When I dropped Reg and Mike at the Hopton end of the Reservoir yesterday there is this very attractive shepherd's crook shaped piece. As it declined to hold the customary 50p piece in its teeth for scale, I would estimate its height at maybe 12 feet. Reg, being the Engineer, can prolly be more accurate. Also, I think he has a previous photo.Not intending to photograph it, because it had been done, when I got round the other side I decided I'd like to try a little fill-in flash to prevent it from being a silhouette as the sun was so strong. Limited success only I'm afraid, and I've had to resort to a photoshop-dabble.
My next job was to have coffee which I took down more-or-less to the water's edge at the rear of the Visitor's Centre where I was lucky enough to find somewhere to sit. The coffee was foul but I know from previous experience that Carsington Water Catering falls a little short of Michelin stars. In future on WOW trips I intend to take a thermos. It isn't mean-ness but I would prefer 'no coffee' to unpleasant coffee. And it is nothing to do with franchises because Costa coffee I always like well enough.
Many thanks AnonymousRob for the research and you are quite right of course. The walking lady has Elizabeth Frink stamped all over her. Her full title is 'Walking Madonna' and, as you will see if you open the link, 'War Horse' was previously in an infinitely better location. I might go and demonstrate with a placard saying 'Free The War Horse' but it would cost me too much to get in. They would probably say "Placards is £4 extra". Could you have a go at the 'Cement Mixer Lorry' please Rob? I've googled Bungus's Ravi Nahindra suggestion without success. His work is not known to me (or apparently to google) and perhaps when Bungus has completed his tussle with his 'frig...freezer' et al he could help us with a little more information. And before I leave 'comments' - Dear AnonymousRob, I have tried to negotiate a let-off from the penalty-pint, imposed for criticism of the Chairman's 'Attie' pictures. But I understand that the rap is not subject to remission ! A possible solution is for me to buy you both a pint.
Bungus's p.s. comment about 'foreknowledge' about an accident being in Clumber reminds me of being a very young policemen, in the days when we had to go round at night checking that business premises were correctly locked up. It always seemed that, when you found one that was insecure, as your hand was travelling towards the handle you got a premonition that it was going to open. Could be 'wisdom after the event' I suppose.
My intention at the water's edge was to try and capture a wind-surfer sharply, with a small enough aperture to show hazy distant detail and with a shutter-speed fast enough to keep his water-trail fairly sharp too.This just about manages it, and my EXIF data tells me it was 1/500th of a second at f9 on ISO 200 with my lens at 70mm. It also tells me it was taken at 11.48am and 28 seconds. As Bungus has remarked, it is rather remiss of it not to remind you of your hat size too !
And while absorbed in all this hard work I failed to notice that beind me a horse-box had arrived with two beautiful shire horses. One of which had been taken to collect the dray but this very young one was happy enough to have his picture taken. It was only Monday of this week that I blogged about having a ride on a Shire Horse as a child.
This one seemed quite small. But I suppose that, at about 5 or 6yrs old, any horse would seem enormous.Tracy has e-mailed me details of how my computer desk, and keyboard, monitor and swivel chair Should be arranged. And she says that, with my present arrangement, she isn't at all surprised that I get leg/back ache etc.. Oh well ! I shall have to consider getting a proper PC and eye-level monitor then. Bungus said that years ago.
We will have to see what Y's view is. She is 'grannying' today at Burton Joyce, as she does on a Thursday, and we are having a salad when she returns. We have both Robbie Coltrane, and Rick Stein this evening, hence the early blog.
No quote today - sorry !
Lunch with Peter and Joan tomorrow, pick up my replacement power cable from Megatech at Rainworth and at some time, a little re-provisioning is called for.
Catch you tomorrow.
Hi RG and others. Thanks for making representations to the Chairman on my behalf; maybe I need to grovel to him but, then again, I might as well buy him a pint. I'm sure he deserves at least one for his EPS work.
ReplyDeleteI believe I have solved the cement-mixer lorry mystery! But first, a Have I Got News For You type of question.
What links Chatsworth, radiogandy, an Irish blog by someone living in Basel, Art Basel 38, and Copenhagen? The answer is.....
