a driver's fruitful break ... two lovely books from oxfam ... tunnicliffe and taylor

on epsom downs

eclectic's corner ... a delightful homage to gustave courbet on crowborough hill

and there is always this gem ... peter blake's "the meeting, or have a nice day, mr. hockney"

right to left ... howard hodgkin ?, peter blake, david hockney, daisy blake

and if you haven't yet been to venice beach ... there's still time

acquired with the help of a good woman who knows how to make a small box of chocolates last a fortnight

today would have been colin forward's eighty-fifth birthday

a handful of dust

After a life-time of hoovering,

... I am now reasonably certain that most household dust is of a feminine origin

… because nothing derived from the male could be so fine and fluffy

… ennit ?

drey making outside our kitchen window

if i start getting difficult ( in 20 or 30 years time ) just re-read this article by oliver james about dementia ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/02/oliver.james.dementia

from a short piece by hilary mantel in the guardian review

Sentimental people will try to convince you that stories, like the act of reading, are as natural as breathing.

They say that we are narrative animals, but the broken stories of people who enter psychoanalysis suggest that if stories are natural to us they are not easy to construct in a way that serves both our sense of personal continuity and our need for freedom.

A story is always on the move, and from the author's point of view there is nothing natural about it.

Constant readers become writers at the point in life when they acquire a fascination with a process of falsification: with imposing shape while simulating the evolution of character and event, making determinations while fostering an illusion that in the next chapter anything might happen.

A novelist spends a lifetime in the business of presenting what's life-like, but not like life.

It's a sobering thought - life won't actually do.

Verisimilitude and the truth are conjoined twins, one often flourishing at the expense of the other.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/02/fiction7

roll up, roll up, to the wellcome institute for skellingtons of old london

blue rosette for best teeth in show ...















http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/skeletons/galleries/WTD041693.htm



green rosette for oustanding success in the knobbly knees section ...












http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/skeletons/index.htm

essential bedside reading

freddy arrives for breakfast

aaah ! click on the link ... the boy done good !

http://lamiradadelmendigo.blogspot.com/2008/07/de-laxe-camelle.html

the sutton benger green man, the bamberg green man ... the putney green man ... design fiasco

good night pussycats, everywhere x

the trick is keeping the empty glasses and the full bottles of tonic in the fridge all through the summer

but cold fusion won't be achievable unless they use the correct tonic water

eternal optimism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_biloba

an ache ...

... that cannot ...

... be soothed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Bones_burial_ground

borough high street

cor blimey luv a duck ... an recent image borrowed from my brother dave's website

http://www.davidforward.co.uk/folly/folly01.php

home sweet home

job done !

http://emotionalblackmailers.blogspot.com/2008/07/eyesight-and-plain-text-aesthetic.html

ella fitzgerald, colette, and cyd charisse making themselves comfortable in the pantheon of fine wimmin

dear diary ...

... went shoppin'

when i rule the universe ...

my garden shed will look a bit like this ...

but with heroic carvings and scenes from the lives of ...

paul gascoine, georgie best and diego maradonna