Monday, July 09, 2007

commemorating the abolition of slavery here in 1834




a lot of crack and rumble above putney heath this afternoon ... puts you in mind of william shakespeare

























Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head!

And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!
























I conjure you, by that which you profess,—

Howe’er you come to know it,—answer me:

Though you untie the winds and let them fight

Against the churches; though the yesty waves

Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though bladed corn be lodg’d and trees blown down;

Though castles topple on their warders’ heads;

Though palaces and pyramids do slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure

Of Nature’s germens tumble all together,

Even till destruction sicken; answer me

To what I ask you.
























If by your art, my dearest father, you have

Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,

But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,

Dashes the fire out.

O, I have suffered

With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,

Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,

Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock

Against my very heart.

Poor souls, they perish'd.

Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere

It should the good ship so have swallow'd and

The fraughting souls within her.

Monday, June 25, 2007

"it is thinking about raining"


vera the traction engine, asleep in ashdown forest








vera is pulling a residential trailer AND an old land rover which seems to be used as a shed on wheels for tools, firewood, coal, etc ... and why not ?

outside the british library



Sunday, June 24, 2007

turning the pages at the british library web site


the "sacred" exhibition at the british library has some of the most marvellous books in the world for you to get up close to, but don't despair if you can't get there, just click on to their link and soon you'll be turning the pages yourself


life-sized figures on each side of the front door at the new "wellcome collection"



"she had a heart" from the excellent heart exhibition in the new "wellcome collection"




sorry to tell you it is a poor reproduction of a luminous & rather mischievous painting by a spanish artist, enrique simonet lombardo



the exhibition is worth travelling for, although you'll need an iron constitution to sit through the spectacular film of heart surgery, and it is just along the street from the fabulous "sacred" exhibition at the british library



both exhibitions are free




an abandoned gallstone