For Sale

Here  is where you can buy copies of the last Volcano Club Zine, it's in the under £10 category which I know might be surprising as a badly made thin zine should obviously cost over a £100. So it's clearly a bargain. There is also loads of other cool shit on the website like greetings cards. Also I really need to write about something volcanic but I can't be bothered to do it now. I'm sure I will do it soon though cos I have exams this week so I'll be spending lots of time bored on my computer and writing about volcanoes is obviously much more fun than revising Silviculture of Southern Sweden. And I've just moved to a really nice flat so I want to do some volcano decorating soon.

But yeah buy this! It's amazing. 

Volcano leaflets

I was given two amazing leaflets at the weekend; the first of which is from Scotland. My aunt went to the Shetland Islands recently- she sent me that picture of the odd volcano monument thing on a beach. Part of the Shetlands were formed by a volcano (Eshraness) - back in the old times when the UK was part of pangaea and close to the equator. This has given the islands amazing and dramatic landscapes, although I've never actually been there so I'm just guessing from the leaflet which guide you through some volcano trails taking you to a magma chamber and beaches where you can find volcanic rock. Even though it's highly illegal Kate stole me some of the volcanic rock which is very light and aerated, you can see it in the photo below. So in addition to wanting to go to all Hebridean islands I now also want to go to the Shetlands.

If you're thinking that all this seems a bit implausible then the second volcano leaflet is far more accurate. My brother is a TEFL teacher- which means he teaches English as a foreign language as opposed to teaching frying pans how to be non-stick. For a lesson his students had to create an island (if this seems like an odd task, he has also made them play Bargain Hunt) and the centre of one of the islands had a volcano. I think it was perhaps bad town planning that the mall was positioned next to a volcano; but it is amazing how much the map looks like a map of Hawaii's volcanoes.

Finally in Volcano news people have decided that volcanoes are so fantastic that they will create artificial ones to solve all the worlds problems. And I'm also finally going to go to this exhibition in Liverpool. I'm sure it'll be fantastic and I will write a full review.

Pret A Fucking Manger

I am very against naming things as volcanic for very little reason and Pret have now fallen into this caldera. I am yet to try their vitamin volcano smoothie nor have I ever drank from a volcano but having drank smoothies and studied volcanoes I can imagine that they are in no way similar. Why did they feel it was apt to label their product as a volcano, was it simply for alliterative purposes? Was it because like the smoothie the soils that surround volcanoes are often nutrient rich (in which case well done Pret)? Also the volcano depicted on the bottle IS CLEARLY more then 45degrees so I don't know what the hell they were thinking. But you can check out nutritional information here! But maybe I should just be happy that the nation has taken volcanoes to its heart. Let me know what you think.

Also neither of the hideous clubs have anything to do with Volcano Club shit and even shitter. I thoroughly apologise if anyone has been misled on any occasion.

Volcano of the Week #13 - Erta Ale

As some people would rather do work than play Ghettopoly (which is a ghetto version of monopoly) my evening's entertainment consisted of asking my housemate Spam/Lewis to choose the volcano of the week from my volcano book. The result was Ethiopia's most active volcano Erta Ale which is a 613m height shield volcano on the border with Eritrea. Erta Ale means smoking mountain- I really wish people would name volcanoes more imaginatively, it would certainly make volcano or nocano more fun. Although one pit of Erta Ale is known as the gateway to hell, which is nicer. Erta Ale is located in the Afar Depression which contains the lowest point in Africa- 155 meters below sea level, the land surrounding the volcano is all below sea level.

 Looks a bit like Piton de la Fournaise

The most remarkable feature of Erta Ale is probably its lava lake which at 90 years is thought to be the oldest (and one of the only) in the world. One of the only other volcanoes with lava lakes is last "weeks" volcano- Mount Erebus which must be truly stunning in the frozen landscape. A lava lake is pretty much what it sounds; a crater filled with hot bubbling lava covered by a thin black crust so kinda like cooking porridge, polenta or old soup. It is when cracks in this skin appear that we see the volcanoes beauty when lava spurts and fissures form. Erta Ale's tends to have fairly non-explosive eruptions, VEI around 2- but it is none the less a beautiful spectacle. The lava lake the cover image for Earth on Fire and has some of the books best images- which is why is this weeks volcano of the week and I believe it's my first Africano. 

Best book ever!

Lava Soap and Volcano Puns

I have just been informed of lava soap which is from the makers of WD40, enough of an endorsement for anything. Anyway I got told about this amazing soap and given some amazing puns by Mary Gray. Here are the puns and pictures of the soap which is pretty cool and I really want some. 

Valentine, You Kick Ash!

 

I Pumice to be Your Valentine!

Valentine, You Rock!

Valentine, I'll Never Take You for Granite!

It's True Lava for Us, Valentine!

Valentine, You Set My World on Fire!

My Heart is on Fire for You, Valentine!

Valentine, You are Really Gneiss!

Terry's Plagiarent Orange

Now if there's one thing in life that I have a natural talent for then it's making volcano based wordsearches and if there's another thing in life that I'm good at then it's making ridiculous volcano based food. So how do you think it feels to have these two talents being used (and not used very well) to market popular Christmas confectionery products? Not very good, I can tell you.

 So Terry's you stick to what you're good at (making chocolate that looks like fruit) and I'll stick to my more volcanic talents, yeah? Also putting popping candy in something does not make it volcanic, you have to construct something that actually looks like a volcano not just shove in gimmicky sweets. And if volcanoes erupted popping candy and lava was made from chocolate, then I don't think they'd be the amazing natural disaster that they are.

Thanks to my mummy for sending me this, although it would have been nice to get some actual chocolate not just the packet.

Boxcano, Bookcanos, Happy New Yearcanos

Unsurprisingly I got a lot of volcano related products for Christmas (and have since bought myself some) and as there are technically three days left of the festive period I should probably share them before it gets too late.
Firstly this beautiful diorama showing 2 scenes of Mount Fuji was a late present from Isaac and is actually really really difficult to make but it was time well spent. It's actually so great that I'm thinking of replacing my TV with this boxcano.

This picture of the instructions shouldn't fool anyone into thinking it is at all easy to make. http://tatebanko.com/products/index.html Here is a link to the website for the kit makers- Tatebanko, it is apparently an ancient Japanese art (what isn't) the range includes Hello Kitty, The Scream, The Persistence of Memory and lots of other very Japanese things.

The second volpresento, also Japanese themed, is my new Taschen diary showing 'Famous Visions of Edo'. Edo is the former name for Tokyo and presumably the volcano depicted in many of these is also Mount Fuji. 

 

These are some of my favourite pictures, obviously I only included the ones with volcanoes in. There is a lovely reminder for everyone of what I'll be doing this week and if anyone wants to give me a job, preferably in a volcanic field (though that may be a little dangerous), that'd be great. 

My favourite new bookcano is the present I bought myself, which is 'Earth on Fire' by Bernhard Edmaier which is full of truly amazing volcano photographs and really great information. I won't write too much about the book as I'm sure I'll will reference it many times. 

These are two of my favourite pictures from the book and are of Mount St Helens, Washington and Nyamulagira, Democratic Republic of Congo and they inspired to do this volcano painting, I am aware that the heat energy of the eruption would probably melt the snow but I thought it would look pretty. 

Happy New Year!