though very definitely a first world problem, it's only within the last week that islay has resumed receiving daily newspapers in the morning, rather than arriving off the afternoon ferry. though there may have been other mitigating factors, the principal reason offered for this state of affairs has been the ongoing problems at the 'rest and be thankful'. for those unfamiliar with argyll geography, the above is the name given to the summit of a hill on the a83 road, leading from the central belt into the depths of argyll and bute.
the name was given by soldiers who originally built what is currently referred to as the old military road, a single track passage that ascends quite sharply towards the end of glen croe, a road once popular with sports car enthusiasts, who utilised its gradient as the scene for hill climb competitions. however, it is the two lane by-pass road running parallel to the old military road that has given cause for concern for a number of years, and repairs to which have already cost well in excess of £80 million to mitigate the effects of seemingly perpetual landslides.
these have become considerably more frequent and damaging in recent years, reputedly at the meteorological behest of climate change. in short, argyll (and west scotland) is now receiving far more persistent rainfall than it did in the past.
until transport scotland invested in upgrading the old miltary road, whenever a landslide closed the a83, the resultant diversion added up to 100 kilometres to the trip, frequently meaning that traffic heading for islay and jura was likely to miss the desired ferry sailing. bearing this in mind, you can perhaps understand why the newspapers regularly failed to arrive on the morning's calmac sailing. however, the use of the old military road during the hours of darkness, albeit under convoy, ought to have solved such difficulties, but the daily lack of newspapers demonstrated that not to be the case.
thankfully, leader of argyll and bute council, robin currie, having been approached by disgruntled islay newsagents, took up the cudgels with the distribution arm of menzies. that he appears to have succeeded can be witnessed by the arrival of the daily papers every morning this past week, and, for the first time in five weeks, the saturday papers not only arrived on the island, but did so onboard the morning ferry. these had been in the habit of not arriving at all; rarely reaching kennacraig in time for the morning sailing, the islay carrier responsible for bringing them to the isle had no vehicles sailing on the afternoon boat, so islanders were bereft of saturday papers.
so, for the first time this year, i was able to enjoy a relaxing sunday afternoon, perusing the review and weekend sections of the guardian newspaper, before rounding off a pleasant and enjoyable read, by working my way through the main section (but not the so-called 'sports' section which, nonetheless, proved handy for stuffing my wetted cycle shoes).
the latter was caused by riding in the snow, not something that is a common happenstance on the inner hebrides. far more used to wet and windy, overnight saturday saw a healthy drop of snow, lying long enough to heavily inflict itself upon the northern villages of islay, and cover the paps of jura in a thick, white blanket. my solo saturday ride featured riding through snow showers under very dark skies, before being pelted by hailstones in a heavy shower, just as i reached the approaches to bowmore village.
that combination of hail and snow was subjected to overnight freezing temperatures, spicing several of the singletrack, back roads with icy textures.
we are usually to be seen as a trio of velo club participants of a sunday morning, but our most northerly member found himself snowbound and unable to join the merry throng. with the main roads having been provided by at least a smattering of gritting, we thought perhaps we might travail the main road to port ellen, before turning and retracing our tyre tracks, and heading southwest to debbie's for an earlier froth-supping than we are in the habit of experiencing. however, buoyed with our own intrepidness, we opted to tackle the avonvogie road, still covered from side to side with snow (see photo above).
this resulted in very slow proceedings along the first five kilometres, where the average speed struggled to reach double figures. however, though we pride ourselves on being every bit as fast on bicycles as i've tried to persuade you we really are, the slow progress through a few inches of snow was every bit as relaxing as finally reading the saturday papers on a sunday afternoon. it's a state of affairs worth savouring, for by next sunday, we'll be back to our earnest best, attempting to prove why jumbo-visma, ineos and the wolf-pack ignore us at their peril.
photo: joe marshall
monday 25 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................though i'd be hard pushed to justify any complaints of hardship, when so many others in the world are a lot worse off than am i, getting out of bed every morning at 17 minutes past seven o'clock has been a bit of a struggle following first lockdown last march. and every second saturday, due to a brief bout of weekend work, when i have to arise around only ten minutes earlier than that indicated above, it feels like the middle of the night, and that i have so many hours of sleep left inside.
