Oor Wullie is a cartoon character who, since 1936, has appeared in the Scottish Sunday Post. He comes from the D. C. Thomson publishing house in Dundee, who also gave the world Desperate Dan, and like him, Wullie has his statue in the city centre. This family seemed to be enjoying his company — the women, anyway. Maybe not the guy on the right though.
I’m as satisfied with this portrait as I can be. Important elements come together: the woman walking past; his ankle (and what it implies); the just-lit cigarette.
Since I last changed planes there in 2015, on the way to Kilimanjaro, Istanbul has built a completely new airport about 30 mies out of the city which is now the second-busiest airport in Europe after Heathrow. It did seem to me that you could catch a plane from there to just about anywhere, certainly in Europe, Africa and Asia — a landmass of which it occupies a very strategic point, and always has done.
I was there early, left early, but so did a lot other people — this moment of solitary contemplation was not characteristic of the whole. This becomes only the second shot in 4,652 days to be taken between 5 and 6am — the other also being in an airport, Manchester’s, while on my way to Moscow in January 2017.
A few days to go on this trip to St Helena and work has definitely been keeping me busy. On the opposite side of the street I was sat there at just past clocking-off time, feeling very much like these guys. Yes, the butt bin to the right annoys me. But only slightly.
Believe me, the St Helena Yacht Club is not as posh a place as it sounds. But it is certainly the best place in town to watch the sun set over the Atlantic, and on Wednesday nights there is a regular food night of some description. In early 2023 it was Taco Night — nowadays it has morphed into Fish Night. Either way, I was there early, and the guy with the impressively pointy beard is still setting up.
This family (I suspect, a boy and his grandparents) were not the only ones wondering what they were doing outside this afternoon — particularly watching Brighouse Town, who slumped to a 1-5 home defeat. For the last 60% of April 2024 I will be somewhere with better (and certainly drier) weather than here — but I’m not there yet.
And so breakfast, and then home again. Had the shot not captured the eye of the woman in the kitchen, there would have been nothing to show here: though I guess his ears are shapely enough.
A dull and chilly morning in Milton Keynes was passed in ‘Pixel Heaven’: not my term, but the name of this retro video arcade, or is it a working museum? £15 or so gets you three hours of indulgence. Which, I have to admit, was not as nostalgic an experience as anticipated — I seem to prefer pinball these days — though if the place had had a Bubble Bobble machine, it would have been different. The kid certainly looks as if he is enjoying watching Dad on this one, however.
The FA Sunday Cup might not seem like much to the rest of the world but about 600 people turned up today at Lower Breck FC’s stadium, in Liverpool, to see one of the quarter-finals. The tension seems to be getting to this guy: he’s about to see the home team (Pineapple) go out 0-2 to the visiting Trooper team from the West Midlands, anyway.
My last day of the promised 11-in-a-row in Toronto. It’s been a worthwhile trip for sure, although that doesn’t mean it’s been all that eventful (Saturday night’s accident aside). But the necessary work has been done, and possibly I will be back in June. For now, the pre-flight ritual beer in the departure lounge, then home.
Being 42 