The Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi has been awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics and President Vladimir Putin will cash in the lions share of credit for the surprise victory.
At home Putin is widely seen as a strong ruler who restored stability after a decade of chaos ensuing the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has been presiding over a booming economy for seven years, wages are rising and life is improving for many in urban centres.
There's an old cobbled block of flats in Stoke Newington and although no more than 200 people can live there at most, there are 12 cats. Most of whom never leave the area of the flats, so they act as if they own it.
Which they sort of do. There's a complicated society of these cats, complete with social hierarchy and insecurity. They have replicated human society but, being cats, their society is even more neurotic. It's a salutary lesson to us all - if it all goes to the cleaners then, like in Doctor Who this series, we may end up cannibalising ourselves and turn into these cats.
As Moscow hosts the 29th International Film Festival with Soviet-style patriotic pomp, Russia’s acclaimed Cinema Museum remains confined to a metal locker in the basement of the Central House of Artists.
'Musei Kino' is written in jagged hand-written letters on its doors, behind which administrative essentials of the country's only institute devoted to the long history of cinema in the Soviet Union and Russia are stored.
There were a few things I forgot to mention on my Art-school checklist.
1. TV monitors suspended from ceiling or placed in obscure position, displaying very boring views (quite often the sea on a bad day, or industrial landscape.)
2. Installation with an obviously anti-capitalist/American message, using dollar-bills to form a) A hole or b) A crucifix. The piece in question has won "The .......... prize for innovative thinking, and has thus been awarded a cash prize of £1000."
This works like bird spotting. I have compiled a check-list of works I expect to see whilst wondering through any art-school BA or MA show in London.
1. Photography:
(a) Depressing industrial landscape.
(b) Up-close portraits of people with no make-up on looking very serious. Usually 6ft high and back-lit.
(c) Photographs of trans-gender or androgynous people (ooh...is that a boy or a girl?)
Hello. I'm going to try and introduce to you some of the animals of the UK that I encounter. You can call me twee, but I don't really give a fuck. Because one of the only times I feel truly calm is when amongst the natural world and non-humans.
Time Out and the Whitechapel gallery get together to present an intimate art scene to the masses.