the new emotional blackmailer's handbook

Sunday, June 24, 2012

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

Friday, June 22, 2012

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/

Monday, June 18, 2012

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

Sunday, June 17, 2012

looking up in paternoster square

Saturday, June 16, 2012

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

Thursday, June 14, 2012

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

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

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.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

stuff in the percival david collection at the british museum

classical chess piece at the british museum

take that, you brute ! and that !

Friday, June 8, 2012

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 ...