Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Wheels - Rob's pictures - National Trust

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Rob was kind enough to e-mail me the latest version of his Lumsdale Bowl cyanotype. He felt, and I agree, that if readers can see Mk 1 and Mk 2 side-by-side it would help them to reach an informed opinion as to respective merit. As we discussed previously, in Art there is no such thing as a final version.

My own view is that Mk 2, on the right, wins by a short head...... Frames within a painting are nothing new, it is a favourite device of Howard Hodgkin who has recently been honoured by some prestigious award. The images under the link will give you some idea. Online and small doesn't give you a very good idea. Seen in the flesh they have impact !.

This morning, taking advantage of favourable weather I decided on a walk along the disused Railway Line at the side of the Headstocks. I also wanted to try out (for the first time) my heavy-duty wheels. ....Pictures 3 and 4 are self-explicit.

Their performance pleased me muchly. Having the ability to sit down for a rest, mess about with my tripod, lenses, etc., made the venture manageable and not painful. My range at least doubled and my walking pace considerably speeded up. And although not illustrated there were blackberries unpicked and I had a light lunch of coffee and blackberries. There was also lots of lovely dappled shade but I won't go rushing off to Gerard Manley Hopkins to quote the poem I quote most years....... But if anyone ..... here's a link.

On the subject of poetry, I've just received an email from Reg :-

"Incy Wincy Spider
Climbed up the spout
Down came the rain
and washed the spider out."

Our spouts are spiderless this summer
Reg

And we are working on the definitive version of "Incy Wincy, teeny weeny, yellow polka-dot bikini"

Comments

Jill ..... I understand now - about your vanishing comment. Computers are strange things.

It seems everyone who has responded received the reader-advice in 'webdings', or purple gobbledegook as you more accurately describe it. As you will see at the bottom, I have transcribed it into Arial in a Word Document. You won't need it anyway, it is designed for people who are not regular blog readers.

You assumed quite right that, at the stage you mention, I didn't know it was in the public domain. I have a button to click marked 'save a draft' which I use if I'm not ready to publish. But t seems that blogger.com is publishing at that point anyway.

Bungus ..... You make a sound point about National Service ! I suspect though, that at the time, there wasn't a high level of unemployment. I don't know what to make of it.

I like Sandra's concern over 'bungalow legs'. I've certainly got them.

Re getting your appointment date wrong - as the saying ges, there is always a liddle silver lining.

It's probably a dangerous thing to say but I am quite looking forward to the new Kings Mill Hospital building.

Newark Food Fair sounds good, and I enjoyed your account of it, especially the baklava. I assumed you were taking the pistachio. The food buys sounded exciting. I've never eaten ostrich and I'm keen to hear about it.

AnonymousRob ....... I suspect that, if one had an attack of the webdings, one would certainly know about it.

The absence of output from the Sports Desk is a matter of grave editorial concern. We are aware that, like The Sun, many people read this journal solely for the sports pages. They skim-read the rest.

Thank you at least for 'the results' - lovely touch !

And well clarified. Doesn't that involve dunking things in butter?

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I'm going to publish at this point and have a little tea prior to National Trust. I may return later, depending..................

Returned as promised - now 1030pm, well after my bedtime. National Trust went well. Good lecture, good pictures, good bloke. He's only been head-gardener for 3 years - has already achieved a lot and loads of ideas for the future.

He is working closely with Clive the Chef and growing older varieties for taste, not longevity and toughness to withstand travelling. I would estimate the distance fruit and veg travel is around 150yards. The Restaurant is good, Y and I have eaten there recently and it is altogether exiting high quality nosh ! ..... Just like it was in 1772 I guess, when the walled kitchen garden was created.

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Sleep tight - Catch you tomorrow.


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p.s. Please click here for Blog reader advice. Sorry the earlier notes were in Webdings.

p.p.s. Incy ..... Your comment has been 'clocked' and will be responded to tomorrow.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you had tracks instead of wheels on your gizmo you would have had a all terain gizmo.
Be careful what you say about Incy Wincy especially if your name is miss Muffet.
I think you'll find that the Goldcrest is Britains smallest bird and not the Wren as previously stated

Anonymous said...

Some of these comments should be from yesterday's entry, sorry. The Kevin Whateley thing - thought it was OK, but had a bit of a problem sorting out the relationships. The wife was Cracker's side-kick Panhandle if that makes sense!

