Youth Athletics League

Young Athletics League Meet @ Bracknell Leisure Centre.

As one of the largest community-orientated leisure centers in the South of England, Bracknell Leisure Centre is an excellent facility with olympic sized track and swimming pool among many other facilities. [http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/leisure/leis-bracknell-sport-and-leisure-centre.htm]. It was on the track there that I was first saw a group of teenagers participating in a UK Youth Athletics League (YAL) athletics meet. There were young people of all ages taking part in various events from sprinting, hurdles and javelin to long jump. It was such an array of activity and took me back to my school days when I sprinted and took part in long jump. The YAL is an excellent way to encourage young people to stay out of trouble and cultivate their athletic talents. [For information about the YAL you can visit their website - http://www.natyal.co.uk/].

Briton appears to be plagued with teenagers that exhibit antisocial behaviour, drink excessively, dabble in drugs, smoke and indulge in sexual activities. Britain also has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in western Europe, according to a study into the sexual health of women. [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/uk-has-highest-teenage-pregnancy-rate-in-europe-397153.html].  The scene of hooded silhouettes lingering in shop doorways and beneath bus shelters carry a potent message of menace for most adults in the UK and most would not feel safe being approached on the streets by teenagers.              

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/oct/23/youthjustice.familyandrelationships].  Britain has become a place that is increasingly fearful of its teenage population, to the point where pensioners do not seem safe to go out of their homes on their own. Teens are disrespectful and taunt people in public places and their language is colourful and distasteful. There is a complete disconnect between teens and their parents, mainly due to the breakdown of the family unit and increasing numbers of single parent families where there is normally a father figure absent. 

With constant reports of teen violence and disruptive behaviour in schools and on the streets across the country, groups like the YAL are particularly important. Positive groups like this draw young people off the streets and give them purpose and focus. It is essential to have environments where young people can be self- expressive, develop healthy hobbies and safe fun. The discipline, drive, determination and focus involved in becoming a good athlete / sports person for example, removes the sense of boredom that teens seem to have that drives their anti social behaviour. There are many other sports that have similar programs in most cities across the country all geared towards giving children and young people opportunities and getting them off the street and out of trouble. A job well done for all those involved though there is still more that needs to be done.

For more information on youth in the UK see: 

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/teenagediary.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4096091.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/343062.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/oct/23/youthjustice.familyandrelationships

Can Graffiti really be considered ART?

Graffiti...vandalism to some...artistic self expression to others...

The images in this blog were taken at the Sunbury Cross underground subway that crosses the major roundabout at the bottom of the M3 (motorway) into London. A plaque was present which explained that this graffiti was part of a community youth project as in opposed to vandalism. I have however put my own twist on their art and present it here as my impression of their work. 

In my opinion, I feel that graffiti has its place in the art world. From the random vandalism acts of frustrated teenagers to the well thought out artistic expressions of true graffitists, like those I have captured here;  graffiti seems to give a voice to its author and then communicate that voice to the world in a way that I can only describe as pictorial poetry. With each stroke and image you see every emotion and thought, every hope and dream transfered from the graffitist' soul to walls of the world. A seamless transmission, often under the threat of danger in being caught for some, or the pressure of failing to truly transpire their depth for others. 

For many observers, the cities walls are not viewed as a suitable gallery to exhibit art therefore it is labeled as vandalism...to others, raw artistic expression in the urban environment is what art is really about. I am of the opinion that a balance is required and I really feel that the council in Sunbury has found it! Providing public wall space and organising art projects that allow for this type of artistic expression in a central place whilst notifying local residents and making them aware (therefore their attitude to the graffiti they see when they use the underground subway changes) allows for graffiti to be viewed and appreciated from an artistic perspective rather than being viewed as vandalism. This is a visionary step  which is a more positive approach to tackling illegal graffitist's rather than the traditional approach of arresting them which drives them to take unnecessary and dangerous risks including hanging over bridges to create their art on its face which could even lead to deaths.

