Following on from that earlier very vertical dragon photo, here’s some horizontality:
Original photo, with explanation, here.
My thoughts and feelings towards these ladies can be summed up with the phrase unconditional positive regard.
Author: Brian Micklethwait
Wardour Street dragon
Indeed:
Photoed by me in the West End yesterday afternoon, prior to attending Lohengrin.
Other creatures don’t get any more other than that.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Lohengrin at the ROH
This afternoon, I will journey to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, to see and hear the first night, no less, of Lohengrin. It will be deep into the darkness of the evening before I journey back home. It will take, I believe, the best part of four hours.
According to this Summary and Comment:
It is difficult to find a role which is more handsome than Lohengrin. This is the reason why “Lohengrin” gained popularity among opera fans. The entrance scene on stage by a magic swan boat, and the dialogue scene with Elsa are outstanding.
In addition, the music of the scene of Elsa and Lohengrin’s wedding is known as the Wedding March. You can hear this March at many weddings these days.
That’s the conclusion of the comment bit about Lohengrin.
At the beginning of the summary bit, we learn that Lohengrin is set in “the first half of the tenth century”.
But if this ROH graphic (see here) is anything to go by, it will look, this evening, like this:
But, he’s holding a sword. And notice that shadow. With luck, this will be effective rather than clunky, mindful rather than mindless updating of the setting. I shall see.
And hear. What I hear will not be updated and made more relevant. That I can already be sure of.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Trust them – they’re architects
I did a Samizdata posting today about the architect Patrik Schumacher, and his opinion that cities ought to be more created by market choices, and less by planning, than is customary today.
So, London. Is it planned, or did it just happen?:
That looks like a fairly happening sort of place, to my eye.
I love those little splashes of colour, in the middle. Thank you Renzo Piano. Here’s a photo, of (someone else’s photo of) Renzo Piano, which I took way back in 2007:
I wouldn’t trust just any architect, merely because any architect is an architect. But I would trust Renzo Piano. The above colourful offices. The Shard.
Shame they didn’t allow this. A case of planning meaning preventing. Which is mostly what it does mean, I suspect.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
The selfie hair pat
Yes, one of the more endearing things that lady photoers and their companions do just before photoing themselves is pat their hair:
Next time you see a lady taking selfies, watch out for this. Chances are she’ll oblige. It never makes any difference, but they almost always do it.
I took those two photos at Piccadilly Circus yesterday afternoon. I like the scaffolding. Not good enough to be worth photoing in its own right, but a nice background to those hair-patters.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Flotsametrics
I find signs to be an endless source of fun and revelation, and I frequently photo them. So I was much entertained by this New York Times story, about a sign that went wandering. Across the Atlantic Ocean.
Hurricane Sandy grabbed this sign from the town of Brielle, on the eastern coast of the USA, in October 2012. But, on or around May 14th 2018:
A man walking along the Plage du Pin Sec, near Bordeaux, spotted it. The faded sign was missing a chunk, but he could still read the legend “Diane Turton Realtors 732-292-1400.”
“It was curious,” the man, Hannes Frank, 64, a semiretired software consultant who lives in Brussels, said by phone on Thursday. “I looked at it and found it quaint.”
And he got in touch with the enterprise advertised on the sign. By their nature, signs can be very informative.
The NYT says that its preferred expert on flotsametrics reckons that, given how long this sign took to make its way to France, it may well have crossed the Atlantic not once, but three times.
Flotsametrics is the study of things that float. Now that the Lefties – like the Lefties who own, run and write for the NYT – are giving up on the claim that capitalism is ruining the planet by ruining the weather, they are back to bitching about how capitalism squirts out lots of rubbish, and they have become particular obsessed with rubbish that hangs about in the sea, especially if it floats. So this story is actually part of The Narrative, even though it is presumably also a genuine and a genuinely good story.
Once the capitalists work out how to transform all the world’s rubbish into – oh, I don’t know – something like gunk for 3D printers to turn into replacement body parts, the lefties will have to think of some other insult to throw at capitalism. But for now, this rubbish thing is getting back to being their biggest complaint. Again.
