the albert memorial ... it's like the pearly gates without the pearls

noble savages and other visitors from the four corners of the earth at the albert memorial

albert memorial ... gottabe a lady poet

nice wood, nice glass at the ismaili centre in south kensington

happiness is ... a new leaf !

nice new truck, flat battery, grumpy driver

seen through the windscreen ... mallard infested thatch at bailiffscourt

i used to be THAT ticklish

it is too wet and cold to go out and spend, spend, spend

six a.m. ... will the neighbours mind if i play la vie en rose right now ?

a nice old wall at ockenden manor

Three insect mysteries from Spain

A disabled tarantula. It was a hot dry afternoon in late September. I had stopped the van where a narrow road crossed a slope of limestone scree at a high point on a remote road to the north-west of Guadalupe between Canamero to Navazuelas. We were above the tree line and whatever could grow there was not much more than knee-high. My companions for the day, very much in love, if temporarily, had wandered off to hold hands and converse, whilst a sudden movement close to my foot caught my eye and I looked down to focus on a small brown tarantula, maybe two inches long, that was running for its life, making lots of rapid loops and sidesteps, pursued on foot by a tiny black wasp. The strange thing was that the tarantula had only five legs, having lost two on one side and one on the other. I knew that there are parasitic wasps who will lay their eggs in a living spider & so my hopes were for the spider to escape, which he suddenly did by leaping upwards into a small clump of shrubbery, perhaps eight or nine inches off the ground, and hanging there by his two front legs in perfect stillness. The wasp was completely duped and ran around in angry circles for about a minute before wandering off in search of new prey. Why didn’t she know ? I called my companions over to see my new friend, but after a quick glimpse of him they instinctively felt they’d be safer back in the van, and so we drove on.

Processional caterpillars. In La Vera, on the southern slopes of the Sierra de Gredos, in March, whilst the weather is still quite cold, the hairy processional caterpillars ( thaumatopoca pityocampa ) let themselves down on threads of silk from the canopies of the pine trees to the forest floor. Never touch them or even disturb them without enormous care because their hairs provoke an intense allergic reaction. However, you can watch them gather and form their procession, each gripping the tail of the one in front, and marching off purposefully across the forest floor, the ones we saw numbered about seventy in the line. If you can find a long twig, place it gently under the belly of a caterpillar in the middle of the line and lift him gently until he releases his grip on the one in front. Immediately, I mean instantly, all the caterpillars in front will halt and they will wait until he rejoins the line. How do they know ?

part of the answer ...
http://web.cortland.edu/fitzgerald/PineProcessionary.html

Ants and peonies. I went in to a forest of small ancient evergreen oak trees for a pee, about three thousand feet up in the mountains. maybe forty miles north by north-east of Malaga, beyond the village of Alfarnate. It was about midday in March, but the sun was hidden and the weather was very cool. The forest floor was carpeted with wild peonies, at that point in spring where the tight spherical bud had formed at the top of the stalk not long before the flower opens. Bending down to look closer, I realized that on top of almost every bud there stood a single ant, one of those big ones whose head is so much bigger that its body. As you know, ants are busy & industrious, yet every single ant on every bud stood perfectly still. Why ?

Contextual information ... not an explanation ...

http://www.amjbot.org/content/89/8/1260.full.pdf+html

phenomenal ostentation at worships hill, riverhead

a little local colour just after dawn in nine elms

the ghost of edward hopper woz 'ere ...

your golden carriage awaits you ...

an inquisitive hostess at bailiffscourt

from the roadside at turner's hill towards the south downs

high above knightsbridge ... the twin goddesses of temptation and persuasion

i believe they may have been christened avarice and meretrice ... i'll have to check the parish records

A modest request

There is no afterlife, I’m sure, yet I often daydream there might be an infinite labyrinth of old passageways and winding staircases, connecting interesting sunlit kitchens to interesting moonlit bedrooms, candle-lit libraries to star-lit beaches. An eternity to watch and listen and understand any thing at any time in any place; I’d like to look over Debussy’s shoulder from writing his first score to his last, and have the time to follow every annual migration of every migrant creature that ever existed. And please, in my heaven, can I have the opportunity to dine and sport with everyone and anyone who ever was and to understand every word and every nuance of their conversation ? That’s all.

An important announcement ...

The loved one called me back to the bedroom this morning because she thought I'd like to know that a major lifestyle change is imminent,

"I'm going to let you do more for me, darling !"

a bit of local colour on a very gloomy morning

so i said to her, if you really loved me ...

... then you'd have set your alarm to kiss me every five minutes

plutarch's magpies and four perfect cartwheels

plutarch ( aka joe hyam, now's the time ) mentions magpies

as i was walking the short distance from the green man to the flat, along the northern edge of putney heath, at a point where the new greenery completely overarches the road, there was a furious screeching and croaking up among the trees and two birds who were literally locked in combat crashed down on to the road through several boughs of new leaves, a furious magpie clutched in the talons of an equally angry crow


as i drove slowly down through ringmer past the green, on my way from lewes to cowbeech, a young man who slumped on a park bench was apparently looking sideways to avoid the eyes of a tall & slender young woman who stood straight in front of him, "bolt upright" as if at attention

she was high-waisted with long straight hair and long straight legs

she didn't appear to speak, but she raised both arms with palms facing up, bent her waist sideways at an impossible angle, and then slowly turned a cartwheel with arms parallel & hands close together, coming upright some way off in the exact posture she had begun the move ... then she instantly performed the mirror cartwheel to arrive back at that point in front of him where she had started

and then ... she lowered one arm and repeated the first cartwheel one handed on her right hand ... and then changed arms, and cartwheeled back to him on her left hand

and then i had passed them and necessarily returned my attention to the traffic

a bridge over the river mole at mickelham

a small viper in ashdown forest

i'd like to have taken more pictures but she was blocking the traffic and i had to help "her" across to the other side with a twig

they'll be smirking in heaven ...

... now that the guardian have re-printed nye bevan's suez speech

http://www.guardian.co.uk/greatspeeches/story/0,,2060161,00.html

wem-ber-lee

the rusty bridge by battersea park station

one handed photo whilst waiting for the lights !

clever crow on the river mole downstream from leatherhead

may

the derelict post office at maidstone in kent

oxford

that darned cat ...

oxford market

so it'll probably be the pink nail varnish today, then ...

i've been fond of this song since about 1967 ... one of the great crowd scenes

They're selling postcards of the hanging,
They're painting the passports brown,
The beauty parlour is filled with sailors,
The circus is in town.
Here comes the blind commissioner,
They've got him in a trance,
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker,
The other is in his pants.
And the riot squad they're restless,
They need somewhere to go,
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row.

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets, Bette Davis style.
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says,
" You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave".
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row.

Now the moon is almost hidden,
The stars are beginning to hide,
The fortune telling lady
Has even taken all her things inside.
All except for Cain and Abel,
And the hunchback of Notre Dame,
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain.
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing,
He's getting ready for the show,
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row.

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window,
For her I feel so afraid,
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid.
To her, death is quite romantic,
She wears an iron vest,
Her profession's her religion,
Her sin is her lifelessness.
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow,
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row.

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood,
With his memories in a trunk,
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk.
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette,
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet.
Now you would not think to look at him
That he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup,
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up.
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole,
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul".
They all play on penny whistles,
You can hear them blow,
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row.

Across the street they've nailed the curtains,
They're getting ready for the feast.
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest.
They're spoon-feeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured,
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words.
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova Is Just Being Punished For Going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do.
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row.

Praise be to Nero's Neptune,
The Titanic sails at dawn,
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow,
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday,
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing ,
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention,
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame,
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name.
Right now I can't read too good,
Don't send me no more letters no,
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row.

an early bird ( i didn't like the way he was looking at me )

hazy

from The New Unexpurgated Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner

langres is in the champagne region

saint paul's