Saturday 25th June 2022, 4.20pm (day 3,957)
I did very little else other than enjoy some sunshine on this Saturday afternoon; and I was not the only one.
Enjoying the sunshine
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: gallery
In death, still reading
Friday 24th June 2022, 10.05am (day 3,956)
A working week in London, and this becomes the third time that city has been the setting for five pictures in a row. Friday morning was spent at the Victoria & Albert museum, where this collection of sarcophagi reside. Whomever was the subject for the one second from bottom, they clearly wanted to be portrayed as studious, even in death.
Prof Brown tells us how it is (or was)
Thursday 23rd June 2022, 12.35pm (day 3,955)
During this week at the London Rare Books School I have felt privileged to be taught by Professor Michelle Brown, second from the left here. What an awesome fund of knowledge she has, seemingly knowing absolutely everything that happened to everyone before about 1500 AD. Like being taught physics by Richard Fenynman, and the sort of experience that you just ain’t gonna get through Zoom, sorry.
Senate House, more intimately
Wednesday 22nd June 2022, 9.25am (day 3,954)
Senate House makes its second appearance on the blog, after debuting in July 2015. This shot is something of a repeat but I had to get it back on here this week as it’s the venue for my course (we are somwhere up the wall to the right). I do like this building, first for itself and its clean lines — and it’s good inside, as well — but also for the fact (repeated from seven years ago) that it’s the model for Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four. And you can quite readily picture it in that role.
The MacDurnan Gospels (marginal note)
Tuesday 21st June 2022, 10.15am (day 3,953)
The page of text you see here was enscribed some 1,150 years ago, in the later part of the 9th century AD. This is a page from the MacDurnan Gospels, created in Ireland and now held in the library of Lambeth Palace in London. What you see here are the originators of the idea of a cross-reference: this must be a passage from the gospel of John, because here, the scribe has noted that the same events are also recounted in Matthew, Mark and Luke (listed from the top down).
It’s to look at, and be taught about, beautiful things like this that I am in London this week and this was certainly a good place to start the day. Michelle Brown, whose fingers you see here, is such an expert on this time and subject that listening to her is like being immersed in a river of learning: we’re coming up every so often for breath but it’s no hardship to get back in afterwards, and I was actually disappointed when the day ended at 5pm. And it’s been a while since I could say that about certain other aspects of my job.
Outside the Marlborough Arms, Bloomsbury
Monday 20th June 2022, 8.10pm (day 3,952)
Ahh, London. Bloomsbury. Sunset lighting up the chimney stacks, me in a pub enjoying the evening light. A day of feeling like a scholar for a change and not some glorified teaching machine. Amen to that.
Chess and poppies
Sunday 19th June 2022, 12.30pm (day 3,951)
On the move again. A scene on the train to London, where I will be for the whole week to come. The field of poppies outside — somewhere near Doncaster — was so extensive that I had time to see it, get the camera out, set up the shot and still capture it OK, despite moving at around 75 miles per hour at least. I believe black won the game in the end.
Pete, barbeque man
Saturday 18th June 2022, 4.00pm (day 3,950)
The English summer weekend. We cook and eat our food outside despite it only being about 13ºC. And there is some obligation for middle-age men to be the ones cooking it: Pete (brother-in-law) started it off, but I braved the flames (below centre) to do the last quarter, or so.
Friday afternoon reflections
Friday 17th June 2022, 4.50pm (day 3,949)
Friday, at the end of a busy week, and the sun was out. I make no apologies for heading for the pub. Others thought the same, as depicted in my camera, and in Mark’s sunglasses.
Alex in the Beyer Theatre
Thursday 16th June 2022, 9.15am (day 3,948)
The Beyer Building‘s exterior has featured before. It was constructed in 1887, meaning this lecture theatre basically reflects assumptions about pedagogy from 135 years ago. And it looks pretty much the same as lecture theatres still do, only with many fewer plug sockets. Alex awaits my talk at 9:30; there were a few other people in the room by the time I started (honestly).
Being 42 