text:
using UnityEngine;
using VRStandardAssets.Maze;

namespace VRStandardAssets.Maze
{
    [RequireComponent(typeof(NavMeshAgent))]
    [RequireComponent(typeof(ThirdPersonCharacter))]
    public class AICharacterControl : MonoBehaviour
    {
        public NavMeshAgent agent { get; private set; }             // Navmesh agent required for the path finding
        public ThirdPersonCharacter character { get; private set; } // Character we are controlling

        private Rigidbody m_Rigidbody;
        private Player m_Player;
        private Vector3 m_TargetPosition;

        private void Start()
        {
            // get the components on the object we need ( should not be null due to require component so no need to check )
            agent = GetComponentInChildren<NavMeshAgent>();
            character = GetComponent<ThirdPersonCharacter>();
            m_Rigidbody = GetComponent<Rigidbody>();
            m_Player = GetComponent<Player>();

            agent.updateRotation = false;
            agent.updatePosition = true;

            m_TargetPosition = transform.position;
        }

        private void Update()
        {
            agent.SetDestination(m_TargetPosition);

            if (agent.remainingDistance > agent.stoppingDistance)
            {
                character.Move(agent.desiredVelocity, false, false);
                m_Rigidbody.isKinematic = false;
            }
            else
            {
                character.Move(Vector3.zero, false, false);
                m_Rigidbody.isKinematic = true;
            }

            if (m_Player.Dead)
                m_Rigidbody.isKinematic = false;
        }

        public void SetTarget(Vector3 targetPosition)
        {
            m_TargetPosition = targetPosition;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
St John's Methodist Church
PUBLISHED: 12:43 07 December 2006 | UPDATED: 13:39 04 May 2010
THE third Christmas Tree Festival took place last weekend and the title was Christmas Around the World . Thankyou to all who participated in any way to make this a very successful event. Last Sunday morning s service was led by the Rev Roger Steward and
THE third Christmas Tree Festival took place last weekend and the title was 'Christmas Around the World'. Thankyou to all who participated in any way to make this a very successful event.
Last Sunday morning's service was led by the Rev Roger Steward and included singing from Millfield School children's choir. A big thank you to the children, staff from Millfield and also families and friends who attended the service. Mike Peacock read the lesson and Janice Weatherall was the pianist. The singing was truly delightful. Well done Millfield School choir.
Mr Steward also led the Advent Carol Service in the evening. Brenda Harrison, Jean Murfitt, John Heaps and Betty Heaps read lessons and Mr Steward, Bev Scott, Sue Scott and Pam Sole performed a sketch. The pianists were Janice Weatherall and Pat Hodson.
The Women's Fellowship met on Tuesday afternoon. This Sunday, Tony Murfitt will lead the morning service at 10.45am and the Rev Roger Steward will lead the united service with St George's Parish Church at 6.30pm.
The Alternative Christmas Carol and Christingle Service will be on December 16 led by Duncan Palmer and New Life at 7pm. This service is also a giving service for Winter Comfort in Cambridge when gifts of food will be gratefully received for the homeless people who live in Cambridge.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
private var playerMovement : PlayerMovement;

var attack_button : String = "Fire2";
var spawn_attack : Transform;
var spawn_distance : float = 1;
var ignore_player_collision : boolean = true;
private var attack_pointer : Transform;
var max_shots_in_scene : int = 2;
function Start()
{
	playerMovement = GetComponent(PlayerMovement) as PlayerMovement;
}

function check_for_shots_in_scene() : int
{
	var all_shots : GameObject[] = gameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag("Projectile");
	var shots : int = 0;
	for(var shot : GameObject in all_shots)
	{
		if(shot.GetComponent(HelperProjectile))
		{
			if(shot.GetComponent(HelperProjectile).owner == gameObject)
			{
				shots++;
			}
		}
	}
	return shots;
}

