The island of St Helena was discovered in May — at least according to tradition, May 21st 1502. Hence its name, as that’s the feast day of St Helena. So this may have prompted May 2024 being declared ‘St Helena Culture Month’, and here’s probably the world’s most senior St Helenian academic, Professor Dan Yon, doing his bit for it with a public lecture in the museum in Jamestown tonight. Not that he teaches here — Toronto is his usual base.
November opens with a far more interesting day than October closed. A day off work was called for, with Clare’s company. This is taken in the Bradford Industrial Museum, which is free to entry, easy to reach from home and has been there all the 23 years we’ve lived there, only I’ve never been there before. Worth a visit though.
On this shot, the game is to spot the asymmetries that are not the fault of the photographer. As in the puzzles in magazines — how many can you see…? I have at least six that trouble me.
In the late 18th century a teenager called John Walton found a great horde of Roman artefacts buried in the village of Ribchester. The most significant object therein was a ceremonial helmet, now displayed in the British Museum in London; what remains in the tiny museum in Ribchester, depicted here, is just a replica.
In which case: why not display it without the glass? If it could be touched, held, perhaps even worn, at least then we could get a sense of the materiality of the thing, experience it as a tangible object. I’m not saying it’s valueless in itself but stick it behind glass and something is lost.
I am still finding the light input of my new camera somewhat difficult to set accurately. Most of the time I get it to acceptable levels that reflect the environment but other times it’s way up or down, with unpredictable results. But ‘unpredictable’ can also mean ‘interesting’ and ‘not what was expected’ — as with here. This room, showing the introductory movie at the Discovery Point centre in Dundee, was quite dark when I took this one. It worked, though.
Bolstered myself for a heavy day’s work in the library (yes, it was) with a necessary cup of tea on a sunny morning in Oxford. Behind, the Natural History Museum, which has not resisted the current trend for public buildings to be engaged in some major renovation project or other. [NOTE: thanks to follower John, who pointed out I had misidentified the building first time round.]
On 30th January 1972, not more than a hundred yards from the Bed & Breakfast where we are staying in Derry, the British Army killed 14 citizens of its own country, and wounded 14 more. It took decades, but in 2010 it finally came out how the Estalishment massacred these innocent people, as this quote from a radio conversation between a soldier and his officer reveals: “This chap is clearly unarmed, but can I shoot him anyway?” (The answer was yes.)
The Museum of Free Derry now stands more-or-less on the spot where this atrocity took place, and I’m glad it’s there, and doesn’t depend on state funding. The present bunch of ruling morons are as likely to encourage moves towards a united Ireland as they are anything else. Sadly, I’m English, and can’t secede with them.
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.
“God’s Own Junkyard” — and that’s its official name — is a bar/café in Walthamstow, London, but that doesn’t even begin to describe it. In fact it’s a museum of neon; what you see here is barely 1% of the whole stock. I wonder what their electricity bill is like.
A day spent between walks. Did another dose of museum instead, specifically the ‘Scottish Crannog Centre‘ on Loch Tay. A crannog, it seems, is an Iron Age dwelling built on an artificial island in the loch; there are reckoned to be many of these throughout Scotland and Ireland. This centre had a reproduction of one, until it burnt down last year — the impressive thing is that the place was still interesting and good value without it. That had a huge amount to do with the staff, including this guy, clearly the boss, but his minions earned their wages too.
On Friday 13th, let’s go ghost-spotting. This spectral figure appeared from round some old cotton-spinning equipment in a former mill at New Lanark, Robert Owen’s planned industrial settlement in the gorge of the River Clyde. Or maybe it’s just a projection in one corner of the museum, visited as we made our way to Scotland to begin (finally) a summer holiday. But whether put on for the tourists or not, it’s still a ghost, in some form.
Being 42 