Winter Lights 2026

As you may remember, for years now I've been going to the annual Winter Lights installations at Canary Wharf at the end of January. It's an annual show of light and sound sculptures, with the pieces installed outdoors on a walking tour through the neighborhood. They are always inventive and unusual, and they brighten the otherwise dreary days and nights at this time of year.

I went on Sunday and here's some of what I saw. Above is "Un-Reel Access" by KAPPA/Patrick and Kaori Jones of the UK and Japan. It's an illuminated doorway with one corner peeled up, and inevitably people would walk up to it and try the doorknob. "Through the power of light, Un-Reel Access asks us to abandon being bound by common sense. It is a portal that invites the curious mind to reframe and change its vision of the world," according to the sculpture guide.

Here's "Out of Body Experience" by Alaa Minawi of the Netherlands, Palestine and Lebanon. It's meant to evoke dancers and the capacity of dance to take us out of ourselves.

"Sol," by Artistic Latvia / Janis Petersons, suspends illuminated replicas of the planets among the trees in an indoor rooftop garden. "What if the stars leaned closer?
What if the planets themselves could rest in your backyard, shimmering softly beneath your gaze?" (That's from the guide again.)

"Colour Rush" by Liz West (UK) was made like this: "Two different large 'Concertina' drawings were created before being cut up, mixed together, repositioned and folded into eight individual stripes. It is these luminous stripes that are the basis of this new octagonal light box." I'm not sure I understand that but it sure is colorful.

"For Ever and Ever and Ever" by Anna Lomax (UK) is installed in three different locations, and I only visited two. It uses "infinity mirrors" to endlessly replicate lit features installed in a column (top) and panels (above).

"Whale on the Wharf" is a more permanent installation, but I hadn't seen it before last night. It's a whale made of pieces of plastic debris like toys, jugs, coolers and shoes, seemingly surging upward from the waters of the canal. That purple box at far left is Hawksmoor, the restaurant where Dave took me for my last birthday in November.

Those are the sculptures that are more static -- that don't depend on movement and sound for their full effect. But like last year, I also made a video so you could experience the more dynamic creations, which use music or sound and spinning, shifting, pulsing light.

In the video, we start with a crowd shot to show how many people were there on Sunday. Answer: a lot!

After that, we move to the art:

1. Two views of "Amplitudes" by Limbic Cinema (UK), meant to evoke "the diverse nature of waveforms that shape both the natural world and human experience." This is my favorite piece of the whole show. It uses light projected onto a spraying fan of water droplets, along with timed music.
2. At 1:55, you see "Lacto-Reacto-Light" by Jack Wimperis (UK), a lit panel made of recycled plastic milk bottles that reacts to movement in the crowd.
3. That's followed by "FloWeЯ PoWeЯ," by Aerosculpture / Jean-Pierre David and Christian Thellier of France. This was an interesting sculpture, but what's even more unusual is that the video fails to fully capture the color. Those little spinning "flowers" were much more vibrant and colorful in real life than they are digitally.
4. "Trispheric Garden" by REELIZE.STUDIO of Australia is supposedly inspired by "the architecture of dreams." From the catalogue: "Each obelisk houses mirror-like orbs that refract and reflect light, casting ethereal patterns across the water’s surface. Together, they transform the fountain into a ‘dreaming pond’, where reflections ripple like portals between reality and imagination."
5. "In Bloom" by Kumquat Lab (UK) was inspired by pollinators visiting flowers: "Touching a flower triggers a musical note, echoing the dance of pollinators moving from bloom to bloom. The work turns this natural ritual into a collective and intuitive act of music-making, celebrating connection and the vital role of pollination." (I couldn't hear music but maybe there were just too many people.)
6. "Aether" by Architecture Social Club (UK) looks like a nightclub. Light beams project onto a suspended collection of fine rods and a black backdrop, and it makes vibrant, shifting shadows on the floor, too! From the guide: "Like a dancer improvising, Aether translates music into hypnotic waves and phosphorescent fragments, stirring something deeper within the audience." (There are two clips of this piece.)
7. At 5:46 we have "Blueprint" by Studio Vertigo (UK), which is inspired by the twisting double helix of DNA.
8. That's followed by "Hulahoop" by Scale (France), a hypnotic light and music sculpture and another favorite of mine. "As the eye follows the lines traced by the installation, peripheral vision melts away, hypnotising the viewer into an almost dreamlike state."
9. At 7:29 you'll see "Sanctuary" by Ithaca Studio (UK), "a tall, almost cathedral-like open structure, designed to immerse the audience in atmospheric light and sound. Enter the Sanctuary and be surrounded by colourful, reflective, illuminations and cocooned in a soothing soundscape, as the lighting transforms from the soft glow of candlelight to the jewel-like, bright tones of stained glass." (Watch for my reflection too! I'm pretty easy to spot.)
10. "Manifestation" by Marcus Lyall (UK) was inspired by Victorian spiritualism. "Loosely based on ‘Thought Forms’ a 1905 book by spiritualist Anne Besant, who believed abstract visual forms could be linked to sounds or spiritual states, this piece delves back into the early dawn of ‘Visual Music’ shows, and their roots in seances and magic." (From the guide.)
11. And finally, there's "At the Hand" by LACROIX (Canada), in which spectators use their own hand movements to trigger a monumental hand made of light.

