The birds are there, you just need to realise that they’re not grit on the lens. A beautiful afternoon to mark my last day of work until 2025; a shame it is not forecast to last.
One wonders if the social and economic landscape of St Helena would be different had it been run more often in its history by St Helenians. In the centuries since it was formally colonised, only two of the many Governors have been born on the island, and it’s perhaps significant that one of these, Hudson Janisch gets himself by far the most impressive memorial of any Governor. On the lowest level of this three-tier stone (not pictured) is inscribed: “This monument is erected by the inhabitants to commemorate the high respect and esteem in which their late Governor was universally held.” As a memorial, that’s pretty good, I think.
This ersatz life continues. Walking is about the only entertainment available — at least, the only one that should be depicted on here. The monument on Stoodley Pike has featured several times on this blog (follow the tag); the houses are the northern end of Heptonstall; and last week’s snow has all gone, for now.
The monument on top of Stoodley Pike was first built to celebrate victory over Napoleon, but this version dates from 1856. Much of the graffiti on it may have been there for about this amount of time: who can tell whether the “MAN CITY” scrawled on one side is from the late 1960s Franny Lee era or has been added since the Sheikhs took it over and they became decent again? Are “R. Crowther” and “E. Mitchell” (visible here) still alive and proud?
This monument stands on the north Wales coast, at Prestatyn, and marks one end of the Offa’s Dyke Path, which goes from here all the way down the Welsh/English border to Chepstow on the Severn Estuary, 180 or so miles away. Not that I came here to do any walking, but it is a reasonable spot to while away a bit of time.
The monument atop Stoodley Pike is visible for much of the train journey from Hebden Bridge to Todmorden, but the best view of it comes at the end, as one crosses the viaduct just prior to Todmorden station. You get about five seconds to see it properly before trees, then the station buildings, obscure the view. Seeing as I experience this view every time I get a train to Manchester (as long as I’m sat on the left), in a sense I have been waiting over seven years to offer up a version of this picture on the blog: so if I remain committed to never repeating myself, let’s only show it when it seems particularly worth it. Did it make the 5:35am alarm call (and 7:45am arrival in the office) worthwhile? Er…. mildly, I guess.
A day spent entirely working on campus here in Moscow, so let’s take this opportunity to check in on the slow decay of the Monument to Corporate Failure; a building which fascinates me and has been depicted on here several times before (example). At least fifteen years this has sat here empty, since the Italian company that 90% built it went bust with it uncompleted and no one has subsequently worked out whether they can safely demolish it or not — or perhaps, no one is bothered. Never used, bits of it periodically seem to fall off, but it does have a certain grandeur, in its own pathetic way.
The Seafarers’ Monument sits in one of the main squares of Bergen. It’s not the most beautiful of monuments, but maybe that’s why someone decided, presumably before Christmas, to prettify it.
Erected in 1856, this replaced an earlier version which was destroyed by lightning, and commemorated the defeat of Napoleon. It is 120 feet (37m) tall and one can climb up to the top of the pedestal for an extensive view over the surrounding area. Something of a standard landscape shot in this vicinity, but despite 24 years’ living here between them, neither Clare nor Joe had been up there before, so on this Easter Saturday we rectified that.
Along similar lines to yesterday, in some ways, but still the only really decent photo I took today in an otherwise rather mundane day for pictures. It’s a classic view, and not hard to capture – just head up the A6033 from Hebden Bridge to Pecket Well, towards Haworth, and there it is. The church is in Heptonstall, a village above Hebden Bridge (Sylvia Plath is buried in the churchyard) and there has been a monument on Stoodley Pike for two hundred years. This is the second structure; the first collapsed in 1854. It was originally built to commemorate the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
Being 42 