Flatbed Trailer, a sculpture made from Corten Steel, measuring 4.6x22x2.6m (just for Bungus - no 50p piece needed), by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye and currently on show at Chatsworth. It was shown at Art Basel 38 and pictures can be found on www.kopenhagen.dk/billeder/reportage/art_38_basel_public_art_projects
There's also a picture on www.irishblogs.ie/search/basel
Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror was also at Art Basel 38.
Wim Delvoye is, says Wikipedia, "...a Belgian conceptual artist known for a number of unconventional projects..." which includes tatooing pigs (and why not?). They show a rather good snap of his gothic excavator.
How educational is this blog getting?????
Enjoy.
Rob
Thanks AnonymousRob for ruining my little deceit (see later). I wasn't far off about the size, I think? But I would never have thought of fooling anyone into thinking that someone would tattoo a pig!
ReplyDeleteI don’t feel I have enough info on RG Picture 1.
Is it a sculpture or objet trouve? Whatever, I like the resemblance to a rather amiable dinosaur.
I certainly think you should take a Thermos of coffee on your trips out. We have one you could borrow which holds nearly a gallon. You would need another shoulder bag or rucksack to carry it in, of course.
Already I can picture you in drag as Mother Courage. Not a pretty sight.
No doubt that 'War Horse' was, as you say, 'previously in an infinitely better location'. From the photo I would not have realised it was a Frink (nor the Walking Lady). It looks previous, almost Napoleonic.
All right, I have to come clean.
The Ravi Nahindra story was a spoof. I thought I had possibly given too many clues. Perhaps in future I should use inverted commas or “as Ianni Armano says in ‘Appropriate Title’:…?
It is something I have long practised, without malice or ill intent (probably most successfully in the 70s in an after dinner speech at a Sutton-in-Ashfield Round Table Charter Night when I spoke of and recited a ‘recently discovered, long lost epic poem about the Miller of Sutton’ and was afterwards asked by the chairman of a Derbyshire Table “Would you speak at our Charter Night? If not I’ll get George Brown (the frequently tired and emotional deputy PM of the time).
It is something which perhaps comes from reading Beahcomber (as a child) and later such as Spike Miligan, Craig Brown and Armando Iannucci, and also from watching ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’.
I suspect the secret of foreknowledge, premonition, astrological predictions, or whatever, is that one remembers the cases where they are correct and forgets the larger number that are complete rubbish.
I think you have captured what you essentially intended of the wind-surfer. Just a pity (for me) it is not more contrasty; but without evening sun or powerful floodlights there is a limit to what can be done about that, isn’t there?
I like the shire horse. They always look so calm.
Echoing your experience, my mother used to recall, with affection, riding bareback as a small child on a plough horse on her uncle Harry’s farm (at Berry Hill? He had almost every farm around Mansfield in sequence from about 1910 to 1960). It seems that Gladys virtually had to do the splits and, the beast’s hair being so smooth and slippery, exert a great effort of will to stay on board by hanging onto its mane.
Re computer chairs etc: ergonomics is (are?) a wonderful thing and I am sure Tracy is right! You have made me think that probably my monitor should be 6” higher; I shall have to see what can be done to raise it (it is not practical to cut a hole in the floor).
Dan has said he will bring me a new(ish) monitor but has meanwhile suggested that I try unplugging from the computer and replugging (a variation on the classic repair technique beloved of computer technicians of pulling the plug from the socket and shoving it back in again).
After the disappointment of last week I gave Robbie Coltrane a miss. But, although I thought it a complete waste of time, I have top be honest and tell you that the Observer’s TV critic, Kathryn Flett (with whom I agree more often that not, even though she can’t spell her own forename properly) thought it charming – “…what a leisurely treat it was in the company of a (National) Treasure.”.
But I presume she’s a Londoner and therefore unaccustomed to provincial and rural oddities.
I did watch Rick Stein with the usual mixture of enjoyment, scepticism and revulsion. The soup which started with ‘a pile of lamb fat in the bottom of the dish’ sounded particularly foul. I would much prefer to eat rabbit (if not fox) droppings.
Checking a spoelling in the dictionary I came across the word 'assoil'. It is a verb but I am sure I shall find use for it as a noun.