Tag: morris

November 15th –  A long day and a late spin around Brownhills. The town was quiet, and there was no sign of the Christmas I’d seen in Birmingham the previous Friday. It was windy, but not too bad. Stood on a quiet traffic island, Morris Miner was still stood silent, metallic sentry.

Sometimes the most changeless things are best.

December 12th – I’ trying a new camera out. It’s got similar specs to the one I normally use, a Panasonic TZ60, but this one is made by Canon and is a Powershot SX700. I’ve got it on loan, just to check the competition, as I have the feeling the spring may not bring a new Panasonic model like it usually does.

Shooting out at teatime after a day in Birmingham, darkness probably wasn’t the best time to try and use a new camera, but it wasn’t so bad. 

I like some of the features of the cannon, but the images seem a bit colder, if I’m honest. Also, the controls seem quite pointlessly complex, but I’m sure I get used to them…

I’m sure coming days will give me a better idea.

December 3rd – There’s a lot of grumbling about Christmas lights at the moment. I find it all a bit puzzling, to be honest.

This country voted in an austerity-pushing government, and people are now outraged austerity is affecting things near to them, like Christmas lights. I guess the pitch of such a policy was that it would always apply to others…

I think Brownhills lights are OK, to be honest. They’ll not set the world afire, and Blackpool has nothing to worry about, but they’re cheerful enough. 

Personally, I preferred the lovely window display in the upstairs flat window of a shop in High Street. That seems more about Christmas to me.

January 30th – The return was equally wet and grey – but did have the added excitement of wet, sleety snow. The sluices are still shut at Chasewater, and everything is still sodden and muddy. The photography was awful. I was glad to get home.

It was nice to see Morris in the snow though, even if it was very short lived…

December 31st – I had to pop out to the cashpoint, so took in a loop of Brownhills. It was very quiet, little traffic was disturbing the night. It was calm and the three-faced liar – the Council House Clock – told the right time.

I looked at Morris, welcoming in the traditional Brownhills way, arms and heart open, but with a weapon to hand, just in case. He seemed appropriately optimistic.

Even the canal looked oddly festive.

Like Morris, I welcome the new year of 2014 openly. Happy new year to all readers, all of you who I know follow my journeys. May the new year bring peace and happiness to you all.

November 15th – It had been a long day, the energy was low, and I didn’t have much time. I spun up the High Street at teatime and rode the backstreets for a bit. Returning, I looked at something thats so familiar, I rarely pay it much attention: Morris, the Brownhills Miner. Much as I feel uncomfortable with the extravagance in a faltering town, I do love him. John McKenna’s work in drafting all those fragments, then welding them together in a finite-element model like this is stunning, and always has been. So much better than the laser cut by numbers tat in Walsall Wood, this took a really skilled artist a huge amount of time to design, facilitate and build. I just wish the blue lights didn’t make it look so cheap.

Morris is such an obvious and cliched subject, I’ve only rarely featured him here, but it’s worth it, once in a while, just to share him. The politics and cost aside, it’s a terrific thing.

November 10th – I have an odd relationship with Morris, the Brownhills Miner. I like the sculpture,  he’s well-loved, and I really appreciate the work that’s gone into making him. But when it comes down to it, it’s a 10 metre stainless steel miner, lit by blue LED lights. Pretty, but also pretty ineffective. Morris didn’t bring regeneration, or prosperity. He doesn’t symbolise a rebirth or recovery. He just stands, back to the town, holding a lamp out to see if anything better is coming, all the while reminding us of what was lost.

That’s the thing about civic pride, statuary and economics. It’s best done when you’ve fixed the other stuff. It’s not a cure all.

December 17th – A day infused with pre-Christmas rush. I finally got out on my bike at teatime, and took a spin around a very wet Brownhills. The roads glistened and it felt quite Christmassy. Morris Miner, when viewed from the Lichfield Road, always looks to me as if he’s expressing contempt towards the town. Still not absolutely sure they erected him the right way around… the blue lighting cheapens him, too. Shame they couldn’t have lit his lamp, like the residents requested. 

September 15th – Returning to Brownhills late in the evening, I thought I’d practise a bit of night photography. With the dark nights coming, there will be lots more of this. 

I, like most of Brownhills, like Morris, the Brownhills Miner. I don’t think he was money well spent, and he’s done bugger all for the town except inflate a few egos, but he is an ingenious, clever sculpture. Shame about the hard hat, though – he wouldn’t have been wearing one in the time that Brownhills was mining, and that pick doesn’t look like any I’ve ever seen. The curious decision to illuminate him with gimcrack blue LED lights was also peculiar; it makes Morris look like a cheap Christmas decoration. Still, he compliments the lights on the hatchbacks cruising the High Street at that time of night.