Sunday 20th May 2018, 2.30pm (day 2,460)
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…
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Portrait
Joe inspects his teeth
Wednesday 9th May 2018, 4.30pm (day 2,449)
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.
Ball girl, Raith Rovers FC
Saturday 5th May 2018, 4.35pm (day 2,445)
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.
Last day of teaching (group photo)
Friday 4th May 2018, 11.50am (day 2,444)
It’s been a very busy week. But one reason for this is that it’s been the last week of teaching; I do not have to stand up in front of students and sound intelligent again until about the 28th September. I need some head-space, so this is a good thing. But then again I do miss them when they’re not around. Here we line up for our ceremonial end-of-term photograph; this little clump is about a fifth of the whole, this time round.
Drone in my face
Tuesday 24th April 2018, 5.40pm (day 2,434)
One reason I have come back to Tromsø is to make an educational video, and the filming for that took all day. It ended with this alien apparatus hovering a couple of feet from my face, as Mark and Per-Frank look on. I think their intentions were benign. These are weird things, but effective — I’ve seen the rushes…
In Gardemoen airport
Sunday 22nd April 2018, 12.55pm (day 2,432)
Travelling north again, away from the warmth and sun of England in the springtime, and back to the Arctic. I may or may not have looked as happy about this as this fellow passenger did today. Or maybe he just busted the photographer and was expressing his feelings.
The usual suspects
Friday 20th April 2018, 6.30pm (day 2,430)
As it was on Wednesday, so it was tonight. April 2018 in the UK skipped over spring entirely and went from winter to high summer. A Friday evening, the sun was out, the usual suspects were in attendance.
The man in the middle
Saturday 14th April 2018, 2.30pm (day 2,424)
Hate ’em or hate ’em, the game couldn’t run without them, at any level — particularly way down in the football capillaries, which is where I was today (West Riding County Amateur League, competition 30 of the season)…
The speaker makes a joke
Friday 13th April 2018, 10.25am (day 2,423)
Some of the nice people who invited me to Ljubljana to do my thing. Whatever the speaker has said, Polona (on the right), Lyn, and the gentleman whose name I can’t remember, certainly think it was funny. So that’s it for my brief time in Slovenia — it looked very pretty, but becomes just another place that I wish I’d had more time to spend in.
World’s Oldest Football Club
Saturday 7th April 2018, 3.40pm (day 2,417)
More football, I’ve been packing in the games while being off work. Sheffield FC reign indisputably as the world’s oldest association football club, being founded in October 1857 which, to put it in perspective, was three and a half years before the American Civil War broke out. They have been going steadily along for the last 160 years without ever having made much of an impact in sporting terms, thanks largely to their having steadfastly refused to embrace professionalism back in the 1880s. But they’re still around, a mecca for football tourists the world over (like me let’s face it) if the graffiti in the toilets is anything to go by, and they still have their little community of fans, like this guy, who may well have been in this spot for many decades. Metaphorically at least. Not a great day on the pitch though — they lost 4-0 to Leek Town. Don’t worry — only a month now until the end of the season.
Being 42 