Selfie fun

I’ve come to the end of one of those days where everything took far longer than it should have, including my first shot at doing a blog posting here. So here is a piece of pure quota frivolity from earlier this year, at the end of June, beside the River:

I like how I’m looking straight down, so to speak, on the top of the head of the girl doing the V sign. Well, it’s another way to be unrecognisable.

Slightly cropped, to exclude the face of the boy on the left as we look, of whom we now only see an arm.

Poppies and tablets

Five years ago, to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1, poppies surrounded the Tower of London

Like many others I photoed the poppies, and I photoed a few of those photoing the poppies.

Above are four poppy photos I photoed of photoers using tablets to do their photoing. The second is, I guess, the strangest one. But all it is is a man showing his wife (?) the photo that he has just photoed.

My impression is that tablets were used to photo at that time a lot more than they are now.

Or then again, it could just be that the number of photoers of these poppies was so huge that there were bound to be a few tablets on show. And by their nature (them being big) I noticed and photoed all the tablets that were being used in my vicinity. Maybe photoing with tablets was as rare then as it is now.

But, for whatever it may be worth or signify, I don’t think so.

There is nice history, of things like tablets and digital photoing. And there is not so nice history, of things like World War 1. We should pay respectful attention to both sorts of history, I think.

Regent Street rollerblading girls

Photoed by me yesterday. They were going pretty quickly, up the bottom end of Regent Street, where it’s quite steep:

I like how the one in black is holding her smartphone behind her back like that.

World Cup torture

Well, I didn’t watch England slowly torturing the All Blacks to death yesterday, because I could not bear the thought of watching what I was sure would happen, viz: the All Blacks slowly torturing England to death. I merely recorded it all, in the unlikely event that England won and I would then want to see it all. While England were, in fact, winning, I had a Sunaturday morning lie-in.

The thing is, England are pretty good this time around, and watching all the hope being squeezed out of them, and experiencing all the hope being squeezed out of me, was more than I could have endured. I just wanted one nice, humane bullet to the head, with no messing about.

The thing also (see above) is, England never beat the All Blacks at the World Cup. Never. It just doesn’t happen. They always lose to them. Not necessarily by much, but by enough, every time. The French, yes, they beat the All Blacks at the World Cup, every other decade. But England? Never. As Shakespeare would have put it had he been a rugby fan: Never never never never never. So, why was this game going to be any different?

Now, my problem is that I, along with millions of other real rugby fans (such as I clearly am not) by no means all of whom are even English, now think that England are favourites to beat South Africa. South Africa only just beat Wales this morning, and Wales only really really care about beating England. England beat South Africa at the World Cup quite often, just as South Africa beat England at the World Cup quite often. More to the point, England have now beaten the All Blacks at this World Cup, and the All Blacks beat South Africa at this World Cup in the group stage. So, logic says that England will accordingly beat South Africa. So I probably will watch the final. At which point all those South African backs will go crazy and beat England by twenty points. Deep down, however, I only say that to stop it happening. What I really think is that England will win, and very possibly by quite a lot.

It really would be something if England could dump the three senior Southern Hemisphere teams out of this thing, bang bang bang, one after another. Trouble is, this has not happened yet, and with sport, you never know. Sport is not, to put it mildly, always logical.

I mean, I imagine all those All Black fans got the shock of their lives, as it gradually dawned on them that England were, yesterday, better than them, and were going to beat them, at the World Cup. For the first time. Ever. Ever ever ever ever ever. They should have stayed in bed or gone to bed early, or whatever they would have needed to do in their time zone, to spare themselves the grief.

Stephen Fry once quoted Vincent Price saying: exquisite agony. That about sums up what I’m trying to say in this.

I’m photoing in the rain

Contrary to English myth, and myth elsewhere for all I know, it doesn’t actually rain that much in England, and when it does, it doesn’t usually rain that heavily. The reason we fret about rain so much is that there is just enough for it to be a nuisance, and not enough for us to get properly organised to deal with it effectively. See also: snow.

Photoing rainy weather is a whole speciality in itself, caused by such things as the fact that rain makes things shinier and more reflective. Personally I don’t enjoy photoing in the rain. The light is less good, and you are liable to get rain all over the front of your lens. And yourself. For which I will not (see above) be properly organised. So, showable-here photos photoed by me, taken in rainy weather, are rare.

Nevertheless, here is a recent rainy weather photo that I photoed that I quite like:

This was photoed the same day I photoed that lady photoing her ice cream. This lady was photoing her mere companion, so not so fascinating on that front, but I do like the umbrella, the wheely-suitcase and the all round shininess of everything, reflecting the various colours bouncing around in that part of Soho, which is where I was. (Hence the massage advert top left.)

You can even see the green bike reflected in the smooth but wet pavement upon which it stands.

But the mere fact that this lady was content to have her suitcase out in the open like this is proof that this was not serious rain.

