Calling all Norfolk Artists and Makers...

Only two weeks remain to get your submissions in for the Fakenham Contemporary Art exhibition 2009.

Entries are invited to the categories of: ceramics; collage; drawing; installation; painting; photography; printmaking; sculpture; textiles.

Entrants must be resident in Norfolk, and all submissions (maximum of four per artist) must be original work, completed within the last two years.

For further details and an exhibitor's application form click here.

Above work 'Jet Sky' featured courtesy of Hatfield Hines' own multi-talented Charles Phillips

Pipe Dreams - Hirst follows Beatle down the tunnel

Kiev's Pinchuk Art Centre, brainchild of Ukrainian metal pipe billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, is poised to stage Requiem a major retrospective of the work of Damien Hirst from April 25th onwards.

The exhibition will showcase a hundred of the artist's most iconic works, including 'A Thousand Years', 'Away from the Flock' and 'Death Explained' a sculpture of a bisected shark, preserved in formaldehyde. It will also premiere a series of skull paintings done by Hirst between 2006 and 2008.

Unlike fellow oligarchs who plough their funds into football squads, Pinchuk - at $2.5bn rated the world's 246th richest man by the latest Forbes poll, is a vulture for culture and already boasts iconic works by Brit Hirst and American Jeff Koons in his personal art collection.

Crisis-hit Ukraine, where industrial production is plummeting by over 30% each month, may seem an unlikely venue for such an exhibition - the latest cultural extravaganza since Pinchuk jetted ex-Beatle Macca to Kiev for a major concert last June.

However, in a public statement, the gallery insisted Kiev was the perfect location "In hosting a major retrospective of one of the most important artists working today, the Pinchuk Art Centre is testament to Ukraine's ongoing cultural development."

To view further details of this exhibition click here.

Bottoms up on the Broads this Mothers' Day

Stuck for something a bit more original than daffs, chocs and fighting through an obligatory elbow-to-elbow "Sunday roast 'n' gateau" special at the packed local this Mothers' Day?

Why not lay off the calories, soak up some scenery and take to the water with your brood this year instead.

Broads Tours are running two special Mothers' Day cruises on Sunday 22nd March, each offering a free 'chill-out' glass of wine to Mums accompanied by their children... ah - how very civilized...

The trips depart from Wroxham at 11.30am (returning 1pm, £7 adults, £5.50 children) or 2pm (returning 4pm, £8 adults, £6.50 children). Under fives go free.

Bookings: 01603 782207

Frogger Frenzy on Briston backroads

It's not easy being a frog. You've avoided being scoffed as spawn, evaded the tadpole pond-dip nets of toddlers, made it through that - hey, where's my tail gone? - teenage phase, escaped beady-eyed herons and crawled off for a well-earned rest under a clump of grass.

Then before you know it, the nights start warming up, dusk falls, the dew twinkles invitingly outside your trusty clump and you have this sudden, irresistible urge to go a wooing...

As ever - as per the iconic 1970's arcade game - the course of true love often involves a major trek across a hairy stretch of asphalt...

Hop, hop - SPLOT!

Such is the nightly flattened fate of hundreds of frogs and toads squished by oblivious motorists on local roads during the March-May breeding season.

The Department of Transport have now designated a one mile stretch of the Holt-Briston Road an 'Amphibian Crossing Zone'.

So on mild, wet nights keep your speed down, watch out for the frog alert roadsigns and toad patrol wardens (who lift the little fellas across the road to safety - hmm, rather them than me!) and - go on - do your bit for amphibian romance...