on those alternate saturdays, when there's no particular reason to arise so unnaturally early, it feels like unadorned luxury, when i can drift in and out of sleep as the notion takes me. the only pressure to arise and scoff the traditional plate of porridge is the need to go cycling. you will note that i employed the word 'need', as opposed to 'desire', for the latter would imply that there was some choice in the matter. the same goes for sunday mornings. the standing arrangement with fellow members of the velo club peloton (well, two of them at least) is that we meet down on the corner at around 09:45, ready and willing to provide new meaning to the word 'intrepid'.
so, no matter at what time i have dropped off to sleep on saturday eve/sunday morning, the rules and regulations demand that i crawl from my bed at around 08:50, whether i feel like it or not. and, surprise, surprise, more often than not, i don't. but once again, the pressing need to go cycling takes precedence. not that i've asked them, but i'm pretty sure that the same goes for my pelotonic compatriots. so, presuming none of us actually have to go anywhere, other than for coffee, from whence cometh this apparent need?
we are fortunate that we all continue to have gainful employment in the present conditions, employment that, for some of us, is a smidgeon more onerous than has previously been the case. i think it perfectly natural that, after five days at the coalface (metaphorically speaking), some sort of release is in order. and because none of us (and i'm including most of you in this statement) have to ride our bikes for a living, for the most part, cycling hither and thither with little underlying purpose, is still good fun. hence the compulsion factor that drives us from our warm, cosy beds to go out on cold, wet and windy days.
but what about those who chose to follow cycle racing as a career path? while we can go riding as slow or as fast as the mood takes us, if it's your job, there's a professional requirement to not only ride quickly, but do so as part of a regimented training programme that will bring trophies to the sponsor's cabinet as frequently as possible during the following season.
the persistence of the coronavirus pandemic has already led to event cancellation or postponement at the beginning of the 2021 season, and i've little doubt that many organisers are already working on plans b and c should this season prove as fragmented as did last year. but while many professionals must be still concerned about their future careers, now comes the news that one of the stalwarts of the jumbo-visma team, tom dumoulin, has decided to knock it on the head for a while, citing a need to "find my way as tom dumoulin, the cyclist."
from the outside looking in, you can wonder what the heck he's got to complain about. as one of several team leaders within jumbo-visma, we can but assume he has more say in his season's programme than many of the lesser mortals within the team, not to mention a substantial stipend to keep the wolf from the door. the fact that his current hiatus is being taken unpaid, would tend to support that theory. but it beggars the question as to whether we might feel the same way, if riding our bicycles had become our sole means of financial support.
for many, that's a bit like the fisherman's standard 'you should have seen the one that got away' excuse. more than just one or two of us have been keen to point out, that, had it not been for some unspecified excuse (of which there will be many), we'd have been an intrinsic part of dumoulin's entourage (or the dumoulin of our own generation). but there has always been the advice that the finest way to ruin a perfectly good hobby, is to turn it into a profession. at least with a hobby, you can switch it off whenever you like. dumoulin is fortunate that he has the financial wherewithal to take a self-imposed sabbatical. not all professionals are in that position. but nonetheless, it can't have been an easy decision to make, given the amount of time and effort invested by both him and his team. kudos for having had the guts to do so.
meantime, i'm just grateful that, when i need to go cycling, cycling's just waiting for me in the bike shed. and if jumbo-visma are looking for a low cost replacement...
sunday 24 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................during one of the years in which i (successfully) attempted rapha's festive 500, i did so on a cyclocross bicycle. this was as a result of the previous year's (also successful) effort, when i awoke on the third morning with mildly painful arms and shoulders. considering the fact that my pedalling around 80km each day on a road bike, ought surely to have provided, if anything, sore legs, i began to reconsider my posture on the bike. however, it took only a few kilometres on that third day to realise that the aches had nothing to do with posture, but everything to do with the road surfaces that formed the daily parcours.
in this i do not claim to be alone, for i'm sure that the roads in almost every corner of britain are in no better condition than those of islay. however, many of the isle's singletrack roads are predominantly the preserve of the island's farming community, and £100,000 tractors weigh a great deal more than either a cyclocross bike or a steel ritchey logic. however if i told you that 500 festive kilometres aboard a 'cross bike provided a magic-carpet ride, i would be fibbing, but the more resilient frame and 33mm tyres took a great deal of the sting from the potholes.
