The Eclectic Light Company gets a Liebster award

I am honoured that Nicholas Peart has nominated this blog for a Liebster Award: thank you Nicholas.

The Liebster award is online recognition by bloggers to new and up and coming bloggers. When nominated for this award, you answer 11 questions set by the ‘nominator’ and then you nominate 11 of your favourite new bloggers (with less than 200 followers – although I think one can be a little flexible on this) and ask them 11 questions.

Nicholas Peart’s questions for me were:

1. Who is your favourite musician/band?
Pink Floyd. They’re the music of my youth, and never recorded a bad track. I still have them on vinyl too, although I cannot remember when I last played one of those ‘LPs’.

2. Have you ever been to sub Saharan Africa?
Yes – Kenya, in 1987. I was there for two weeks, in the second of which I took the sleeper up to Nairobi and explored a bit more. The first I spent in Mombasa. It was a wonderful and extremely hospitable country, and I’d love to go back.

3. What is your culinary speciality?
Tournedos Louis. Take beef fillet tournedos, fill a syringe with brandy, and inject blebs of brandy into the steak. It’s the ultimate quick marinade.

4. What is your favourite film?
So many favourites, including Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), which has the greatest cinematography. But I’d have to settle for Antonioni’s Blowup (1966). It’s the only movie that I have seen which stimulates all the senses – in particular, the photo enlargement scenes evoke sound despite their silence.

5. Is there a special place close to your heart in the world you have visited?
South Georgia. It is the most savagely beautiful, one of the most remote, and utterly heart-rending walking round Grytviken cemetery, where there are the graves of many young whalers.

6. Can you recommend a great place to visit in your city/town/village which not many people know about?
The Worsley Obelisk, poised on top of Appuldurcombe Down, due west of us in Wroxall, the Isle of Wight. It offers some of the finest views in the south of England, over the whole of the Isle of Wight, and from Swanage in Dorset to the west to Selsey Bill in Sussex to the east. It’s also only 30 minutes walk from our front door, so we walk up there every day that we get time.

7. The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?
The Beatles. Almost as good as Pink Floyd, with their enormous range of styles.

8. Is there a particular work of art (painting, sculpture, drawing, photograph, conceptual work or just any artefact) that is close to your heart?
Many of the paintings on this blog, probably a thousand or so! But if I could only look at one, I think it would have to be Rembrandt’s The Jewish Bride (1667). See this blog for many compelling reasons why.

9. What was the first concert you attended?
Rock: Weeley Festival in 1971. Classical: so many, I just don’t recall, but it might even have been a Stockhausen premier in London.

10. What is your favourite inspirational quote?
Although I like pithy quotes, few really encapsulate more than a passing thought. Perhaps my most thematic in life is Don’t let the buggers get you down. So many have said that, and far more need to.

11. When was the last time you cried?
Inside, daily. I just cannot understand how horrible we are to one another. Outwardly, it is quite a few years ago, I think, at the funeral of a former member of my staff, who poisoned himself with carbon monoxide.

Here are my top 11 new blogs:

1. J. Harms Portfolio
2. penwithlit
3. To Kill A Mocking Girl
4. My Daily Flowers
5. Ramblings
6. cannonhillchronicles
7. The Culture Project
8. MaryAnn Adair’s Is it art?
9. Michelle Knowlden writes…
10. 52 Cheeses
11. jill millward artwork

My eleven questions are:

1. When did you last walk more than a mile, and where to?
2. What was the last meal that you ate?
3. Where is your favourite view?
4. Do/would you paint in watercolour, oils, or something else?
5. Which painting would you like in your bedroom?
6. What makes you laugh most?
7. Which language for love?
8. Which of your blog articles are you proudest of?
9. Which film/movie have you watched the most?
10. Tolkien, Rowling, Pratchett, or who?
11. Who is your favourite artist/band/composer for music to unwind by?

What are the rules for the Liebster Award?

Once you accept a nomination, you are expected to complete the following steps:

• Thank and link to the blogger who nominated you
• Create a post on your blog, displaying the Liebster Award logo
• Answer the 11 questions assigned by the blogger who nominated you
• Provide rules/instructions for accepting the award
• Nominate 11 new favorite bloggers for the Liebster Award
• Come up with a list of 11 new questions for your nominees
• Notify the nominees
• Post your Liebster Award blog post link in the comments of your nominator’s Liebster Award Post