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

classical chess piece at the british museum

take that, you brute ! and that !

check out the solar weather ... nasa's solar dynamics observatory shows the sun in lots of wavelengths

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

scrabble about in the small print and you will find links to up-to-the-minute HD images, filtered and then re-integrated in "false" colours, allowing you to see what's going on ...


















http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/f_094_335_193pfss.jpg, for instance

most of whatever else you might want to ask is in the booklet / pdf

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/docs/SDO_Guide.pdf

nasa's fillum of the transit of venus in several different spectral filters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9rM8ChTjY

some words in your shell-like, guvnor ?

if you didn't have chance to read the book ... rory stewart's two part series on afghanistan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jb9fn/Afghanistan_The_Great_Game_A_Personal_View_by_Rory_Stewart_Episode_1/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jk7qd/Afghanistan_The_Great_Game_A_Personal_View_by_Rory_Stewart_Episode_2/

and you can always read the blog from his day job...

http://rorystewart.co.uk/blog/471-the-acquisition-of-knowledge

vivat regina !!! ( i )

listen up, bros !
http://www.frequency.com/video/ronald-binge-elizabethan-serenade/17537232
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZYCfkWLWZI

vivat regina !!! ( ii )

écoutez ...


http://www.feelmybicep.com/2009/10/15/grace-jones-pull-up-the-bumper-larry-levan-garage-mix/

helen gahagan in she c.1935

helen gahagan was quite a lady ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Gahagan

A.N.OTHER in a famous disney production c.1937

the loved one has been trying to coax me in to summer colours

just in case there may be one amongst you who doesn't revere steve bell ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/stevebell?INTCMP=SRCH

trouble at the bank ... spanish STYLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iop2b3oq1O0&feature=share

the ceiling in the cafe at the wellcome collection ... upside down for no good reason