But just clearing the rubbish up is no good. Oh no. The rubbish must be stopped at source by stamping out capitalism, starting with plastic drinking straws. The actual source of this oceanic rubbish is mostly rivers in poor countries. But that’s a mere fact. The Narrative is what matters.
This has been a spontaneous rant, which is why I am keeping it here, rather than switching it to there.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Conjecture and refutation
One of my favourite public sculptures in London goes by the official name of Assembly. This, or perhaps it should be “these”, stand outside of the Woolwich Arsenal, on the south side of the river, downstream of the centre of London.
I photoed these militaristic characters a while back. Here is how they look, in their local context:
I did a posting (LINK TO THE OLD BLOG) here about them.
Here is one of the photos I showed in that posting:
That’s actually the inside of the head of one of these men, but your eye is telling you that this is a regular head, rather than any sort of concaveness. Yet concaveness is what it is. Your brain insists on telling you it’s a regular head, and you can’t successfully tell it any different.
Here’s another of these head-shaped holes, and this time it is a lot easier to see what is really going on, because there is a bit of context. Also present is a spider’s web, visibly flat, which couldn’t be if the head was sticking out like a regular head.
And now here is another photo which makes everything clear, by turning the head entirely black:
No chance, therefore, for the brain to misinterpret what’s going on.
The reason I was reminded of these sorts of optically illusional images is that I am currently reading this book, which is about how the brain in particular sees things, and in general makes sense of things. This was recommended by Alastair James, commenting on this earlier posting.
The point being that it isn’t just the brain that “makes” all this sense. The process of “making” sense takes place at all levels within the brain/nervous system. Your retina, for instance, is already prejudiced, so to speak, in how it looks at things.
Put it this way. The phrase that has kept on rattling around in my head while I’ve been reading this book is the title of another book, by Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations. We don’t just passively soak up information, and then only a bit later “make” sense of it. Our sense organs are all the time imposing intelligent guesses upon what we are experiencing.
That summary probably isn’t that good. But I’ve only on page 40 and I’ve been finding it pretty hard going.
The last photo above reminds me of the picture in this Samizdata posting that I did a year ago.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Photo of a photo of a bloke doing a picture of a bridge in Paris
Indeed:
Usual story. Started to write a piece for here. Realised it would go better there. Carried on writing it anyway. So, here? That.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Hello Kitty Bullet Train
West Japan Railway Co. said Friday it will begin operating a Hello Kitty-themed shinkansen on June 30.
The interior and seats of the 500-series shinkansen, to be used for daily round trips between Shin-Osaka Station in Osaka Prefecture and Hakata in Fukuoka Prefecture, will feature Sanrio Co.’s Hello Kitty character, the railway operator said.
The special train, to be decorated with pink ribbons like the character, will be used to promote local attractions and specialty goods, and passengers will have the chance to pose for photos with a big Hello Kitty doll.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been had by Japan’s answer to the Daily Mash, or that all this was first announced on April 1st. Nevertheless, it does seem to be a real thing.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
The new Spurs stadium is nearly ready (and the views will be great)
Indeed:
I found that at the Spurs website. That’s how things are looking now, or at any rate pretty recently. From the sky.
Of greater interest to me is this:
Which I found here.
The black bit is a staircase, and a viewing platform:
… the views from the Tottenham Skywalk will be spectacular. The trek has five core stages which offer different vantage points and experiences for its visitors. The walk starts on the southern end of the western side of the stadium where the Skywalk ascent begins. Traveling up to Level 5, one continues on the external open walkway up towards the roof. This is a pretty wild concept. Supporters and visitors alike will be trudging up the outer facade, carabiners and all, where they will catch glimpses of the frenetic indoor pace of the stadium, while also viewing the vastness of greater London.
Carabiners? That means everyone roped together like mountain climbers. So, not just strolling up there, then. Even so, I just might give that a go. And I’ll be doing a lot more than “catch glimpses”, I can tell you. Here’s hoping cameras are allowed.