It lives… Now that Paul St George has finished the Transatlantic Tunnel, he’s installed the Telectroscope down at Tower Bridge. Cowfish has been down there and actually looked though the Telectroscope and seen the sights that are.. New York…

Photos are building up in the Telectroscope pool on Flickr, and it all looks very shiny!!! Remember, you have to Believe in the Telectroscope and get yourself down to Tower Bridge in London or the Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, New York, near the Brooklyn Bridge, between today and 15th June 2008.

(photo by Cowfish)

UPDATE: there are now a whole bunch of photos and videos appearing on Flickr about the Telectroscope

As it say ons the Telectroscope Blog:

“I received a mysterious phone call at 7:00 a.m this morning from Paul St George. He sounded tired, but elated. He urged me to come down to Tower Bridge to bear witness to the completion of the tunnel. When I arrived, this is what I saw..”

Just like when the Rocket Ship Landed in London two years ago…

Something strange is going on in the capital again this weekend…

..It’s exciting, it’s strange.. it’s coming out of the ground.. and it’s Artichoke… You know what to expect…

The Teletroscope… London and New York.. 22nd – 15th May 2008

..and photos… For the non-believers

Artichoke (the people that brought you the large elephant tramping through London) and Paul St George will be opening up a special exhibition from May 22nd through to 15th June 2008 in both London and New york..

Bizarrely the news about this first broke on April 1st.. Hence most thought the mad ’steam punk’ invention of the ‘Teleroscope’, a device that used large lenses to allow viewer to see long distances through a tunnel, as well as the existence of a ‘transatlantic tunnel’ was an April Fools joke..

However now there’s a chance to see for yourself as the tunnel is, apparently from the photos, now all but complete. If you should happen to be in the vicinity of City Hall in London or the Fulton Ferry Landing in New York next Tuesday or Wednesday, you may see something strange going on.

On Thursday, 22nd May, a Telectroscope will be installed at each end of the tunnel, and it will open to the public for the first time. Allowing visitors to see from London to New York by just looking into the ‘Telectroscope’.. Quite errie!!

The project is the brainchild of the British artist Paul St George, who discovered the existence of the tunnel whilst sorting through some family papers. Notebooks and plans belonging to his great-grandfather, an eccentric Victorian engineer called Alexander Stanhope St George, revealed the location of the tunnel and plans for an astounding invention called a Telectroscope.

Through the backing of communications company Tiscali UK, Artichoke plans to open the Telectroscopes to the public, 24 hours a day. The London Telectroscope is situated on the south side of the river near Tower Bridge (close to Abbots Lane and Vine Lane)

The official Telectroscope website tells you some more about the tunnel, the Telectroscope and the project.

You can also read more on the Telectroscope Blog…

..and we’ll see just what it’s like!!!

Royal de Luxe are an extraordinary European street theatre company, renowned on three continents but hardly known here in Britain. The company was founded in 1979 by Jean Luc Courcoult, and has been touring the world ever since.

In the past dozen years, they have created a series of spectacular shows involving giant figures and puppets, some as big as 11 or 12 metres high. The shows are very simple and run over a few days. The animal or giant arrives in the town, and lives its life. It goes about its day to day life and interacts with passers-by.

By the end of the performance huge crowds gather to watch the visiting creature and its daily activities. The sheer size of the puppets is enough to amaze adults and children alike as the story of the Sultan and his Elephant unravelled…

“Once upon a time, there lived a sultan who was tormented in his dreams by visions of a little girl who was travelling through time. This is his story, incredible but true.

she liked to stitch cars to the tarmac, boats to quaysides, trains to railway tracks and sometimes even envelopes to letterboxes.

The performance started on the 4th of May.. London was shocked to find a rocket crashed nose first into Waterloo Place.. Smoke rising and the road crumbled and broken under it.

The following days saw the puppets interact with London. The giant puppet girl emerging from the rocket in Waterloo Place on Friday afternoon, and the giant elephant wandering majestically around London. The weekend performance ending on the Sunday, with the girl climbing back into the rocket and blasting off from Horse Guards Parade in St James Park.

The Sultan’s Elephant is the fifth in the series of giant pieces, the others being Le Géant tombé du ciel, Le géant tombé du ciel: dernier voyage, Retour d’Afrique and Les Chasseurs de girafes.

was first performed in Nantes from May 19th to 22nd and in Amiens from June 16th to 19th 2005.

There are some fantastic photos of this on the Flickr Royal de Luxe cluster. Which really makes me wish I’d known this was on. The attention to detail, the pure size of the puppets and the amazing interaction with the public is something that I really love.

Unfortunately there is no information as to if Royal De Luxe will be performing elsewhere within the UK at any time..

UPDATE: I’ve just had a look on youtube and there is a bunch of videos from the performances round London, including the Grande Finale

Apparently its now in the final stages, originally set to take 2 days to put the hub and blades in place, although the high winds of the last few days have meant that they cannot safely place the rotor arms onto the hub. The turbine itself will be producing about 4.5 million kWh’s enough to power almost 1,500 local homes and businesses.

The turbine itself will be the most visible wind turbine in the UK, a somewhat dull fact, in that it will be viewed by about 60 million people a year as they pass by junction 11 of the M4. Although I’m not keen on the idea of them lighting it up at night as a ’sculpture’..

Green park is also home to these little critters, the Reading water vole society. Obviously they didn’t get much say in the planning application, being water voles and all, but they are being safeguarded by Prudential’s Landscape Management team.

A small family of water voles are being encouraged (with what I have no idea) to move into a much improved ditch a few metres from their current habitat.. Although I’m not sure what they are going to think of the rotor arms whizzing past their ears.. ‘It didn’t say anything about rotor arms in the brochure..’

Having spoken to the British Deer Society they think that my garden is just a good food source for it.. so thats why its staying…

They suggested some ways to get rid of it… but I’m starting to become a bit attached to it… it seems to be uninjured, its eating well (grass mainly.. the odd weed, bit of hedge..)

Its generally being fairly sociable as well at the moment (no late night parties, friends round to chew the cud..), so I guess I’ll let it stay for the moment…

Well it seems I have a new lodger.. I woke up this morning to draw the curtains to see this kinda cute face looking back through the window at me..

On the advice of the RSPCA I chased it off.. for it to come back an hour later.. No matter what I try.. it keeps coming back.. I’m thinking it doesnt now want to leave!!

Its now happly munching on the grass, between snoozing under the apple tree and inspecting the shrubs..

Any ideas ??

With the Bahrain event only 13 days away, Renault seem hot favorites as the team to watch, but we’re supporting Red Bull Racing.

The Red Bull Racing Store opens in 33 days, and they do have the coolest looking merchandise!!

Go Red Bull..

Mappr takes advantage of the cornucopia of descriptive information provided by Flickr’s users to organize their photos. Flickr is pretty open to access from pretty munch anything you want and Stamen Design provide a great look on well.. America… (shame it doesn’t cover the world!)

Source: Stamen Designs Mappr Project Page

So winters finally here.. we had a second lot of snow fall today, although it didnt settle this time.. I’m sure there is more to come..