the kiss principle

many years ago, a geordie feller gave me a job in the silicon chip design business

so i was quite surprised when he turned out to be a real high flyer

then he introduced me to his mate, a real live professor from california ... who turned out to be another geordie

the first design principle they taught me was THE KISS PRINCIPLE

... "Keep It Simple, Stupid !"

of course, it turned out to be an aspiration rather than a rule

the universe abhorrs a vacuum and life is the antithesis of simplicity

i dedicate this picture to their laughter ... and to their memory

archie and son

passing by the albert memorial

double glazing at the albert hall

the royal college of organists

wet and windy kensington gardens

all saints at crowborough

whew ! a tragedy ... fabulously filled with fun and poetry and beauty

gallery talk ... what's a pretty girl like you doing in a fetid compost of decadence such as this ?

this urn is one of a set of four ... when i rule the earth i can have one in each corner of the scullery

oh, those gruesome victorians ... truth plucking out the tongue from falsehood

gardeners' question time ... name these ten foot monsters in the courtyard of the V&A

in the great courtyard at the V&A ... the apotheosis of the working classes ?

fishing tackle shop by south kensington underground station

still reading moby dick, so i nip in to the natural history museum ...

... to look at the whalebones

paul schofield ... michelangelo

check out the late great paul schofield in this one-man play about michelangelo

the wednesday play, frost in florence, by david pownall

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/afternoon_play.shtml

stop press: my brother greg is setting out soon to walk from biarritz to santiago de compostela ... you'll need an 'at, bruv

... and so, even though little red riding hood had chosen the path "less traveled by", the pub was still shut

... actually, the idea of little red riding hood encountering the green man might enchant other fans of "the thinking man's lightly toasted teacake", ms marina walker

stuff between westminster and victoria

elementary, my dear watson ... the man we seek is a self-taught artist with an astigmatism ... who has just caught the night bus to kingston

dreaming

… dreamed I was cycling through Kent very early on a warm misty cuckoo morning & passed through a village of huge stone buildings festooned with ornament & coats of arms that might have looked more appropriate in Whitehall or Santiago. Perhaps I was thinking of the venerable public school we deliver cheese to in Tonbridge. The air was filled with birdsong, no human was to be seen or heard, there were masses of laburnum & ivy & virginia creeper everywhere, & families of deer tiptoed daintily on the tops of walls & on every ledge to tear off & feast noisily upon their juicy boughs …

garlic on toast

i used to share a kitchen with a lovely feller named robert stredder who ate garlic as if it were fruit ... there was uproar one sunday morning when i bit into my toast and realized he'd just used my shiny new breadknife to chop his little mountain of garlic

saturday ... time to practise my fruit cocktail makin'n'shakin skills

easily distracted

another flurry of snow coming down across the sugar loaf