function Update () {
	if(Input.GetButtonDown(attack_button) && (check_for_shots_in_scene() < max_shots_in_scene || max_shots_in_scene == 0 ))
	{
	var rot : Quaternion;
	rot.eulerAngles = playerMovement.player_graphic_pointer.transform.eulerAngles;
		attack_pointer = Instantiate (spawn_attack,  playerMovement.player_graphic_pointer.transform.position + Vector3(spawn_distance*playerMovement.movement_direction,0,0),rot) as Transform;
		if(attack_pointer.GetComponent(HelperProjectile))
		{
			attack_pointer.GetComponent(HelperProjectile).owner = gameObject;
		}
		if(ignore_player_collision)
		{
			Physics.IgnoreCollision(attack_pointer.collider,collider);
		}
	}
}


text:
Cheers: 11x11
Love Me, Love My Car
Sam gets cold feet about selling his beloved car, and goes so far as to romance the buyer's widow to get it back. Rebecca befriends a pig destined to be Woody's Christmas dinner.
The Little Match Girl Sep. 24, 1992
The Beer is Always Greener Oct. 01, 1992
The King of Beers Oct. 08, 1992
The Magnificent Six Oct. 22, 1992
Do Not Forsake Me O' My Postman Oct. 29, 1992
Teaching with the Enemy Nov. 05, 1992
The Girl in the Plastic Bubble Nov. 12, 1992
Ill-Gotten Gaines Nov. 19, 1992
Feelings... Whoa, Whoa, Whoa Dec. 03, 1992
Daddy's Little Middle-Aged Girl Dec. 10, 1992
Love Me, Love My Car Dec. 17, 1992
Sunday Dinner Jan. 07, 1993
Norm's Big Audit Jan. 14, 1993
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Bar Jan. 21, 1993
Loathe and Marriage Feb. 04, 1993
Is There a Doctor in the Howe? Feb. 11, 1993
The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover Feb. 18, 1993
The Last Picture Show Feb. 25, 1993
Bar Wars VII: The Naked Prey Mar. 18, 1993
Look Before You Sleep Apr. 01, 1993
Woody Gets an Election Apr. 22, 1993
It's Lonely on the Top Apr. 29, 1993
Rebecca Gaines, Rebecca Loses, Part 1 May. 06, 1993
The Guy Can't Help It May. 13, 1993
One for the Road, Part 1 May. 20, 1993


In this July 31, 2015, file photo, an orca whale breaches in view of Mount Baker.
The Puget Sound Partnership is taking public comment on its draft Action Agenda for 2018-2022.
The agenda is a road map for the recovery of Puget Sound, the largest estuary in the United States. It lists long-term and short-term goals, and projects proposed throughout the region that could help meet those goals.
Several projects proposed and underway in Skagit County are included in the draft agenda, from restoring salmon habitat along the Swinomish Channel to providing low-income residents with assistance for septic system inspections.
The agenda states that those projects, along with others throughout the region, are needed to ensure a future with clean water, strong salmon runs and a healthy Southern Resident orca population.
The Puget Sound Partnership is a state agency tasked with leading regional efforts to restore and protect Puget Sound by collaborating with government, tribal, science, business and nonprofit organizations.
The agency is accepting public comment on the latest Action Agenda through Oct. 15.
Submit comments online at skagit.ws/ActionAgendaComment, by email to aacomment@psp.wa.gov, or by mail to Puget Sound Partnership, ATTN: Action Agenda, 326 E. D St., Tacoma, 98421.


text:
export interface IConfigurationPropertyValidationDefinition {
    min: string | number;
    max: string | number;
    maxLength?: number;
    pattern: string;
    isRequired: boolean;
    allowDuplicates: boolean;
}


