I wanted to share some amusing pictures with you today, but first I’d better start with the back story so it makes some sense. Last year in Liverpool we had little statues all over the city to celebrate the European Capital Of Culture. They were each decorated uniquely by artists, school groups and more, then liberally sprinkled around the place. They were based on what’s known as the Superlambanana, I promise you I’m not making this up. Some time in the late 90’s (I forget the exact year and I’m too lazy to look it up now) the council here commissioned Japanese artist Taro Chiezo to make a new iconic statue for the city, he delivered this…
£30,000 it cost us, although the true figure is disputed we can be certain it was a lot of money. It later turned out that the city doesn’t even own the monstrosity outright, only a 10 year license to display it. What a rip off, a few school kids could have knocked that together for free in a lunch break. It’s supposed to be a chilling warning about the dangers of genetic modification. I just thought the artist was taking the piss personally, but there we go. Last year we had loads of these little Superlambbanna’s all over the place and I have to admit that was really cool, much better than the big one. This year it’s been expanded and the theme has changed to penguins, Linux fans rejoice!! Just normal penuins though, not Satsuma penguins or something stupid like that I’m glad to say, genetic modification can wait. There are 145 of these penguins all over Merseyside, from St Helen’s to the Wirral, each decorated differently and all in aid of saving real penguins from extinction. The project is called Go Penguins and I’m down with that. I like penguins, and not just because I like Linux. I liked them long before I’d even heard of Linux or knew what it was. I discovered there’s one of these penguins outside a local restaurant, so I took a wander down there and got some pictures. Here they are 🙂
This penguin is sponsored by Surfers Restaurant and was beautifully decorated by Lee-Ann Pritchard, great work. I’d like to point out that although I look a bit pissed off in a couple of the shots it was actually freezing cold, that’s why I was grimacing a bit. I look pissed off at the best of times though I know, I just have one of those faces. I briefly considered trying to get pictures with each of the 145 different statues before they disappear in January, but then my natural laziness kicked in telling me that was far too much work, I think it’s right in this case. If you live around this area, or you’re just visiting while the penguins are here, I encourage you to check them out for yourself.
I’m gonna waddle off for some tea now, see ya,
Dan
If anyone is interested, here’s photos of all the penguins:
http://www.artinliverpool.com/index.php/gallery?func=viewcategory&catid=1
@tim – Thanks for the link, I’m having trouble picking my favourite now. There’s so many cool ones 🙂
I want to have that penguing in my garden (even if this garden doesn’t exist). So cute 😀
@Hanna – Well, you know they go to auction next year? You could always make a bid. Shipment to Finland might be expensive though, have to convince them to swim 😛
I’ve been snapping pictures of these things all over Liverpool, because Jesika has a thing for penguins…i’ve got snaps of i think maybe 15 or so of these pengs
@oscillik – Shame she isn’t here to see them then. You can get maps of the locations of all 145 penguins in the tourist information places if you want to track them down. It’s a big task though.
@Dan I have also bad feeling that the shipment wouldn’t be the problem, I think already the price without it would stop me. 🙁
@hanna – Yeah me too, I expect they’ll got for a lot of money
Hi Dan, yesterday I saw “Lesbian Vampire Killers” and have a good time with a lot of loud laughs (I specially love the attention makers of the movie put on every little detail) and today I listened some tracks of latest discs from “The Adicts” and “The Drums”. Brit music -Toy Dolls, F. Ferdinand and so on- and brit humor are really really cool.
Also wanna note you too make good music man, those mp3 I downloaded from your site are really good.
God Save the Pistols, your blog and the islands I hope some day have the money to tour =D
By the way, we all -your readers- are waiting your next linux distro review so stand up and move your culo!! xD
Best!
…e all -your readers- are waiting your…
grrrr i mean: *awaiting*
@Martin – Thanks, glad you like the blog and the music 🙂 The Fedora 12 write up is on it’s way later today. I’ve got a fair bit of work to do editing and formatting it, but I hope it’ll be worth the wait.
“The Fedora 12 write up is on it’s way later today.” – cool!
So you’re a Liverpudian, Dan?
What’s up with Liverpoool FC anyway.. hope they can regain their touch.
I wish they can use as many domestic players at least like the Roy Evans’ era
@Arturi – I am a big Liverpool fan yes, I talk about them a lot. We were one of the first clubs in the UK to build a dedicated youth academy 10 years ago, it’s massive, spent a fortune, and do you know how many players have made it through there to playing regularly for the 1st team since? Zero, none, nothing. I don’t believe there are no good local players to be found. I just don’t think the current management wants them, rather pay £20million of money we don’t have for a player. It’s been well documented. Something needs to change in the running of that place, that’s for sure.
[…] to Fab for editing the next day, he did a great job as always. On Tuesday I took some pictures with our new local penguin and posted them here. Lots of people seemed to like […]