For what that is like, let us again consult a recent blog posting by 6k, who lives in South Africa:

It’s been raining for about 12 hours now, it’s still raining, and we’re already approaching an incredible 100mm. The pool is overcapacity, the gutters overflowing, the drains overwhelmed and the beagle is …

Well, it turns out the beagle wasn’t that bothered, because he was indoors. But you get the point. There’s rain like in London, in my photo. And then there’s rain, like that.

Black bird on street lamp

Yesterday was my day for finally admitted that Summer has, for a while now, been well and truly over. I wore socks and shoes to go out, for the first time (and then socks in bed). I didn’t wonder whether I should go out with a cardigan of some sort, I just went out with a cardigan of some sort, on. And, I installed my annual winter-months double glazing, which I do with bubble wrap and masking tape.

Before I did this latter project, I noticed a photogenic circumstance to be seen through my still easily-openable living room window. This:

Yes, a quite big black bird, on a street lamp. (And indeed, looking very autumnal and post-summery.)

I like London’s street lamps. They are very variable, often rather ornate in the fake-antique style, done with more than half an eye towards impressing tourists, especially in the centre of London. And if it is tourist-driven, this habit has spread to other non-touristy areas such as the one where I live. This habit being one which, like I say, I like.

And I like this bird. It is definitely a black bird. But is it a blackbird? I’m guessing: not. Too big, and with a front end (bill?) that is way too big. Is it a crow? A jackdaw? Or some other brand of bird unknown to me? Any birdophiles reading this are respectfully requested to supply guidance.

Tardy tardigrade posting

Friday is my day for Other creatures postings, and you could hardly get more othery than this:

So, I did a posting about this very othery creature, which is called a “tardigrade”, and I thought I had posted it. On August 16th. But unfortunately, I had only got to the stage of finishing the posting. I neglected to push that vital final button, the one that says “Publish”. With the result that on August 16th there was nothing here. And I only just realised this. This is the one thing I don’t entirely like about this new blog software of mine. It can be hard to see the difference between a posting that’s all ready to go, and a posting that has, so to speak, gone; between a mere “draft” and an actual published posting.

I have now corrected this dreadful circumstance, and have inserted the completed but hitherto unposted tardigrade posting where it should have been all along. Read what I originally said, and quoted someone else saying, about this bizarre creature here, along with a couple of links to further information about it.

Helicopter photos of London

Incoming from 6k:

Hi Brian

Hi 6k.

Hope you’re well.

I am, and likewise. Although, I usually know how you are, because you often blog about this subject. My recent favourite in this genre was the one where you included a chart of your stress levels for an entire day when there was a football match in the evening, involving your team.

Been a while since I’ve been in touch, but I am (of course) still reading BMNB dot com every day.

Good, good.

I only had to look at the title of this one – London’s Imperfect Geometry Revealed in Aerial Photography by Bernhard Lang – to know that I had to send it your way: enjoy!

Given 6k’s keenness on photoing with a drone, I half expected these aerial photos of London to be drone-photos also. But I guess it makes just as much sense to use a helicopter, given the amount of grief you’d surely get if you launched a drone into London’s sky. For starters, you can’t go within a kilometer of an airport, which rules out a big chunk of London near to London City Airport.

If you want to, make a start on drone law by reading this.

Meanwhile, my favourite of Herr Lang’s snaps was, of course, this, with all its bridges:

I make it eight of them.

My personal record is seven bridges, and all of my seven bridges are to be seen in the above photo by Lang. Only the nearest bridge (Waterloo Bridge) in his photo is missing from my photo. Not only that, but Lang’s photo also includes the spot where I did my photoing from, in the bottom left corner of his photo. This was the top of the Hotel ME, which is at the western end of the D that is made by The Strand and The Aldwych. Follow the link to my earlier posting at the start of this paragraph and you’ll also encounter a map which shows this. 6k thought I’d enjoy, and he was not wrong.

I’m not sure I agree about London’s geometry being “imperfect”. I know what this means, but it is these very “imperfections” that distinguish great cities from boring ones. Rectangular grids make for urban uniformity. “Imperfections” make a city far more interesting. But that’s a whole other posting.

Big Ben is having its scaffolding removed

QUITE A LONG TIME LATER (June 2020): I see from my site stats info that a trickle of people seem now to be reading this posting. So let me now correct it. It turned out that only the very top of the Big Ben scaffolding had been removed. I wrongly thought, when I wrote what follows, that this meant it would soon all be gone, but in fact the dismantling then went no further. At the time of this addendum, most of the Big Ben scaffolding remains in place. Apologies for the error.

Here’s a photo I took from just upstream of the Blackfriars Station entrance. It is of one of the many weird alignments you get, from the fact that the River Thames is not straight, but full of twists and turns.

