From Lisburn to Lapland – join the elves to tour the city centre on a hunt for what the man in the red suit wants for Christmas (Three’s Theatre Company in Lisburn City Centre until 21 December)

It’s beginning to look a lot like … Santa’s elves need help figuring out what the man in the red suit wants for Christmas. But help is at hand from young volunteers who accompany them on a hunt across Lisburn City Centre, powered by candy cane, rhymes, riddles, some dancing, and the infectious energy of two chatterbox elves.

From Lisburn to Lapland features recently promoted Elsie and somewhat forgetful cousin Sproggy guide their young charges and accompanying adults from inside Bow Street Mall, out through the shopping thoroughfare, calling in with some retailers to pick up treats (hot chocolate much appreciated on a freezing cold evening) and clues. And if you complete the quest and encounter a grateful Santa – conveniently he’s often to be found resident in the light-tastic Castle Garden – he may recognise your contribution.

With no reindeer available, we travel by foot, observing the Elf and Safety rules, particularly when crossing the road. Two stage managers who are less intoxicated with elven mischief are on hand, and youngsters are decked out in hi-vis jackets. Other shoppers humour, nay respect, our exuberant and playful behaviour. What no one can control is the Pied Piper effect of other little people instinctively joining the tribe mid-show, entirely unwilling to be prised away by their embarrassed parents … it’s a good sign that the show is working and pitched at the right age.

The script bounces along with nonsense rhymes, friendly elves that are easy to help, and the added wonder of the light display stretching above the length of Bow Street and the brilliance of the gardens.

Three’s Theatre Company is no stranger to bespoke, site-specific works. Founder Anna Leckey – born and bred in Lisburn – tends to include an element of choice in her shows. Often it’s the selection of which headphone channel to listen into the inner thoughts of one of a number of actors in a scene. Her first professional show was funded by the then Lisburn City Council and this Christmas her street animation is supported by the expanded Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council.

You can join Elsie and Sproggy by booking a slot online over the next few weekends in the run up to Santa’s big present-giving deadline.

Photo credit: Simon Hutchinson

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*now closed* Chipmongers - opens on Lisburn’s Antrim Street with flavoursome menu

Update - February 2019 - the Lisburn Chipmongers has closed.

Chipmongers have opened their first branch in Northern Ireland in Lisburn. Since my youth, the Antrim Street shop unit has been battering fish and frying chips, but having now sampled a generous sample of the menu, it’s clear that the quality of cuisine (not normally a word associated with a chip ship) and attention to detail have definitely been given a lift in this new venture by Michael Ferris.

The titular Chipmonger Burger had a satisfying crunch as I bit into it. The crispy onion bits contrasted well with the melted Applewood smoked cheese, mixed leaves and sauce on top of the beef patty.

Chicken Goujon Boat is flavoursome, with two fillet strips resting on mixed leaves in a tortilla ‘boat’, drizzled with ranch sauce. In terms of taste, it’s much closer to restaurant fare than normal takeaway.

There’s sometimes a danger that crispy, bubbly batter can be more of a meal than the fish hidden inside. Not so with Chipmonger’s Fillet of Cod which is fried in a light batter that adds taste but leaves the fish intact to do the talking.

The new kids on the block are open from noon until 10pm seven days a week and offer delivery within a 2 mile radius for £2 Thursday to Sunday. Add if you order from the Chipmongers app (iOS/Android) before the end of January 2018, you can use the offer code ‘cm20’ to get 20% off your first order.

Thanks to Chipmongers for the lunchtime treat.

Thinking About Thoughts - listen in to three tormented souls on a silent retreat

Three people have booked into a ten day silent retreat. Into this sparse and isolated environment, each brings their own insecurities and baggage. As an audience we listen into the clamour of inner thoughts as they unpack and process their lives.

Dressed appropriately for the sessions of yoga and contemplation, the three actors in Thinking About Thoughts take their places on the stage. A spotlight falls on one and the theatre goers hear their thoughts through wireless headphones. The spotlight moves and the inner conversation shifts. Introductions over, all three characters are illuminated and each listener can flick between the three channels to eavesdrop on the conversation inside the single head of their choice. (Small green/blue/red lights on the headphones indicate to other people around you which voice you’re listening to.)