though i have effectively retired from attempting any more festive 500 rides, those roads still comprise the bulk of my weekly perambulations, and they've hardly become any smoother in the intervening period. of course, in the meantime, velocipedinal socialisation has stepped in to lighten the load. a little over a decade ago, a quality new road bike would have arrived with 23mm tyres, while those closer to the budget end of the market would probably have featured 25mm rubber. but since those days, we have become better educated as to the rolling resistance benefits of wider rubber, 28mm having become the de facto standard.
there is, however, a catch to adopting wider tyres, no matter the proffered benefits; older frames will scarcely accommodate these dilated treads. i own two colnago bicycles: a carbon c40 and a steel master x-light with a carbon rear triangle, neither of which will accept 28mm tyres without severe rubbing below the rear brake bridge and under the fork crown, effectvely rendering both items of italiana pretty much stationary.
but, in the interim, the world's bicycle manufacturers have demonstrated that it's hardly an insurmountable problem to redesign their frames in the face of technological advancement, most offering at least space for 28mm, and one or two (ritchey's logic frameset) capable of accepting up to 30mm. the combination of increased frame clearance and wider tyres that can be run at lower pressures has, i can but admit, alleviated a portion of the discomfort engendered by continually disintegrating roads.
but, bearing in mind my last remark, why should it be necessary to stop at 28mm? and, added to that, why not chunk up the treads just a smidgeon, to allow for the unseemly amount of gravel, from goodness knows where, afflicting the road surfaces around the estates? i can see one of two at the back of the room asserting that i may just have described a gravel bike, but i would beg to differ. gravel bikes have distinct leanings towards riding on, well, gravel, with frame geometries to match; what i'm suggesting is a full-on race bike, but with slightly knobblier and wider tyres, one that would exhibit little in the way of tardiness, while retaining the necessary attributes of a peloton dweller.
by my completely untested, probably uneconomic and unscientific reasoning, if the bike manufacturers can create gravel bikes, and had little resistance to increasing their road bike tyre clearance, it ought to be a walk in the park to accede to my surely not unreasonable demands. and, in an effort to aid the subsequent marketing campaigns, i intend to sell it to the powers that be, as an entirely new genre of bicycle, thus guaranteeing its wholesale acceptance.
well it worked for gravel, didn't it?
once again, i am readying my bank account for a substantial ingress of royalty payments, and engaging the services of a ghost-writer for my autobiography. you're welcome.
saturday 23 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................i would be the first to admit that i can be less than endearingly parochial at times, but to a certain extent, it comes with the day job. though it's not always easy to settle on and write about a daily velocipedinal subject for the post, at least there's a great big wide world of bicycle news happening almost on an hourly basis from which to choose. and hopefully, my attempts to tap into that information, continues to result in readable features. however, the day job lies a great deal closer to home, for the content of a local, community newspaper is less than concerned with the postponement or cancellation of european cycle racing. nor, indeed, is there column space available to note that this year's glastonbury festival has bitten the dust for a second year.
however, there is at least half a page available to note that the 2021 islay whisky festival has also been cancelled. due to have occupied the last week of may this year, and with continued uncertainty over government restrictions that may be in place at the time, the festival will once again be held online, including the sales of the distilleries' 'festival bottles'. for many, that seems to be the principal object of the exercise. on present predictions, it seems highly likely that i will, once again, undertake the 'tour de islay' as a solo rider, the revitalised traditional date being usually the first saturday of the festival.
but the present reason for parochial leanings revolves around the electricity supply. the isles of islay and jura, along with colonsay, receive their power supply via an undersea cable, a conduit that broke for a second time in five years in late 2019. it transpires that there are but very few boats available to install a replacement cable, meaning that work can often be seriously delayed until one of these (expensive) ships becomes available. though the cable broke in november 2019, it wasn't replaced until march 2020. so does this mean the population of the three isles had to resort to campfires and toasted marshmallows to survive?
thankfully not. scottish and southern electricity networks (ssen) maintain a diesel-powered generator on the outskirts of bowmore village, a facility that more or less successfully kept us in the land of the living until mainland power could be restored. but during those months, inevitably, we suffered from occasional power-outages, few of which lasted for more than a few hours, but provided moments of sheer frustration for many. since those months, ssen has issued frequent updates, convincing us that they were in the process of strengthening the local network to reduce any power cuts to an absolute minimum, but we're still as dependent on the mainland power supply as the mainland is, albeit with a practical alternative.
