You are HERE:



Frequently spotted around Cambridge: a gaggle of camera-toting tourists huddled over these kinda-cool relief maps of the city centre trying to work out how to get from where they are (in this case under Great St Mary's tower in the centre) to their favourite coffee shop. Astonishingly (the epidemically-omnipresent) Starbucks has not been ringed in dayglo-orange by the council on this map despite their best efforts in cookie-cutter-corporate-branding of the city centre. These relief maps are great reproductions though and very realistic - the most recognisable bits being King's College chapel top right and Trinity College Great Court (a la the race in Chariots of Fire, although the film actually used Eton College school) in the foreground. The only innacuracy as far as I can tell is that, unlike the actual city centre buildings, this isn't covered in pigeon s***.

Of course, the true beauty of this map is that, whilst any photoblogger can snap their city's best bits, only a really lazy one can give you the whole city centre, to scale, in one shot. Voila!

Tickets


The Arts Picturehouse bar - great place to chill and read or work - and of course, the cinema has the best independent film line-up in the area.

Madonna in the Meadow


Love this. In fact I love all Maya's stencils. This one was on the garden door at the back of the Fitzwilliam - in the meadow there; can't remember what it's called. It's been scrubbed a long time now. Here's an interview with the artist.

Herds of Wildebeest...





"She used to drag her mattress beside her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating with excitement, as a machine vibrates from speed. Life rushed in upon her through that window - or so it seemed. In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from without. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardor and anticipation."
Willa Cather (1873 - 1947), The Song of the Lark

I hate to see boarded up windows; symptoms of dereliction. The ground floor of this building near the city centre is a furniture showroom but the rest is like this. What a waste - I'd live up there like a shot. You can just imagine the vibrant thrill of having the view of this resplendent city framed by these. Sadly this body isn't exactly youthful and hasn't vibrated for a while...