“I hate my body yet I still put it out there for other people to judge.”

Green (played by Anna Leckey) is suffering a bad bout of smart phone separation anxiety and gradually unpacks her craving for the validation of others as she practices her sculptural yoga positions. For a while Red (Mathieu Lovelace) psychopathically imagines harming the other participants on the retreat before panicking over how he is being perceived by others. Blue (Edward Richards) is the least relational of the three but is burnt up by a sense of haste and his addiction to being busy.

The most inane moment takes on a magnified significance in the cerebral silent retreat! At one point Green obsesses about how to eat an apple in a sexy way while Red tries to hold in a fart while crawling on the floor under Green to retrieve his fallen apple. Glances and movements spark your curiosity and lead your finger up to the right earpiece to quickly switch channel and catch what’s going on.

It’s like watching three soap operas simultaneously, with your finger riding the remote control to jockey between channels and knit together your personalised version of events. The word-heavy script delivered wirelessly sketches out a depth to the characters that draws you in. For a while I felt anxiety about missing plot lines and guilt for not paying attention to a character, particularly when hearing a snatch of other audience members chuckling without having heard something funny.

The three noiseless actors stretch, lie, sit, walk, and fiddle with their invisible phones over the hour long performance. The audio delivered to the headphones is very crisp and there’s a beautiful stereo effect as a bee buzzes past at one point.

By the end of the ten days of solitude, the three are driven to very different conclusions as they battle to address their inner demons. Social media, body image, productivity, relationships, avocados and the wisdom of using an alarm clock on a silent retreat are all explored in this inventive and gentle piece of theatre. Very real and modern issues examined in a way that doesn’t provide all the answers, but certainly resonate with the audience’s own experiences and hangups. Appropriately, the performance in the darkened theatre space finished with a mindfulness exercise narrated by Bridgeen Rea.

Thinking About Thoughts is a well written and well performed piece of modern theatre. For the majority of the audience, the technology enhances rather than distracts. Anna Leckey is the founder of Threes Theatre Company. A recent graduate of London South Bank University, she’s now back living in Drumbeg, and it’s good to see that Lisburn & Castlereagh Council were supporting the production which premièred last night in the Island Arts Centre.

Well worth catching one of the upcoming performances of Thinking About Thoughts in The Black Box on Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 August at 8pm.

Culture Night Lisburn 2014 - music, street theatre, crafts & a smart-adventure through the park #CNL14

Culture Night is being celebrated in many cities and towns across Ireland this Friday.

Lisburn is offering free entertainment, discovery and adventure for the second year running. The full programme (PDF) is available in shops and restaurants around the city centre. Keep an eye on @love_lisburn for updates.

Local restaurants and pubs will be hosting a rotating platter of live musical acts for diners and drinkers: Del Toro, Square Bistro, The Tuesday Bell, Angelo’s, The Wallace, Hague’s Bar, The Favourite Bar, The Three Crowns, and The Cardan (which celebrates its tenth birthday in the old Robins Nest site with a party on Thursday from 8.30pm)

Lisburn Ladies Harmony Choir will be livening up Castle Gardens from 5.15pm-6pm. Later on at 7.30pm there’ll be an hour of entertainment with Fusion Theatre performing hit songs from popular musicals.

R-Space Gallery on Castle Street (the old rectory) is hosting family art workshops with Shirley Brown Camblin (Garryvoe House art & craft studio) from 5pm-7pm. Local blogger Heather McGarrigle from The Patchwork Quill will be there from 6.30pm-8.30pm with knitting, pom pom making, friendship bracelets and more. Singer and guitarist Guitarbuckle will be playing live, and there's the promise of hot drinks and sweet treats too.

Down the street Lisburn Cathedral coffee room will be open with an acoustic two-piece Sarah and Chris Calvert performing.

Students from SERC will be performing on the street around Lisburn along with firedancer Colleen Eardley.

The YMCA on Bow Street will be open to explain how they support and empower vulnerable young people, adults and families.

And there’s a QR-code based animated adventure Dog#7 from The Left hand Cinema through Wallace Park starting at the back gates (Belsize Road). The clues/codes will be in place from 4pm until 9pm. Make sure your phone has a QR code reader.

