a bracing promenade ... but i'll stay in my nice warm cab

unkommon kritturs

seen near the arundel estate

maybe ...

http://www.thebeefsite.com/breeds/beef/61/english-longhorn/overview

bird talk

As I drove in to Ockenden Manor at Cuckfield on a dark day there was a commotion of a dozen blackbirds around the lovely high-walled lawn. They had gathered to harass a stranger, but seemed rather hesitant in the face of his/her own ebullient aggression. The only difference between them and him/her was colour … instead of being feathered purely in black, he/she was spectacularly piebald. I’d never seen a pied blackbird and was first startled and then enchanted. Sadly, my camera is away for repairs and I can only show you these vague images captured through a smaller lens … but you get the picture.

last saturday morning on clapham common ... there is an appeal for funds for tree planting

some stars, some stripes, chez micawber

this morning i was standing rarther listlessly at the kitchen sink trying to conjure up a suitably motivational role-model ...

hawthorn, yew, and some well camouflaged cherubs ... in fittleworth churchyard at sunrise

crossing clapham common with foxy

taking all the fun out of bath nights ...

a frosty morning

between cowfold and bolney, although the sky was clear and bright, my thermometer dipped to -9.5 degrees centigrade.

during the half hour or so of the school run, between making deliveries at christ's hospital school and at cuckfield, i stopped and pulled over to the side four times to give maximum space to oncoming vehicles whose windows and windscreens appeared to be impenetrably frosted.

by coincidence, each appeared to be driven by a woman with children in the back.

economy

all this week i've been driving with the fuel consumption display on and trying to stay light on the accelerator

during that time, i've got my average mileage per gallon up every day

at the start of the week it was about 14.6

today it was 18.2 which is not bad for a small truck

two kinds of swans trapped in the ice at southsea

the old bridge at stopham

near chelwood gate

about five cc of undiluted torres diez is burning a hole right through me

du temps recherches

on Sunday, instead of going out to do some casual work and even despite needing the cash-in-hand, i stayed home to read the last 250 pages of proust, starting in the wee small insomniac hours, and after a few diversions and interruptions, finishing just a little after bedtime

whew !

i'm very glad to have read it because there was much to entertain, enthuse, inform, amaze, and delight me, and even to stretch my less-than-elastic mind ... but there were times when he seemed "to go on a bit" and so i wished he'd hurry up and get to the point on several occasions ... however, overall impressions can be summarized as "hurrah, very well-done, and thankyou, a thousand times, dear marcel !"

99.9*% empty

the fancy dress store at clapham junction

glass from ellen

one year on ... shaun's leaving present remains his pride and joy

lovely ... skies in motion

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081231.html

clapham common ... foxy encounters, and is subsequently stalked by, mister curiosity crow

does anyone have the phone number for insomniac photographers anonymous ?

happy new year, pussycats ... everywhere !

peering through the window of a chandelier shop in dorking

delight yourselves at dulwich picture gallery ... now !

http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/exhibitions/now_on_show/what_are_you_like.aspx

http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/exhibitions/now_on_show/saul_steinberg_illuminations.aspx

honestly, i really did mean to send you one ...

breakfast is served, m'lud

just messing around

many thanx to my excellent brother dave for this photograph showing ...

an unknown lady, billy wheadon, the reverend arthur beaghen, and michael ramsey, archbishop of canterbury, in the churchyard at malmesbury abbey

http://emotionalblackmailers.blogspot.com/2008/12/doh.html





















i suppose that it was mr beaghen who was responsible for the renovations that destroyed the interior of saint mary's church, where thomas hobbes' father once officiated, and possibly it was he that binned the parish records, too, yet he always seemed to be the personification of kindness and goodwill

mr wheadon had a little hairdressing business in the south-west corner of the cross hayes or saint dennis's lane and i was taken there once or twice for a brutally quick trim that brought tears to my infant eyes

on the wall of his dilapidated salon was hung a pre-war photograph of him cutting a friend's hair in the lions' cage of a visiting circus

it is more than fifty years since he cut my hair, yet in all those years, and amongst all the really wonderful people i've encountered, it would be hard to think of two with as much life and good humour as messrs wheadon and beaghen

seasonal stuffs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/apr/12/featuresreviews.guardianreview21

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/arts/design/02kenn.html

christmas dawning

doh !

it took me 45 years to twig that my infant school's father christmas must have been the reverend arthur beaghen

the funny thing is that whilst i don't even need to close my eyes to recollect his appearance, and nor do i need silence before hearing the echo of his voice, i cannot lay my hand on a photograph of him ... yet ...

and a couple of days later ...

http://emotionalblackmailers.blogspot.com/2008/12/many-thanx-to-my-excellent-brother-dave.html

Uh ?

I’m not hard of hearing, just very slow to respond in most cases … except for that memorable time when I heard someone drop a small coin on the pavement in Brighton one afternoon, across six lanes of traffic in the Steine.

So I was surprised, whilst walking along genteel-urban brick-semi Lavender Gardens by Clapham Common one recent Sunday morning this December, to hear the sudden squeak of soft shoes on polished wood, and the thwack of willow bat on leather ball, followed by a gymnasium-nal echo, the character of which somehow placed the sound’s origin in a large subterranean interior.

I retraced my steps and peered over the low wall of a particularly smart double-breasted private house, and looked down with some astonishment through a large thick plate glass sky light on to an indoor cricket pitch, with nets !

And that set me thinking back to two other very odd auditory experiences from long ago.

The job centre at Chippenham once sent me to work with some geologists who were searching for natural gas beneath the Cotswolds. In a windswept field near Long Newton, we stood at the halfway point of a double line of microphones that had been set in the ground on short steel spikes and were connected by miles of cable to an oscilloscope/tracer in a cabin on a trailer.

A few yards away, a deep hole had been bored in to the porous waterlogged bedrock, and a charge of dynamite had been sealed into it. When the charge was set off there was hardly any sound, but I found myself running away instinctively because the ground had already trembled beneath our feet seconds before a great geyser of muddy water and stones shot into the air beside us.

I realised later that I’d begun to run even before being conscious of the explosion … I can only suppose it was a reflex action being processed in the brain’s core or limbic system.

And another time, cycling along near Hove sea front on a dark windy night, ( no, really, it was ! ) just as I passed a large perforated manhole cover, the air around me seemed to swirl suddenly and a profoundly deep echoing sound issued from the drain that enveloped me somehow, and seemed for all the world to suggest I was being swallowed whole within the gullet of some vast satanic monster. Helplessly, I felt a wave of tingling panic rushing over my skin.

Seconds later, reason told me there was a very large storm drain that runs for miles very deep beneath the street, and that the rising and falling of the sea would first force, and then draw, tons of water and air through it in time to the rhythm of the waves.