The term Graffiti has been applied to an arrangement of institutionally illicit marks in which there has been an attempt to establish some sort of coherent composition: such marks are made by an individual or individuals (not generally professional artists) upon a wall or other surface that is usually visually accessible to the public. The term "graffiti" derives from the Greek graphein ("to write"). Graffiti (s. graffito), meaning a drawing or scribbling on a flat surface, originally referred to those marks found on ancient Roman architecture. Although examples of graffiti have been found at such sites as Pompeii, the Domus Aurea of Emperor Nero (AD 54-68) in Rome, Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and the Maya site of Tikal in Mesoamerica, they are usually associated with 20th-century urban environments. Graffiti range from simple marks to complex and colorful compositions. Motives for the production of such marks may include a desire for recognition that is public in nature, and/or the need to appropriate public space or someone else's private space for group or individual purposes. Illegitimate counterparts to the paid, legal advertisements on billboards or signs, graffiti utilize the wall of garages, public rest rooms, and jail cells for their clandestine messages. This illegal expression constitutes vandalism to the larger society. [http://www.graffiti.org/faq/graf.def.html.

More trains!

Apologies, I know, two blogs about trains in quick succession...not fair so this is the end of trains (for now...) I took these yesterday when I was waiting for a train to go into Reading to the hospital...(all clear on the hospital front by the way, just a follow up check up which shows I am healing progressively Praise God!). I hope you like these...I had a little fun with them so they are supposed to look overly artistic... enjoy... :-)

The railway...

The track at Bracknell Train Station.

If you know anything about me you will know that I love metal! Sculptures, structures, tracks, vehicles...anything! The reason for it is the way it exists as new and then the way it ages (I prefer the latter). I do enjoy history too so when I come across something I like, I try to find out where it came from, so here is a little history lesson about the railway. Firstly in my research for this blog I discovered that there is an International Railway Gazette Magazine! Yes really there is!!! Check it out @ http://www.railwaygazette.com/about-us/history.html. Before the history though I must show you some photography... The images below I took quite by accident and have had for some time. I attended a UN Food Program Conference in Oxford and whilst there had to move the car during the lunch break. Having never been to Oxford before, my friend and I did not know where to park so thought we would try our luck at the railway station. When we got there we drove straight past the 'do not drive past this point' sign and found ourselves in the part of the railway where they disposed of or at least abandoned old trains. I saw  rust and my eyes lit up and I quickly jumped out of the car (much to my friend's distress...my whole 'not focusing on the problem at hand' attitude was not helpful I admit...) but look at the result of that 5 minutes! hope she forgives me now...

Brief History of the railway... The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a stained-glass window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, dating from around 1350.  In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Langwrote a description of the Reisszug, a funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Castle in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope, and was operated by human or animal power. The line still exists, albeit in updated form, and is probably the oldest railway still to operate.

The world's oldest continually working railway, built in 1758, is the Middleton Railway in Leeds. In 1764, the first gravity railroad in the United States was built in Lewiston, New York. The first permanent was the 1810 Leiper Railroad. The first iron plate rail way made with cast iron plats on top of wooden rails, was taken into use in 1768. This allowed a variation of gauge to be used. At first only balloon loopscould be used for turning, but later, movable points were taken into use, that allowed for switching. From the 1790s, iron edge rails began to appear in the United Kingdom. In 1803, William Jessop opened the Surrey Iron Railway in south London, arguably the world's first horse-drawn public railway. Hot rolling iron allowed the brittle, and often uneven, cast iron rails to be replaced by wrought iron in 1805. These were succeeded by steel in 1857.

The development of the steam engine spurred ideas for mobile steam locomotives that could haul trains on tracks. The first was patented by James Watt in 1794. In 1804, Richard Trevithick demonstrated the first locomotive-hauled train in Merthyr Tydfil, United Kingdom. Experiments with electrical railways were started by Robert Davidson in 1838. He completed a battery-powered carriage capable of 6.4 km/h (4 mph). TheGiant's Causeway Tramway was the first to use electricity fed to the trains en-route, using a third rail, when it opened in 1883. Overhead wires were taken into use in 1888. At first this was taken into use on tramways that until then had been horse-hauled tramcars. The first conventional electrified railway was the Roslag Line in Sweden. During the 1890s, many large cities, such as London, Paris and New York used the new technology to build rapid transit for urban commuting. In smaller cities, tramways became common, and were often the only mode of public transport until the introduction of buses in the 1920s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport#History] And the rest shall we say... is history!