text:
Umělec magazine 2000/4 >> The Top 10 Czech Artists from the 1990s List of all editions.
Umělec magazine
Year 2000, 4
Send the printed edition:
1/2016 1/2013 1/2012 2/2011 1/2011 2/2010 1/2010 2/2009 1/2009 2/2008 1/2008 4/2007 3/2007 2/2007 1/2007 3/2006 2/2006 1/2006 3/2005 2/2005 1/2005 4/2004 3/2004 2/2004 1/2004 3/2003 2/2003 1/2003 4/2002 3/2002 2/2002 1/2002 5-6/2001 4/2001 3/2001 2/2001 1/2001 6/2000 5/2000 4/2000 3/2000 2/2000 1/2000 8/1999 7/1999 5-6/1999 4/1999 3/1999 2/1999 1/1999 8/1998 6-7/1998 5/1998 4/1998 3/1998 2/1998 1/1998 6-7/1997 5/1997 4/1997 3/1997 2/1997 1/1997
The Top 10 Czech Artists from the 1990s
Umělec magazine 2000/4
Divus | top 10 | en cs
The editors of Umělec have decided to come up with a list of ten artists who, in our opinion, were of crucial importance for the Czech art scene in the 1990s. After long debate and the setting of criteria, we arrived at a list of names we consider significant for the local context, for the presentation of Czech art outside the country and especially for the future of art. Our criteria did not include success, prizes, participation at exhibitions and media popularity because this kind of criteria could not be applied to the turbulent 1990s. What we were looking for instead was a certain inner strength, authenticity and uniqueness in relation to the contemporary art context. An act, a gesture and clear timelessness can be detected in the following artists who, in our opinion, will influence the first decade of the new millenium. (Although it may not yet be apparent.)
Umělec editors: Lenka Linduarová, Vladan Šír, Ivan Mečl, Tomáš Pospiszyl and Karel Císař
Matin Zet (1959)
Martin Zet, sculptor, painter, performer and video artist, is almost invisible yet all of his works and events are significant. His artistic endeavors, though it may sound affected, have an inherently humane and self-reflective quality encoded within them. This quality is set against the background of a society that has spun out of control. Zet is the only Czech performer who has made his mark in the memory of top Czech politicians: He organized a march of Czech lions (the historic emblem of the Czech state) to the Prague Castle during the presidential elections of 1997. During the Public Art Project, he placed his video installation of the virtual space in a subway train into an actual subway train. His lesser-known video projects are akin to the work of Jimmie Durham whom Zet has met at a number of international symposiums. Zet's status of an artistic nomad, traveling around the world, responding to specific situations at a specific time, is crucial for understanding his work. And for Zet it is crucial to know that he considers art to be his life. Sea Drawings, the drawings he makes in tandem with natural elements, make up his most unassuming and yet one of his strongest works. They are often impossible to separate from the natural event itself. Most of Zet's works are difficult to describe because they represent a metaphysical story full of emotion, euphoria and inexplicable mystery. His works can be, in a global context, classified as anthropological events mostly occurring outside the exhibition space and represent the spice in all pop trends.
Filip Turek
Filip Turek is often seen as an enfant terrible by Czech curators, and it is amusing to include his work as a complement to a collective exhibition of some hip and hot theme. Turek is mostly involved in computer-generated art, performances and secret events. He parodied postmodernism in a time when it was still treated like the holy cow. With the exception of his website, he intentionally avoids showing his work. He earned the reputation of being a provocateur and one of the few artists who had an exhibition prohibited in the 1990s by showing a video loop of his own anus endlessly excreting its waste. Filip Turek is an unrivaled foil for all wannabe provocative and speculative artists. As a solitary artist, he finds himself in opposition to the current rules. He indulges in taboo themes with a kind of obsession. Feces and sexual deviation are only a couple of examples. Turek, however, is also a skilled designer and Internet surfer with various virtual bodies. He is gradually achieving the standing of being a mystifying artist, and one cannot say with any certainty what his identity really is.
Jiří Surůvka
