Santa's been

I've been rather irresponsible with cash recently, which must stop. Today's post was embarrassing - a new camera lens and a reversing ring, two volumes of the US post-apocalypse graphic novel DMZ, and two pieces of beautiful art. One is a limited edition (200 copies) hand-made reprint by Gwasg Gregynog of Social Hymns: A Selection in Celebration of Robert Owen (1771-1858) (he was a prominent social reformer and radical).

The other is a stunning limited edition single sheet of hand-made paper with a Charles Dickens quotation ('There are BOOKS of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts') for the office wall. I should have got a copy for Mark: many of his 15,000 (!) books were bought for their cover art, and he's no intention of reading them.

It will hang next to a photograph of winter in this town I had printed on acrylic, the Evening Sentinel front page the day Stoke City were promoted to the Premiership, a framed poster of the Reds! The Story of the Communist Party of Great Britain conference at the People's History Museum in 2003 and several piles of other art prints which will go on the walls at home once I have a home with more wall than bookcases…

A tale of two Erics

Over lunch, until joined by my esteemed colleague Debbie, I carried on reading MacCarthy's biography of Eric Gill.

It's funny how books can lead you through all sorts of terrain: typography to sculpture to Modernism to early-twentieth century sexology, the Arts and Crafts movement and many other things. What caught my attention today was Gill's status as the perfect subject for a moral conundrum. According to this book's take on his sex life, he slept with his wife (fine), other women (naughty Eric), his sisters (ooh, racy), his daughters (not very nice) and sometimes had a go with farmyard animals (clearly unEnglish, in fact positively wrong). Meanwhile, he converted to Catholicism and created the great Stations of the Cross in Westminster Cathedral (as well as an exact copy of Little Eric in marble). When this story broke, there was pressure to have the Stations removed: how could people pray in front of these religious icons knowing that their creator was a sexual transgressor? Or doesn't it matter? It certainly fascinating to read of a man who joined the strictest of religious organisations while not altering his behaviour one iota.

By of comparison, here's one each from his sacred and profane sides (though Gill would hate the distinction (buy prints here or see them and sculptures at the Tate: