Wednesday, October 15, 2008

WoW at RPS Exhibition - and Wollaton Hall.

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Being an RPS member I was relieved that the Exhibition of East Midlands Members in West Bridgford Library in no way caused me embarrassment.

The pictures were of a very high quality and only perhaps 3 were a little weak or clichéd.

Picture 1 shows Reg, Brian and Helen, closely scrutinizing a snap. And compared with the Nottingham and Notts exhibition at Brewhouse Yard there was no comparison, if you see what I mean. We didn't rush round and although each picture had a title/author card an Exhibition Catalogue would have been good. Even a single sheet to take-away or buy, would have been handy.

Excellent points were made - Both Reg and Brian felt that 'mounting behind glass' prevents keen photographers from enjoying the true quality of an image (due to reflections). Quite understandable though, in a public space like a Library.

After West Bridgford we went to Wollaton Hall where the refurbishment continues. There they have a wonderful approach to photographers. And that is "You are welcome". The name above is a live-link so please give it a click.

In my opinion the National Trust is unnecessarily strict and stuffy with their 'No Photography' rule. I know all the arguments on both sides. But even 'Compacts only,and then just for the last hour of opening' would be better.

The refurbishment is classy. The object is to reproduce how it would have been in Tudor times. They succeed remarkably well. It wasn't stuffy, precious age - there was a certain healthy vulgarity. This detail from the roof is typical. This picture was from close to a small pipe-organ on which Handel played. Wowee ! Positioning and reflections in glass prevented any reasonable sort of snap.

Also, Wollaton Hall is the 'disabled person's friend'. User friendly lifts, plenty of seating, plenty of helpful staff who are ready and keen to help without being 'patronising' etc.

After Wollaton Hall we adjourned to the Nelson and Railway at Kimberley for the statutory Chip Cob. If you click on the title you will be taken to their very workmanlike website. Plenty of pictures, info, and links. What could be better ?

And, as you can see from the snap on the right,the chip-cob was a first class effort too. A shame Incy Wincy didn't turn up, he would have enjoyed the whole day.

Comments

bungus ..... Apart from delivering/collecting Y from the Tram tomorrow, I am planning an 'at home' day so, if you are in, I will ring you - probably in the morning. We don't want your brain to suffer atrophy.

You are probably reading my 'confused' comments correctly. If it is satisfactorily confusing, so much to the good.

Lucky old you with the butcher and a pig's cheek. Is brawn to be made ?

Haven't watched the current Book Quiz and we are hoping to catch it on iPlayer. I agree that A.L. Kennedy does 'trance' rather well. I remain impressed with Kirsty Wark. And Daisy Goodwin and David Aaronovitch are quite good - in my humble opinion. Y often 'gets' the novels and I'm regularly surprised at the poetry they don't know. Good fun though, and for me, watcheable, which is rare.

I know nothing about Higger Tor but I suspect that anonymousrob does, and probably Roy.

Another snap of the living mixed-salad may be necessary because something looking rather like swiss chard has germinated.

Re your comments to several - about Herring Milts. I have never found the soft-roe bland. Maybe because I season them well and then flash-fry them in a butter/olive-oil mix.

And I have always enjoyed 'real' kippers - grilled until the skin comes smoothly away from the downside. I also scrape off the fatty bits you sometimes find on commercial kippers. All those bones keep me occupied while I pore over the morning Xword puzzle. Y doesn't mind because she doesn't like me too cheerful and noisy at breakfast-time. And I have to have tea, in preference to coffee with them.

Jill ..... Please see comments above re our joint lack of knowledge about Higger Tor. Such an unusual name must have history associated with it. Maybe Joan's Chris will know. His sort of thing.

We all hope the dentistry passes without undue pain and is successful.

Hope your Bristol trip works well. I will try to keep them in order while you are away.

4 ticks ....... Sorry we were blocking you in this morning. You only needed to say and we could have parked so as to allow you to use the drive.

We are rather similar to you with regard to regular commitments. Burton Joyce, National Trust, Monday mornings 'blood test' Thursday evening EPS and so many more. But, to live a well-stocked life is good.

Rather like Reg, I am traumatised if I miss WoW. It really is a highlight.

I well remember 9d 'pictures'. No bus-fare necessary, both within comfortable walking distance. In Ashbourne there was the classy Elite on the market-place and the 'bug-hut' Empire down near the Station. We used to go on Saturday mornings and there was always a B film in support of the main one. Plus, of course, the Pathé or Gaumont News with the presenter having that unmistakeable voice and throw-away delivery style.

Quotation slot ..... Y spotted this one because she has quotes on her home-page.

"I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them"

Jane Austen

Tomorrow is Burton Joyce day for Y and I'm planning a one-day 'retreat'. Unless, in the evening I feel an irresistible desire to do something active I aim to give EPS a miss. It isn't that I don't feel the need to support Reg - I do - but I don't fancy the subject, and I can do with the rest.

I feel bad about raiding Matt two days running but, as Jill says, he has been brilliant just lately.

In conversation with Helen this morning the question of newspapers arose.

I'd been having a gripe about The Telegraph's misleading headlines, sub editors imposing article headers that were eye-catching but inaccurate for the story etc.

My support items were the Crossword, Matt, Richard Dorment and Andrew Graham Dixon on Art, Sandy Toksvig at weekends and others who I enjoy.

And we couldn't read The Grauniad - that's the poly-lecturers' paper 'innit ?

Sleep tight and I'll catch you tomorrow !

n.b. for new readers, or old readers who have forgotten. Things in orange and underlined are links - click them and you will be transported to never-never land.