It was a great show, made better by the cup of mulled wine I bought along the way!

Woad Walk and Cranberry Crunch

Well, we ironed out the paint choices. Ultimately I convinced Dave that maintaining a neutral beige in the living room would be wise. In return, I let him choose a darker shade for the bedroom than I would normally want -- but I think it might wind up looking pretty good. It's a deep blue, somewhere between peacock and teal, with the mysterious name Woad Walk.

Someone asked yesterday, "Don't you like the paint colors you already have?" I actually do, even though we chose neither of them. The bedroom, a sort of deep gray/brown, was painted by the previous tenants -- just as we lived with their couch for more than a decade, we've lived with their bedroom walls. The living room was repainted several years ago, at least partially, but it's time again.

This will leave only the dining room with its original off-white paint job, and honestly, we're not in that room much.

One thing we're not certain about is how much of the trim the painters plan to do. Are they repainting all the baseboards and molding? When we had the halls, kitchen and bathroom painted years ago, we did not do the trim or the doors or windowsills or any of that stuff. So I'm not sure what to expect there.

Oh! And they're painting our front door. We're going from faded, flaky dark green to bright red. Cranberry Crunch, to be specific.

In other news, I made another batch of squash soup with one of the front-porch pumpkins, which have been sitting in the chilly closet under the stairs. (I forgot about them until last week, to be honest.) This soup wasn't as successful as the last. I used the brown pumpkin, which turned out to be sort of pale yellow inside. It was more like a spaghetti squash and when baked and then blended, the texture wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. I stirred in some spices, stock and sour cream, and I ate it for dinner last night. It hasn't killed me.

Now I only have that green one to deal with.

I also finished a book yesterday, "We Contain Multitudes" by Sarah Henstra, a gay coming-of-age/romance novel about two high school boys who are assigned to write letters to each other in English class and have a relationship as a result. The novel is epistolary, told through their letters, and one of them is a Walt Whitman enthusiast, hence the title. I had to set aside some quibbles -- no high-schoolers would write letters like these, recounting events between the sender and recipient that had just occurred -- but it was interesting and it drew me in and held me until the last pages. I could never make heads or tails of Whitman, and I admire anyone who can.

I finished it on the tube last night as I went to see the annual Winter Lights display at Canary Wharf. More on that tomorrow!

(Photos: A healthy-looking teasel in the garden, and our snowdrops about to bloom.)

Signs of Spring

OK, it's a bit early to be talking about spring, especially with the USA buried under snow and at least another month of winter ahead of us. Here in London we've had some of our heaviest snowfalls in late February and early March. But the sun was bright yesterday, and this little robin was sitting in the Philadelphus outside the back door singing its heart out, and it reminded me that this interminable winter will indeed come to an end.

Just like the interminable administration of Donald Trump will come to an end. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

 I think I solved the Alhambra problem, in a completely unimaginative way. I got online and Googled "How to get tickets to the Alhambra when they're sold out." And several private tour companies popped up offering tickets at a slight premium. I guess they must buy blocks of tickets and then sell them to tourists. Anyway, I reserved two and they've been confirmed so if all goes well, we'll get to visit after all. I'm a bit wary because reviews for this company are mixed and some people say their tickets only came through at the last minute or not at all. But I'm hoping for the best, and if not, we'll find other things to do in Granada.

I realize it's incredibly shallow of me to write about problems like this when the USA is in such turmoil. But I don't see how I can help the situation by going off about how repulsive it is to watch federal agents shoot innocent Americans in the street. All I can do from this distance is help elect more opposition to contain that lunatic as much as possible until his term is up. (OK, I had more to say, but I really am stopping now.)

