"O CANada..."

My recent travels for work and pleasure sadly didn't take me as far afield as Canada - but if they had, I would definitely have tried to pay a visit to Vancouver Canstruction, which was taking place at several locations across the city earlier this month. The premise behind the event is simple: "teams of architects, engineers, designers and schools get together to CANstruct fantastic, giant sized sculptures made entirely out of canned food", as their website states. The photos on the site don't really do the sculptures justice in my opinion, so if you can bear a visit to the Daily Mail website (which appears to be the only UK news site which featured the event), you can see some of the creations in all their glory. This one of a Lego spaceman is my favourite:

Take a tin of steak and make a bake (which may look fake)

From Birmingham I carried on north to Glasgow, not for work but a fleeting visit for a friend's surprise 30th birthday. It was my first time in the city, but hopefully not the last, as it really was rather nice indeed.

Two things I noticed which I feel compelled to tell you about - firstly, tinned haggis is far more readily available than it is south of the border. Unsurprising you might think, but I would have expected the Scots to eschew the tinned variety in favour of the real thing. As it was, just about every supermarket or convenience shop I went into had at least one brand on its shelves. Secondly, I don't think I have ever seen so many branches of Greggs the Bakers in one place. There seemed to be one on every other road I walked down, and sometimes more than one, much like the Starbucks, Costas and Pret a Mangers that line and litter the streets of London. Look at this map of their locations from Greggs' website - the centre of Glasgow is a veritable sea of G's.

What would the Man from Del Monte say to this?

On a recent trip to Birmingham for work, I happened upon this piece of street art on the wall of a building a short distance north of New Street Station.

Although more than a little faded and peeling, if you stop to look it is still recognisable as a tin of Del Monte fruit "In It's Own Juice" (shame about the apostrophe), with a mass of skulls arranged in the shape of a bunch of grapes on the label. A comment on Del Monte's human rights record, perhaps?