a challenge ... how long can you look him in the eye ?

insider view of the creative team for this year's olympic opening

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/29/frank-cottrell-boyce-olympics-opening-ceremony?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fcommentisfree%2Frss+(Comment+is+free)

a change is gonna come ...

in the limden valley between stonegate and ticehurst

... in response to the question you don't often ask yourself ...

"what makes truck drivers content with their lot ?"

a whitby boat mug .... the last one in the shop ... a nearly birthday present from the loved one

... of course it might take a year or two to settle on the right shelf

banksy is our darling

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/index.html

no more lon chaney nights !

... that nice doctor frankenstein up at the castle says the package-deal lobotomy with free personality transplant should come in to effect well before the next full moon

whoops ! ... oh dear !

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html

i was adamant ...

... but after much tearful argument with older and wiser heads in the drivers' rest room, i have reluctantly conceded that these ladies are neither

a) royalty

nor

b) star players in england's olympic hockey team

picture taken at five o clock this morning opposite norbury nick

lost in the post

a few months ago i bought, piece by piece, here and there, a set of tunnicliffe's four "what to look for ... " ladybird books

i posted them to spain for some small boys whose father was english

they never arrived

i've assembled another set now but i'm photographing every page before i post them

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

silent passions found in translation ... via metafilter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUt4W8sE8Ns

masonry, masons' marks, and modern repairs on the aqueduct at Avoncliff

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

loquacious after a good lunch

some corner that is forever ... nah ! forget it !

bob babbitt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk


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

elliott school in putney

... is a bit of fifties architecture that needs to be knocked down because the fabric is so grievously dilapidated, but it is to be conserved as an example of design from that period

they are going to sell half their land for 34 million ( they hope ), and then spend most of it on the restoration

its a nice idea BUT ...

whilst the work proceeds they will need temporary classrooms and so they will stack them up right outside our kitchen window

and we shall lose our distant prospect towards the low slopes of the chiltern incline, beyond the edges of london

they say the buildings will be temporary ... three years only ... because the space they occupy must be made available for a play area

hmmm ! wasn't hadrian's wall temporary ?

http://www.elliott-school.org.uk/_files/66D14D277842D144432DA00E5A121604.pdf

disturbing and distasteful

spanish fire fighters protesting against the new conservative government's economic policies in the city of la coruna

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=497299180296666&set=a.313419795351273.96563.248513638508556&type=1&theater

deeply serious but highly recommended ... the "script" is beautiful

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jul/15/nostalgia-light-chile-pinochet-astronomers?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/sightsound/patricio-guzman-extended-interview/

after the rains ... new flowers, new leaves

a word of warning ... don't buy her prosecco from valdobbiadene ...

... she'll only want to drink it again !

busking by stealth in sabadell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBaHPND2QJg

Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt! Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen. Seid umschlungen, Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt! Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium, Freude, schöner Götterfunken Götterfunken!

Be embraced, you millions! This kiss for the whole world! Brothers, beyond the star-canopy Must a loving Father dwell. Be embraced, This kiss for the whole world! Joy, beautiful spark of the gods, Daughter of Elysium, Joy, beautiful spark of the gods Spark of the gods!

their prosecco is very easy to drink but not nearly cheap enough to do so frequently

remember lads, on her birthday, the only right and proper thing ...

... is to buy her a fitch

anton chekhov wrote ...

I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else…. Pharisaism, dullwittedness, and tyranny reign not only in merchants’ homes and police stations. I see them in science, in literature, among the younger generation. That is why I cultivate no particular predilection for policemen, butchers, scientists, writers or the younger generation. I look upon tags and labels as prejudices. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love and…freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take.

great heavens, holmes ! the ruthless devious cunning mastermind has installed her own plan chest ...

and she's just written out the labels for the drawers ...

"rule the world in easy stages, one to six ... "

never went in to a charity shop and found this dress ... YET

i suppose its easy when you know how ... oscar peterson and count basie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3drqJ1bUmEA

euro soccer latest ... italians martyred again ... back to the drawing board, lads !

delights and perplexities and ambiguities

In the sun dappled Ashdown Forest, smaller trees are occasionally to be seen encased in honeysuckle, and others in roses.

