Category Archives: Portrait

Joe under lockdown

Sunday 26th April 2020, 7.30pm (day 3,167)

Joe watching Star Trek, 26/4/20

Evening shots have virtually disappeared from the blog since lockdown: this is only the second post-7pm shot since February. But every evening now begins and ends in the same place, doesn’t it?

It’s Joe, and his peers, for whom I feel sorry the most. He’s 17, he shouldn’t be inside day after day, under house arrest in all but name. What will this do to the psychology of his generation, not to mention their prospects? It could be worse for us of course — he’s not a belligerent kid, there have been no tantrums nor lapses into week-long bouts of near-catatonia. Not yet anyway. But like the rest of the country, and the planet — how much longer can he go on like this?

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A beer in the sunshine

Friday 24th April 2020, 2.30pm (day 3,165)

Taking the sun, 24/4/20

Except for the guys on the screen last Sunday, people have been absent from the blog for many days now, so let’s rectify that today to make us remember that humanity has not yet quite given up the ghost. Would this have been better, or worse, had the weather been poor? I suspect worse. At least this guy’s approach to boosting his vitamin D levels — the chair, the can of Carlsberg — is still available to us.

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Bathroom ballet class

Monday 13th April 2020, 12.35pm (day 3,154)

Bathroom ballet, 13/4/20

Some forms of exercise can still be taken out of the house, but not Clare’s weekly ballet class. That’s gone online, and into the bathroom, on this latest public holiday-that-was-not-a-holiday.

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Joe welcomes the new arrival

Thursday 9th April 2020, 12.45pm (day 3,150)

Joe new laptop, 9/4/20

When in prison, the arrival of the mail is always a big event. Joe gets his major input of the day with the delivery of the latest in a series of information processing devices. Well, there’s not much else to spend money on at the moment.

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Social distancing

Friday 27th March 2020, 9.25am (day 3,137)

Social distancing, 27/3/20

At the end of all this, how long before we are able to feel comfortable with each other again, physically close? Even the dogs are getting the message.

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The garden must go on

Sunday 22nd March 2020, 2.10pm (day 3,132)

Planting potatoes, 22/3/20

The Greatest Media Panic of All Time does not change the turn of the seasons, at least, not yet. it was time for the little potato people to get into the ground today, where (if past experience is any guide) they will stay in a kind of stasis until this time next year, when we will hopefully dig up about the same number and volume of potatoes to eat. If we get to the other side of this rupture, anyway. Here, Clare and Joe do the work, while I laze in the sun and document it.

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John B

Sunday 15th March 2020, 4.50pm (day 3,125)

John B, 15/3/20

Somehow it seems to be a time to say hi to old friends. It’s been a while since Mr B appeared on here.

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Happy to have made it

Friday 6th March 2020, 7.40pm (day 3,116)

MA ELIP launch party, 6/3/20

I don’t normally depict work colleagues on here but it’s worth making an exception today. For three years at least I’ve been working on getting a new hybrid (mixture of online and on-campus) MA launched (in Educational Leadership), and over this weekend we are finally welcoming our first batch of students. Here are some of them, along with Paul, Bee and Steve, fellow academics, looking happy about this at the meal we organised to mark the occasion. And I am glad too, it’s always a relief to see something come to fruition. There’ll be more of this on Sunday, a working day this weekend (a price to be paid)…

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Tony

Tuesday 25th February 2020, 5.55pm (day 3,106)

Tony, 25/2/20

This picture is out of focus, yes — but it is as good a portrait as I can offer of this particular friend, on this day. I have had a run of portraits recently, but the weather is so crappy outside that it seems best to concentrate on things close to hand.

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In Vill we trust

Saturday 22nd February 2020, 3.30pm (day 3,103)

Vill Powell, 22/2/20

Spent the Saturday in the same kind of place I spend most Saturdays, and the same will be true of these guys seeing as they are the first team coach (Stacy Reed, left) and manager (Vill Powell) of Brighouse Town FC. And as this has become my favoured local team — i respect the work of both.

Incidentally it’s interesting that the various face auto-recognition algorithms in play on my Mac spot one of these faces but not the other. Photos suggests I tag Powell’s face, but not Reed’s: Facebook is the reverse…

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