If you left-click a picture you will get a fullk-screen enlargement. Get back either by closing the page, or using the green page-back arrow at the top left,





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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can sympathise with Reg and Brian about 'mounting behind glass'. Apart from possibly blurring the essential deatails of intimacy, it makes it difficult to photograph pictures.
It is, of course, possible to obtain non-reflective glass although it is quite a bit more expensive. I once bought some for a special picture. I measured it in Imperial, then thought the glass supplier might prefer metric, so remeasured.
The details escape me, but I ended up with an expensive piece of glass, 2” (or 50mm) too short for the frame.
Rather than take another trip into Mansfield, I gave up (the glass warehouse, incidentally, was on Skerry Hill in the building formerly The Rock cinema, mentioned later).

Sorry to spoil your party (or ‘wee in your ale’, as they say) but I don’t care for the Disney-decorated Wollaton Hall boss you picture. Too gaudy for me, having been brought up not to ‘show off’. Apart from the decoration, I am not taken by the form either.
Still, you can suit some of the people…

What a huge plate of chips!

Sorry not to have been in when you rang, as I shall have missed the stimulation of solving the cryptic clues to whatever it is that you intended to go on about!
But King’s Mill and Lidl had priority (more tomorrow).

Not brawn (don’t like savoury jelly). I casseroled the cheek to a French recipe (very simple; only other ingredients are shallots (onions) and dry cider) but have yet to sort it out.
All I can say so far is that I sampled a bit last night and it was far too rich for my palate so I think I shall have to turn it into rissoles (or, more correctly, croquettes) by adding it to a (homemade) stuffing mix. It’s that or paté.

The Book Quiz is certainly watchable but, on one viewing, I prefer University Challenge or The Buzzcocks.

Do I take it that you consider milts to be strongly flavoured then? What about brains, etc?

I prefer my kippers gently heated through in water rather than grilled (less salty).
Like you, I remove excess fat and cannot understand why the boil-in-the-bag ones are considered to need butter (which I pour off). Butter on smoked haddock, yes; but that is a dry fish.
And I agree about tea being the appropriate accompanying drink.

I recall the ‘Tuppeny Rush’ visits to The Rock on Skerry Hill at Mansfield although it was thre’pence by the time I was old enough to go. I used to pay sixpence and go upstairs anyway.
But when the downstairs was full they would send all customers up to the balcony and when the seats up there were full, kids sat on the steps. Today’s Fire Regs enforcers would be quite rightly horrified.
I remember the serials most of all – ‘Flash Gordon’, ‘Buck Rogers’, ‘Scouts to the Rescue’ (which had Red Indians!) and ‘The Lone Ranger’ (‘Who was that masked man?’). There were also films with Gene Autrey, the 3 Stooges, the Dead End Kids and Edgar Kennedy. And Eldorado Ice-Cream at the interval.

I’m now going to be a bit picky (I am sure you will think).
To me, the quotation is ambiguously phrased in that it could be taken to mean that people being agreeable is what saves the trouble of liking them.

I think your comment about the The Guardian is a bit sniffy (not the misspelling which is well established and amusing). It was the reading expected of USBy and WOSBy candidates and one of my oldest and best friends was a poly-lecturer!
I agree about the Telegraph crossword being ‘the best’ and Matt is invariably very good too. But I would match the Observer’s Victoria Coren against Sandy Tokswig.
I have received my first free issue of ‘The Week’. First impression is that it gives a pretty good overall summary of the news. It is unbiased as it consists of extracts from other newspapers of all colours – ie, it plagiarises.

Jill :
Hope the dental treatment turned out to be not too horrific.

4 TICKS:
I am just beginning to warm to my new dentist. At least he gives a running commentary explaining what he is doing.

'Camera Angel' was no more than a typo for ‘camera angle’. I just thought there must be such a creature and I was looking for an obvious candidate.

I made the cake last 3 days. I was helped because only 2 slices went to anyone else.

I can recommend the Dorset Apple Scone recipe. It is very quick and if, like me, you like the 'everyday' plainer sort of confectionary (scones, rock buns) it goes down very well.

Yes, it probably was me who mentioned Westgate.
During the war we would walk from school (QUEGS) queue for chips in the alley that ran from Westgate to Stockwell Gate and then queue for the pictures.
Immediately post-war, a friend and I would go down town on Saturday mornings and have coffee in the first floor café of the Plaza (later Granada) cinema, now part of the 4 Seasons, which overlooked the bustle of the street.
In the 60s, I frequented the Old Eclipse, which was immediately across the road, and became a close friend of the landlord. His sister-in-law worked in the cinema and we used to get in for free, nip out for a pint at the interval, and back in again. I remember us laughing out loud for ten minutes, setting off each other, as wekll as others in the audience, when Inspector Clouseau charged through a door, across the room, and out of the opposite full-height windows and into the river in ‘Shot in the Dark’. That was at the time when the groups (Beatles and all) came to the Granada on their tours – but I never went to see them although I did see the Beatles in Nottingham. I say ‘see’ advisedly because it was impossible to hear a thing above the screaming.
I don’t remember Atkinson's, only Home & Colonial on the corner of the Market place and Beecroft’s (not Beattie’s) Milk Bar at the top end. I think only Linneys remains on that side but Woollies, M&S and BHS are still trading opposite.

I am sure David would make you very welcome at Durban House. Please give him regards from Sandra and myself (she was his PA when he was the boss at Boughton Pumping Station and has been over to Eastwood a few times to help him out in the kitchen and foh).