Top Book

After not having had a decent book to read for ages (not that I've had much time to look at one in the last few months) suddenly 2 arrive in one day.
The first was The Top by D W Gould which I bought for a fiver from Amazon.

A very interesting tome - here are a couple of illustrations of contemporary Japanese tops...

Stuart King has just posted his film of me making a spinning top on YouTube.  He first shot it about five years ago and it's far superior, slicker and altogether more professional than mine.  Watch it here.

Stuart also has some other interesting videos on Youtube such as Trevor Austen making probably his last wooden rake at his wonderful old factory in Ashford, Kent and Ion Constantin turning a drinking flask on a pole lathe in Romania.

The second book was One & Other - the document of Antony Gormley's 4th Plinth idea in Trafalgar Square last year in which I took part.  I reserved a copy months ago and had forgotten it was due out in October.   It's a bit disappointing - my photo is there along with the other 2399 plinthers - but the bulk of it focuses on the people who took their clothes off or did something 'arty' plus a lot of intellectual analysis and wordy articles which my eye seems to skate off.