A short blog only this evening because I am in bed with my laptop. My legs have been getting bad again and this morning Y saw me walking - or trying to - and ordered me back to bed.If they are like this with these pain-killer patches I shudder to think what they would be like without them. I'm not aiming to try. My day has been quite pleasant really - OneWord Radio nearly continuously and that's a link to todays schedule so you can see what I've been enjoying. Tim Piggot-Smith reading Michael Dobbs' Winston's War was superb.
Y also cossetted me with cups of tea, coffee, biscuits and for lunch "scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon" delicious. She gets the scrambled eggs just right - not easy is it?
No 'today's photographs' for obvious reasons, but I thought you would like to see Picture 1 which is a Cyanotype which AnonymousRob was kind enough to do for me from one of my Magpie Mine pictures. One can now do it digitally, because I don't like to think of him slaving away in a darkroom with baths of noxious chemicals. But he loves it and I can understand how with spending so much time on a computer at work it is nice to get into the darkroom at home. A bit like me and the kitchen.
I am to be allowed up to watch Claudia and It Takes Two and the later I aim to watch the Genius of Photography repeat. We watched and enjoyed Cranford - it was really an hour-long period costume soap-opera. But that isn't a big criticism because with the top-shelf actors and an interesting story line the hour passed very quickly. Elizabeth Gaskell was a much more humourous writer than I had realised. I am keen to hear the views of readers.
Quote of the day:-
"Bombazine would have shown a deeper sense of her loss"
Elizabeth Gaskell
Weird to think she wrote Cranford just thirteen years before my Gran was born in 1867. My Gran used to wear odd things made of bombazine. Maybe Jill knows about bombazine because that wiki link tells me it had a 'silk warp and a worsted weft' which sounds like Jill territory.
Comments Bungus. I know you have never quite recovered from Hopkins' "brinded cow" but the Freeman quote is as he spelt it with one exception. I admit a typo in leaving the 'e' out of 'lovelier'. Personally I thought that "the subtle spies of colour' was more redolent of meaning than 'spires of colour' would have been. Matter of poetic taste I s'pose.
Jill. I cheated and went back to the blog, after your comment. I left 'snadwich' though because I had eaten it by that time. I hope your boiled eggs and soldiers were just right. Re the photoshoppery artist. Abit like Bungus, if she says it is Art, then it is. The "Is it Art?" debate has always been rather sterile. The only important criteria is whether or not you like it, and whether or not it grabs your attention and works. What people decide to 'label' a piece has never, in my opinion, mattered at all.
Catch you all tomorrow.. Sleep tight. Off to watch Genius of Photography now.
5 comments:
Hope you are feeling better, abd willbe up and about for Wedensday. I must inform you that a delivery service for Chip Butties does not exist.
I need to go back to my instructions but, as I recall, making cyanotypes only involves applying a light sensitive coating which I have pre-mixed in a kit. All I need to do is apply it to watercolour paper with a syringe and glass coating rod.
I hope that doesn't sound critical, pompous, churlish or whatever, RG, as I realise you were expressing concern for my health and not being literal. You are right, however, I do enjoy darkroom work and find it a more creative process than digital.
As an aside, it took me all my persuasive skills at the chemists to buy a syringe from them. They were very reluctant even though I told them I wanted it for coating paper with photographic chemicals. I think they only sold it to me because I was wearing a suit. So, the moral is, wear a suit when you need to replenish your drugs paraphenalia.
I hope your legs are soon behaving themselves and doing the job they were made for; being legless when you don't drink doesn't sound much fun.
I'd be interested in learning more about bombazine - it sounds like a sweet (aka tuffy, sucker, goodie) from my childhood days.
Rob
With you on the period drama.
Sandra and I greatly enjoyed watching the first episode of Cranford last night. Well above expectation. There is much to be said for abridgment. It reminded me of Emmerdale in entertainment value, plot twists and contrasting characters from all the social strata. First class Sunday night viewing.
Can't get my head around 'spies of colour. 'Spikes of colour', yes.
Anonymous Rob's 'suits for syringes' reminds me of Nottm Writer's Group John in the 80's who achieved success on a 'Round Europe' students' rail ticket holiday by following the advice 'If you want a carriage to yourself, have a skinhead haircut'.
And, in Manchister (sic) sweets are called 'spice'.
Forgot to mention yesterday that I made the bread & butter pudding par excellence.
1 x ½” slice Panettone, buttered; 6 chopped dried apricots; 1/8 pint cream; 1 egg beaten with 2 tspn sugar plus ½ pint semi-skimmed milk; another 1/8 pint cream; grated nutmeg & sprinkle of sugar.
Overcooked by about 50% (ie, about 1 hour Gas Mk 4; by concensus ‘a good thing’) and served (in the absence of Baileys) with cream plus dark rum and Grand Marnier.
Absolutely delicious to the nth degree.
(The panettone had been bought before last Christmas, sliced, and kept in the deep freeze).
PS
Sorry you are bedbound. Hope it soon improves.
PPS
Re scrambled eggs: all a matter of taste. I am quite happy provided they are not in the slightest sloppy. Rubbery is fine!
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