2014 European Heritage Open Days - 13/14 Sep - free access to hundreds of NI buildings #ehodni

This weekend over 400 properties across Northern Ireland will open up to the public – for free – as part of European Heritage Open Days. The full programme (and list of amendments and corrections to the printed brochure) can be found on the Discover Northern Ireland website.

I’ve consistently blogged about EHOD in previous years, and many of the venues and attractions listed in old posts are open again this year. So it’s worth a peruse of the old posts to find some gems.

Belfast

Currently celebrating 125th year of operation, the tour around Belfast Central Library has long remained unticked on my EHOD to do list. Tours 10.30am and 2.30pm on Saturday.

Over the weekend, the sound of church organ recitals will fill various St Peter’s Cathedral (Saturday and Sunday, 8.30am-7pm), May Street Presbyterian (Saturday 10am-4pm, Sunday 12.30pm-4pm) and Townsend Street Presbyterian (Saturday 10am-6pm and Sunday 2pm-6pm).

The Masonic Hall in Arthur Square (better known as Cornmarket) has been refurbished and offers fantastic rooftop views across Belfast city centre as well as an insight into a somewhat mysterious organisation. Open on Saturday from 10am-4pm with a tour at 11am.

Templemore Baths (at the top of Templemore Avenue) are open on Saturday from 11am-3pm with tours of the community trust-maintained baths on the hour and a short documentary by Lorna Milligan How far can you Swim, Son? showing every ten minutes between 1pm and 3pm.

While Sunday’s Art Deco tour in Belfast is fully booked, another free tour has been arranged for Sunday 21 at 10.30am – you can register through PLACE. Spaces are still available on tours looking at the architecture of Donegall Square, city centre churches, and an urban photo walk. More details and booking at PLACE.

Twenty minute tours around Belfast Waterfront Hall will take place on the hour between 10am and 6pm on Saturday,

If you’ve never visited Sinclair Seaman’s Presbyterian Church (tucked in beside the Belfast Harbour Commissioner’s Office on Corporation Street) it’s well worth a trip to see the novel pulpit and naval artefacts throughout the building. Open on Saturday 10am-5pm and Sunday 2pm-5pm with tours subject to demand.

If you book you can join free tours of the Grand Opera House on Saturday and Sunday at 10am, 11am and noon. The Ulster Hall is also open for guided tours on Saturday 10am-4pm and Sunday 10am-noon.

Lisburn

Hilden Brewery is running a free tour around Ireland’s oldest independent brewery at noon on Saturday and Sunday. [Brings back memories of our class visit in P7 when we came away from the brewery with school blazer pockets full of hops to chew on for the next month!]

The R-Space Gallery (32 Castle Street) in Lisburn was once the Cathedral Rectory and is now a thriving visual arts and crafts space. Open on Saturday between noon and 5pm, hard hat tours are available and talks at 2pm and 4pm.

Beyond!

The Victorian country house Drumalis (just outside Larne on the Glenarm Road) is open with free tours on Saturday afternoon (noon-4pm) and afternoon tea is available to purchase.

The Moravian Church at Gracehill (outside Ballymena) opened in 1765 and is running tours on the hour on Saturday (open 12.30pm-5pm). The nearby Gracehill Old School is also open on Saturday 12.30pm-5pm with a living history exhibition running throughout the afternoon.

Star shows at the Armagh Planetarium are free on Saturday, though you need to book. http://www.armagh.co.uk/event/free-shows-for-european-heritage-open-day/ Open between 10am and 5pm.

A Cold War bunker buried 15 feet under a field http://www.nibunker.co.uk on the outskirts of Portadown will be open to visitors on Saturday and Sunday (11am-5pm). FULLY BOOKED

There are countless other venues open to potter around or more formally tour across Northern Ireland with a strong showing up in Derry, including a guided urban walk around the city centre (booking required, but places still available).

A different trim for your car?

Easily the most fondled and photographed car in Dobbies' car park in Lisburn this afternoon.

It's an EasiBug car to promote the EasiGrass astroturf franchise in Northern Ireland ...

Lift the Lid - piano open hour in Lisburn Library every third Saturday

Strains of piano music lilted across Lisburn Library this afternoon as Littl'un and I were in changing her books.