Jiří, who is originally from Ostrava's rough coal-mining region, became a hero of Czech art within a few years and has established himself as a painter, performer and entertainer. It is hard to say whether his sophisticated, popular presentation is his image or his nature. The same is true of his paintings: Are they infantile, naive or sophisticated? Even in his performances and theater sketches he seems to be intentionally searching out the limits of awkwardness and parody, kitsch and lewdness, vulgarity and snobbishness. He mocks everything around him, including himself, functioning as a litmus test for administrative arguments while protecting the good from the evil like Batman in whose disguise—despite weighing 120 kilos—he often dresses. Surůvka injected spontaneity and the courage for artists not to take themselves so seriously into the local scene—the courage to say anything under any circumstance. He also contributes to deconstructive tendencies that manifest themselves in energetic arrogance aimed at the exhibition routine. Surůvka may gradually become a Švejkian mascot of production. His contribution to the past decade is, however, indisputable.
Vladimír Skrepl
Nobody has organized a solo exhibition for Vladimír Skrepl because everybody is worried that the result might be so terrifying that, after the event, it would no longer be impossible to make art. Skrepl's art—mostly paintings and drawings—has no nature, mannerism, style, is not highbrow, and, at first sight, lacks all reason. It is unorthodox, free, and incrediblely unesthetic. It represents a question, floating above the horizon, concerning the era after the grand narrative, or, rather, after the era after the grand narrative, an era of waiting for artistic reversals previously unconsidered. Skrepl is an absolutely exceptional figure in contemporary Czech art and for this reason none of the critics even attempts to classify him. Vladimír Skrepl is phenomenal at making unbearably ugly artifacts whose extraterrestrial anti-esthetics exude horror as well as excitement. Furthermore, his works are perverse, unappealing, aggressive, strange, offensive and submissive, inartistic and calculated, political, sexist, appalling, magnetic, content-free, stupid, unpredictable, fascinating, awful and excellent. Impossible to decode, like the perfect game.
David Černý
It's not quite clear whether David Černý only thinks of his own immortality or whether he also sometimes thinks of the things that come attached: the consequences for humankind, which, in his case, is artistic contribution. Although Černý is one of the most visible artists in the Czech Republic, and has gradually become a media star, this fact is not at variance with the quality of his objects. One could say that David Černý is the only contemporary monumental and figurative sculptor. He often deals with Czech history, something that is not only risky, but also downright unacceptable. Černý is political in the truest sense of the word; he is point-blank and the content of his work is terse. He won his greatest success in the local scene when he painted a Soviet tank/monument pink shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Authorities then repainted the tank army gray but members of parliament helped paint it back pink again. This story has no local precedence. David Černý realizes simple ideas with ease, and, oddly enough, they all work out well in the end. He could be called the Jeff Koons of Czech art, but this comparison falls off the mark: Černý is much more straightforward. Who else would have the courage to make a bronze crib detailing Czech history spanning from the legend of the Golem to the Rolling Stones visiting President Havel?
Markéta Othová
Markétha Othová's work makes her one of the most subtle and mysterious artists working today. Through her hands she is able to transform her black and white photographs into abstract images. Her concepts are sometimes narrative: She can inconspicuously work up a story brimming with personal memory and turn it into a new visual sign for a specific place and time. She works with personal experience, with the symbols of intimacy, as well as everyday objects, which she melds into her own world, tempering them with her own language. What her images are hiding, what is chance and what is an acute message is intentionally ambivalent. It's as if Markéta Othová succeeds in taking pictures of dream sequences or of our notion of what a dream is. Her large formats emphasize the deepness of space, where the dreams take place. Her images contain something the lens has failed to capture, the viewer cannot see, but still there's the feeling of tangible absence. Her photographs do not have a specific signature yet they are inimitable. Perhaps it's due to her abounding sensitivity and the intensity of her dreams. We forgot something long, long ago and Markéta Othová is inconspicuously unveiling it.
