Category Archives: Portrait

Jun 24 2017
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Family

Friday 23rd June 2017, 12.35pm (day 2,129)

Philip and Celia, 23/6/17

On 2nd June my aunt, Anne Morecroft, my father’s sister, died of heart failure — may she rest in peace. Today was her funeral, first at Dukinfield crematorium in Tameside, Manchester, and then the wake afterwards at Stalybridge Methodist church where I took this picture of my other aunt and uncle, Celia and Philip Hall (my mother’s younger brother). That’s the thing about funerals isn’t it: while regretting the reason these events start to become the only time you see your extended family. Should it be that way? Probably not, but I doubt I am the only person for whom it is true. Best wishes to them all, and families everywhere.

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Jun 12 2017
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

Sat in row B

Sunday 11th June 2017, 4.55pm (day 2,117)

Cinema row B, 11/6/17

I can’t have been getting outside much lately, for this is the sixth consecutive interior shot, and usually exteriors easily outnumber them. This afternoon’s entertainment at the Picture House: Alien: The Latest Franchise (OK, maybe it’s not actually called that); not bad I suppose but these are starting to get like the Nightmare on Elm Street series, let’s just crank out the xenomorph goo again and not worry whether anyone notices the lack of plot or character. Passes the time on a Sunday afternoon I suppose.

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Jun 10 2017
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

Airport bus (is it tomorrow yet?)

Friday 9th June 2017, 3.55am (day 2,115)

Early bus, 9/6/17

I’m sure we all love 3.15am alarm calls, especially after the conference closing party the evening before — when the phone went off, I had very little idea where I was or what I was doing. At least the sun was up — it’s flare encouraging a move to monochrome for this shot featuring fellow attendees Susannah and Coetzee presumably wondering what they were doing up as well, at a time equivalent to 11.15pm at home, thus meaning it was before midnight on the previous day when I started my journey home — to where I  arrived 21 hours later. At least the early start let me keep up with the news from the Election.

Farewell to Siberia then — I saw a very small part of it though mainly it was just sitting in a room. Pleasant weather though. But let’s not talk about the mosquitoes.

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Jun 09 2017
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

Daria the translator

Thursday 8th June 2017, 1.35pm (day 2,114)

Daria, 8/6/17

Election day of course — but I’m still in Russia, this being the last day of the conference here in Khanty-Mansiysk. Daria here was one of the two simultaneous translators who worked throughout the two and a half days. I cannot help but be amazed by the talent of translators generally, but to do it simultaneously — like a Babel fish — now that really is astonishing. Will machines ever be able to do this? I seriously doubt it. Imagine a computer that can translate a joke from one language to another on the spot.

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Jun 06 2017
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

The Ugra TV presenter gets ready

Tuesday 6th June 2017, 9.40am (day 2,112)

Ugra TV, 6/6/17

Khanty-Mansiysk lies in the Ugra (pronounced Yoo-Grah) region, the centre of the Russian oil industry — the money generated from same being the reason why a relatively small (100,000 people) and isolated city can sustain a few major conference centres, a national league ice hockey team, an airport, and indeed a life in a region where winter temperatures fall to -50ºC on a regular basis. Linguists may recognise the placename as contributing to the name of the Finno-Ugric group of languages, so if you speak Hungarian, Estonian or Finnish, this is where your ancestors came from.

Ugra TV seemed to think it worth covering the IT Forum that we attended this morning: no idea what is happening with the guy’s hands behind the presenter here, either it was something highly significant to her on-screen appearance, or he was just copping a feel.

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Jun 03 2017
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

John the barber, off-duty

Friday 2nd June 2017, 6.40pm (day 2,108)

John the barber, 2/6/17

John makes his second appearance on the blog after the picture taken at his place of work three years ago. But is he really off-duty? Looks like he’s looking wistfully at the competitor establishment across the street, somehow.

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Jun 02 2017
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Lunch (jigsaw) break

Thursday 1st June 2017, 1.40pm (day 2,107)

Jigsaw break, 1/6/17

Exciting times in the household as the jigsaw map of Brighton that was a Christmas present is finally finished five months later. With all three of us present to witness this stellar event, you can tell it’s the half-term holiday. Life doesn’t get more uneventful than this.

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May 31 2017
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Daily Post, Portrait

R. P. McMurphy

Tuesday 30th May 2017. 8.55pm (day 2,105)

R. P. McMurphy, 30/5/17

I know it’s a cheat to take photos of a movie screen but I don’t care. This was the major event of my day, a film I have admired for a long time now, and my first chance to see it on the big screen thanks to the BFI reissuing a restored print this year. If you’ve never seen it — go! If you’ve already seen it, well, go and see it again, because you know it’s a brilliant movie. (The book’s a favourite of mine too: as this shot proves.)

I love this scene in particular. Is there any doubt here that Jack Nicholson isn’t ‘acting’…. he has utterly become Randall Patrick McMurphy, he is straining with every sinew and muscle in his body to lift that damn control unit and escape from the institution in which he is incarcerated?

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May 30 2017
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Vicki consults my atlas

Monday 29th May 2017, 12.25pm (day 2,104)

Vicki and atlas, 29/5/17

The family portrait theme of the weekend continues with my younger sister Vicki paying a visit and making, as a result, what I calculate to be only her second appearance on the blog. She seemed interested in my big world atlas for some reason, perhaps planning a trip — certainly I have been in Hebden for what seems like a while, although June is going to involve more distant locations.

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May 29 2017
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Joe and his J2O

Sunday 28th May 2017, 4.30pm (day 2,103)

Joe drinking, 28/5/17

Joe’s first appearance on this blog was on its 9th day, September 3rd 2011, in which he was pictured in this room doing much the same thing as here, drinking a fruit juice (always still — Joe doesn’t do fizzy drinks). He — and the room — look somewhat different now, 2,094 days later.

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