Every third Saturday afternoon, for an hour at 2pm, librarian Ray Robinson organises a Lift the Lid piano open hour up on the second floor of Lisburn Library. Members of the public - old and young - sit around and take a turn at playing a short piece on the library's baby grand piano.

This week had a 5 year old beginner, accomplished teens and twenty year olds, a mother, and some more mature performers with a liking for jazz. There was even a cellist. And if you don't play - or you're shy - it's ok to just sit and listen.

Lift the Lid isn't listed on the Library NI website. But if Ray's rota remains regular, the next afternoon of tinkling the ivories will be Saturday 25 February at 2pm. And if you want to be sure, give him a ring on (028) 9266 9345 and he'll confirm the date.

The Iron Lady

As a portrait of an old woman living with dementia, and as an insight into the driven personality of Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady is a good film. It’s not a political film, and the historic narrative mainly serves to highlight her character: strong and obstinate, rather than ‘iron’. There is only token analysis of the actions behind her rise and fall.

As a cinematic experience the film had a lot going for it: Meryl Streep’s portrayal of ‘MT’, the lack of distraction from the prosthetics, Jim Broadbent’s chipper interventions as Denis, and the well caricatured MPs of the time.

This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the conflict in the South Atlantic, and more nuanced explorations of the sinking of the Belgrano will hopefully appear around the anniversary on 2 May.

For me, the take home line from the film was:

“One’s life must matter.”

The difficulty looking back at Margaret Thatcher’s life – particularly through the lens of this film – is that emotionally detaching from one’s family and humiliating one’s colleagues seemed to part of achieving what mattered. Not a great role model.

Had lunch in the Blue Chicago grill before going across the road to see the film in Lisburn Omniplex. Impressed with the food – though at the price, they’d need to throw in some fries with the scampi. Canadian (chicken) burger recommended.

Books alive!

Organising your bookshelves is important. Over on Youtube, crazedadam has uploaded two beautiful films of his bookshelves - and then a whole bookstore - organising themselves.

While I'm posting videos, as an old scholar it would be remiss of me not to note this year's much talked about promotional video from Friends School in Lisburn.

Recommendations

Finishing the year with some recommendations of businesses that I value. (You could also read that as finishing the year with a round up of blog posts that never got finished!)

We finally got our house in East Belfast sold in late autumn, and moved house in Lisburn (still referred to as “Belfast’s bedroom”) in early November. A to B Removals are strongly recommended. John Thompson, Kenny and the guys have moved me four times now, take extraordinary care of furniture, have their own storage, and are very agreeable to work with. Serving Lisburn, Downpatrick, Crossgar and beyond - 028 4483 2514.

Five favourite restaurants of the year. Lisburn’s Square Bistro tucked in between Next and Argos in Lisburn Square is a great spot. The food is delicious, the service is good, and the staff are child-friendly. Five miles out of town, The Pheasant on the Upper Ballynahinch Road is a little more expensive, but always a good meal. Little Wing Pizzeria are great (particularly the East Belfast/Upper Newtownards Road branch). I’ve still a soft spot for a blue cheese burger (and sometimes even just an egg-burger) in the Gourmet Burger Bank on Belmont Road, East Belfast. And if you want something fast, cheap and hot at lunchtime in Belfast, check out the Cornish Pasty Trading Company in Church Street.

Holidaying in Buncrana and Derry this summer, the Tower Museum in Derry is well worth a visit. Fascinating history of the city, and the Armada exhibition captured the attention of our six year old. The Doagh Famine Village is another treasure in the north west. While a museum devoted to the Irish famine may not sound terribly appealing, there’s a much greater breadth of history covered, with enthusiastic guides and a cup of tea at the end. Find out about impact of the famine as well as learning about the traditional Irish wake, a Presbyterian meeting house, a Republican safe house, the travelling community and an Orange Hall.

Nice Day Designs features the work of Irish designer and craftmaker Ruth Crean. Based in Limerick, she upcycles second hand clothes and sells all kinds of crafts and jewellery online and in Limerick’s weekend Milk Market (a little like Belfast’s St George’s Market). Worth a look if you’re looking for a present.

