Tag Archives: 55

Oct 29 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Interior

Deep in the Barbican

Monday 28th October 2024, 1.30pm (day 4,813)

Deep in the Barbican, 28/10/24

In the brilliant 1980s TV series Edge of Darkness (which I really must watch again some time), there is a scene in which the hero evades his pursuers by deliberately running into the Barbican Centre. It’s an in-joke, but it works: forty years on this is still a rather difficult building complex to find one’s way around. Even as I took this shot there were two young American tourist types stood to my right, debating just which of the concrete ramps and overpasses and underpasses they needed to try next. But what the hell — I still like the place, both to visit and to photograph, and it does give good statuary.

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Oct 28 2024
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

The Thames at Hurley Lock

Sunday 27th October 2024, 1.25pm (day 4,812)

Cormorant and yacht, 27/10/24

Though we have been staying in London over the weekend, this part of the Thames is further upstream, just past Marlow, where the river forms the Buckinghamshire/Berkshire border for a while. I am very happy with this shot, as it turned out just as was hoped when I pressed the shutter. It seems to sum up two things about the Thames at this point — the wildlife and natural qualities are pretty good, and there’s certainly a lot of blatant displays of wealth around.

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Oct 28 2024
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Daily Post, Portrait, Sport

Steve Gritt: worth my thanks

Saturday 26th October 2024, 3.25pm (day 4,811)

Steve Gritt, 26/10/24

The gentleman in the hat, pondering the action, is Steve Gritt, coach of Hornchurch FC. Though this story is, I am sure, of only the vaguest interest to most people, the reason I depict him on here today is that back in 1997 Mr. Gritt was appointed manager of Brighton & Hove Albion FC (a.k.a. ‘my lot’), when they were 11 points adrift at the bottom of the entire Football League and facing relegation and oblivion. A few months later, however, he had achieved the seemingly impossible, and Brighton survived with an (in)famous 1-1 draw at Hereford, who went down instead. 27 years later and the Albion are playing their eighth season in the Premier League. Not that Steve Gritt had anything much more to do with that part of the tale (he left the club in 1998) but all Brighton fans certainly owe him our thanks.

And so, realising that he was the coach of the club I had randomly come to see, I waited to shake his hand and give him that thanks as he came off the pitch. And I was pleased I had had the opportunity, and took it. OK, random stalker moment over, moving on…

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Oct 28 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

An outstanding evening?

Friday 25th October 2024, 10.25pm (day 4,810)

Outstanding, 25/10/24

Maybe not ‘outstanding’, but Friday night was pretty good; the first part of a fine weekend away, to celebrate Clare’s birthday (Saturday).

If you’re wondering what exactly is so outstanding here, it’s a school, trumpeting its Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) rating. Not a modest institution.

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Oct 24 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Pub on Bloom Street

Thursday 24th October 2024, 5.15pm (day 4,809)

As I have said several times on here down the years, and all (logically) at this time of year, I think Halloween is a commercialist pile of plastic-pushing poo. On the other hand, this pub facade is quite well done. And as I have been walking past it, both to and from work, for years, I don’t remember seeing it before so someone has actually put in the effort in. Credit for that, at least.

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Oct 24 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Stock campus shot

Wednesday 23rd October 2024, 10.30am (day 4,808)

Stock campus shot, 23/10/24

This is a fairly stock campus shot, but then again it was a fairly stock campus day. At least there are people in it, which is more than has been the case for several other recent photos.

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Oct 24 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Pylon

Tuesday 22nd October 2024, 3.25pm (day 4,807)

Pylon from below, 22/10/24

Walking around in the countryside, as I do, I noticed that there was nothing stopping me standing in this position and attempting to get this shot: which only really works if the symmetry is just right, and in that regard I think I have done a reasonable job. In a way, it’s a shame about the wires, but then again, they are the point of the structure.

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Oct 21 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Sun, but not for much longer

Monday 21st October 2024, 11.50am (day 4,806)

Sun over chimneys, 21/10/24

The world turns. Bearing in mind that the earliest I have seen the sun reappear at one side of our house in the mornings is around 16th February, and assuming a basic symmetry on each side of the Winter Solstice, that means it’s about to disappear for the winter, an event that is rather less noticeable. But bearing in mind the clocks are going back in a few days, quite soon even this rather wan level of sunlight isn’t going to make it over the chimneys… and we’ll see it in February. (It’s not like winter in Tromsø though, that’s true.)

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Oct 16 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The City of Culture is Unready

Tuesday 15th October 2024, 5.25pm (day 4,800)

City of Culture sign, 15/10/24

In 2025, Bradford will become the UK’s City of Culture, and the sign proclaims this: from the rear, the slope on the left is one of the 2s, with the zero to the other side. Behind, a small part of the gigantic, desperate building site that constitutes most of its city centre at the present time. The bus station is entirely closed, having been declared unsafe a while back. You can’t get a taxi from anywhere particularly near the railway station. And all this with exactly eleven weeks to go until 1st January. City of Culture? Perhaps this chaos and neglect is, indeed, representative of the UK in this epoch.

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Oct 15 2024
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Spinningfields

Monday 14th October 2024, 1.40pm (day 4,799)

Spinningfields is the bit of Manchester city centre by the John Rylands Library, behind me at this point and outside which I was sat waiting for my second 2pm Monday class to start. The lack of people in the vicinity was the first thing I noticed and prompted the taking of this shot; an attempt to get a pleasing mix of line and colour, basically. Clare says she ‘likes the turquoise’, and who am I to argue?

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