I’ve never previously considered that for people who are into the Christian traditions of Christmas, there’s a conflict at this time of year. You neither approve of decorations before the start of Advent nor approve of representations of the birth of Jesus being omitted.

So when retailers stick up their decorations early, which principle do you sacrifice first? The Metrocentre chose the former (along with a very feminine representation of Gabriel and a Mary who looks older than you’d imagine). I’d probably have made the same decision.

I find it difficult to look at a nativity scene these days without thinking ‘where was the poor kid’s mother?’

If you’re not already scintillated enough, walk exactly 1km east along Redcar seafront from Sinterlation and you’ll happen upon Lifelines, another 2013 Ian Randall sculpture celebrating local heritage. It symbolises fishing boats being pulled back to shore.

The two make a nice, inoffensive pair.

Installed on Redcar seafront in 2013, this is Sinterlation, a sculpture which references the town’s fishing history (the boats which form the bottom of the columns) and its historic steelmaking (the chains). The non-standard spelling references sinter, a mixture of iron ore, limestone and coke which is used to feed a blast furnace.

It’s a perfectly nice, if forgettable, bit of civic sculpture which brightens up the place, but I’m not moved to any strong feelings.

I recently walked past this sculpture next to London’s ExCel exhibiton centre and thought, “that’s new!”

It’s not, though. It’s been there since 2009. I evidently walk round with my eyes closed.

The sculpture shows three dock workers, and was the result of a long campaign supported by the Queen Mother, among others, to commemorate the people who worked at the docks between 1855 and 1983. The figures are based on the likenesses of real dock workers, including Johnny Ringwood who helped raise money for it. Now aged 89, he re-visited the statue earlier this year.

The bloke with the hat and the book is Patrick Holland, depitcted as a tally clerk but in reality a stevedore, a word I last thought about in April 2021.

The scene is loosely copied in Mychael Barratt’s Mile End Mural.

For the sake of everyone involved, I think I’m better off giving blood than wearing spandex.

These two giant chairs, by Yinka Ilori, are currently on display next to the Royal Victoria Dock. One represents happiness and the other pride, though the fact that I can’t tell which is which is perhaps a marker of their limited success.

While we’re on refreshed artworks in Rotherhithe—and there’s a sentence I never imagined writing—this pair of boats made by Kevin Boys was recently unveiled on the refurbished Redriff Footbridge, replacing a previous artwork that had been stolen.

I would never have come across this spot had I not serendipitously wandered into the Russia Dock Woodland on an ‘I wonder where that path goes?’ whim.

After the closure of the Surrey Commercial Docks in the 1970s, Russia Dock was filled in—except for a little trickle of a stream. The surrounding area was planted to create a little woodland. Forty-odd years after it was completed, it’s become a 34-acre haven of nature in a formerly industrial area.

The filled-in dock sits at a lower level than the surrounding pathways, with the capstones still visible. This provides a nice link to its industrial past, but it did strike me that safety considerations might have prevented that design approach if the woodland were created today.

I’ve previously written about the many country parks in North East England, which stand as the beautiful legacy of our mining past, and I suppose this is a sort of industrial dock equivalent.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the area around Rotherhithe in London did a roaring trade in importing ‘deal’—large pieces of timber. In order to import it, it needed to be unloaded from incoming ships, and ‘deal porters’ were the answer to that problem.

Working in pairs, one worker would lift one end of a stack of deal, and their partner would stand at the deal’s mid-point and heave it up onto his shoulder. The worker would then walk, carrying this extraordinarily long and heavy deal, across a gangplank to the dock and into nearby warehouses. You could, I guess, say that this method was ‘the art of the deal’—and it was backbreaking work. There’s some archive footage on Youtube. Much of the wood was turned into paper to supply the nearby newspaper presses, while the rest was used in construction and furniture carpentry.

In 1990, Philip Bews and Diane Gorvin created a sculpture in steel and oak to sit among the greenery on the edge of Canada Dock commemorating this work. It was well-received, though as the trees and greenery grew around it, the sculpture became difficult to see during the more verdant seasons.

Last year, the sculpture was taken away for refurbishment. A few weeks ago, it returned to the newly redeveloped Canada Dock. The workers now look out over a vermillion bridge of thousands upon thousands of pieces of timber, as though their work will never be completed. I’m not sure whether I’m more depressed by that idea, or by seeing how the greenery which previously stretched higher than the seven metres of the statue now doesn’t even hide its base.

Still, I do rather like the sculpture, even if it’s a bit figurative for my usual taste.

Unveiled earlier this year, this is Belfast’s statue of Winifred Carney, recognising her role in the 1916 Easter Rising and her commitment to social justice. As she was often described, she is depicted with her typewriter in one hand and her Webley pistol in the other.

The statue was unveiled on International Women’s Day along with one of abolitionist Mary-Ann McCracken. These are the first two statues of non-royal women at Belfast City Hall. In a bizarre twist, they were unveiled in the presence of actors dressed up as them, which was… a choice.

Photobombing in the background is Sir James Haslett, who was Mayor of Belfast from 1887 to 1888. He was also an MP and a chemist.