I spotted our first daffodil yesterday! This is usually when we start seeing them -- end of January or so. Dave and I had his co-worker Lorraine and her boyfriend over for dinner last night, so I cut the daffodil and made it our centerpiece. Dave made parsnip and leek soup, beef stroganoff with broccoli on the side, and lemon posset for dessert. He served the posset with a store-bought blueberry tart. I teased him for serving two desserts, and when he brought them out, Lorraine said, "Two desserts!" But Dave insisted that it was one dessert in two dishes, because the tastes went well together. OK then.

We walked up to Leyland (a home improvements store) yesterday morning to get paint samples to make some choices about the redecorating. Unfortunately we are not in agreement about the options. For the living room I want something very similar to what we already have -- neutral beige. Dave wants very light blue or light green, but I think that's going to be too much blue/green, considering that our sofa is blue and our rug is green and all the paint in the hallway is celadon. In the bedroom, I'd like a dark gray-blue, but not too dark -- and the one Dave wants is, to my mind, too dark and too purple. So we still have to sort this out.

I also downloaded the garden cam yesterday, with results above. We see several of our neighborhood cats -- Blackie, Pale Cat and Tabby -- as well as at least three foxes. I don't believe any of the foxes are Q-Tip, unless he/she is the fox whose poor tail has been stripped at the end, but honestly I have trouble telling them all apart. We see one of the foxes bed down several times behind the hazel tree, where it seems quite comfy. I moved the garden cam so that it has a more direct view of that spot -- I'd like to get some clearer footage of it nesting back there. Hopefully repositioning the camera won't scare the fox away.

A Bummer

I've got to get out and take some fresh pictures this weekend. When I started my walk home last night I reminded myself to keep an eye out for anything interesting, but I just wasn't motivated. Bleak January! Maybe today when Dave and I go up to the hardware store for paint samples.

I've had a rude awakening about our upcoming Spain trip. Someone in the comments recommended that we get our tickets to the Alhambra ahead of time. This seemed a little crazy, given that it's almost a month away, but I tried to go online and buy advance tickets, and guess what? SOLD OUT! They have availability the week before and the week after, but not a single day of the week we're in the country. Of course this is because everyone is on a half-term break from school, I imagine.

I wrote our hotel to see if they could hook us up somehow, but I haven't heard back yet. If we can't get into the Alhambra it won't be the end of the world -- I've seen it (albeit 32 years ago) and although Dave hasn't, he also doesn't seem particularly invested. I did buy advance tickets to the cathedral in Córdoba, so at least we'll be sure to see that.

Traveling is not like it was in the '90s, when you could just show up at the front gate.

Blogger was doing more weird things yesterday. I couldn't reply to comments and I couldn't see my entire blog roll, which is how I click back to read everyone else's blogs. The problem seems fixed this morning, thank goodness.

(Photo: A plaza off Edgware Road, last weekend.)

Decline Porn

It's a good thing I went walking last weekend and got lots of photos to blog, because I haven't taken a single photo in the last couple of days. It's been wet and dreary and I haven't seen anything inspiring. Better wet than freezing cold, like much of the USA, but still...I could use some sunshine.

As I walked home last night, I was listening to the newest episode of the QAA podcast (formerly Q-Anon Anonymous), which examines modern conspiracy theories weekly in a very loose, conversational style. This week they're talking about so-called "Decline Porn," those videos you see on YouTube in which travelers visit European cities and talk about how dangerous and decrepit they've become. This really is an entire genre of YouTube video -- I watched one such video about London several months or maybe even a year ago, just for kicks, and now I still get similar recommendations in my channel. The QAA episode specifically focuses on London videos but you also see them about Paris, Berlin, Lisbon and lots of other places.

They usually have a dramatic title like "London Has Changed," or even "London Has Fallen," and the gist is that while London used to be a nice tidy city full of law-abiding white people drinking tea, it is now a dangerous hellhole full of marauding dark-skinned invaders, phone snatchers and knife-wielding criminals. Of course this is nonsense, but it's interesting that there's an appetite for such content. These videos get significant numbers of views, often far outpacing regular travel videos.