When is the price not the price? B&Q's misleading 5 for 4 pricing poster

Sprucefield B&Q are running a "buy four get one free offer" for loft panelling. Given the poster above, having lugged five packs onto a trolley and over to the checkout, would you be surprised if the bill came to over £20?

Turns out that the pricing poster is displaying the average price for five packs when you pay for four at the full price of £5.80, an is not stating the unit price you pay for 'each'. In smaller than small print in the bottom right corner of the poster (see below) it explains "£5.80 when sold individually" ... not that there's any option to buy them any other way than individually.

A misleading price? Or just a very badly formatted poster that "was sent by head office"? Maybe Trading Standards should decide ...

Fireworks

As a child, I used to look out the window on the evening of 5 November to see the fireworks display that was set off from the nearby army base. In recent years, I remember flying back home from England and being able to watch fireworks displays from above, little pin pricks of explosions, mushrooming over the English conurbations.

Last night, along with many local people, I got to see the army's display - held in conjunction with Lisburn City Council, and with its mayor Councillor Brian Heading (SDLP) in attendance.

Update - Oban's community fireworks display suffered a technical hitch, setting off the entire display in the first 60 seconds ...

European Heritage Open Days - Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 September - across Northern Ireland #ehod11

European Heritage Open Days are only around the corner. The time of year when buildings through open their doors and allow the public in for free to see inside buildings that are often out of bounds to casual observers.

Organised by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (part of the Department of the Environment), more than 300 events and properties are being offered on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 September.

Last year, Littl’un and I took in a tour of Linen Hall Library, explored Freemason’s Hall in Cornmarket Arthur Square (and enjoyed a really cheap cup of tea with an amazing view), and wandered around the oldest church in Belfast, First Presbyterian (non-subscribing) in Rosemary Street.

This year there are numerous tours around Belfast: looking at the hidden history underneath Belfast’s streets; an architectural treasure hunt (organised by PLACE); tours of the newly restored Central Library; a walking tour around Victorian and Edwardian buildings by Young and MacKenzie architects (who designed Crescent Arts Centre); touring BBC Broadcasting House; as well as a look inside Stormont Castle (home of the NI Executive) and Parliament Buildings (home of the NI Assembly).

First Church of Christ, Scientist (University Avenue/Rugby Road) was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect behind Portmerion which served as the backdrop for the original Prisoner series. Previous visitors rate it highly.

The rebuilt Lyric Theatre is offering three tours of its expanded premises – booking essential.

One novel addition to the normal schedule is a private home at 47A Ravenhill Road describing itself as ‘a family home build to a modest budget in a rational modernist idiom referenced to vernacular form’. Telephone pre-booking essential.

The Lock Keeper’s Cottage at Newforge is open … you could stop for a cup of coffee in the nearly Lock Keeper’s Inn café if you’re feeling thirsty!

Many of Lisburn’s city-centre churches are open on Saturday (with the majority paradoxically closed to visitors on Sunday). C J Lowry’s jewellery shop at the junction of Market Square and the top of Bridge Street has recently been restored.

Hillsborough Castle and Grounds are open to the public, as well as the nearby Court House, Fort and Friends Meeting House.

Armagh County Museum, Court House, Gaol, Public Library (treasure hunt for children), Observatory and Planetarium are all open, along with the Charles Lanyon-designed Tourist Information Centre on English Street – CANCELLED and the ‘flamboyant’ Gospel Hall on Mall West (which started out life in 1884 as a Masonic Hall).

Tours of the Maze / Long Kesh site are being organised on the Saturday. Pre-booking essential.

Some National Trust properties are open too – waiving their normal entrance charges.

Copies of the EHOD brochure are available in local libraries as well as some arts venues. You also download the sections for Belfast, County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Londonderry and County Tyrone.

This year, EHOD are also promising some free audio tours to download covering Belfast, the walled city of Derry and the Causeway Coastal Route. Warning: I didn’t have much success unzipping them on a Mac. You may have more luck on a PC.

Something for everyone … including the thousand or more delegates at Sinn Féin’s Ard Fheis which will be in Belfast over the same weekend.

UUP election posters - reduce, reuse, re:cycle?

