Having discussed the John Singer Sargent of the children in the garden with their amazingly illuminated lanterns, I thought I ought to track it down and share it. It is in the Tate and the effect when you stand in front of it is breathtaking. My reproduction can only hint at the apparent incandescence of the lanterns. The title is "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" which must be the names of the flowers, or the girls I guess. For some reason it reminds me of the famous 'hoax' photo of the fairies.I'm happy enough to use it to grace these pages, as it is in the public domain (i.e. its copyright has expired). I shudder to think what a Nempf judge would make of it....(that's enough of that..ed.)
Picture 2 is one of my newly arrived Siskins breakfasting in the pouring rain. They seem to like the nyger seed as much as the goldfinches do and their beaks are narrow enough for the specially desgined slot in the feeder. The sparrows, greenfinches, and particularly the starlings have no chance.
Thank you all for your 'group names' for birds suggestions, and I ask our lady readers to excuse this silly nevergrownup lad-talk about the 'tits'. I think Bungus that 'brafull' isn't subtle enough. And AnonymousRob's 'gymnasium', 'demolition', and ' education' (although from sound and witty reasoning) are a tad boring. His 'Jordan' leads by a neck, in my opinion. My suggestion of a 'handfull' is perhaps too coarse.
Yesterday's Xword. You were right Bungus, it was 'deserted' and when you think about it, if we had assumed the comma between - "didn't stay, uninhabited" - we would all have got it.
As you know this blog has always supported Banksy in his quest to liven up boring places, plus of course the sheer brilliance of his Art. The buzz in the art-world (confirmed) is that a 'piece' of his on a concrete wall has just been sold at auction for £200,000 sterling. Sparing no google on your behalf I tracked it down to the Portobello Post.
In explanation, it isn't a photo of him doing his 'tag'. The painting is a jokey 'him with his pallette, doing his tag'. Andy will love it. Being a talented graphic artist himself he recognises near-genius when he sees it. And so obviously does someone with a spare two-hundred grand, or with an eye to a sound investment, or both. Prolly Damien Hirst !
Quotation....... Not literary.... but witty...
"The cure for writer's cramp is writer's block"
Inigo Deleon
No Wiki page and although the quote appears all over google (260,000 pages) there is a dearth of biographical details. I checked the first 30 and then thought 'life is too short'.
Off for a mug of tea and a sandwich now. I'm running early. Good job I have some smiley's stored because 'clicksmilies' is down now, as well as smiley Xtra4. Hoping to go wowing tomorrow and, of course, Y returns. Sleep tight.
Off for a mug of tea and a sandwich now. I'm running early. Good job I have some smiley's stored because 'clicksmilies' is down now, as well as smiley Xtra4. Hoping to go wowing tomorrow and, of course, Y returns. Sleep tight.oooooooooooooooOooooooooooooooo.
Of coarse it is. AnonRob's 'Jordan' is good but how about a ‘treasure chest of’?
ReplyDeleteI have always been a fan of good graffiti and Banksy is good. People who regard it all as vandalism are not looking properly.
I googled collective nouns and found;
A vein of goldfinches
A clutter of starlings
A murmuration of starlings
(but no ‘vexation’ of anything).
It also threw up the following via a link:
“A group of specialists in collective nouns was in bar and observing a group of ‘ladies of the night’ came up with the following:
A jam of tarts
A flourish of strumpets
An anthology of English pros”
(I love the last one)
and, elsewhere,
‘A whored of prostitutes'.
And did you hear about the 20% dyslexic fellow who thought his garden was full of coots but they turned out to be ptarmigans.
From ‘The Observer Book of The Body’’:
‘A day without laughter is a day wasted’ (Charlie Chaplin)
and:
‘Ambrose Burnside, a union general during the American Civil War, wore side whickers with a moustache while shaving the hair on his chin. This look became known as the Burnside. This soon morphed into burnsides, meaning long streaks of hair running down the cheeks. Through a twist of logic unusual in etymology, by 1887the word had been switched to sideburns.’.
WE have siskins some years, but haven't seen them so far this year.
ReplyDeleteThat is one of my favourite paintings too.
Loved the Burnside story, Bungus, with his 'whickers' - any relation to Alan? and the collective nouns, but I much prefer a 'charm' of goldfinches.
Went to the cinema yesterday, saw 'The Jane Austen Book Club' - a pleasant, quite funny little film, but not in my opinion, worth turning out on a wet cold night to see it in the cinema. We go to local Arts cinema which is losing its Arts Council funding, they gave me a petition to sign when I collected the tickets, on which Jane Austen was spelt 'Jayne Austin.' Their petition spoke of them being 'an oasis of culture' - I pointed out the spelling etc. to girl at counter - who blamed the computer for making a mistake. Perhaps she thought I was too old to know anything about a computer, and I would believe her?