Myths and Legends

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

I loved the school book about Greek Myths and Legends we had to read. I remember short stories about Pandoras Box, when the box was opened all that was left was Hope. Then there was a story about Jason and the Argonauts, and his quest for the Golden Fleece. I think there was a tale of the Titan Atlas being sentenced by the god Zeus to support the heavens on his shoulders.

Each story had lovely illustrations, and the inside covers of the book were equally well decorated.

Getting the attention of children with artwork aswell as words is a way of catching them at an early age. I know a lot of books are now online, but I think real books are wonderful treasures.

Raining again

The rain came down in a torrent this evening, it was drumming on the roof so hard it drowned out the radio in the kitchen. I was just about to go out and I stood and waited for it to blow over.

I had watched a short video on my phone earlier. It was supposed to show a cloud burst over a desert, but it looked wrong, something like a waterfall but with waves and eddys and tiers a bit like a chandelier. People’s reactions were incredulous.

I then saw the caption at the bottom “generated with AI”. The rain I experienced was real, not AI. I don’t mind that people are creating images, I do it a lot myself, and it’s good watching a film where someone has used CGI to create spaceships, or add landscapes, or alter how people look. But AI seems alien, creepy, like it knows the rules but does not know how to follow them? It sometimes adds extra fingers or distorts faces.

In the end I prefer reality.

Sculpture

I went out to Audlem yesterday to sing with our choir. Thankfully I got a lift there and back because I can’t drive that far.

We sang really well at the Music festival and managed to drown out a band that was playing across the road from us!

We had sung inside Audlem Methodist Hall for the first half and then outside in the garden for the second half. That’s where I saw this sculpture of two birds, I think they were doves, carved out of two tree stumps. I really would like to have a sculpture like this done in my own garden where I had to have a tree cut down because it was dying. I think whoever carved this is very clever.