Thursday 27th August 2026, 3.10pm (day 5,481)
I don’t do “retail therapy”. I just needed a new pair of shoes. There’s a wedding coming up and certain standards are expected.
Shoes are needed
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
The subs’ bench
Wednesday 26th August 2026, 7.40pm (day 5,480)
On we go with year 16…. Now I have reached the advanced age I have, spending my birthday evening at non-league football seems quite the right way of going about things. And on such occasions, the substitutes’ benches are often good sources of portraiture. There is a mixture of enthusiasm, indifference and boredom on these faces, and we are only 10 minutes into the game, I’m not even sure how many of these guys eventually made it onto the pitch. But at least it was a win, and for those of us who have been watching Brighouse Town recently, there haven’t been a great many of those in recent seasons.
Women in my life
Tuesday 25th August 2026, 12.35pm (day 5,479)
Sister on the left, wife on the right. Between them, Vicki and Clare sort out as much of my life as anyone else these days. I think both of them have my interests to heart.
With this picture I have reached 15 full years of blogging — 15 x 365 = 5,475 and there have been four February 29ths. I started on 26th August 2011, my 42nd birthday (hence the title of this blog, in case you’d forgotten), and tomorrow, well, you do the maths. I suppose there have been some occasions when I have considered bringing it to an end, particularly on some days where, working at home or stuck in the office, I really have struggled to find anything particularly worth photographing. On the other hand, as I have no intention of ceasing to document things like walks, football matches and periods of travel, I imagine that deliberately leaving gaps in the record would immediately feel like I was letting myself down. So on I go. One of these days I may simply have a camera breakdown, but que sera, sera.
On court in the morning
Monday 24th August 2026, 8.35am (day 5,478)
Last morning in Oxford: time to go home. My accommodation was so middle-class that it had one of these in the back garden, not that it looks like it gets used much these days. Is it only in Britain that we define tennis as a firmly middle-class pursuit? It’s never been my sport (and what that says about my class-consciousness I have no idea) which is why I was going to add that no tennis-related photos have appeared on this blog in its fifteen years (minus one day) but thanks to tagging, I note that one lost ball has appeared — and I think that’s still sat in the same place in the garden.
Formation sleeping
Sunday 23rd August 2026, 11.50am (day 5,477)
“And together now…. one, two, three, leg up and TUCK that head…. and now SLEEP.”
“Hang on, did we put anyone on watch? Ah, who cares.”
On guard
Saturday 22nd August 2026, 11.50am (day 5,476)
A first visit to Didcot, one of those towns that simply would not exist without railways, and specifically, the decision of Mr. Brunel (there he is again) that this was the best route for the Great Western line through to Bristol in the 1840s. This was, and still is, a major junction. Anyone who has a penchant for steam trains could do worse than spend time in the Didcot Railway Centre, which is full of them, whether standing in engine sheds or operating up and down the huge yard that nestles within the boundaries of the still-working main lines. Well worth a visit.
Teasels
Friday 21st August 2026, 12.05pm (day 5,475)
Dipsacus fullonum has been used as a natural comb since antiquity, particularly to clean woollens and raise the nap on them (that is, make them fuzzy, like velvet) — and one can see why. One might even argue whether humans would ever even have invented the comb had they not had the teasel as a model. As seen in Raleigh Park, Oxford, just across the road from my accommodation here.
Three muses
Thursday 20th August 2026, 4.30pm (day 5,474)
There are nine Muses, at least according to most classical mythology. Sculpted representations of three of them currently occupy the lobby of the Weston Library, while the building across the road has some cosmetic surgery undertaken. I’d like to think I have engaged with eight of them at some point in my life although I must have done something in my karma to upset Terpsichore as she and I have never really got together.
Flying mummy
Wednesday 19th August 2026, 3.55pm (day 5,473)
It might be a dragonfly or possibly a damselfly: apparently they are very similar. Whichever one it is, it’s a predator, and imagine (if the scales were different) this thing coming towards you intent on murder, for surely what it actually is, is a flying Egyptian mummy/vampire.
Manifesto of the St Helena Labour Party, 1975
Tuesday 18th August 2026, 1.55pm (day 5,472)
Lately if I am to be found in either Oxford or Kew then I’ve gone back to the archive. These days I much prefer making enquiries of archives than of actual people. I don’t have to go through the university ethical approval procedure, and believe me, that is reason alone.
Besides, if looking back into history, any written record is an insight into the minds of the people who made it and so much more reliable than asking someone what they remember about events some 50 years ago. This document was part of a big file recounting the saga of Tony Thornton and the short-lived St Helena Labour Party (1974-1976) is a fine example of what can happen to you if you piss off the British Government too much (and don’t imagine it’s some anti-left-wing thing: in fact, Mr. Thornton was more like what we would now call a libertarian): here is not the place, but see the entry for Thornton on John Turner’s web site.
Being 42 