this was brought home as recently as wednesday morning. with all the islands' schoolchildren currently learning from home as per government guidelines, an unexpected power cut shortly after 9am, not only interrupted digital lessons, but stopped me mid-sentence while writing an article for next week's newspaper. according to ssen customer service, they had identified the location of the (mainland) fault, and expected power to be restored by 1pm that same afternoon. obviously enough, that would result in many schoolkids having at least the morning off, while i was about to debate whether to remain in the office, or head out for a bike ride.
as things turned out, the power was back on within half an hour, and the humdrum proceeded almost unabated.
however, bearing in mind that the scottish government expects to phase out fossil fuel powered cars by 2032, and november's online e-bike summit sought ways to further integrate electric bikes into the nation's transport infrastructure, there's little doubt that, sooner than you might think, we are becoming more reliant on the electron than has been even the case so far. undoubtedly the uk has benefitted from a rapid rise in the availability of renewables such as wind, hydro power and potentially, wave power, but our half hour of darkness on wednesday morning still directly pointed to the weak link in the chain.
though the managing director of the british arm of the ford motor company suggested that we ought best be installing at least 400 car charging points per week, between now and 2032 in order to equate to projected demand, a recent report pointed out that each council in scotland had installed an average of 65 in the last year. in other words, it's not looking good. until now, electric cars are still enough of a novelty (even more so in remote rural areas such as ours) for a lack of charging points to have had little impact. but it won't always be like that. and while many e-bikes are the preserve of those using them for leisure purposes, if they become an important strand in a joined-up transport initiative, it's no longer going to be a case of storing it in the bike shed and expecting a miraculous power-up the following morning with no user intervention.
and as if island life were not looking potentially more fragile by the hour, recent discussions concerning a proposed new calmac ferry for the islay route, revealed that the ferry will be powered by electric/diesel hybrid engines, and that impending pier upgrades will, of necessity, incorporate appropriate charging facilities for ships berthing overnight.
according to brompton bikes, their manufacture currently (pun intended) features one bike in five with battery power, with the expectation of sales doubling in the next year. since brompton are but one amongst many, rather than cyclsts relying on their three weetabix or plate of porridge for propulsion to the office each morning, potentially half of those demands will be drawn from the national grid. suddenly the excuse 'sorry i'm late, but i forgot to charge the bike/car' begins to gain a tad more traction. and that excuse might well become legitimised in the face of power cuts. granted, parochially, that might be considerably more likely in the islands and more remote areas of the country.
the above is not, of course, mitigation against the wholesale introduction of electric vehicles, including bikes, but i think it might well be worth considering if we're simply exchanging one problem for another. after all, the creation of lithium batteries is scarcely the most environmentally benign of processes. and with fuel duty about to experience a dramatic fall in revenues to the exchequer, some have already suggested that the shortfall might be reclaimed by additional duty on electricity. and since it would be hard, if not impossible, to distinguish between electricity used to make that plate of porridge, and that used to charge e-bikes or electric vehicles, any surcharge would need to be applied across the board.
that may mean that those of us who keep the faith with legs, chainsets and derailleurs, would be subsidising the battery people. aldous huxley was right; it is going to be a brave new world.
friday 22 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................a gary larson, far-side cartoon published, on the far side website the other day, showed a be-coated fellow with a briefcase, standing at the stern of a departing boat, waving to a group of eskimos adjacent to their igloos. beside each igloo was a fridge-freezer. the caption read 'ralph harrison, king of salespersons'. the humour, obviously enough, rests upon the pointlessness of eskimos owning fridge-freezers.
though hardly the butt of any humorous asides, there seems a certain pointless irony in the existence of an annual islay jazz festival, held in september each year. despite having grown into one of scotland's most popular jazz festivals, the number of local residents to be seen at any of the concerts held over the course of a weekend could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. the majority of attendees are visiting jazz lovers, many of whom return year after year, effectively creating an extended family who hold a reunion each year. that they choose to hold that reunion on islay is but one of life's little idiosyncrasies.
