one of my holiday snaps

we are going in to the country for a few days ... see you soon !

two new york blogs ... even travel by proxy broadens the mind

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

http://streetnine.com/

unicorns on steroids ... saint george's, bloomsbury

http://www.stgeorgesbloomsbury.org.uk/tour.htm

more frivolity ... someone's only gone and created an australian garden in the yard at the british museum

they've even included a grass tree ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthorrhoea_glauca

friverless craftsmen

sweet cowboy music by dan reeder via metafilter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUeMYn20ZSU

aunt mavis, aged 96 and a half

...reminding me of that Thomas Hardy poem, Heredity

I am the family face; 
Flesh perishes, I live on, 
Projecting trait and trace 
Through time to times anon, 
And leaping from place to place 
Over oblivion. 

The years-heired feature that can 
In curve and voice and eye 
Despise the human span 
Of durance -- that is I; 
The eternal thing in man, 
That heeds no call to die

tristan savatier's burning man slideshow ... i'm not sure if it is this year's or last

http://www.flickr.com/photos/loupiote/sets/72157625063388734/show/

it is last years, so i'm eagerly awaiting the latest set

"how long have you been reading shorpy ?" "i dunno ! how long is a piece of string ?"

http://www.shorpy.com/node/11188?size=_original

! cih

Travel broadens the mind, some say ...

I once travelled all night on a train from Paris Austerlitz to Narbonne and then went to a bar just opposite the station to wait for some friends to collect me.

It was just before seven and still dark.  There were two other customers standing at the bar, taxi drivers so burly they made me seem fairy-like.

The barman was of a similar stature to his clients, but had chosen to wear a low cut blouse and a blonde wig which, with an application of copious amounts of theatrical make-up, seemed to signify that he wished he had been born as Brigitte Bardot’s identical twin.

Never again will I be astonished by the Triumph of Hope over Adversity.

british national costume ... historical evidence, if it were needed, of the utility of red underwear

george collinson and lea velez, man and wife

george has been ill for a number of years

lea posted the following statement yesterday

George sigue en Puerta de Hierro. Tiene varios tumores en el cerebro. Recuerdo cuando montaba en la montaña rusa y el carro subía y subía aquella empinada cuesta que te dejaba el estómago encogido con la anticipación de la inevitable caída

semiotics ! don't talk to me about ...

i'm on the bus !

miracles of modern medicine ... a cat with ninety nine lives takes her new morphine pump for a walk in the grounds of her local hospice

a smug yellow cat tiptoes off the agenda ... until next time

close encounter

insomniac's experimental hand-held torchlight table-top photography ordeal at five on a sunday morning ... i'm only using a bunch of flowers 'cos the loved one refused to get out of bed and model, although i will, of course, have to credit her production role as chief flower wrangler