christmas and chinese new year rolled up into one ... c/o the V&A

am well in to my third day of complete rest ...

my brother greg ( lower left ) with his dad ... greg usually has a birthday about this time of the year

fun ! fun ! fun ! looks as if the drive to lyme regis on saturday morning might be a bit of an adventure

V&A ...

at the V&A ... incontrovertible evidence that rugby union football was invented in nazareth

blimey ! sheila evans has fashioned another rag rug ... for linda crabb ... i shouldn't be jealous, but i am !

lost in sussex ...

candlemas ... i still like the story of simeon, even if i amn't religious ... we used to sing a nice version of nunc dimittis in malmesbury abbey back in the 1950s ... by stanford, in C

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

this is the best version i can find on the internet ... closest to the way we sang it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6CEDIL0O7k

the painting is by giotto, in padua

saturday ... i'm off to the fish stall

.... should i walk, ride, or drive ?

for joe hyam, epicure ... you never told me you'd been an artist's model

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

don't interrupt me ... february is going to be classical scholarship month

charity shop trophy .... six asterix stories in one volume for eighty pence

waldemar, carry on up the rococo ... nuff said, do watch !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03slvhy/Rococo_Travel_Pleasure_Madness_Pleasure/

nice observation on the benefit of piano practice during nine-minute interview with rusbridger for a german tv channel

http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/weltspiegel-guardian100.html

we englischers can listen to the whole of the conversation in the second of the two fillums

waldemar ? and how do you spell januszczak ? that man is so totally unpardonably sans souci ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03sg830/Rococo_Travel_Pleasure_Madness_Travel/

saturday ... vexed by my inability to sleep late, i wake at five and read the introduction to japanese drawings by j.r.hillier, studio vista, 1965, chucked out by the library because it was too old ... and scan in some favourites

hillier, himself a collector, writes that artists such as these made a living from paintings and prints .... and surprisingly few of their actual drawings were kept

phew !

parked the truck in reigate high street for a compulsory driver's rest break ... popped in to a stationers to get these stickers for alvi ... was very tired so fumbled for change ... the tired looking woman took my three pounds and turned away without a word

walked one hundred and fifty yards to oxfam bookshop ... searched through kids section ... put hand in pocket to count spending money ... not there !

a sixty-four-and-a-half-year-old running a hundred and fifty yards through heavy traffic and crowds must be an alarming sight

phew ! my last eighty quid still untouched on the counter

a bit of self-decontextualization ... or is that re-contextualization ?

tiepolo, still ... i'm blundering my way through alpers & baxandall, the benefit of which is a new motivation to visit venice, wurzburg, and new york ... i just need that winning lottery ticket !

sing ! sing ! sing ! .... FOXP2 ... lea velez has "facebooked" an interesting article from the spanish newspaper el pais that forced me to check out the gene and the protein it expresses in wikipedia ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOXP2

http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2009/11/11/actualidad/1257894012_850215.html

so it's all about the one-ness of nature, ennit ?

collecting for the royal marsden on putney high street

popped in here, too ! but looked at the price list and then at what was being served, and decided to conserve my cash

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedcms/sets/72157637116711404/

popped over to walthamstow ... as you do !

... the art weren't bad, neither !

http://www.wmgallery.org.uk/

this morning's lurid domestic scene was me in pyjamas on tiptoe on slippery chair, torch in one hand, camera in the other, photographing a welcome visitor way up near the kitchen ceiling

ceres paying homage to venice by veronese ... oh ! but i really do want to go back to venice before too long

3BT

A tiny hawthorn bush, but not at all young, and long since “topiarized” into an elegantly gnarled ellipsoid, stands leafless and grey-brown in the garden of a splendid house on Mayfield High Street, and comes suddenly alive as a flock of sparrows, chattering and screeching, enters the tangle of its branches and are instantly camouflaged.

At the bottom end of Kings’ Avenue in South London, as the schoolchildren go home, three pairs of identical twins in a hundred and fifty yards.

A letter from a dear friend looks up from the mat as I stagger home at the end of a fifty-six hour week.  It is a long newsy reply to the long one I'd only posted on Monday.

alvi does glue ...

... here's one he made earlier

whaddya mean ... de-contextualized ? images begged, borrowed and or stolen from .... pauline at http://www.theoldposthouse.co.uk, eric ravilious, and last but never least, dame lady duchess the marchioness her rightfully royal highness, the mistress of the rag rugs, sheila evans, nominally titular queen of the gwendraeth valley

they also serve, who only stand and wait ...

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve there with my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask.  But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.  His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.