Beware: loose chippings

Appropriately, the end of National Chip Week has fallen on a Friday. The latest in a long list of dates dedicated to random everyday things, National Chip Week has its own website (thanks to the magic of PR) and even a "Chip-tionary" (inward groan) of terminology from around the sceptred isle.


Modern English Language Professor Clive Upton is quoted as saying: “It’s interesting that the word ‘chip’ is almost universal across the country, except where it’s been Americanised as fries, but it is in the language surrounding the chip’s accompaniments and serving methods that regional phrases appear. For example, what they call a chip butty in the south of England will be known as a chip cob in the Midlands and a chip barm in Manchester.”

There used to be a splendid chip shop in Chorlton that had a side room where you could dig in to your supper while enjoying the tropical fish, Coronation Street on loop, Stella on tap and choice of optics for "un petit digestif". Sadly, it's now a fancy antiques shop, but Beech Road Chippy still does a nice line in mushy peas while the newly opened Atlantic Fish Bar on the main drag has haddock the size of whales. My favourite chipshop name has to be The Codfather, out on the other side of Stretford. I also like the moniker Chippery, which I've only ever seen in Lancashire's Longridge.

The lady doth protest...

The People's History Museum reopened at the weekend, after closing in 2007 for a top-to-toe overhaul and the addition of a completely new structure to the old building. The juxtaposition is intriguing: inside, the red brick, steel girders and green and yellowy tiles, a bit like those lining the walls at the Victoria Baths, contrast pleasingly with the white walls, brushed silver metal detailing and fancy big plate glass windows looking over to the funky new filing cabinet courts. Outside, the oddly bulbous rusted cladding is a strange addition to the original two storeys, but it tones in somehow and at least it's something different in these days of homogeneous architecture.

Unfortunately, the displays themselves are a little less impressive than the place in which they're housed. Despite the bespoke space, the objects on show and information boards seem a bit crammed in and it's also so dark I found myself modelling an unattractive squint most of the time. Nonetheless, downstairs in the Changing Exhibition Gallery, the current show Carried Away is an interesting collection of black and white photographs taken at demos in the 70s and 80s; the Greenham Common protesters held my attention for a while there.

Ice magic

It would be rude not to mention the Winter Olympics, wouldn't it? Apart from anything else, it has raised the serious issue that I don't know what the term is to describe someone or something from Vancouver: Vancouvian? Vancouverian? Vancouverite? Canadian? I looked up "Vancouver" and "adjective" online and was simply informed that Adjective are a post-punk musical combo from Vancouver. I pursued this line of investigation no further.

Whatever. We're here to talk about figure skating. Figure skating is a secret love of mine, if only one that shows up every four years when the Winter Olympics are in town. You can't deny the glamour of it: all those sparkly skintight rigouts (the men), the blood red talons and American tan tights (the women), the baited breath, the adoration, the furs, the flowers, the fabulous Clare Balding.

So there was I, watching the "free" skating (just like the Clipart image above), when I began to notice how intriguing the crazy names are for all the figure-skating techniques the artistes stack their performance points up with. Triple toe loop, twin triple twist, double axel, salad bowl (well, I may have misheard that last one)... The list goes on, and everything in the list, it turns out, is classified into sub-lists. I am going to be swotting up here, where I may have also inadvertently stumbled across a new true love: synchronized skating. Awesome.

Tri as you might

Last week, I learnt the word "tripoint", which is the place where three countries or counties meet.

It first cropped up on University Challenge: a starter for ten was to identify the city at the tripoint of France, Germany and Switzerland. The answer was Basel.

Having been slightly obsessed with Cairo, Illinois, since going to the Cartwright and Jordan Cornerhouse exhibition on Thursday, I've been looking at various maps and information on the town, and discovered that it too is located at a tripoint: where Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky come together.

It got me thinking about other tripoints, and I remembered visiting Alfred's Tower some years ago. I like follies and this one sits on the border of Somerset and Wiltshire on the Stourhead estate, with a panorama that takes in the tripoint of Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset. Check out the aerial photos on the official King Alfred's Tower website: not only is the tower located at a tripoint, it is also triangular in plan.

Walk like an Egyptian

I'll admit I was a tad reticent about going to see Cairo - The breaking up of the ice at the Cornerhouse. Firstly, I'm not all that into video art, and this show revolves around a short film. Secondly, the exhibition is a collaboration between Jacob Cartwright and Nick Jordan, the latter being someone I know by association. I therefore neither wanted to cause offence if I didn't like what I saw nor did I want to say I loved it, darling, just because I happen to know one of the artists by sight.

I needn't have worried myself. It's actually a fascinating collection. The film of the title takes centre stage, with various artworks, found objects and background information supporting it, and providing emotional depth and historical insight.


Cairo is a ramshackle town in the Deep South, which grew up at the convergence of the rivers Mississippi and Ohio; an important trading point, once. At its zenith, in 1907, paddleboats clogged the waterways and the town boasted 20,000 residents; 100 years later, only 3,000-odd people remained. Extensive flooding, economic recession and social decline had done their work, and Cairo (2009) features various shots of tumbleweed strips not unlike those usually seen in gunslinger movies.

Every year, the Illinois midwinter causes the waters of these mighty rivers to freeze, and it was the tale of the entrapment of French-American savage ornithologist (he shot specimens to draw them for his revered reference book Birds of America) John James Audubon's flat-bottomed "barque" in 1809 that sparked this installation. Cairo follows on from two other Cartwright and Jordan shorts about Audubon, New Madrid and West Point, and completes The Audubon Trilogy.

The back story of Audubon is interesting, but it's the wonderful juxtaposition of Cartwright and Jordan's varied observation of the demise of a civilised world with the triumph of nature that makes the project truly remarkable, and totally original.

The show runs until Sunday 28 February in Gallery 1 of the Cornerhouse. Entry is free.