Another craft fair. I did OK. It’s a two-day event – back there tomorrow. As will be this lady, carding and spinning wool from the local hillsides. Looked like a lot of hard work. Taking photos is much easier – at least physically. Selling them? That takes work.
Couldn’t take lots of photos at this happy event because I had an official role to play: it would not have done to have been snapping away from up on the stage while reading out the names of the many graduates celebrating their achievements this evening. (Reading the names out is a harder job than it looks, I can assure you.) This was the best shot to encapsulate the most important thing about the day however – it makes people happy.
I would say, somebody please tell our government that higher education remains a public good, but we have done so, and they don’t care. Very soon Fei, and I, will sod off to work and study in a country which still values the notion of higher education as something which benefits everyone, not just the student. And we will take all the expertise and economic gains that it represents with us. Their loss. I hope it never happens, but we teeter on the edge here in the UK system, right now.
Solidarity, brother 🙂
Well, this is certainly the earliest time yet for a daily pic, by a margin of some 110 minutes. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been Sheremetyevo airport. (This wry comment of course means nothing to anyone unfamiliar with the pleasures of Russian airspace.)
Doug is my friend and has been using a wheelchair for at least 10 years due to an autonomic disorder. What amuses me slightly – but I also think it says a lot about stereotyping – is that because his legs are in full working order he often propels himself around using his feet (kind of like you’d move a kids toy car). But you’d be surprised how many people look askance at him for doing this, as if they can’t balance the equation ‘in a wheelchair’ + ‘can use his legs’ = ? Many look at him like he must be a faker. After a while you get tired of pointing out that only a small minority of wheelchair users are paraplegics, and just start finding their confusion amusing.
Another effort today by the Whitworth family to sell various forms of artwork (home-made and otherwise) to a mildly interested public. Better than three weeks ago: we made a reasonable amount for two hours’ work.
This blog is now 100 days old so I’ve put some more photos up on the ‘Best of the Rest’ page. Of the 100 photos I’ve used here are some stats – the numbers don’t quite add up because sometimes I’ve just had to classify them in more than one category:
I know this pic is out-of-focus but it gave me the biggest laugh of the day, which is enough reason to put it on here. Joe is really hiding here, this is not just a random shot that happened to catch him in this position. Fellow fans of Arrested Development may share my humor if I cite the line – “you can always tell a Milford man”. But then again, they may not.
This (on the right) is Boris, one of my colleagues from Moscow (see October 23-27), visiting Manchester for a couple of days. He is well into his 60s but has a 6-year-old daughter, which I find kinda sweet. A nice guy, if you don’t enquire too deeply into what he did in the Soviet era.
I also quite like Manchester’s German-inspired Christmas markets, which achieve the (for me) astonishing combination of being both highly Christmassy and yet not twee nor over-commercial. I like this shot because of the stallholder’s pleasant look of satisfaction as Boris decides whether to get a gift for his daughter.
Yesterday we had the mysterious purchase of the mask, today I was engaged as official photographer in the wife’s latest shoot. She’s definitely up to something.
By the way, I took a lot of photos today, some of which might even be classed as ‘good’, but I did say that this blog would feature no staged shots. This was the one candid shot I took today, however. Just as well it was a nice one, otherwise you’d have ended up with a picture of a train or something (I’m currently on my way down to London for the evening & work there tomorrow morning); but C is just so much more aesthetically pleasing, don’t you think?
Busy but interesting weekend ends with a pleasant evening party among friends, chilling out by the bonfire and listening to Joe be enthused by access to an electric guitar – with amplification.
The party was a birthday do for another friend, Mick, 43 today (so happy birthday to him). There is a huge rush of birthdays at this time of year, at least 7 family members & 3 close friends within a month. Why? Because it’s 9 months after New Year, of course. ‘Darling, I will stop taking the Pill, but let’s wait until after Christmas, OK?’.