A woman seated at a bus stop in Acre Lane opens a small handbag and pulls forth a large mirror with a black plastic frame that exactly fits in to it.  She turns her head very slowly from side to side for a minute whilst holding the mirror perfectly still.  It has two cracks, widthways and length ways which cross near the centre, and the four segments are non-aligned.  I can guess what she sees but have no idea what she is looking for.

Before leaving work, I approach Mick, probably the best Irishman that ever drew breath, and shyly beg to ask a question of an unusually personal and intimate nature.  

“Is it true that you have had your body tattooed all over with shamrocks ?”  

In less than a second he replies, “Not entirely !”

"must see" mosaic films animations about children who are refugees

i wandered in to the drivers' rest area at four thirty this morning and this was playing to an empty room

i was rooted to the spot, and tearful

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01k7c4q/Seeking_Refuge_Episode_1/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/seeking-refuge-navid-s-journey-from-iran/13805.

htmlhttp://mosaicfilms.com/2012/06/seeking-refuge.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/jun/18/uk-child-refugees-stories

to my english friends in spain ... just stand in the river up to your necks until the sun goes down and stop complaining !

every time she looks at our phone bill she gets moody and difficult ...

"Immensely proud of how little money he made from them" ... donald nicholson ... making knowledge of metabolic pathways freely available

i only found donald nicholson's obituary in the guardian today ... you might justifiably describe him as saintly

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/may/29/donald-nicholson?INTCMP=SRCH#

http://www.iubmb-nicholson.org/

http://www.iubmb-nicholson.org/swf/tca_cycle_v9.swf

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/img/assets/4202/MetabolicPathways_6_17_04_.pdf

3BTs

Flying south between downpours, brushing across the waving tops of storm bruised trees, beneath a background of rushing tumbling waterlogged cloud, two herons struggle to hold close their courses along a wiggly line on their way from Battersea Park towards the pond at Clapham Common.

Resisting the temptation, but gladdened by having the option, of using our central heating at midsummer.

Rediscovering cocoa-induced oblivion whilst falling in to a deep sleep on the sofa.

graham carey died ...

... he arrived in malmesbury when i was about twelve

he was a full-time controversialist and a part-time egoist who annoyed and upset quite a few people

but wherever i was concerned he was unsparingly generous and tolerant

... and i must surely have annoyed and upset him a few times

best of all, whilst my educators were numbing me with everything anodyne,

he introduced me at an early age to the appreciation of such things as ...

brecht and john osborne
richard avedon and bill brandt
hans coper and ben nicolson
ben shahn and jackson pollock
walking the hills and valleys with maps and marching with protestors
alan ginsberg and walt whitman
the civic trust and john betjeman
stanley kubrick and francois truffaut

... and the notion that anyone, however high and mighty, might occasionally be persuaded to listen to reason, or poetry

http://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1855/images/index.html

later ... i discovered his touchstones were Rousseau, and David Holbrook

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/sep/01/david-holbrook-obituary

mind hacks ... one of my favourite sites ... Q. what makes us laugh ?

the picture of a munoz sculpture is not from the article

http://mindhacks.com/2012/06/20/bbc-column-what-makes-us-laugh/

don't you ever wish you HAD run away to join the circus ?

looking up in paternoster square

my father remembered a little ditty about this statue ... probably mis-remembered ... that ended something like "... left in the lurch, face to the gin shop, back to the church"

andrew hinder ... my only serious rival for the title of grumpiest man in the universe

once upon a time in anatolia ... not much happens, and most of it in the dark ... everything happens ... and everything is a matter of light and shade

a feast for thought by a director who adores chekhov

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/mar/15/once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia

3BT

In a tree lined village street at Lingfield, as I drive cautiously along the approach to a busy junction, a jay emerges from the last tree and comes gliding down towards something I cannot see that lies in the path of my truck.  For a second or two as we approach one another, I am able to look down on him as he spreads his beautifully coloured wings in preparation for landing, but just as I am about to panic so he changes his mind and swoops up again to disappear beyond my shoulder.

In a winding country lane running along one of the Wealden ridges, as I slow to make room for an oncoming van, a kestrel with wings held high and tail in the up position, drops down along a dead straight landing path, touches the road for half a second, and then flies back up and away, along that very same line; carrying something in one talon that is small enough to be a vole.

As the truck trundles along the edge of a vast undulating field of wild flowers, so a skylark slowly descends until she vanishes in to a mist of buttercups.

stuff in the percival david collection at the british museum