the usual suspects

a passing acquaintance ...

stop press wedding of the century .... laura and roy

a startling message from beyond the gravy by the indefatigably workaholic richard nye

i'm not yet quite sure how to trigger the animation ... click on it ?

peripheral vision

Driving through a dark part of the New Forest on a very bright day, you begin to see things in black and white, especially at the periphery of your field of view.

As we pass a side-lane, a momentary glance freezes a picture which the mind resolves in to a painting in sable, silver and gold.

The bright lane leading to a steep roofed cottage, dark with a tall chimney in a gap in the wood.

In the lane, towards the house, a slender black cat pauses to glance our way and holds one front foot raised in mid-stride.

In the foreground, a golden hen tiptoes across her own sharp shadow.

Peace and tranquility in a bubble of time.

oh, what fun !

frivverless ... steve bell contextualizes our guvinmint in today's guardian

who the hell took this picture ? blah blah blah so help me !

grrrr!

i spent an hour trying to book rail tickets online with southernrailway.com

they wanted me to set up an account

i don't really want an account i just need a ticket and i'd be glad to pay

they insist i set up an account with my e-mail address and a password

then they said the password was invalid

then they asked me to set up an account again

then they put the fare up

so i'm going by bus ... it takes twice as long to get there but the booking system is comparitively open and transparent

i wonder how many customers they alienate on a daily basis ?

to the museum of london to see the london street photography show with andrew hinder ... we've only been acquainted about fifty-five years

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/London-Wall/Whats-on/Exhibitions-Displays/London-Street-Photography/

a quick stopover at warbleton church in east sussex

happy birthday, brother .... with more love and respect than you can probably imagine

Yet another 3BT

Staring intently into a dress shop window, leaning forward on her crutches, a young woman with only one leg, but it really is a very nice dynamic sort of a leg … with a very smart high-heeled shoe at the end of it.

Just after four in the morning, in the last shadows of night on the north edge of Clapham Common, at random but in the space of only about two hundred yards, ten young foxes busily searching the short damp grass with their noses.

On a zebra crossing by Putney Station, I side-step an oncoming goddess, a modern Atalanta.  She is tall enough to look over my head and is wearing very short muddy shorts over sinewy thighs ... and a pair of muddy football boots with the laces knotted together are draped over her shoulder.

ellen's colour works still working

she wants me to waste money on new underwear ... just because we are going to a friend's wedding

oh go on ! treat yourselves !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE-Zx90I6Bs&feature=player_embedded

http://www.hokaoneone.com/en/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingsuit_flying

why did it only take me forty years to track down the key to bruegel's painting ... thanks, wikipedia !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs

3bt

Two girls recline on a low broad wall, one combing the hair of the other whose head lays upon her lap.  Each has hair the colour of ginger biscuits.

The cafeteria in the Wellcome Collection is furnished with chairs upholstered in pastel-coloured plastics.  A little girl wearing a dress patterned with white and pink and purple hearts chooses without hesitation to sit on a pink chair.

A text message arrives from the cancer ward.  She lives and breathes and they haven’t excised her sense of humour.

sunday at the wonderful wellcome

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/dirt.aspx

which reminds me of ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2wTDX_jo8c

reader, we drank it ! she'd bought it from a favourite sandwich bar in venice and saved it for three months ... then opened it to welcome her ardizzone lithograph to it's new abode

compare and contrast

ice-cream van

my fingers are crossed for a certain small and frightened someone who'll be in surgery for most of the day for a spot of what sounds like "do or die"

seeing as how a baby is on the agenda this month .... titian and mahler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8y6Tit5y6M

via the wonderful, though possibly moribund, boccanegra website

http://xavisuescun.blogspot.com/

faiz ... a poet in the urdu language

read and smile  ...

http://caravanmagazine.in/Story.aspx?Storyid=924&StoryStyle=FullStory

listen and sigh ...

http://www.jinnahsequaid.com/8048/legendary-works-faiz-ahm

or, since some twat has broken the link ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzXNo3-YyUoed-faiz/


and give thanks to metafilter

http://www.metafilter.com/

in my mind's eye, some people never age

whilst elsewhere, an anonymous spaniard ages gracefully ... well its either arrested development or accelerated regression

artwork by roxanne

3BT ...

A dilapidated bus station.  It is cloudy and a cold breeze chills the little country town.  In a small yard surrounded by a low wall, a couple of girls, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, shiver on a bench outside a pub.  One has a plaster cast on her left arm.  Maybe their parents are drinking inside.  Suddenly they leap up and dance frantically around for a couple of minutes, shaking their arms and legs and heads to imagined music, almost as if they were trying to detach them, running about the yard and jumping on the furniture with an extraordinary lack of inhibition, as if they were burning up a lifetime of joy in moments.  An English rite of spring ?

An old stone bridge with low pointed arches spans a wide chalk stream bordered with willows, its fertile waters feeding long drifts of flowering water crowfoot on which both yellow and pied wagtails run to and fro.

A text arrives in the evening from a friend I feared had died.

i'd see through that disguise anywhere ! its the collinson kid ! run for your lives !

... fifty-seven years of friendship, on and off !

more tea, don diego ?

maintaining a discreet silence

3BT

A mare leads a foal towards the shadow of a dark oak tree at noon.

At dawn the sun is hidden by a mountain of huge grey clouds all soaked in pink, whilst in front of them there sails a squadron of smaller clouds shaded in pale blue.

The room is silent, except for the sound of bubbles in tonic water.