as a drummer who has played each and every year of that festival, i have percussively attempted to interest local residents in a genre of music that sports little in the way of support around the island. i have long harboured ambitions to form a jazz piano trio (piano, bass and drums), but continually stare at the reality that, even should such a happenstance come to pass, where on the island would we play? currently, the two principal forms of music that garner the greatest approbation would probably be scottish traditional and country music. jazz, quite frankly, doesn't get a look in.
so, aside from playing bebop way too loud when washing the teatime dishes, particularly when opening the back door, and incorporating as many jazz music reviews in the local newspaper as found bearable, there's not a lot more i can think of to improve the effect of my one-man proselytising. in mitigation, the islay jazz festival would scarcely have prospered to its current level, had the audience consisted predominantly of residents; bringing in many visitors has a more beneficial effect on the local economy, and i don't just mean my appearance fee.
on the basis of its success, it occured to me that there may well be an approachable model to implement an islay cycle festival. there are probably no fewer jazz aficionados on islay than there are cyclists, so success would seem almost guaranteed. or at least, you might think so. but that in itself would scarcely be an overly welcome improvement, for surely the idea , in our case at least, would be to encourage more local cyclists that might increase the size of the velo club peloton.
we have persevered for many a long year to attract more acolytes to the flame, sadly with very little success. the last new recruit was number one son, but ever since he became a new father in april last year, and his electrical business improved, we have scarcely seen sight of his back tyre. in the meantime, no others have come forward to join the happy throng.
our total lack of success in this situation has hardly been mirrored by the uk population at large, many who have adopted the way of the saddle since lockdown was implemented last march. the national and cycling press, along with the cycle industry have been keen to trumpet the number of new cyclists who have all but emptied bike shop floors all across the nation. and controversy has followed the imposition of pop-up cycle lanes in city and town centres, tangible adverts that the motor car now has an unwelcome bedfellow.
in order to capitalise on this unsolicited recruitment the length and breadth of britain, funder of fusion media, adam tranter, has now founded the cycling marketing board to "...entice new consumers to cycling, and diversify cycling's image with governments and in the media." this newly constituted organisation has gathered substantial financial and moral support from the likes of le col clothing, specialized bikes, muc-off and surprisingly (to me at least), zwift.
adam tranter, speaking about the organisation's plans to inaugurate two annual advertising campaigns and advocacy programme, said, "Many things need to happen to secure a cycling revolution in this country and we feel our very public advertising campaigns and advocacy work can have a significant role to play."
i wonder if adam plays jazz piano?
photo: thebikeshopdungannon.com
thursday 21 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................it is but a matter of days since i made mention of what i originally mistook as a spoof press release, designed to provide a few moments of levity midst the ongoing crisis. this was proffered by rgt cycling, an online cycling provider which had partnered with the dirty reiver gravel ride to offer an online version in place of the real event. for those who escaped reading my cynical reaction, rgt cycling were attempting to convince us that sitting astride a bicycle of any genre, fastened to a smart indoor trainer and watching a versimilitude of the dirty reiver gravel ride in pixelated format, could possibly be comparable to actually riding the event.
however, apparently, the joke was on me, because they were deadly serious.
this announcement falls into a similar category as shimano's introduction of indoor cycling shoes, when presumably 'normal' cycling shoes would have proved every bit as pragmatic. and then there's santini, who are offering the option to acquire custom-styled indoor cycling kit, for which i can see no earthly point or requirement. however, it's probably worth my while pointing out that all the above are well-respected, international companies with successful track-records in the business world, while i am but one chap sat in his sitting-room each evening, taking arguably unsubstantiated pokes at their considered entrepreneurialism.
however, such situations are hardly confined to the world of cycling. there are drum hardware companies who offer clamps that attach to cymbal or tom stands, capable of holding smartphones or other digital devices. presumably this is in case you find an overwhelming desire to update your facebook status during the second encore. (though, admittedly, it is possible to display drum charts on an ipad).
and, returning once more to the velocipedinal realm, brooks recently introduced a saddle with a slightly raised rear section, reputedly to counteract the 'sudden accelerations' to be experienced when riding an electric bike. and more immediately, those pirelli cycle-e tyres currently on review, have apparently been designed with the demands of the electric bike very much in mind (hence the e suffix in the name). to the best of my knowledge, electric bicycles are no more or less demanding on tyres than any other type of bicycle.
