CCAD - Teesside's only art college

Advantages: Only art college in the area, friendly atmosphere,lots of courses.
Disadvantages: Not great for part-time students, a little lacking on the aesthetic side!

...OVERVIEW ---------------- Cleveland College of Art and Design has three campuses in the Tees Valley (North East England). It has been established for over 100 years and is currently the only independent, specialist arts college in the North East. Two of the campuses are in Middlesbrough, on Burlam Road and Green Lane, and the third is in Hartlepool, in Church Square. The college offers a fairly large range of courses leading to various qualifications, including NCFE, GNVQ, BTEC, and Foundation Degrees (FdA). The courses are really too extensive to list them all on here, but I will give an overview - for a full prospectus you can visit the CCAD website at www.ccad.ac.uk. The courses include: Art and Design Fashion Fine Art Graphic Design Media Multimedia TV and Film Production Photography CCAD also run some short...

Magdalena 22.10.2005 · Read review
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Review of Cleveland College of Art and Design

Largest Art College In Europe

Advantages: Close Knit Community Environment
Disadvantages: Living In a Small Village/Town can at times be boring

...Never heard of Surrey Institute of Art & Design, well check it out here!! I spent 4 years at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design (or SIAD, as I will call it from now on)!!! SIAD is actually split into 2 sites Epsom & Farnham. I will deal firstly with Farnham as it is the larger campus. SIAD - Farnham Campus 2 long years spent at Farnham!! Farnham itself is a small town/village with quaint little shops, boutiques and coffee shops. At times it can feel a lot like one of those cream tea and scone villages. However, ever present is the large number of students who make Farnham their home. It is quite expensive to live in Farnham and the rents reflect this. This coupled with a general dislike of private letting agencies to rent to students can make housing one of the first and biggest problems you encounter. SIAD does offer...

charis18uk 13.07.2001 (22.07.2001) · Read review
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Review of Surrey Institute of Art & Design

Art, Sparkle & Novelty 4 Free.

Advantages: Free, Interesting, Interactive and Much More
Disadvantages: Novel Design Comes At A Price And You Have To Break The Pollen Barrier!

...Back in June I asked Ciao to add this exhibition as a category, however we are nearly in August and it's only appeared today. I've decided to go ahead and publish my hard-written review anyway, in the hope that it will be useful to anyone deciding whether or not to visit the exhibitions of 2008 and beyond. June and July 2007 week saw the 150th anniversay of the Royal College of Art, which was founded from the proceeds of the original Great Exhibition held in Hyde Park in 1851. I?ve always had a certain interest in this, it sounds like it must have been a Victorian version of the Ideal Home Show, the Crystal Palace filled with all those wonders of modern design. Very appropriately, the 2007 Royal College of Art Summer Show is being held in a marquee on the very spot where the palace once stood and just across the road in a normal...

Malibu_jenny 18.07.2007 · Read review
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Review of Royal College of Art, The Great Exhibition, Kensington Gardens

The Art of Death

Advantages: Good second half, some interesting details
Disadvantages: Clunky plot, a bit meandering

...halfway through it was much better. The main character is Adelia - "The Mistress of the Art of Death" - i.e a forensic pathologist. Her struggle to conceal her profession is quite prominent in the plot as female doctors were unusual in the twelfth century. She is helping Simon of Naples discover the killer through the clues left on the bodies of the victims. I found this quite interesting although I'm not sure how realistic it would be in the twelfth century. The plot does wander a bit as it is so concerned with Adelia and her origins and training. The character of Rowley (the King's so-called tax inspector) is ok but the romance seems to have been thrown in as a bit of an afterthought and didn't add anything to the story for me. Mansur and Gyltha offered some light relief as the servants as did Gyltha's grandson Ulf. Simon of Naples was...

mogdred1 27.01.2009 · Read review
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Review of Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin

Art Attack?

Advantages: Keeps the action going.
Disadvantages: Unoriginal, poor performances.

...74. Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992) This all feels a little like déjà vu, especially after watching American Ninja 3. Once again there is a fighting tournament in a tropical location. This time Rio De Janeiro. An American kickboxing champion, David Sloan, arrives with his sensei, Xian, in tow. On first sight Xian looked a little like Lee Van Cleef, or maybe that was the spectre of 1984 TV series Master Ninja repeating on me. Either way, it helps signify that this was the tale end of a long running era of budget American martial arts films and television shows. The first classic cliché comes quickly when the hapless heroes are mugged by a small Brazilian boy, Marcos, and his sister, Isabella. Naturally, after a long chase through the back alleys of Rio and the kicking of same random thugs, they befriend the knife wielding...