Walking up the Upper Newtownards Road after lunch, I was amazed to see a Lagan Valley UUP poster for Mark Hill and Basil McCrea at the roadside.

Turned out that it had been ripped in two and was being used to advertise the starting point of a bikers' event. Happily a case of reuse in aid of re:cycling rather than the Ulster Unionist Party completely losing its sense of direction!

Something for the weekend - food, Brutalism, Diwali, Turnips and a gig on a barge

We’d a lovely meal in McKees restaurant a couple of Friday night’s ago. Their annual FREE Christmas Fayre is on this weekend, Friday 6pm-9pm and Saturday 10am-4pm, with an opportunity to sample their goods and order in time for the festive season. 28 Holywood Road, Newtownards, BT23 4TQ.

At 11am on Saturday, the Ulster Museum is the venue for a Brutalist building visit and workshop aimed at primary school-aged children. The museum itself is an example of Brutalist 1960s/1970s architecture, and there’ll be an opportunity to make your own Brutalist model. There’s a £5 charge and a booking link over on the PLACE website.

The Diwali and Samhain festival celebrations organised by Artsekta continue in the Ulster Museum on Saturday. Between 1pm and 4pm there’s a free “afternoon of Irish and Indian culture and creativity” with singing, dancing, crafts … and face painting! And between 5pm and 9pm, there’s an elaborate finale to the week-long “Ireland’s first Indo-Celtic Festival” with music, dance, puppeteers, storytellers and street artists. (£1 entrance for the evening event.)

Although the monthly Farmers’ Market no longer operates, Lisburn’s Castle Gardens will be hosting an Enchanted Food and Garden Market on Saturday between 10am and 4pm. Crafts, face painting and kids entertainers will be there. And a showcase of childrens’ entries from Lisburn’s (now annual) Turnip Festival will be on display between Saturday 6 and Saturday 13 in 35-37 Market Centre facing the Linen Museum.

On Saturday night, the Lazy Susans are performing in The Barge, tied up next to Nula with the hula (or doll with the ball or thing with the ring or officially Ring of Thanksgiving) in Thanksgiving Square next to the Waterfront Hall. The gig is raising money for the continued renovation of the barge. For £8 (£5 concession) you can expect an evening of a cappella harmony singing from the Lazy Susans (none of whom are called Susan!) covering songs by Bob Dylan, James Dylan, the Beatles, Mika amongst others. Tickets can be booked by emailing admin AT laganlegacy DOT com and then paid and picked up on the night. Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. There’s no bar, so bring your own.

The Black Market runs on the first Sunday of each month in Belfast’s Black Box on Hill Street. Arts, crafts, clothing, food, books and … for this month, mulled wine and a piece of shortbread only £3 from the bar. Noon-5pm.

Or there was the SDLP Conference in the Belfast Ramada at Shaws Bridge ... which was open to the (paying) public on Friday night and all day Saturday!

Through The Mill // David Cleland // Lisburn Island Arts Centre (Gallery 1)

Last night, the Through the Mill exhibition opened in Lisburn’s Island Arts Centre.

Back in primary school, I’ve vague memories of being told about local flax growers and the associated linen mills. (I’ve a much stronger memory of visiting Hilden Brewery in P7 and coming away with a blazer pocket-full of tasty hops that I chewed for weeks to come.)

John Barbour’s son William set up Hilden Mill in 1824. It continued to operate until Coats Barbour closed it down in July 2006. Employing up to 2000 workers by the eve of the First World War, Barbour Threads supplied houses and a school (first opened in 1875, rebuilt in 1913) for its workforce.

The stove house and water mill stands 3-storeys high, the boiling house, office and yarn stores 2-storeys high. All other houses occupied in the business is [sic] 1-storey high and the entire building slated. (source)

The striking red brick mill complex is now the scene of rapid urban decay and the subject of David Cleland’s industrial photo exhibition that hangs on printed canvasses on the walls of Gallery 1.

‘Through the Mill’ ... offers us a unique opportunity to see the mill as it is now and a chance to imagine something of the lives of generations of mill workers. The images challenge us to consider our heritage – what has gone before, what will never return, what is our legacy, and what will become of an architectural and industrial landscape on our doorstep?