Ivan Vosecký
The painter Ivan Vosecký gives the impression that he makes his art just as naturally as he speaks or sleeps. Yet his works are relevant because they deal with elemental human issues like God, love, politics, ecology, and drugs. Vosecký uses proclamation slogans done in advertising lingo. Since his questions are too tragic, he vilifies them by encasing them in a banal form—sticky tape, polystyrene. In his paintings, he regresses into child-like manifestations and uses popular comic language. It might appear as if he wanted to save the world but perhaps it is only a speculation by a substantially contemporary and aware artist. His sincerity, however, is so convincing, and his communication with viewers is so direct that one cannot but believe that Vosecký is the Don Quixote of the arts, while risking all the while being seen as ridiculous. It is as though he wasn't supposed to live in this era, and yet he still tries to wake up the bad conscience of a world full of MacDonalds and ozone holes. Can the language of art today still do this? Vosecký is vehemently trying to do so.
Jasanský—Polák
The status of photographers Lukáš Jasanský and Martin Polák in the 1990s art scene has not yet been fully appreciated. Their uniqueness lies in their alternation to all local and periodic tendencies, in their absolutely insufficient promiscuity. Their black and white photographs— which they conceive as one author—and the viewer never find out who pushes the button, do not capture the magic of the inadvertent but instead the stupidest images and situations. It is peculiar that their photographs wind up in a position outside irony and parody. They look like completely idiotic jokes a storyteller continues to flub up. They photograph desolate Czech reality, Czech people, cities, cars, slippers, factories. They, however, do not create Kafkaesque illustrations. Instead they conjure up strange images difficult to penetrate. It is incredibly hard to say why Jasanský and Polák succeed in creating the tragic, comical and ephemeral atmosphere that a completely cursory look would normally lack. It's as if they concentrate on scrutinizing from the periphery, see something we perceive only subconsciously, and then focus on it, enlarge it and cover up the much more beautiful and not so depressing views. The art of the two photographers stands on their ability to capture the singular and the unique but gloomy insights that would otherwise fade from memory. Depressing esthetics would be good way to describe this.
The last few years have showed us that painter Petr Nikl, who could theoretically be considered a ranked and accomplished artist, is, in fact, one of the most significant Czech performers without whose inexhaustible initiative a number of interesting projects would have been impossible to realize, like the visual theater with South African actors with whom he couldn't communicate verbally. Nikl applies his racy and extroverted way of communication—based on a number of visual surprises and sounds—in the kind of theater performance that brings us back to the rituals deeply rooted in our common memory. Their content includes everything from puppet plays for children and transvestite shows to cheeky improv. They are fascinating and impossible to grasp. Although Nikl maintains a certain style and patterned, comprehensible use of his tools, he still succeeds in transforming himself like a long-term schizophrenic who is, more than anything, crazy about art. Nikl's identity seems to be unclear, but this not the point in his performances because they are based more on visual alterations and games. This kind of work, combining the complex language of visual art with folk entertainment, is absolutely unique, because art is often not amusing at all.
