We drove across to Cambridge this afternoon, to stay for a couple of days at Duke House, run by Liz and Rob Cameron (he’s an Executive Director at SustainAbility).
With the sun blazing, we took a wonderful walk around the city, including the grounds of Jesus College, to explore the latest iteration of Sculpture in the Close.
One installation that caught my eye was composed of railway sleepers – not sure what the theme was, but put me in mind of Communist sleepers and the Cambridge Spy Ring.
Still adore the Corpus Clock, which I discover was developed in memory of the clock-maker John Harrison, winner of the original Longitude Prize for his chronometer. His work was the subject of a school project that had a huge impact on me in the early 1960s when I was at Bryanston.
I love the idea that the designers decided that Harrison’ grasshopper mechanism was both so important and so unknown that they turned the whole thing inside out, with the grasshopper – chewing its way through time – known variously as the Chronophage, Rosalind and Hopsy.
If time’s going to be eaten up in this way, I can think of few better ways to do it.
Talked to an interesting couple from Palo Alto, also staying at Duke House. She drives a Tesla, he a Boxter. Different worlds – particularly when compared to our 15-year-old Volvo V70 parked outside. Still my favourite car ever, however.
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