Here we are, on the north side of the Thames, looking through the Wheel, which is on the south side of the Thames, past one of the rectanguloid lumps attached to or near to the National Theatre, also on the south side, towards … Big Ben. Big Ben on the north side. Big Ben smothered in scaffolding:

The reason I mention this photo now (aside from the fact that I like it) is that today, I learned from Guido Fawkes that this scaffolding has now started to disappear:

As was announced by Parliamentary Authorities last week, Elizabeth Tower has begun the prolonged process of shedding some of its cladding. To the palpable relief of tourists who have experienced years of photographic disappointment …

When Guido says “Elizabeth Tower”, he of course means Big Ben. And, also of course, I loved all the scaffolding around Big Ben, and have numerous photos of it taken from all sorts of different places and angles.

For the last year or two I have found myself connecting this scaffolding with the battle to accomplish Brexit. Time standing still, or some such thing. I had a sort of bet with myself that when the scaffolding came down, Brexit would finally happen. (I favour Brexit, having voted for it in the referendum.)

But now, it seems the scaffolding will be long gone before Brexit occurs, if it ever does. Although, on my television, they’re still advertising Brexit as going to happen at the end of this month. Maybe it will happen then, but what do I know?

Concerning these latest delays to Brexit, my favourite internet posting by far has been another one at Guido Fawkes, more recent than the one linked to above, concerning a malfunctioning advert.

For my more serious Brexit opinions, listen, if you can stand the idea, to this conversation between Patrick Crozier and me, which I reckon still makes pretty good sense. Although, if you’re a Remainer, you should probably give it a miss.

Bad Bach

Here are two enticing paragraphs from a book which is coming out next month, entitled Music: A Subversive History by Ted Gioia:

I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits — on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen groschen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons of it at retail prices — or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without explanation or apology. They don’t know about Bach’s sex life: at best a matter of speculation, but what should we conclude from his twenty known children, more than any significant composer in history (a procreative career that has led some to joke with a knowing wink that “Bach’s organ had no stops”), or his second marriage to twenty-year-old singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, when he was in his late thirties? They don’t know about the constant disciplinary problems Bach caused, or his insolence to students, or the many other ways he found to flout authority. This is the Bach branded as “incorrigible” by the councilors in Leipzig, who grimly documented offense after offense committed by their stubborn and irascible employee.

I sort of knew a lot of this, but didn’t quite put the slant on it that Gioia does. I had Bach as a Great Composer being tormented by dreary apparatchiks who didn’t get what a Great Composer he was. But Gioia has Bach as the kind of Great Composer who would have driven anybody crazy, and only people who did semi-grasp what an actual great composer he was would have put up with it for as long as those Leipzigers did.

Gioia continues:

But you hardly need to study these incidents in Bach’s life to gauge his subversive tendencies. Just listen to his music, which in its ostentatious display of technique and inventiveness must have disturbed many in the austere Lutheran community, and even fellow musicians. Not much music criticism of his performances has survived, but the few surviving reactions of his contemporaries leave no doubt about Bach’s disdain for the rules others played by. We hear a complaint about him improvising for too long during church services. We read an angry denunciation from fellow composer Johann Adolphe Scheibe about Bach’s “bombastic” and “confused” music-making. Bach even was forced to provide a memorandum to the city council in 1730 explaining why it was necessary to embrace “the present musical taste, master the new kinds of music.” Here he insists that “the former style of music no longer seems to please our ears,” and demands the freedom to follow the most progressive trends of his day. But perhaps the most revealing commentary comes from Scheibe’s diatribe, where he complains that Bach’s music was “darkened by an excess of art” and marred by an “unending mass of metaphors and figures.” In other words, the very signs of Bach’s greatness for later generations were the same elements that made him suspect during his own times.

This makes a lot of sense to me. There has always seemed to me something of the Gothic about Bach, a distinct whiff of Count Dracula, especially when he sits down at the organ. But I don’t now listen to much Bach organ music because the usual way it’s now played always sounds so bloody prim and proper.

The best way to tune into this side of Bach is to listen to him “arranged” for piano, by some self-important nineteenth century piano virtuoso, and played by a similarly egotistical and ostentatious (to use the word Gioia applies to Bach) pianist now, preferably a Russian, of the sort who comes third in piano competitions rather than first because, although he can clearly play the socks off everyone else, he makes the jury too uncomfortable with his crazy histrionics and his indifference to the usual way that classical piano pieces are supposed to be played. That sort of grandiose and attention-grabbing playing, it seems to me, often captures Bach in a way that better mannered performances miss. To put it another way, I have long suspected that “authentic” Bach is often the very opposite of what Bach was really like, and what Bach would have really liked.

Read more at where I copied-and-pasted the above two paragraphs from, here.

See also this Guardian piece, reporting Bach research by John Eliot Gardiner, that Gioia draws upon.

Short quote:

Archival sources, including school inspector reports, reveal that Bach’s education was troubled by gang warfare and bullying, sadism and sodomy – as well as his own extensive truancy.

This was published six years ago. Again, I sort of remember this, but I didn’t really take it in.

I love the internet.