Turner Prize and James Memorial

Last night Steve, Hannah and I went to the launch of The Turner Prize (The UK's most prestigious and high profile modern art prize, http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/default.shtm ).

As part of his submission, one of the finalists, Jeremy Deller has erected different memorials to a group of people at places signifigant to them around the country. One of the people he has erected a memorial to is James. The memorial consists of a plastic sillouhette of a bike and a paque that have been attached to a pole near the spot where James was knocked off his bike on Essex Road in North London. Other parts of Jeremy's show include:

* Two video presentations, one being a comment piece shot in Texas ("Memory Bucket"), the other a doco about a parade he organised in Spain.

* A wall chart tracing the connection between brass band and acid house music.

For those of you in the UK, make sure you get along to see the exhibition. It's on at the Tate Britain from today until December 23. For those who can't make it, Steve has put some pictures I took at the launch last night up on the Deter website. If you're on dialup, there are some low res versions here.

We had an election, well kinda sorta

Well, the forces of evil have increased their majority in the sunburnt country. Despite best efforts of all and sundry, the ALP suffered what the press have called a "train wreck" election defeat. Well, now Australia will have to bear the brunt of an all powerful conservative government. Howard is now Menzies.

I co-ordinated the campaign for the ALP UK Society, with the able assistance of a fantastic team. If London reflected the mood of the country, it'd be the Latham Labor Government about to be sworn in. Unfortunately, it didn't reflect the mood of the country at all. Amazing what looking at the place from the outside does to you.

Anyhow, there's some random pix from the UK Campaign here and here. Simon took some photos at the joint ALP/Green (yes, we'd rather be with them than Family First, preference cutters!) election count party that was held in Soho. His snaps are right about here.