The artistic output of Krištof Kintera, though there has not been much, is usually quite strong. Perhaps it is become he is using a global language in his work as if it naturally belonged to the international context of the past decade. Precise formal elaboration of ideas plays an important part in his work. Kintera possesses the ability of a sophisticated designer. His work has almost unambiguous meaning and may be described as a striking example of contemporary art. The story of It, his object with an illustrative title, is an example of how to perceive art in general, but also specifically, through It, a thing, a product, a mystery which can be placed anywhere like a shop window, a gallery, under one's bed—whether we expect It there, want It there or it's simply the first meeting with It. Krištof Kintera strolls through the world of art as if it's perfectly natural for him in an era of unified colors and multinational galleries. Kintera is a representative of the contemporary, genetically unmodified artists. His talkers—little figures without faces—do not complain, as it might seem at first sight. They simply comment on a diverse world they do not need to understand, but, despite that, must live as one of its components.
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Le Dernier Cri and the black penis of Marseille
We're constantly hearing that someone would like to do some joint project, organize something together, some event, but… damn, how to put it... we really like what you're doing but it might piss someone off back home. Sure, it's true that every now and then someone gets kicked out of this institution or that institute for organizing something with Divus, but weren't they actually terribly self…
Nick Land – An Experiment in Inhumanism
Nick Land was a British philosopher but is no longer, though he is not dead. The almost neurotic fervor with which he scratched at the scars of reality has seduced more than a few promising academics onto the path of art that offends in its originality. The texts that he has left behind are reliably revolting and boring, and impel us to castrate their categorization as "mere" literature.
Tunelling Culture II
MIKROB
There's 130 kilos of fat, muscles, brain & raw power on the Serbian contemporary art scene, all molded together into a 175-cm tall, 44-year-old body. It's owner is known by a countless number of different names, including Bamboo, Mexican, Groom, Big Pain in the Ass, but most of all he's known as MICROBE!… Hero of the losers, fighter for the rights of the dispossessed, folk artist, entertainer…
CRIME (BAD AUTHORS EDITION)
DIVUS 3
public space commentary theory q & a in transition artist reviews performance news focus interview theory art projects new face u-sobě war info new faces essay theme japan The End of the Western Concept art project media review comics q&a editorial exhibition profile
Where to go next?
out - archeology
S.d.Ch, Solitaires and Periphery Culture (a generation born around 1970)
Josef Jindrák
Who is S.d.Ch? A person of many interests, active in various fields—literature, theater—known for his comics and collages in the art field. A poet and playwright foremost. A loner by nature and determination, his work doesn't meet the current trends. He always puts forth personal enunciation, although its inner structure can get very complicated. It's pleasant that he is a normal person and a…
out - poetry
THC Review and the Condemned Past
We are the fifth global party! Pítr Dragota and Viki Shock, Fragmenty geniality / Fragments of Charisma, May and June 1997. When Viki came to visit, it was only to show me some drawings and collages. It was only as an afterthought that he showed me the Czech samizdat publication from the late 1990s, THC Review. When he saw how it fascinated me, he panicked and insisted that THAT creation is…
To hen kai pán (Jindřich Chalupecký Prize Laureate 1998 Jiří Černický)
birthing pains
Who's Afraid of Motherhood?
Zuzana Štefková
Expanding the definition of "mother" is also a space for reducing pressure and for potential liberation.1 Carol Stabile The year was 2003, and in the deep forests of Lapák in the Kladno area, a woman in the later phase of pregnancy stopped along the path. As part of the "Artists in the Woods" exhibit, passers-by could catch a glimpse of her round belly, which she exposed especially for them in…
Books & Magazines / Art
Lukáš Jasanský, Martin Polák: Village
Text: Jan Čep| Design: Lenka Jasanská| Size: 26 x 30 x 1 cm| 80 pages of special print on coated paper with photographs in sewn...
Books & Magazines / Divus Revue
The art review Divus number two. This large-format publication brought together outsider art, style, the alternative, the...
The art review Divus number one. This large-format publication brought together outsider art, style, the alternative, the...
The art review Divus number three. This large-format publication brought together outsider art, style, the alternative, the...


