Monday, August 04, 2008

Quiet day - Lord Snowdon - INR level

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I haven't managed to complete my 'holiday snaps to Picasa Web Albums' project so here a couple of pictures to fill in. Above is part of the Lord Snowdon exhibition at the Dimbola Lodge Museum.

We had a great day there, and all keen photographers should make a visit.

The picture is a result of photomerging two, to create the effect of a panorama.

Picture 2 is from the Roman Villa at Brading and as I had mentioned the mosaic depiction of buildings I thought this detail might be of interest. Not only the building but a cock-headed man is shown.

The significance of this 'head' is obscure.

My blood test this morning was not good - INR still hovering around 5 (should be 2.5) and I have come back to bed to try and reduce the size of my ankles (working a bit) but I feel idle.

Last night we watched the Rene Zellweiger film about Beatrice Potter, but her portrayal was so annoying that I bailed out after 10 minutes. I have higher hopes about the Genius of Darwin programme this evening. Watched it - and although Richard Dawkins isn't a TV natural he made a tidy fist of it. We shall certainly watch the next part.

Comments

Mannaman ...... Nice to have you back. And thanks for the information about Jimi Hendrix and his guitar. Our readers really like these bits of detail.

Bungus ..... You know of old that, mostly, I share your view of how society and the world ought to be.

I'm not sure if the Robin is the harbinger of winter. I must google.

And I'm afraid I cannot allow you to claim authorship of “People who ask for advice usually want confirmation of their own opinion.” (me). The same point was made as long ago as Horace and as recently as Cardinal Heenan - but I can't easily track down the quotes. In the good Cardinal's case he substituted 'prejudices' for 'opinion', and the Horace was in Latin anyway, so who can tell?

Talking underwear - I think most red-blooded men remember the 'suspender-belt' with affection. Such a flattering garment I used to think. Not on me, I feel I must stress !

Jill ...... I do believe I agree about the pictures - "Lets hear it for chocolate boxes" shall become our motto.

Re the Lord Snowdon collection. Perhaps he subscribes to the fairly common view in these parts that "Not everything of significance needs to be in London".

We visited Lacock Abbey and the Fox Talbot Museum many years ago but I feel we ought to go again. One always spots something new and interesting!

AnonymousRob...... As you all have said the word for ladies trousers was 'slacks' and I never ever saw my mother in shorts, not even the once popular 'sans culottes'. Apparently nowadays even blouses are called shirts. Calling a man 'a big girl's shirt' would totally lack conviction.

The courses at Dimbola Lodge are still going strong, and there is a darkroom available should you get the urge while on holiday.

I mentioned pictures created by 'bullshit' only partly figuratively ----- Chris Ofili won the 1998 Turner Prize with 'Woman No Cry' which incorporated much elephant dung. Elephants, Bulls ? Whose counting?

Andy Goldsworthy is another 'user' and in 2007 had a major exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. If you open the link and click the 'previous' button you will see his 'Cow dung on glass'.

So when critics proclaim modern art to be "a load of bullshit" they are probably speaking from an unrealised authority !

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Sorry, no quote tonight - too tired.



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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Roman Mosaics - the one I know best is Fishbourne, outside Chichester, but certainly no representation of houses - nor, I think people? I seem to remember a lot of fish....

I saw the Beatrix Potter film in the cinema - it was OK, she gets to grow on you (or not) as film progresses.

I did not like the Charles Darwin prog. at all, and shan't watch the rest. The presenter really irritated me, he was so much the scientist, so authoritarian, so patronising to those school children. He may well know his stuff, but he is not a communicator! Of course children should know all about evolution, but no need to trample all over their religious beliefs either. It's possible to believe both - is it Alice who says 'I have sometimes believe six impossible things before breakfst'? No, it is not Alice, but it is one of characters in Alice.

You will have to rest up and get whatever it is they test down....we always come back from holiday completely knackered, and if very unlucky we both have streaming colds as well....though have noticed that not flying seems to improve the not having a cold situation.

Hope Y is well, and enjoyed her break?

Anonymous said...

I like the mosaic. The building is very nicely understated and vernacular.
Could the ‘cockhead’ be an ancestor of the numerous present-day ‘dickheads’?

Sorry the blood test was not good.
Dad’s Army has been much celebrated of late. As Fraser was wont to remark, “We’re all doomed”.
(I otherwise remember John Laurie, in some minor West Country horror movie, giving me a shock on a par with Magwitch leaping from behind the gravestone. I literally left my chair by about a foot.)

I saw about 3 seconds of the Beatrix Potter film before deciding I did not fancy it and switching to a rather obscure and slow-moving John Malkowitch video.
I would have watched the Darwin had it not meant missing Corrie (and University Challenge).

I wholeheartedly support the inclusion of snippets of information such as the Hendrix detail.

I have seldom doubted your humanistic credentials, despite your stated belief in the desirability of dictatorship (I quote you unfairly, of course!).

I had certainly never heard “People who ask for advice usually want confirmation of their own opinion.” when it first occurred to me. And ‘opinion’ and ‘prejudice’ are a fair way apart in Roget.
But it becomes increasingly difficult to be original.
Tomorrow I shall invent the whip & top.

You must mean ‘culottes’ or ‘split skirt’.
My French/English dictionary translates ‘culottes’ as ‘knickers’ and I have long believed that 'sans culottes' (without knickers) was a derogatory term used to refer to the bare-arsed harridans who reviled prisoners on their way to the guillotine. Nowadays I suppose it would be Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
Wikipedia does not accept this usage, however, but does have an alternative usage, viz:
"Soldiers of the Imperial Grande Armée incorporated the term 'sans-culottes' into their slang … to mean 'the Scots’".
I have just realised that 'Scots' is an appropriate abbreviation of 'Sans CulOtTeS'.

As the child of a hosiery framework knitter, I became au fait, at an early age, with the eroticism of seams and welts and the like. Now you have to create a picture of you in a suspender belt.
I won’t go on (the film has yet to be made); I haven’t had breakfast yet.

Yes, some chocolate boxes are very attractive.
But aren’t some Xmas cards appalling in their sub-Dickensian whimsy?

I suppose Gilbert & George couldn’t afford bullshit.

Anonymous said...

Hi Graham,
I'm back from hols too and glad to hear you enjoyed the IoW. I took a pic of a bay that looks just like yours except for the colour of the rock - we could do a twin pack of white and dark chocolates. Sorry to hear about the INR, hope it improves soon.
On the antique clothing theme, I remember a male teacher at school who wore suspenders on his socks - is that supposed to have the same effect on women as the suspender belt on men? We all found it highly amusing.

Anonymous said...

Helen:
I do not believe sock suspenders were ever considered wildly erotic.
Perhaps the 'American Smile' was too wide?
But there must be someone, somewhere...