lacquer and lacquer ... masterpieces from old japan

old tins

most of the victoria and albert's possessions are conserved in very low light conditions and it is hard to photograph them without a flash ( discouraged ) and/or a tripod ( forbidden )


flash makes everything look awfully cool with any icy blue sort of light so today i tried a method which is a bit like pressing your nose to the glass


i pressed the rim of the lens casing flat against the glass


this enabled me to hold the camera fairly ... but less than perfectly ... still for some very slow exposures ... but only where the objects were at a reasonably comfortable level above the floor and a suitable distance for focussing beyond the glass

file under "champagne: for the drinking of"

georgey boy

pomona lends a hand in plutarch's garden

lot ninety-nine, laydeys'an'gennermen ... as played by george formby

nothing like this old-fashioned clockwork in your argos catalogue

the dog is bored, but even the sheep are smiling

what is she reading ?

sweet and gentle

happy cranes

a masterpiece of "visual logic" from old japan

as they say in glasgow ... she's away with the fairies

and after you've hoovered ...

proust ... two down ... ten to go ... no, five, depending which way you look at it

peter porter writes about lawrence durrell in this week's tls

lime without the coconut, ( you're such a silly wo-oman )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbgv8PkO9eo

daniel jung's slide show ... preparing the basura sagrada before this year's burning man

i have wasted hours, days, even weeks, trawling the internet for pictures from the burning man festival and have found hundreds of great ones ... this link is for anyone who likes messing around with wood ... and stuff ... not that these artists are messing around, of course

http://flickr.com/photos/danieljung/sets/72157605654829884/show/

take notice ... in dennington church in suffolk

a little miracle ... i think the letters must have been painted originally but the paint has gone now and somehow the shapes of the letters have been raised above the surface of the wood

... on second thoughts, the un-oiled wood around the letters has shrunk ... 'twould be nice if something might be done to conserve this ephemera

the bardolph tomb at dennington church in suffolk

dennington church in suffolk ... the sciapod, a desert creature from the medieval bestiary with enormous feet with which it shaded itself from the sun

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

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

whacking a sprocket in to place at the end of a drive shaft for woodbridge tide-mill

correction: woodbridge not woodford ... thanks joe

fancy another cuppa ?

'twould have been difficult to fit fifty nine candles on this one

a rainy day in suffolk

please don't drop too many crumbs ... it only encourages them

wewuzzaway!

tls

the subscription for the times literary supplement is no longer affordable

i shall miss finding this logo on the doormat

the artist is peter brookes ... a studious and affectionate pastiche of thomas bewick

semi-enigmatic dreams

In the last week I’ve had a number of dreams that involved anger and confrontation.

This naturally follows a real-life verbal confrontation which took place at work and created some difficulties, but has since been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

In last night’s dream I was irritated by the inability of a young neighbour to control his pet, the size of a large dog, which kept chasing and annoying everyone. The surreal part of the dream was that the pet was a long-haired, pale lilac coloured, tarantula.

I now realize that my dream has a simple two-part explanation.

On most days, a young neighbour exercises three pit-bulls on the green outside our window without the slightest possibility of being able to restrain them if the need should arise; and there was a photograph in the news this week, taken from a BBC wildlife film, of an enormous and hairy bird-eating spider sitting comfortably on the palm of a man’s hand.

But where, oh where, did my spider’s long lilac coloured hair come from ?

Ah ! Maybe it was a snatch of thirty year-old sports footage I’d seen on a friend’s TV one day, showing the balletic wrestler, Adrian Street, in combat on an afternoon when his golden hair had been coloured purple to match his frilly and sequinned purple velvet dressing gown.

It has to be said that the egomaniac Adrian was a brilliant wrestler, so brave and quick that comparisons with pit-bulls and tarantulas seem entirely appropriate.

Now that the Olympics has gone professional, they might as well introduce Saturday Afternoon Wrestling as a medal sport, in line with dressage and synchronized swimming.

http://www.bizarebazzar.com/pedigree.htm

kermudjens' kwiz ... who was this incorrigibly facetious ne'er do well ?

... and who was his tailor ?

some card holders were unaware that tooting is not an adjective

professor esoterica conjectures ... was paolozzi's vision subliminally referencing a fatal incident in graceland ?

editor's footnote:

the professor had just come from boots the chemist ... having forked out £19.99 for some reading glasses in order to get a clear view of the minutae on display in the british library's magnificent ramayana exhibition ... and he he will be returning to the library for a third "peek"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/aug/23/art.ramayana

heavy weather

an early birthday present to myself

the plan is to read the whole thing before i am sixty ... then i can brush this master of padding ... who knocks joyce in to a battered trilby ... under the carpet for once and for all

fearless freddy's fine-weather friend fluffy forgot to wash his face this morning

as your eyes try to focus in the moments between awakening and feeling awake ...