autumn sunbathers ... ten yards from my bus stop at putney heath

fancy floristry at burwash church

prick up your ears and take in eleven minutes of someone else's lateral thinking, a beautifully spoken eleven minute tour of the mind

http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/u/1/dFs9WO2B8uI

a little bit of local colour

rugby fans at the french bar near clapham common at half past nine on sunday morning

how the poor become poorer ... by shopping in oxfam

some of this week's BTs

Walking from the bus stop to the work place on a moonlit night, seen across the dark open space of a newly demolished factory, silhouetted against the brightly lit laundry in acre lane, the elegant black form of a sure-footed young fox trotting sixty yards along the narrow top of a six foot wall.

Later, in the brilliant cloudless mid-morning, in the High Weald, whilst loading the truck on a steep ramp besides a small cheese factory, i lift my head at the sound of horseshoes in the lane, and see two white ponies trotting up the gentle slope towards Stonegate village, silhouetted against the cold blue sky with two stout ladies bouncing in the saddles.

Back in the city, seen from the top deck of the homeward bus, quite unusually, a pair of falcons, unfamiliar to me with short wings and deep chests and dark tails, clearly side-lit in the late afternoon sunlight whilst circling on a thermal for a long time, high, but not too high, above a supermarket near the crossroads at Clapham Junction, where, by an improbable coincidence, there stands a famous Victorian pub named The Falcon.

one bt, although sometimes there isn't time to grab the camera ...

Last saturday, after sitting in an empty carriage for twenty minutes whilst my train was held at brockenhurst station, i went to the door just in time to see a huge steam locomotive drawing a long train of ancient carriages stained with years of use and filled with happy day trippers heading for corfe castle ... but there wasn't time to grab the camera

Six hours later, as i walked back from the hospice at christchurch to the station, i heard the same train thundering under the bridge, but just too far away for me to run with my camera ... so all i saw was the cloud of smoke, and all i smelled was soot and sulphur.

An hour and a half afterwards, as my train slid quietly through the darkness towards london, i caught a faint whiff of that sulphur and soot again, ... and a minute later we were gradually overtaking the dimly lit steam excursion carriages, so slowly that i could see the fabrics on the seats, the crisp linen tablecloths, the glinting brass table lamps ... and then the open plan carriages where old fashioned families sprawled amongst shopping bags, cast off coats, huddles of children ... and all so gradually that there was time for them to wave at me and for me to wave back.

http://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/news783.htm

a conspiracy of cats

read all about it ! read all about it ! mystery patient ( tina schol, the last time i set eyes on her ) wears no-longer-fashionable sweater knitted by photographer's mother ( sylvia forward ) twenty-five years ago whilst scrutinizing terry pratchett interview in today's guardian ... and she's only the very same person that slipped a copy of "mort" to me about twenty years ago

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/oct/14/terry-pratchett-life-writing

ladybird metamorphosis on clapham common

last night the moon light crept into the quietest room, illuminating the dusty floor ... so naturally, my thoughts turned to dandruff

hey nonny no ! only five or six months 'til spring !

roelandt savery's dancing dodos

i don't really know if they danced but i like to think they'd have enlivened the grounds of many of our stately homes had mankind not been so unkind

here's an excellent history of the subject

http://julianhume.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/History-of-the-dodo-Hume.pdf

beware, slimmers ! ... this is an hornazo

baked by santi, the village baker of lagartera in toledo province ... a great man, and a self taught architect, too

eaten, ( probably mostly ), during this past weekend by my cruel friend linda, who must only have photographed it just to make me nostalgic ( i am not jealous, i am not salivating, do you hear me, linda ? )

if i remember rightly, it is a gigantic compartmentalized pasty containing localized fillings of mutton, of chorizo, and a boiled egg

at weekends we assiduously perfect the four R's ... by writing ...

... reading, and relinquishing all responsibilities

the colour purple ... delightful classical scholarship via metafilter

just click on this link for a short essay on antique perceptions by the late william harris

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/purple.html

he seems to have been a delightfully free thinker ... and doodler

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/ss/spot.html

in the past i've struggled and failed to paint with purple

here's an image borrowed from some clever young americans who don't have that problem

http://lotsoferaserdust.deviantart.com/art/Purple-Sea-172639231

enigmas on the way to work ...

http://www.electricsocial.com/

... and on the way home from work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_God,_Our_Help_in_Ages_Past

apropos de nuffinque

insomniac photography ( contd., )

ely

stuff at ely

inspired victorian medievalism at ely

shut that door !

he's just a big cry-baby

thomas cocke's angels

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3903440.ece

the military

humphry smith, THE humphry smith

plutarch's ponies in pastures green abiding

apropos de nuffinque, encore

3BT 23rd September 2011

When the morning sun is low and dazzlingly yellow, the road sweeps gently up and around a low hill, passing a mature oak tree in dark full leaf.  At the same time the mist from the wide valley beyond has flowed up and over the tree like a low wave.  As the truck speeds past the tree, and the sun appears to race past it on the other side, so tiny sunbeams emerge through the foliage into the mist as bars of light and do so in a very interesting way.  The perspective of diminishing parallel lines means that each is perceived as a long wedge of golden mist, disappearing into a needle point towards the glowing heart of the tree.  Each beam fades in and out of vision as we pass and the overall effect is illusory, that they form the offset spokes of a turning wheel that has no outer edge.

High above industrial Brixton, I spy an unfamiliar movement and focus on a small pale hawk being circled and harassed by some kind of crow that is twice as big.  They move higher and higher as the crow repeatedly tries to strike the hawk.  When they have almost disappeared into the midday brightness the hawk turns away in a long dive, gathering speed all the time but, to my surprise, the crow keeps right behind him until they disappear from view behind a neighbouring factory.

Having skipped on to an empty bus at four in the morning to go to work, I eventually drag my stressed and exhausted self on to another at five thirty during the journey home.  Miraculously, in the middle of a very busy rush hour, on this very crowded bus, the seat nearest to the door is vacant !  Phew !

and not a bad piano player, neither !

just about the first record i ever bought, nina simone, so fierce and gentle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv9717YTmsQ

hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for diamond geezer

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2011/09/200-things-i-love-about-london.html

colin busby forward

my dad died ten years ago today

he was very fond of village pantomimes

i imagine there will be pantos all year round in his part of heaven

and there woz light ! pure genius .... pass it on !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14967535

why waste these thousands of berries from the yew hedge at audley end ? ... i'm sure they'd make a delicious pink gin