names, we looked at the painting sized photos of him painting, we watched the giant darkroom projection of a video where we got to see a life-size Scully paint and hold a cat and avoid talking about his painting. We looked at the painting's paint strokes and etchings up close, we looked at them far away and tried to envisage the concept behind the piece's names. We're not adverse to abstract art, but at some stage it reaches the point of the pointless and a feeling of 'ah now you're pushing it'. I felt that we might as well be cloud spotting and describing what we each see... except making such visual representations with simple blocks and stripes is like trying to see something in the pattern of a Metro bus seat. If its meant to portray an emotion or feeling other than confusion, every piece of the artwork we looked closely at for sure missed its point with us. So for me this really was just one step away from declaring a window as art. Because I can't see what people see in the work, to try and give some sort of balanced view, here are a few opinions of more art knowledgeable individuals who might convince you of a view contrary to my own:

• A review of some of Scully's work by Jonathan Jones in the Guardian.
• An introduction to Sean Scully's work from culturenorthernireland.org
• Sean Scully: Artist who added the wow factor to museum opening - in the Belfast telegraph.

You can probably tell that I'm not a fan of Sean Scully's work, or at least what I've seen so far. This blog is a two way medium, so if you disagree with me, please do let me know. Maybe a bit of education might spark an insight to his work which I was over looking. Thankfully, at least to me, 'Constantinople or the Sensual Concealed: The Imagery of Sean Scully' is due to give way to art that from my perspective would be more thought provoking, on the 20th February.

On the way out we called in at the gift shop and bought some funky drinks cups with in built swirly straws like you used to get as kids. The refurbished Museum is a huge improvement but for our visit yesterday it seems there is still a fair bit of room for improvement and soon that room will be available... at least in the art department. Except for the disappointment of the art section we had a nice time and learnt lots. I for one will most certainly be back again for another visit before long.

Bits of Belfast - Part 3 - Spirit of the City

Walking out of Victoria Square on Monday evening after enjoying the Odeon Cinema’s showing of Indian Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (yep this is still 2009 and not 1981) and armed only with my mobile phone, we stumbled across an unfamiliar sight. Sat on the plinth of granite before us, a large metal structure, a kind of tangled metal ball. For those of us either ‘not in the know’ or just forgetful (given it was 2 years since this piece of art was selected to be one of the centre pieces to Belfast’s Streets ahead project) we were all puzzled as to what it might be that was being set in place... and indeed, could it even just be a giant 3D puzzle? By the looks of it being installed by the men working well into the night, you’d have been forgiven for thinking it might be. So apart from our first impression of this object being erected in the dimly lit Cornmarket that evening, what exactly is this new addition to the city’s growing list of shapely metal objects?

Well the answer, which has been much more coherently reported on by other bloggers and media sources such as AlanInBelfast, the BBC and The Belfast Telegraph; is that this is the ‘Spirit of Belfast, a big steel sculpture created by Dan George, a 66 year old artist and creator of large installations and sculptures who hails from a place called Lake George in New York State, USA.

It is supposedly going to be awash with coloured lights at some point that will illuminate the hard metal frame (which incidentally wobbles quite vigorously at the biggest overhang when the wind blows). A feature to encourage more people to use the space that’s now, more than ever, a prime meeting spot with its vicinity to Victoria Square. The sculptor himself hinted that he had the old linen and shipbuilding industries in mind with its concept and “so you might see it as having the strength of steel and the delicate woven fabric of linen”.

Forgetting it was even taking place, I happened to stumble into the middle of the official opening on my way home from work on Thursday night and hung around to watch the speeches and the ribbon cutting. Those on show were a circus school act which I sadly had just missed, followed by a few folks including Dan George himself, Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Naomi Long and MLA Margaret Ritchie.

The speeches were ok, not too boring but mainly just the usual civic event type spiel. Dan George spoke well and tried to connect with the public, not keeping it too formal. He gave a bit of an insight into his feelings toward the piece. Naomi Long came across warm and almost seemed to be reciting her piece from memory, stating how it was positive for Belfast. Margaret Ritchie also went down that line but inadvertently gave the highlight of the speeches... during her stop-start, dry and dull stereotypical politician like delivery, her speech notes blew off the stand from in front of her. She didn’t notice for a split second and so the classic look of panic on an MLA’s face as she realised she didn’t have a clue what to say next. Ordinarily I’d feel bad laughing at someone’s misfortune but what the hey, MLAs get paid enough to simply go to Stormont, recite answers and questions that are prepared for them by someone else, whilst very rarely, so it seems, actually solve any problems. Maybe that’s harsh, but sure, it was almost ‘You’ve been Framed’ worthy. She gingerly stepped down from the plinth and a step or two forward to stop her papers making it any further towards the press. Afterwards there was a wee wait before a very prolonged posing with some scissors – the usual pretending to be cutting the ribbon whilst cameras recorded the forced moment.

So formalities over, it was just the sculpture itself. Now I’m not going to claim to be any kind of an art critic... I mean I’m the heretic who was more wowed by Egyptian Cat statues at the Louvre in Paris than I was the stamp hung on the wall that goes by the name of the Mona Lisa. However when it comes to things like this, it’s hard not to have an opinion or come to a conclusion... and you know what, apart from the question of whether it’s really worth £180k, I do quite like it. However after some careful consideration; it doesn’t make me contemplate the historical industries of the city. Like the others who were with me when we first saw this thing in the dark; it instead reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog and the loop-de-loops you pull as Sonic beats gravity in his twisted world of hoops and rings. Maybe it wasn’t the intention but that’s what springs to mind when I look at it. Positive in the long run and reflecting the spirit of Belfast, whatever that indeed can be put down to in words... who knows? What I can say is that I do think it does fill the space well and it will no doubt be as big a draw for tourists having their photo taken – maybe as popular as the ‘big fish’ aka Salmon of Knowledge’ and the ‘Thing with the ring’ aka the ‘Loop with the hoop’ aka the 'Doll on the Ball' aka the ‘Ring of Thanksgiving’. Also along these lines, apart from the delays, Belfast’s streets ahead project does look like it might do the trick and make the city center more of a great place to head to. The new trees heading away from the Spirit of Belfast really seem to suit the place and the nice stone paving seems clean and fresh. Let’s just hope they don’t have to dig it all back up too soon for more utility repairs.

As with the the other pieces scattered around the city, our landmarks and city artworks tend to get a more suitable nickname. So the last question on this new addition has to be what will its new nickname be?

'Ball by the mall'? or as Norn Girl suggested - The 'Twist when you're pissed'? she's classy is that Norn Girl.

If you have any suggestions of what we should all be affectionately calling it, please do add a comment with your ideas :)