Something twinkly on a winter’s evening

As a change from work, worry and that which menaces Civilisation last night I went to have a look at the Winter Lights which have become an annual event in January at Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs in East London (or Docklands as it has been since the 1980s). As a child I loved sitting on top of a double-decker big red bus riding up Oxford and Regent  Streets in the West End to see the Christmas lights. Then in the summer the seaside illuminations, of which Southend was the best (in Southern England; Blackpool is supposed to still be pretty good in the north). They are all a shadow of their former selves but I retain a childlike delight in fairy lights and twinkle.

It wasn’t quite dark at this point. These mammoths are Permafrost – Sleeping Giants. Although they looked pretty alert and upright to me. They are on the bank of the River Thames at West Ferry Road.

These are the Fluorescent Firs in Jubilee Park near the tube station.

And Floating Earth by Luke Jerram, the same artist responsible for the several versions (which tour to different locations) of Gaia and the Museum of the Moon. This is in Middle Dock opposite the tube station.

It’s all a bit different to the Poplar of Call the Midwife.

Photographs E Weatherwax London January 2023.
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One Response

  1. Nice. Simple things like this are tacky to some, maybe even me in the right mood, but these examples are quite appealing. The elephants are better additions to their place than just about all permanent public art installations.

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