Teignmouth Folk Festival + Death of Caroline John

Just a short post about the Teignmouth Folk Festival which runs from today, Friday (22nd), to Sunday (24th). The festival takes place at venues across Teignmouth and includes Morris Dancers in the Triangle & outside the East Cliff Cafe, a Ceilidh at the Community College, free performances at the Ship Inn, and headliners Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman at the Carlton Theatre. The full programme for the weekend is shown here on the Festival Website.

Performers on the Ship Inn stage at the 2006 Festival

This is always a popular event - especially if the weather permits outside performances. Weekend tickets have been available via the website for a while and concert tickets can be obtained from the Carlton theatre box office.

Caroline John

Caroline John 1940 - 2012

The death of Caroline John, who played companion Liz Shaw to Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who in the 1970s, was sadly reported recently. For a short appreciation, pictures from the period, and a link to an earlier piece on all the Dr Who companions see the Miss Peelpants blog. See also Jez Winship's excellent fuller appreciation on the blog Sparks in Electrical Jelly and a great selection of pictures on the Not Tonight Dalek blog.

Bourgeois, Emin, Macke, Baldessari, De Waal, etc

At the weekend we went down to Cornwall for a couple of days, avoiding most of the Jubilee stuff - Took in the Tate, the Newlyn Gallery and some of the Cornwall Open Studios. Will post about that shortly - For the moment, however, here are some blog posts and other stuff from the web that I've liked recently:

Lisa Thatcher's piece on Louise Bourgeois. If you're interested in Bourgeois I can recommend the DVD about her life and work: The spider, the mistress and the tangerine.

Tracey Emin's interview about her homecoming exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate (until 23 September).

Poul Webb's piece on August Macke (part 1 of 4 - select the links from Poul's blog).


Tasseomancy - Reminds me of the McGarrigles and the Incredible String Band from the early 70s.

A Brief History of John Baldessari, the influential conceptual artist, narrated by Tom Waits.

Edmund de Waal, the ceramic artist, introduces his ceramics installations at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. See the Guardian review here.

And finally, Skymonk's interactive kaleidoscopes (right click on the images and zoom in to see less symmetric patterns).