Menorkulturable; Imbibing Art And Philosophy

Before I begin, just dropping in a reminder that next week is the final Final Friday Fiction slot for the year! Also, the 2023 badge will be revealed, and the update to the concept. Now, are you sitting comfortably?

Regular readers will have noted hints at my having been sniffing out interesting things to inspire posts and build narratives. As we plummet down toward 2023, here is a taster of the sort of thing that has been catching my attention. It is more recent than some items on my bookmark shelf, but a more stand-alone item and fitting for a pre-Christmas view/read. 

On Sunday, past, I read an interview with the actor Mark Bonnar. I have followed his career for some years now. He's one of those faces and talents who impresses wherever he appears but is somehow always secondary to the main protagonist of the piece he is in. An actor's actor. At the very least, all of you who have watched the detective drama Shetland will be familiar with him as the slightly dodgy Duncan, a friend of Perez and step-dad to his daughter. Okay, that was fine in itself. However, there was a trigger in there to have me digging further. Something about his childhood and his 'artist father'. That's where I got totally absorbed!

It turns out that Stan Bonnar is one of Scotland's leading urban/environmental artists and is a hugely interesting man. His father, Felix, was a Polish refugee who joined the Polish RAF regiment. Stationed in Scotland, he married and settled here. Stan writes about his childhood and his development as an artist on his excellent website (which is still a work in progress, he says). I was engrossed reading the initial page, covering 1948 to 1972 and have it bookmarked to go and savour with a cup of cocoa each evening. Stan, it turns out, is now as much a philosopher as an artist and has been working on a personal theory of existence and perception based on Quantum Entanglement. How I so wish I could sit and debate with him and introduce him (if he is not already familiar) to Advaitic philosophy... an ancient study that comes to the same conclusions as this 'new' knowledge. There's a reason many physicists are intrigued by the Sanskrit scripts...

It was with surprise and joy that I discovered a television program discussing not just Stan's art but environmental art and its place in Scotland's New Towns. Amazingly, astoundingly, when I looked it up on the BBC player, it was due to expire from viewing on that very evening, so I spent a delightful and entertaining hour in their company. Inspired, I could make it a project of mine to visit some, if not all, such installations - as and when I ever get on wheels again. I really wanted to share it, but that is almost impossible with Beeb productions... unless you have folk who manage to work out ways. Dear viewers, I present you with "Meet You At The Hippos".  I am sure you will consider it an hour well spent. Let me know below!

Meet You At The Hippos