The beautiful and ancient city of Albi is situated on the River Tarn, in the southern wine-growing region of France known as Gaillac. I've visited often as my brother, Sean, lives nearby, and have gradually absorbed details about the area's history. Just in case you think the only thing I do is eat, drink, flirt and play havoc… this blog is more serious tourism.
One of Albi's famous children was Jean-François Galaup, Comte de Lapérouse (1741-1788), the Pacific Explorer who disappeared in mysterious circumstances when his two large vessels, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, were shipwrecked and subsequently attacked off the islands of Santa Cruz.
I've always found it interesting that Lapérouse's French Fleet arrived on the East Coast of Australia at practically the same time as Britain's First Fleet, led by the Englishman Captain Arthur Phillip. So much would have been different if their timing had been ever so slightly reversed… but as it was the great seamen met in Botany Bay on the 26th January 1788, just as Phillip was preparing to move the new colony north into the harbour to settle at Port Jackson (ie Sydney's Rocks district).
By all reports it was a cordial meeting and the brave French explorer's name is honoured in the southern Sydney suburb of La Perouse. Very thankfully, Lapérouse gave his important letters and documents to a ship heading directly back to England at this time, so despite his tragic end the historical records of his voyage prior to Botany Bay were saved for posterity.
Another famous son from this part of France (his courage of the artistic variety) is remembered in Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. Like most people, I enjoy Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's vivid portraits of characters such as Yvette Guilbert and Jane Avril. I admire, too, his self-portraits and brothel paintings, particularly those which allow you to observe multiple treatments on a theme - such as the different renditions of Salon de la rue des moulins, revealing much about the artist's deliberations over fusion and colour.
The Art Posters designed for Parisian theatres and musical cafés like the Moulin Rouge, always keep me entertained. Famously, they include: Ambassadeurs; El Dorado; La Goulue; and Bal Masque, in which I adore the man with a distinctively crooked nose surrounded by silhouettes of spectators and dancers doing the can-can. I also find memorable various sketches done on cardboard. The most charming to my mind, by virtue of its subtlety and gentle evocation of sensuality, is Etude pour femme tirant son bas (1894). A dear friend, Fiona, gave me a souvenir fridge magnet of the image after visiting Albi together and it never fails to make me smile.
The Toulouse-Lautrec Museum is situated in a section of Palais de la Berbie on the edge of Le Tarn immediately below the impressive French-Gothic styled La Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile. This historic part of Albi is not to be missed - its militant architecture intended as a statement of strength by the Catholic Church against the Cathar heresy which raged in the south of France in the 13th century.
Extremely impressive are the thick towering walls of the Cathedral and Bishop's House, standing fortress-like over magnificent gardens and shading Albi's oldest bridge, Pont Vieux, constructed in 1035. In addition to sheer walls and towers there are protective fortifications or 'curtains' built by Bishop Bernard de Castanet (between 1277 and 1306) during particularly tense times with the 'Albigensians'. They provided him with a safe escape route via the river in the event the peasant hatred of him turned riotous.
I haven't uncovered yet why they hated him so much… but anyway this part of Albi is, for me, a romantic place, because Sean and Muriel had their wedding photos taken in the Bishop's lovely gardens. I always go to the corner viewing platform and watch the mighty Tarn River surging against ancient rocks overlooked by verdant branches bursting impatiently into life.
My mother pointed out that one of the reasons for this ominous impression is that there's no image of the Saviour to balance the vileness of hell and its devils. For a hole was cut into the rood screen to make way for the repositioning of the modern altar, and consequently it lacks the figure of Jesus and therefore hope for Redemption.
It provides an insight, anyway, into the sobriety of the Old Testament and dour Medieval-Christian interpretations of the Bible… before subsequent generations, particularly post-Vatican II, were encouraged to trust in the overwhelming love of Christ and a generous, forgiving Father. Thank God for the timing of my birth is all I can say. Until I'd seen that screen I thought my twentieth century advantage had been the discovery of penicillin!
Albi's Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile is also memorable for its flamboyant chancel screen and Grand Choeur (circa 1477-1484). Situated in what is now the rear of the church, it contains an abundance of Gothic statuary, polychromatic figures, carved motifs and filigree to rival the famous Notre Dame Choirs in Paris and Chartres.
Also of significance, is that a number of chapels and the striking azure-blue ceiling vaults (coloured with dye from the locally grown woad plant) were covered between 1509 and 1512 with frescoes, putti and other Renaissance motifs. One of the largest collections of Italian paintings in France, it is a legacy of the city's Renaissance Bishops, Louis I and Louis II of Amboise.
If this isn't enough to make you think Albi's one-hundred-and-thirteen metre long Cathedral is auspicious, you only have to stand outside Sainte-Cécile and consider the engineering feat of holding up incredibly sheer walls without flying buttresses; buttresses being typical of later Gothic design. A notable point is that the imposing forty metres to the roof, and seventy-eight metres to the top of the tower, were made from thousands upon thousands of small, red, baked bricks. Indeed Albi has the world's largest brick Cathedral and the old city retains much of its character by virtue of the widespread use of these bricks in areas including Bourg Saint-Salvy, Castelviel, Castelnau, Lices-Vigan, Lices-Georges Pompidou, and the Cathedral Close and Tarn Riverbank districts.