Thanks for the tip regarding the purple things - and for how to save my comments.

That wheelie thing you have G looks very useful, I could do with one of those. Am going to an exhibition/show all day Saturday, I hope there are plenty of chairs, or I shall be sitting on the floor again.....if you lved nearer I should be borrowing it!

Ostrich - we once went on a trip to an Ostrich Farm somewhere in South Africa, we hd lunch where every dish (except for the pudding! - ice-cream) ws made of ostrich - we has ostrich soup, ostrich pate, ostrich omelette, ostrich steak. Enjoyed the first three, very rich, found the steak a bit tough, a bit gamey.....some of the people didn't want to eat any of it, we had been watching baby ostriches hatch, and then played with them when they were running around, they didn't fancy eating them! Their skin when de-feathered is like soft leather, they had handbags and purses made out of it.

Do you know, I might have made those batter puddings from SR flour? Poppy sorted everything out into containers,they are only labelled 'flour'. I never thought of that.

I like the second photo best too, though to my untutored eye there is not much to pick between them.

I went to visit my friend in hosp. today, she was told by doctor (first time she had seen a doctor for 6 days) she could go home tomorrow, then Social Servies came round and said she couldn't, as they had not fixed the handrail outside the front door (one shallow step) and this wouldn't be done till next week, and she could stay in hospital until then. What a waste of a bed. Luckily son and daughter-in-law came round, got their builder to talk to ss person and he is doing hand-rail tomorrow, so hopefully she can go home Thursday. It will be 4 weeks Saturday. She has lost at least half a stone, clothes are hanging off her.

I do like the idea of chimneys in the brick garden walls so that peaches can be grown. I didn't know about that.

Anonymous said...

I prefer the revised cyanotype but there isn’t a lot in it (the first is very very good) and I think it a bit of a pity to have lost the touch of darkness at the bottom corners and top right, but, hey!
A Howard Hodgkin frame, as in his left hand picture second row down, might work? (see email for indication)

Glad you coped with your (ad)venture in the woods. You must be a fearsome sight coming downhill full throttle.
The vision puts me in mind of the terrifying scene in the first Hannibal Lecter film, Michael Mann's ‘Manhunter’(based on ‘Red Dragon’ and starring Brian Cox as Lecter) where the reporter is tied in a wheelchair, set ablaze, and sent on a run down the spiral exit of a multi-storey car park.

She wore “… an Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka-dot bikini"

My National Service comment arises from my discovery that The Black Panther (murderer of Leslie Whittle and several sub-postmasters, apprehended by chance in Rainworth) acquired his survival skills and killing techniques as a National Serviceman fighting the Mau-Mau in Kenya. And garrison towns have always been notoroiously violent places.

I discovered that my original hospital appointment was for this Tuesday but a letter had been received changing not only, as I thought, the TIME, but also the DATE.

Speaking architecturally I am not yet quite sure about the outside of the new Kings Mill building; it is perhaps a bit brash for me. It is certainly OTT in that it adds dramatically to the skyline.
The interior, however, is impressive. Worth a visit. I’ll take a couple of pics next week.

Yes, honey, I was nuts about the baklava.

I like the ethics of the Welbeck catering but, having praised your writing skills yesterday, I must take exception to your use of ‘exit’ as a verb (or did you mean ‘exciting’ high quality nosh?)

Rob:
Hope you don’t get webding nerves on Saturday. Nobody would be able to make sense of your slurred speech.

I may have more to say about the Stags (very respectable draw away at York) after reading the Wed Chad. The football on TV so far has not set me on fire; esp that pathetic England performance.
I know Keegan is impulsive and too honest for his own good but I think he’ll be better off out of it. Who else will want a bit of that while the present regime rules? Dennis Wise? Surely not Shearer?
But what about Man City? If Middle East money talks as loudly as Russian, I reckon Liverpool and Arsenal can say goodbye to the top 3.
You mention eating all the pies. Had you realised that pi is two teams divided by seven.
I reckon Ackee and Saltfish were unlucky. An excellent performance for a newcomer.

Jill:
How would you manage without me?
Webdings and batter puds sorted. The doctor is IN, as it used to say in Peanuts.