There are some great images and the canvass blocks work really well. There’s a photo of a five-pane window. One pane is cracked, and printed on canvass you nearly want to reach and touch.

Further along there’s a gargoyle [think it’s photo 14] with peeling paint and just a touch of colour to lift the grey stonework made me step closer to check that the canvass wasn’t cracked rather than the photograph.

Overall the images seem to capture the past and the present. Brickwork and tiling, bits of machinery, cog wheels and painted factory rooms, mixed with the detritus of littered newspapers, decaying décor and the weeds starting to bring new life into the abandoned spaces.

For an amateur who hasn’t been taking serious photographs for very long, I’d expect to see more of David Cleland’s work appearing on walls, pages and screens in the future.

The exhibition runs until Saturday 23 October; the Island Arts Centre is open on weekdays 9.30am–10pm, and 9.30am–5pm on Saturday. And if you’re looking to buy an early Christmas present, you can pick up an A2-sized version of the limited edition digital canvas prints for £100.

canal ways

Thanks to a comment on another post last night I stumbled across the canal ways blog.

It has a very distinctive style with lots of sketches and handwritten content.

There’s also a good dose of healthy questioning of consumer society and planning, along with more than a passing interest in market gardening and vegetarianism.

Where else would you find posts titled yeah though I walk through the Lagan Valley shadow of death, analysis of shop fridges and self-scanning tills.

canal ways ... from the man who is trying to "make sense of Lisburn".

Anne Frank [+ you} in Lisburn Library (4-30 October)

Back at the end of July, I posted about the Anne Frank [+ you} exhibition that had opened in the Mossley Mill Newtownabbey.

The exhibition has now moved to Lisburn and has been shoehorned into the second floor of Lisburn Library for the month of October.

Looking at the life and death of Anne Frank during the Second World War, the exhibition relates her experiences to contemporary discrimination, exclusion and other social issues facing today’s society.

There’s a timeline of Anne Frank’s life and the Holocaust as well as a near life size replica of her room in the secret Annexe.

Then there’s the material exploring political persecution and injustice, racial abuse, Indifference and responsibility, conflicts and peace, inclusion and exclusion.

Well worth a visit, though the layout is quite cramped and unsatisfactory. Unlike Newtownabbey, there’s no shop selling copies of Anne Frank’s diary, though the library staff will be delighted to get you a copy from their shelves!

This exhibition is open whenever Lisburn Library is open:

• Monday and Tuesday, 9am-8pm
• Wednesday, noon-10pm
• Thursday, 9am-9pm
• Friday and Saturday, 9am-5pm
• Sunday closed

Lisburn City Council Planning Committee – trees, Lough Neagh incinerator and parking wardens

It was a good night to randomly turn up at Lisburn City Council’s monthly planning committee meeting. There was a large turnout from Communities Against the Lough Neagh Incinerator (CALNI) who were updating the council on progress since their previous visit 12 months ago in October 2009.

But first the councillors (the full council attends the planning meeting) had to plough through page after page of planning applications/decisions, challenging the planning officer for meetings to discuss some cases, and deferrals for others to allow interested parties to bring new information to the planners.

For members of the public sitting in the public gallery – just behind the councillors – it’s a pretty bewildering process since there’s no paper work and at times sounds like a bunch of people order takeaway by yelling out numbers and acronyms.

In the midst of this, the councillors returned to an old subject - allegations that fishermen were pulling down and burning trees at the edge of the water at Stoneyford Reservoir – presumably in breach of their fishing licences.

Councillor Ronnie Crawford, the chair chairman of the planning committee, explained that the council had run out of process on the issue of the chicken litter incinerator.

Over the years, Lisburn City Council had mostly been in support of a public inquiry, but with the minister rejecting the need for an inquiry, he explained that tonight’s update from Danny Moore (the president of CALNI) would be noted rather than actioned.

Danny detailed some of the milestones in the incinerator campaign.

• Back in November 2009, CALNI discovered through the result of a Freedom of Information request that Invest NI support (and in essence government support) for the project was more advanced that they’d thought. A bank or a VC would require planning permission to be in place before offering funds. So why should the same safeguards not be in place before committing public money?
  