In warm weather I've often been lulled into a stupor by wandering along attractive, shaded riverbanks, looking at rusty reflections of the old town in the water, and on each occasion wondering how time, in many ways, appears to have stood still in Albi.
As I moved off up the road they turned their heads and continued to follow me, as if I were the most interesting creature to pass all day. It was siesta, and too hot to be running, so perhaps they were waiting for me to keel over - which I very nearly did, on account of the alcohol streaming through my bloodstream from the night before, chased by an excessive amount of cholesterol from cheese, sausage and the dessert I just had to have to avoid offending my hosts.
I turned and ran up a dirt lane unsure where it would lead. Right along the path a man half way up a tree was watching me. I thought he was spreading nets across the branches to keep birds from his fruit, but in fact he was waiting to tell me that it was private property and I needed to turn around and go back. Well, he spoke in French so I guessed that's what his gesticulating meant.
Back I trod and found the cows waiting. They weren't very talkative but I found them endearing, especially as they were bordered by green fields, rich with golden-topped crops on account of all the rain, and a soothing smattering of listless red poppies. For not the first or last time I wished I could paint, as the scene was idyllic.
It got me thinking about the fact that actors and performers love to be watched. Maybe that's why I loved the old Guinness commercials so much… peering eyes from the guy who only ever said "I like to watch"… the pint itself taking on the characteristics and aura of a watchable star. Indeed many artists are crippled without an audience… which is perhaps why we fill our non-working time writing blogs or telling funny stories to our friends. This is hard for introverts or non-exhibitionists to understand, except of course if you get them onto a subject about which they are passionate.
Take my brother Sean, for instance, he loves to be watched when playing the guitar or Rugby. But put him in a shop or at a party and he will do everything to sink into the furniture. Seriously, in all the years I've visited him in France I have never been allowed to speak English to him in a bank or shop. He wants to be French and I, it would seem, am a huge handicap. So he makes me tell him what I want and then shushes me as we walk through the door. As if I hadn't yet learnt this routine, he did it to me again recently. In fact I suspect he doesn't really want me to go into 'his shops' at all unaccompanied, for fear they'll make the connection. He doesn't say that of course… probably knowing I'd tease him too much and the thrown gauntlet would be far too tempting. I am impressed he has assimilated well into this community by being so stubborn, dare I say French? But I did have to laugh when his lovely wife, Muriel, came back to the house with a packet of Vitamin C - for Sean had known I was planning to pop into the local Pharmacy for it. Oh well, saved me a trip and a few Euros so I wasn't complaining.
At a party it's much the same, for Sean is not a big conversationalist – in fact a man of rather few words. Indeed I think he's spent his life wondering how the hell he got such a loquacious sister. God love him though, for he's happy to take me to meet his friends, proud even, but he really does not want to have to spend the evening translating for me. He's a little more accommodating when the dinner party is at his own home, or if we meet just a couple of people, but if it's going to be a large group the strain of the threatened need to translate is etched on his brow as we mooch toward the threshold. I tell him not to worry, "I'll be fine", but he knows I won't be able to keep quiet for long.
His strategy for one evening - a surprise party thrown by my Muriel's cousin for her Aunty - was that I use sign-language and a gaggle of disconnected French words to talk to the person immediately next to me; rather than try to join the big table conversation if I didn't understand it. "Fair enough" I said, particularly as Sean hasn't been at all well lately and it's not the time to provoke him.
This approach was a good idea in theory, but of course I'm a performer whether or not the lights are on me and social butterfly could be my middle name. So if I pick up on a joke or am attracted by the energy of a conversation, I simply can not hold back my curiosity and inevitably look to someone for clarification. Thus it was this evening, and to my relief (as much as Sean's) the lady beside me at the table for a time spoke Italian! She was delighted to translate the conversation into Italian, then translate my comments back into French for the table, such that I got the requisite number of laughs from the evening's banter not to feel like a social outcast; or God Forbid boring. Sean just shook his head in disbelief every time my side-kick and I managed to hold centre stage, but at least he'd not been directly implicated.
This was how I always got by during my early months living in Italy. I'd find someone who spoke even a little English and would wind up my social interactions from there. It's how I get on still when I've been away from Italy too long and forget much of what I've learnt. Nevertheless manners often decree that an evening be allowed to take its natural flow without a constant demand for translation, so I did what I always do when I don't have sufficient language in a foreign country: I found something to read in English; I played with the children (always a winner for they are without judgement and wonderfully imaginative); I ate and drank to excess; and then fell asleep on the sofa near midnight.
At 2am I woke up. And they were all standing above me, watching.


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The German artist Walter Stöhrer is said to be one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. After finishing school, he underwent a training as a commercial artist and subsequently studied at the Kunstakademie Karlsruhe under HAP Grieshaber together with Horst Antes. After his studies, he moved to Berlin and obtained a guest professorship at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin that turned into a full professorship in 1986. While he was still alive, the Walter-Stöhrer-foundation with archive and collection was founded in 1999.


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