The sun shows no signs of going away, so rather than wonder when the hosepipe bans and drought orders will come in, let’s just enjoy it — albeit, under cover. Too hot to sit out in direct sunlight for long, even with a beer. Mr John Bailey makes at least his third appearance on the blog.
Hebden Bridge’s annual ‘Handmade Parade’ has featured on here every year since the blog started, and will probably continue to do so. Although it is easy to be blasé about it when it’s seen every June, it remains an amazing outburst of creativity from hundreds of people, done purely for the sake of one performance along the main street of the town, which lasts 90 minutes or so — and for no direct commercial reasons whatsoever. Long may it continue. If someone can look this sophisticated and cool while wearing a large blue cardboard snake’s-head as a hat — then there must be benefits to it.
McGlynn’s pub in Bloomsbury declares this afternoon for the French, before their game against Peru in the World Cup: note the tricolour in the window. What gets me about this shot though is how much Roy Keane looks like a little orange animated version of himself, sort of like Max Headroom….
Two LCD Soundsystem gigs in a year… But being brilliant and versatile, they could play a whole different set than last time in London. No one is ever going to do high-quality gig photography from the next-to-back row high up in the circle and with my camera: but it’ll do to document the evening. James Murphy is a master lyricist (“Drunk girls know that love is an astronaut… it comes back, but it’s never the same”) and superb front man yet always remains a slightly chubby, unshaven fortysomething in yesterday’s T-shirt. Which is why we love him.
Started the first day of my working week in London, travelled to Manchester, finished it at home in Hebden Bridge. This guy may not have left Argyle Square in that time, but I’m sure he was just as productive as me in the end. I like all the vaguely different colours of brick on this shot.
It landed on me. We communed for a minute. I took a photo, it flew off but it had done its job.
God, I’m getting grey. Slowly but surely.
“Come on a walk up Scafell Pike, son. It’ll be fun. You can have the pleasure of attaining the highest point in England,” says I, a few weeks back. I’m sure there were points today when Joe cursed me for letting me talk him into this particular hike — particularly here on Ill Crag, one of the subsidiary peaks nearby, and the first outrageous excrescence of boulders into the journey. This picture can also be presented with the benefit of hindsight and knowing that in fact, there’s worse still to come before the summit — all 3,210 feet of it (978 metres) — is attained.
But he made it. And it was a beautiful day.
A happy 50th birthday to brother-in-law Pete: we celebrated in Manchester and I tried not to dwell on the fact that in 462 days time, I too will reach the half-century…
A very low-key day, as yesterday was. Very little happened, and this picture of a picture is as good as it gets today. Still, the teeth are healthy ones — Joe should feel satisfied with this — more so than mine were when I pictured my own X-ray a while back.
The football season comes to its many and diverse ends, each club finishing in different ways with different emotions. Raith Rovers of Scottish League One have managed to blow their hopes out in the last three games, promotion hopes have disappeared and at the final whistle today all was over. It was a very melancholy place all round — club, and town (Kirkcaldy in Fife). Maybe this picture captures something of that.
Being 42 