and now comes the release of merino socks from the cycle supremos in london's grays inn road; condor cycles. these are not, however, just any old pair of merino socks; these are merino gravel socks, '...woven in a wider yarn to reduce picking and snagging on brambles', presumably a wild fruit that infests a majority of gravel rides. and though offroad shoes tend to feature soles insulated from the vibrations of gravellousness, condor's socks feature padded foot beds and reinforced heels.
i can't help feeling that condor are missing a trick by appending the gravel appelation, for most of the roads over which i travail each and every weekend, can be every bit as rough as several offroad routes of my acquaint. i very much doubt i'm the only one to experience the same. better, i think, to simply call them 'socks'.
though i can appreciate why certain species of sock wear would be denoted as for winter wear, usually offering varied levels of thermal insulation, i'd be inclined to think that anything else would simply fall under the heading of 'socks'. but, as we have previously discussed, 'gravel is happening, dude', and appears to be a bandwagon free from copyright restrictions that pretty much anyone can leap aboard. i think it only fair to inform you that i have considered replacing thewashingmachinepost heading with a more gnarly font in order to better align my philosophies with the recently gravelated.
and i still think that flat-bar gravel bikes are simply hardtail mountain bikes with a marketing affliction.
wednesday 20 january 2021
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................during my tenure at art college, there was a fellow in the year above, in the drawing and painting department, who had set himself the singular task of producing photo-realistic artworks, which, to be perfectly honest, seemed well ahead of their time. using airbrushes and perforated metal sheeting through which the paint could be applied, he created images that, when seen from a reasonable viewing distance, were all but indistinguishable from photographs, despite not copied from any camera produced image.
though personally, i couldn't quite see the point, after all, even in those halcyon days of yore, a decent camera was perfectly capable of producing quality printed images (at a price). why go to such inordinate lengths to develop a painting technique that could be easily assimilated by something from kodak? however, it was decidedly and solely his painting obsession, and i could do little by admire the effort, skill and time invested. however, those faculty members responsible for assessing such output, were very much not in favour of his vision, and though he passed his final year, the usual reward of a post-diploma was with-held.
that abstract art was more in favour in the college, could have been directly gleaned from the amount of time spent by one lecturer praising a mark rothko canvas in the local art gallery. this image, entitled 'blue square', if memory serves correctly, consisted of a larg(ish) canvas painted predominantly black, but featuring a small, blue square near the top left corner (of course, i could be completely wrong; it was a long time ago). to this day, i have no idea what rothko's painting was intended to represent, but i can't deny, it had a certain obscure, abstract attraction.
in retrospect, abstract composition might have been an easier choice when completing works for assessment. after all, any fool can see how badly i may have painted a fruit bowl, but render the same object in abstract form, and who can say it's right or it's wrong? and, aside from that, if we leverage the common misapprehension that art students are a bunch of lazy loafers, it would surely have consumed less effort to paint anything i darned well like, and call the resulting image 'fruit bowl'.
actually, two of my fellow classmates did precisely that. both elected to become abstract artists, festooning their canvases with strips of masking tape, easing the problem of painting a plethora of coloured, interweaving lines that signified pretty much nothing whatsoever. however, it cannot be denied that the development of abstraction in visual art was - and is - an important milestone in art history. though discussion probably still continues as to who was first to the finish-line, common consent would tend to suggest the russian painter, wassily kandinsky, was the first guy whose paintings made no sense at all.
there have been many followers along the path to asbtraction, some of them derivative, some less so, though once ultimate abstraction had been achieved by kandinsky, there were surely fewer avenues remaining for investigation. that, however, may be open to further discussion, if we're willing to accept that the latest posters from the northern line offer a pretty convincing argument that abstraction is alive and well and potentially living on the walls of cyclists all across the nation.
the northern line offer a variety of cycling posters, celebrating some of the velocipedinal world's most famous and finest events. perhaps that most akin to the works of kandinsky (or paul klèe) would be their depiction of 'de kopppenberg', but the poster representing the tour of california appears to be pushing the envelope pretty close to its unseen edge. this way, we can not only acquire art for our walls that scarcely represent reality, but empowers us as studied art connoisseurs. i'd respectfully suggest that you attempt to convince admiring onlookers that de koppenberg is one of belgium's foremost abstractionists.
you're welcome.
the northern line cycle posters
tuesday 19 january 2021
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