You are my Sunshine.jpg

You are my Sunshine.jpg
Originally uploaded by wotanseyepatch

This is classy street art and even classier photography from London. I love it.

San Francisco Dawn

San Francisco Dawn
Originally uploaded by Wiggum03

And there's more! Who says cities can't rival nature in mystery and beauty?

Golden Gate Morning

Golden Gate Morning
Originally uploaded by Wiggum03

I'm dying to see this bridge in the flesh. Images like this, albeit the work of very good photographers, just get the old feet itching. And to think I was, a good few years ago, just half a mile or so away from this wonderful spectacle.

say something nice

I'm racking my brains. I've written several fairly tetchy blogs in the past few weeks and now I need to find the good things in life. Positive outlook and all that. Think on the right side and things will go right. Wish for things and they will come to you. Moan and they'll get worse. Yesterday was my birthday and I enjoyed it (I was well looked after!), in spite of the weather, and in spite of our first attempt at brunch, which took us to the Arc at the Liffey Valley Centre (Dublin) where the tables weren't cleared, we were ignored, and customers (all six of them) were complaining of cold food. Getting out of there as quickly as our legs would carry us, we found something more civilised round the corner in the Clarion Hotel, but we paid €16 each for a cooked breakfast that was, in spite of the fairly lush setting, cheap food. And so we both made comparisons and thought of our last Bob Evans in Delaware State, which cost $8 or so and was about 100 times nicer. Later we went to the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks, which epitomises many of the things I hate about Ireland: its lack of flair and design skills, its cheapness, shoddy workmanship, indifference, lack of pride in what it does, fairly limited offerings, unfriendliness, complacency, etc. We then drove towards and into the Dublin Mountains where one's eyes are constantly affronted by tawdry, horrible new housing and office developments, and beyond them the serried ranks of non-native spruce plantations ruining a once lovely rolling rural landscape. Yet the view of Dublin Bay -- what little we could see through the rain and cloud as we ate our picnic in the car -- is as thrilling as ever. There is still hope for this sad little country, but it's fast running out and I've lost the power of positive thought where it's concerned. Very sad but true.

tedious pun.JPG

Puns like this are a form of spiritual death. The sheer tediousness of their witless play with words, the dullness of the joke -- if there is one, and the resulting damage to the English language are an affront to all of us. Here we find some jackass at the National Museum of Ireland proudly proclaiming his pun in a major exhibition with a bracketed 'Am I not clever making this amusing concession to popular culture in a serious cultural context?' Well let's be absolutely clear about this: puns like this are deeply irritating. They hurt language, they insult our intelligence, and they betray the utter vacuity and vanity of the perpetrator. Leave the puns to the gutter press and genuine humorists and let us, please, get on with life minus this verbal terrorism.

longest day blues.JPG

longest day blues.JPG
Originally uploaded by musical photo man

There's something mercilessly inevitable about this view, I feel. The weather on the longest day of the year is execrable and Collins Barracks, tastelessly adapted to the needs of the National Museum of Ireland, is gloomy and uninviting. Ireland needs the sun, but failing that it desperately needs flair.

mint marzipan.JPG

mint marzipan.JPG
Originally uploaded by musical photo man

When I'm in the mood, I can see marzipan in all things.

A subtle price increase...

A subtle price increase...
Originally uploaded by eatsShootsAndLeaves

I love this (and love the screen name of the photographer).

I'm going to vote Tory

I was brought up in the faith by Conservative parents. My maternal grandparents read The Daily Mail. I cast my first for the local Tory candidate Andrew Bowden and when I first arrived in Oxford to become a fearful snob -- for a short while at least -- I joined the Tory party. A few months later I was a fully fledged Labour supporter and have tended to vote for them ever since. However, I have now witnessed the most depressing subversion of political ideals in the history of the Labour party. The story hardly needs retelling: Iraq, the abolition of the 10% tax band, the ruination of the English education system, the destruction of countryside and Victorian houses, and now the proposed suspension of habeas corpus for the astonishing period of 42 days. How came this party, which used to represent liberty, the poor, the pursuit of peace, and other wholesome values to be corrupted in this manner? Blair and Bush! Gordon Brown and Oswald Mosely? So here I am, poised, assuming the Tories still undertake to reverse this disgusting legislation (and assuming it survives their lordships and others), to vote Conservative for the first time since I was 18.

a most endearing cat

Helen Henschel writes in her autobiography: 'The first performance in England of Wagner's Symphony conducted by my father [George Henschel] . . . reminds me of the famous Wagner cat which inhabited St. James' Hall. This animal is said to have walked on to the platform at rehearsals whenever any work by Wagner was being played -- and at no other time. I believe it was always shut up during Wagner concerts, but managed to escape once or twice and stalk majestically to the centre of the platform. Whether or not in time to the music, history does not relate. When Soft Voices Die, p. 84