I did want to get a photo of Joe posted from this weekend; after all we did go all the way to Scotland just to check up on him. Well, mostly. This is the first time he has appeared on here since July 23rd last year.
The orange-and-black colour scheme illustrates that we spent the afternoon at Tannadice Park, home of Dundee United FC — whose record against Barcelona is played four, won four, by the way. Labouring somewhat against Inverness Caledonian Thistle (it was 1-1) did not seem to please the locals particularly. At least the sun was shining. Meanwhile, I noticed the cranes of the shipyard behind and decided to see what I could do with the camera.
On the journey to Dundee, whether made by car or train, crossing the Firth of Forth is always a highlight. Today, a mostly sunny train journey was interrupted by occasional heavy showers and one of these kicked in just as we left Inverkeithing, but that didn’t matter, this shot will still do (particularly as to get any picture from the rail bridge itself involves timing it very well to avoid getting big, red chunks of steel in the way). Here, you in fact see both road bridges: the roadway in view is that of the first, 20th century version, since superseded by the 21st century bridge whose stanchion and (just) cables are the ones behind.
The building at which these guys are arriving — Nutclough Mill — now makes audio equipment instead of fustian cloth, but I guess this scene would have appeared much the same if seen from my house 130 years ago. The cobbles won’t have changed at all. You must promise not to notice the telephone wire though.
“Hello… hello? Can you hear me…..?” [pause] “I think you’re on mute….” Did the Starship Enterprise’s communications network have a ‘mute’ button do you think? Colleague Louis does his best.
I assume the visual pun is deliberate. Is that Minnie Mouse, or her male counterpart? I think Minnie. Either way, the first mouse to appear on here in 12+ years…. kinda. Taken through the window of one or other of Hebden Bridge’s innumerable cafés, I forget which one this is exactly. Perhaps it would have been nice to have not had the reflections, but it is what it is.
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.
Among the activities booked in for this weekend in Milton Keynes was another County Top walk, which was a perfectly OK walk to do but turned out to be not all that exciting photographically. However, I quite like this one, if only for the way it seems to head back in stages through the landscape, starting with the allotments occupied by a mysterious single figure. This is the village of Woburn Sands, where I finished the walk: note that whatever it is named for, it’s not a beach — we are nowhere near the sea here.
Found another excuse to leave home for a while and come for a weekend in Milton Keynes, which may not sound the most immediately glamorous destination, but it does have the significant draw of Bletchley Park. It was here that World War 2 was won, arguably, when a (largely female) staff of thousands worked tirelessly to crack German ciphers, mainly produced by the now-famous Enigma machines, of which the museum still has a few dozen, out of about 450 surviving ones apparently.
Do you know that if Enigma had ever enciphered a letter as itself, the code would have been near-impossible to crack? But this was its fatal weakness, giving just enough indication that particular strings of gibberish might just be commonly-used phrases like “Wetter für heute” [‘the weather for today…’] and allowing each daily machine setting to be worked out.
