Wednesday, September 24, 2008

three beautiful things

i wave one hand at a portugese colleague across the yard and place the finger tips of the other hand behind my ear whilst rolling my eyes towards the nearby railway viaduct ... a faraway steam train can be heard labouring up the slope towards wandsworth road from the yards besides the grosvenor bridge near battersea power station ... and then the billowing white plume of steam appears on high like a volcano in motion, followed by a momentary glimpse of the locomotive and some pullman carriages which instantly vanish again behind high warehouses

curtains of windswept drizzle sweeping across a luscious clearing in a wood whilst the sycamore leaves are fringed with raindrops

a brief text from the loved one at dawn which lists the appetizing menu for this evening's meal

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

all the world's a shallow grave ... or why education can never be as expensive as ignorance






slurp !!! .... any excuse to include a bit of art in pedants' corner


























amateur pedants, genuine lovers of ecclesiastical buildings, and over-educated art historians may have already noted the outline of a familiar building in the background of william hogarth's action-packed vignette of eighteenth century social problems ... do feel free to click on the link ...

http://emotionalblackmailers.blogspot.com/2008/07/back-to-saint-johns-in-bloomsbury.html





































these pictures are somewhat gratuitously displayed in celebration of the government's vaguely realistic and constructive attempt to further and to inform the national debate on alcoholism ... if you can stay in focus, do click on the link below before re-filling your glasses. cheers !


Saturday, September 13, 2008

two for joy


chartres clocks




pilgrim

in chartres, we met a tough australian who had just walked a huge chunk of the pilgrim's way from the french border to santiago


it was the first time i'd seen all the stamps which the pilgrims collect at each hostel on the route


now she'd come to chartres to study the labyrinth ... and she explained the difference between a medieval church's labyrinth and a maze ... the medieval church labyrinths have a spiritual or symbolic purpose possibly connected to the pilgrimage to jerusalem and they don't have dead ends


unfortunately the origins of their meaning were forgotten by the clergy and many were destroyed





























here's an uncredited image downloaded from wikipedia's article on the cathedral at chartres


chartres ... the old post office





any old irons






plusiers des any old irons





piss-ups and breweries, french style


courbet's great studio painting almost restored in the musee d'orsay