I got caught in the great ostrich scam of the 80s. All Stephanie’s fault (she was in her teens and said “Bob could do with one of those.”). The scheme was run from Rufford with a posh HQ at Mansfield by the cheating chappie who owned the Ollerton video shop. I think he ended up inside –he certainly deserved to in most folk’s opinion.
I was lucky in that I had only paid the first instalment of some £350 on my one ostrich before the thing collapsed. Some people invested their life savings of many thousands of pounds and kissed goodbye to the lot – nothing for investors when the thing went bust.
I will report tomorrow on how my steak turns out. The stall holder said it is very easy to overcook, making it tough – max 2 ½ min each side.

Anonymous said...

Incey-wincey:
Yes, you are quite correct, of course. It is now accepted that the Goldcrest is the smallest British bird. But in the 1930s/40s I think everyone grew up with the belief that the Wren was the smallest.

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine was sent down a few years ago (only for about four months or so) and he served his time at North Sea Camp; before Jeffrey Archer, I think. I'm sure when my friend was there he said there were some people in who had been done for something to do with ostriches. I must ask him on Saturday.

North Sea Camp is now an 'open' prison (Category D) so if it was your cheeky chappies, Bungus, they got a long stretch, longer than Pierrepoint would have given 'em. So I don't think it could be the same people.

I used to play football, once a season, at North Sea Camp when it was a borstal or whatever the correct name was. As far as I know it was a staff team only; no inmates. I remember turning up there for a game one day and it was really cold and wet. Soon after we arrived a Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner type of person appeared. T-shirt and shorts, no plimsolls (as they were called in those days). "Why is he running barefoot?" we asked. "Because he forgot his plimsolls" was the reply. "How far do they run?" we asked. "Right round the horizon, as far as the eye can see" was the reply. "But aren't you worried about them escaping?" we asked. "No", was the reply, "there's bogger all out there."

At primary school in the 50s we were taught that the Wren was the smallest British bird. We were also taught that Florence Nightingale was the heroine of the Crimea and the person introduced modern nursing methods. No one told us about Mary Seacole.

Personally I had hoped the Stags would do better against York who are facing mid-table mediocrity. Still they did come from behind and a point on the road is always welcome. On transfer deadline day I was driving home from Rushden (Northants) listening to Radio 5. The announcer said they'd had a text or e-mail from someone who said "Who's going to be brave enough to tell the Sheiks they bought the wrong Manchester club?" In reporting the news they said the Abu Dhabi group "wanted to make City the biggest club in Europe and the biggest club in Manchester." I always thought City were the biggest club in Manchester because, according to their fans, United are not in Manchester. I can't decide whether my response should be Whatever or Does this face look bovvered. I think you are right, Bungus, Liverpool and Arsenal will struggle to keep up. As for Newcastle........the mind boggles but it seems things are pretty much the same at West Ham. Is Haslam holding seminars on how to run a football club?

Rob

Anonymous said...

Re the UK’s smallest bird the goldcrest shares the honour with the firecrest which is similar but more rare. It has rather brighter plumage with a white eyestripe and an orange flash on its head similar to the goldcrests, which is yellow.

I too like Rob’s blue pictures but I know he will agree that they are not true cyanotypes. Of course I know that Rob, as a skilled darkroom worker can produce real cyanotypes but of course like other photographic processes digital has made them so much easier to reproduce. A bit like digital infra-
red , and I’m sure Incy Wincy will agree with me here, it just ain’t the same.

By the way when the sun came out Incy Wincy went “up the spout again” so keep your eyes open Reg, you may get lucky. On second thoughts maybe not this summer!

Incidentally I met up with two friends who live south of Brum whilst on holiday and I mentioned the word “gansey” One knew it well but the other had never heard of it. The family of the one who had originated from the Black Country and bearing in mind that many Black Country ironworkers moved to Notts/Derbys with the expansion of the industry into this area it made me wonder if it was originally a Black Country expression.

Re ostrich meat there is a weekly stall on Cambridge Market which serves ostrich burgers and they are delicious. He always sells out.

Mention of the Newark Food Fair reminds me of a visit we made several years ago. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We bought a round of haslet I think made by a butcher in North Notts which was unlike any other we had tasted. Does anyone else like haslet? We buy it occasionally from Morrisons and Sainsburys but its not quite the same.

Roy

Anonymous said...

I also know someone who had the dubous pleasure of spending some time coutesy of her majesty at North sea camp(Drink driving), What was amazing before he went in he was scared to death, On his release he told me he loved every minite if it, His job was looking after the sheep on the farm. This came as a shock as we exepected him to have hated It and be a deterent to him drinking again.