I suspect they're being watched by people who already believe that Europe's capital cities are changing for the worse -- people who are fearful or critical of migrants, who aren't going to travel themselves and who want to hear confirmation that migration leads to civilizational collapse. Often these vloggers are visiting parts of town where immigrant populations are the highest and using them to represent the entire city -- a bit like going to Chinatown in New York or San Francisco and saying, "Look at this! The Chinese are taking over!"

In the video I watched, which I don't want to link to because I don't want to perpetuate the bullshit, the vlogger was walking along a London street and talking about how he'd seen swarms of phone-snatchers on motorcycles zooming past. As far as I could tell, anyone wearing black on a motorcycle was, in his mind, a phone-snatcher. I got news for you, buddy -- most of them are Deliveroo drivers carrying take-away chicken from Nando's.

And that's what these vloggers do -- they film regular everyday people going about their non-criminal business, cast that footage in a dark or deceptive light, and use it to represent the entire metropolitan area. Do we have litter and homeless people in London? Of course we do! We're a city! And we are a very diverse city -- one of the most diverse in the world. But the fact is, diversity -- despite occasional culture clashes -- mostly works just fine here. That's what the people who produce and consume these videos don't want you to hear.

I've lived in London for almost 15 years, I've walked all over this city day and night, and I have never been a target of street crime. I've never had anything stolen, I've never been threatened by anyone sketchy. Our home has never been burgled. I often walk with my camera clearly visible, and while I am careful with my phone I comfortably use it on the streets. I've never been pickpocketed. (Unlike in New York!)

So if you're seeing these videos, keep in mind that they're fiction. They're "Decline Porn," meant to titillate but not to represent reality.

Things Are About to Get Crazy

Here's a little shop I encountered on Edgware Road over the weekend. It seems to sell a bit of everything -- chocolates, produce, water, clothing, household goods and shisha pipes. I can't for the life of me translate the name of it but maybe some of you out there are Arabic speakers and can tell me what it says?

I took two versions of the photo. I like the one above because it's clean, but it's also very static. Here's one with a little more street life:

Well, things are about to get a lot more exciting around here. Dave got a text yesterday from the contractors doing our interior painting/decorating job, and they want to start on Tuesday! We're supposed to choose paint colors but we're uncertain how to do that, given that we don't have any samples. They say we don't have to move furniture or anything -- they will supposedly handle all of that -- but of course I'll take down all the smaller stuff and tuck it away somewhere.

And our tree work is supposed to be happening at roughly the same time. Never a dull moment!

Did I tell you that when the tree man came on Sunday to do his assessment, he said, "I love a naturalistic garden," or something like that? I suppose that's what we have but it also sounds a little bit like a slam, doesn't it? Like, "Well, you've certainly let this go."

On the positive side, I got my test results back from my doctor's office and everything was normal -- even my calprotectin, which hasn't been normal in the last couple of years. Woo hoo! Calprotectin measures intestinal inflammation, and the doctor's theory is that my inflammation came from that polyp that my gastroenterologist removed last May. Now that the polyp is gone, things are back to normal. Sounds good to me! I'll take it!

An 8th Grade student -- the same one who wanted me to do his photography challenge -- asked me yesterday, "What's the worst pandemic you've lived through?" Which is kind of a weird question, but whatever. At first I said Covid, because that was strictly defined as a pandemic and had such an acute effect on the whole globe, but then I realized of course the answer is AIDS. HIV and AIDS definitely altered my life, on a deeper level, more than Covid ever did. This led to some questions about what it was like living in the '80s. I had to remember that for this kid, who was born in 2011 (after Dave and I had moved to London!), that's ancient history -- kind of like the 1930s were to me!

Tree News

Another photo from my wander along Edgware Road the other day. I love these stately old blocks of flats on a side street. I looked them up on Zoopla just now and they are quite swank -- one sold for £2.25 million a year ago, and another (slightly smaller) for £1.5 million the previous November. They're pretty big, too -- four bedrooms!

I woke to some possibly unwelcome news this morning. I say possibly because I'm still weighing what it will mean. The tree surgeon has been instructed to remove our fallen limb and cut the rest of the elder tree down to 20 feet (which is about as tall as it is already, I think) as well as to cut the ivy so that it dies in the upper parts of both trees. I'm happy with the limb removal but I hate to have all that dead ivy hanging there. I hope the tree guy can remove some of it so it's not so unsightly. Or maybe that will be left up to me.

On the bright side, I guess any squirrels or birds with nests in that ivy can continue to live there, unless the fact that it's dead puts them off.

I'm not going to fight it too much, but I may ask a few questions.