the improvised slide ... i'm expecting him to audition for the burt lancaster role in the re-make of trapeze

ai weiwei's iron tree at the yorkshire sculpture park really is cold to the touch ... i'm impressed with his idea but it lacks the grace that would endear it to me

my current favourite V&A post card

can you catch chilblains from photographs ? possibly, maybe ?

saint george's in bloomsbury

yet another gratuitous juxtaposition ...

my dad bought a very old rover from a neighbour in about 1958 ... i think it might have been this model

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C557963

the 1953 eagle annual from a charity shop ... file under "CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM"

master of the saint bartholomew altarpiece ... one of my favourite painters ... compare and contrast, etc

3BT

The weather changes before first light.  After leaving Reading in a bitter frost, on passing through Swindon, I see from the early train that the roofs of the terraced houses and the streets are white with snow.  At the station itself, large flakes of snow whirl around the lamps and settle on the hunched shoulders of the boarding passengers.

In Wiltshire, arriving in the warmth of their cosy little house, i find my daughter and her two sons glowing with vitality and intelligence.

Back at home in time for tea, discovering I have won six pounds and ninety pence on the euromillions.

frederick sandys ... showing off a bit !

... i prefer the drawing, but the painting is jolly good fun !

steve bell dons a beret and essays yet another attempt at portraying the almighty

... hurrah !

and next day ...

.. and on the third day ...

relics in the V&A this morning ... puck and ted parsons

start the year as you mean to go on ... went to supermarket, forgot milk

here's wishing you all a smiley christmas ... and i do mean YOU !

Specimen A ...

... and Specimen B

is there an appropriate way for you to dress for the movies ? for instance, if you had to compare and contrast fillums about country matters ...

ray bolger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOiw0bHI4Cc

martha graham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmgaKGSxQVw

basement jaxx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrOKI0qZ4Dk

joie de vivre ( part 99 ) ... a country bus stop at brockham

3BT

A rarther ragged looking buzzard sits motionless at the centre of a village cricket pitch, facing the passing traffic on a busy road.

Yet another stranger reads the word cheese on the front of the truck and performs the appropriate facial expression.

I ring a doorbell and the girl who opens it has big bright laughing eyes and a fully freckled smile.

mobiles, made during a period of interminable solitude twenty years ago when catching the light was an innocent pastime

another sleep-deprived night chez micawber ...

apropos de nuffinque

... this is a second attempt at one i "facebooked" earlier this week

AN ODD CONVERGENCE

I have woken early, immediately known I cannot go back to sleep, and then knowingly gone to the station at Clapham Junction far too early to catch the first train on my journey west.

The coffee shop will not open in time, although nowadays I am not an addict.  So I mope and loiter, on the street and then in the street-level precinct, before proceeding along the deserted passage towards the platform, passing other staircases to other platforms as I go.

At the foot of the very first staircase, a tiny movement “in the corner of my eye” catches my attention.  It is a tiny grey mouse.  I can’t remember the last time I saw one, and so I stop to stare.

How very like a toy mouse.  In the shadows this grey fluffy ball of energy is only just visible, smaller than a table-tennis ball, whizzing to and fro in its state of perpetual hunger, whirring legs out of sight, the long tail held dead straight and horizontal, the eyes mere pinpricks of reflected lamplight.

Footsteps approach in the echoing passage and my reverie is broken.  I become self-conscious about my fascination and turn to leave.

And I find myself face to face with a very pretty bouncy strutting bright-eyed teenager, going home in party clothes.  On her nose she has painted a black spot, and beneath it she has sketched out with mascara some cat’s whiskers.

the boys ...Specimen A and Specimen B