ThePolarOne 10.12.2008 · Read review
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Review of Kickboxer 3 - The Art Of War (DVD)

A Media Arts Status College

Advantages: Helpful teachers, fantastic media facilaties, a good range of courses
Disadvantages: None

...Coombeshead College is the largest comprehensive school in Newton Abbot and has everything you might need at school until you are 19. You have the secondary school and the sixth form once you have finished secondary. Lately Coombeshead has gained a media arts status which is the reason why we are able to have all this building work. Currently there is building work happening all over the college, so far a new sports hall and theatre has been built, and 14 new classrooms are on there way, so there is plenty of building at the moment and loads of off limits area's around the college. We also have a radio station, TV Studio, Sound Studio, TV and Sound editing suite. I work in the radio station as a Station manager, and I really enjoy working with students and teachers as they are polite and friendly most of the time. There are...

Samurai_Sam 22.04.2005 (28.04.2005) · Read review
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Review of Coombeshead College

The Art (Of Forgetting A Clothes Peg)

Advantages: Centrally placed with reasonable room rates. Nice staff. Well furnished
Disadvantages: Area never totally quiet - get a room at the back. No immediately obvious disabled facilities

...When I wrote about my experiences in Lisbon a few months back, I was taken to task for spending too much time describing the hotel, so this time, things are going to be a little different. With a distinct sense of trepidation I'm going to write about a hotel as a stand-alone item for the first time ever, quaking at the thought of my opinion being compared to one by Ciao's very own 'unpaid hotel inspector', Uncle Bill's nephew himself, Richada! I've just got back from 5 very enjoyable nights in Athens (and the days weren't bad either!). Part of what made it enjoyable was our stay at The Art Hotel, Marni Street 27, Athens. To be honest, it would be difficult to describe how to get there from the airport as we'd pre-booked a taxi, which ended up stuck in horrendous Monday night traffic, made worse by an obliging perfectly...

BNibbles 28.10.2007 (30.11.2007) · Read review
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Review of Art Hotel, Athens

Arty Des Arts!

Advantages: Original building, nice and clean and decent rooms
Disadvantages: Could have quirkier rooms to match the rest of the hotel.

...perceived it from stood outside. Inside was a mix of modern touches such as the small lobby lounge with a flat screen pc for guests to use mixed in with the artistic and very Parisian style furniture and the art that hung on nearly every wall. I actually if I'm honest couldn't decide if I liked it or not as I did because it was boutique and intimate and at the same time some of the decor was too 'old fashioned' looking for my taste. However I think if you came to this hotel you wouldn't be disgusted by it and as you don't recoil in horror when you check in to a hotel that that has to be a good thing! The rooms: I would say I expected the rooms to be different after the decor of the hotel in the lobby and I guess it was because they seemed a little boring somehow - the lobby area had nice chairs and lots of art along with flowers...

frankiecesca 19.12.2008 (18.12.2008) · Read review
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Review of Hotel des Arts Montmartre, Paris

Minimalist Art

Advantages: Central, cheap, artistic
Disadvantages: No facilities, rubbish breakfast

...For some reason, I booked a week's holiday to Brussels. On my own. It should be stated straight away that I didn't have a great holiday, but I'll try not to let that influence my views of the hotel itself. The Comfort Hotel Art Siru (or the Siru as I'll refer to it from now on) is a strange beast. A few years ago, around 130 contemporary Belgian artists were commissioned to decorate each of the 101 rooms, to create the world's first 'Art Hotel'. Every room is decorated with unique and original paintings or sculptures, and it really is a lovely idea. The bizarre thing is that you'd expect this kind of innovation in some kind of high-end resort hotel. The sort of place that has huge suites where actors are interviewed about their latest film against the background of a new and daring work of art. The Siru, on the other hand, is...

Olly_Plimsoll 07.08.2007 · Read review
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Review of Comfort Hotel Art Siru, Sint-Joost-ten-Node

Excellent story, The Brutal Art by Jesse Kellerman

Advantages: Excellent story, well paced
Disadvantages: None

...I got this book for my birthday, and I?m glad I did as I probably wouldn?t have picked it up myself as the brown cover doesn?t really stand out. It has a little sticker on the front that says it is part of Richard & Judy?s book club. The story The story is told by Ethan Muller, who is an art dealer in New York. In one of his fathers flats the tenant has disappeared and all that is left behind is boxes and boxes of drawings. These pictures are all drawn on individual sheets of paper but they all link up to make a huge picture, they are strange but brilliant pieces of art. Ethan takes the pictures to his gallery and then tries to discover who the artist is. He gets help from a retired detective who sees the central piece of the art in a newspaper and recognises that the faces on the cherubs are young boys who were all...

starjen 26.04.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Brutal Art - Jesse Kellerman