Art Car Boot Fair and Father's Day Forfeit

Today was supposed to be Father's Day, but nobody else knew about it except me. In fact, most other people think it's next week. Weird.

I spent a few hours up the road at Brick Lane soaking in the sun and looking at some art. I ended up ducking into the University of Middlesex and Brighton's final year shows that were going on in one of the buildings on the Lane. There were some displays that stood out but I didn't take any pictures of them, so you'll escape drawn out descriptions.

(A beehive modified for everyday life. Oh, and if you look at the cigarette containers bolted onto the wall you'll see the same model that is bolted onto the wall of the shop below our flat. I wish it wasn't.)

The reason I was at Brick Lane in the first place was to go to the Art Car Boot Fair. (A car boot sale is a flea market. Trunks are called boots here so selling something out the boot of your car, even when it's spread over a table, is a car boot sale.) It ended up being a really good time without any of the smug irony I expected to need in order to enjoy it.

It had the atmosphere of a fun fair except I was waiting for John Waters to be at one of the tables scattered around the lot with a human pincushion charging people £2 to play pin the steer on the queer.

Gavin Turk was there, but I couldn't see what he was displaying through the minions that surrounded him. I didn't really mind that I couldn't see.
This woman was watching a karaoke singer. (She was at a whole table of people with similar getup, but they all had their heads turned away so they got the crop.) These guys were great. Why? Because even though they were elevated on the odd human hamster wheel/tricycle a few feet above everyone else, they still caused a bottleneck in the crowd of people straining to see some average looking guys in their underwear. What a result. Men, did you know you can have this power? This is outside of the Fair, in Spitalfields. What was once the stomping grounds of Jack the Ripper and a lot of other people is now filled with graffiti art (art 'cause people pay an awful lot for it) on really expensive property. This guy looked a lot like Julian Barratt from the Mighty Boosh.

This is an "art". It's a wishing fountain that belches water in a raft with twigs in it.









This is Pam Hogg signing a poster for Russ, who was so excited to see her he forgot how to use that respiration organ he's got.







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The devil was part of the "Evil Art Market". He was offering all the girls a 30 second lapdance at the mere cost of 2 quid as part of his patter. He was disarmed and actually at a loss for words at my response to him. All the people there seemed to just want to have a good time. They were selling other things too, most notably some prints, which I think were made using a carved "evil" tree trunk.

Making my way back to Liverpool Street, I saw this. There isn't much more to it than what you see. It's a pub that's made of a stand with some booze behind it, some linked metal gates and a few tables next to a busy street. Build it and they will come.