  
• Whereas Rose Energy have used biosecurity (eg, the lack of poultry flocks in the area) as a reason for locating the incinerator at Glenavy, CALNI’s work with the Chief Veterinary Officer has shown that there are in fact lots of flocks, including on a mere 300m away from the site, not to mention the migratory birds around the lough shore.
  
  
• CALNI view the runway extension at Belfast City Airport as less contentious than the Glenavy incinerator. Yet a public inquiry for the runway extension was announced in April 2010, while on 31 August the DOE Minister announced that he was “minded” to approve the incinerator and wouldn’t wait for a inquiry. Despite media simplifications in stories about the incinerator, planning permission has still not been approved.
  
  
• The next morning on 1 September, CALNI launched a Judicial Review of the DOE Minister’s intention to approve the incinerator.
  
  
• The day after that, they heard of an application to open the Crumlin lignite site, fuelling an existing concern that the incinerator could easily be adapted to burn lignite. (Danny talks about the lignite problem in the video clip.)

• Unconnected with CALNI’s health and environmental concerns, Irish poultry producers expressed concerns that financial support from Invest NI for Rose Energy would amount to state subsidy for NI poultry farmers. MEPs and the European Commission are now being briefed and lobbied.
  
  
• Three hundred people turned up at a two and a half hour public meeting in Glenavy on 23 September which CALNI felt was an indication of the “depth and strength of feeling” about the issue.
  
  
• CALNI were baffled that the Assembly debate on 27 September calling for a public inquiry for the incinerator was withdrawn at the last minute after the DUP submitted a petition of concern requiring a cross-community vote. When both Lagan Valley and South Antrim constituencies were dominated by the DUP, CALNI ask why the DUP chose to play the cross-community card?
  
  
• The same day, CALNI were granted leave for their Judicial Review, with the hearing scheduled for February 2011.
  
  
• For over a year, a (separate) Judicial Review has been running (wider than just the incinerator) to look at former DOE Minister Sammy Wilson’s statement on “economic benefit”. He stated that economic benefit should be given decisive weight in determining major planning applications. On 1 October, the High Court deemed the statement unlawful because of failure to follow proper procedures in creating new planning policy.
  
  
• As a result, CALNI expect that the DOE Minister’s statement on 31 August about being “minded” to approve planning permission for the incinerator without a public inquiry on the basis of economic grounds is no longer valid.

The unspoken embarrassment for Lisburn City Council is that the DOE Minister in question is Edwin Poots, until recently a DUP councillor on Lisburn City Council. While the council were in favour of a public inquiry, one councillor – wearing a different ministerial hat – was pulling in the opposite direction.

The twenty or more CALNI supporters filed out of the council chamber while the councillors proceeded to Any Other Business.

Alderman Calvert (TUV) hadn’t quite thought through the repercussions of all day parking when he opined:

“How do we regenerate Lisburn? Get rid of traffic wardens so people don’t fear going back to their cars to find a ticket.”

Traffic wardens were accused of displaying zealotry behaviour while being put under pressure by their managers who monitored their performance from unmarked cars. There was a lack of common sense, with wardens touring areas at inappropriate times. The chair chairman quipped that “the fisherman follows the shoals”.

Then they moved onto parking meters, with the Mayor upset that if you paid for an on-street two hour parking ticket and then wanted to move your car you’d have to buy a new ticket, “paying for the same hour twice”.

(Image showing proposed RoseEnergy plant accurately superimposed over Parliament Buildings at Stormont used with permission and (c) Michael High.)

Something (but not much) for the weekend

Not much! Do drop a comment below if there’s something big happening in Belfast or Lisburn that I haven’t stumbled over. In the meantime, it looks like a relatively quiet weekend.

683 minutes of film, 1,216 pages of book ... all condensed into a 70 minute performance. Charles Ross performs his tribute to Tolkien – One Man Lord of the Rings – in the Waterfront Studio on Friday 1 and Saturday 2 October at 7.30pm. Watch out for the orcs.

I posted about the comedy Life Shop Till You Drop when it played in the black Box as part of the 2009 Out to Lunch festival. The show’s back in Lisburn’s Island Arts Centre at 8pm on Friday 1.

Clodagh Reid plays self help-obsessed Ailish McGovern who promotes classy lines like “If you shoot for the stars you might just get off the ground.”