How big creatures assemble themselves

Speaking of animals, as I like to do of a Friday, how does Life get from little tiny single cell thingies to, you know, animals? Well, somewhat like this:

The little tiny cells don’t themselves get that much bigger. No. Instead they combine into cooperating flocks, like the fishes above.

To be clear, the above is not an actual creature evolving. What you see there is merely analogous to how bigger creatures assemble themselves from tiny little cells.

I continue to read this SS-W book. My problem is: I’m already persuaded of the truth of everything he says. But I am learning plenty, so will continue.

Emmanuel Todd with cat

I am a fan of Emmanuel Todd, and I like cats, so, this:

Found it here, via someone or other on Twitter (to whom deepest thanks).

The new class struggle of which Todd apparently speaks is between French intellectuals and cats.

“You’re the one who wants to make it illegal for lions to eat lettuce”

Here.

Colourful architecture in the past and in the future

Tim Dunn tweeted the two photos below as a before/after pair.

Before:

After:

Before being how Wells Cathedral used once upon a time to look, and After being after the Puritans had got rid of all the colouring in, and had added a couple of towers.

In my mind, I connect the idea that medieval cathedrals used to be riots of colour, which seems to be true, in addition to being an attractive idea to many (me included), with the idea that many new and recent buildings might benefit from a similar sort of process in reverse. In short, brightening up.

Here’s the sort of thing I mean:

I downloaded that photo from the www, but then lost where I had found it and couldn’t find it again. Nevertheless, there it is, the Sydney Opera House, lit up with what look like Aboriginal type graphics.

I also came across a French medieval cathedral lit up in colour like old Wells Cathedral

Which is all good, but such a thing only works well at night.

Actual paint, on the other hand, is permanent, and good luck persuading those who have got used to plain stone colour that they should instead get used to a highly controversial version of what their cathedral might have been like in the past.

Time for someone to invent magic electronic paint. This is the sort of paint which you can slap on just like regular paint, except that it is transparent, like varnish. But this varnish is different, because it consists of a billion tiny mass produced little magic spheres which, when activated by a magic message from afar, can light up in whatever colour you want. You sit down with your computer and Photoshop in lots of colours, and then you switch it on. Voila! It looks like it used to, before the Puritans went all puritanical with the first lot of paint. But, it’s only temporary so the grumblers who would have grumbled very obstructively will only grumble a bit and not enough to stop it. More Photoshopping means that you can switch to a totally different colour scheme, just by switching another switch.

Soon, all the now ugly concrete monstrosities will be covered in this magic paint, and the world will become a more colourful and much better place. Patent pending.

Photo-question answered

There I was, sitting in a window seat of a Ryanair 737-800, trying and pretty much failing to photo photos out of the window. But I did succeed in photoing this photo:

When I looked at this photo again, I wondered just exactly what that elongated rectangular bit in the middle was, surrounded by darkness, that looks like a word spelt out in an unfamiliar alphabet? I cranked up Google Maps, and searched, all around Stansted. Nothing. The key to it was that highly idiosyncratic motorway intersection at the top. Couldn’t find it anywhere, until I started casting the net wider, and I found it, way out west of London, where the M4 and the M25 cross.

It was here:

There really is no doubt about it. All the details fit. The rectangle of weird lettering is Heathrow Airport. At first I thought this was going to be another mystery posting, for Commenter Chuck or Commenter Alastair to solve. But, no need. Already solved.

So, Ryanair planes fly from France to Stansted, right over Heathrow. I guess the airplanes landing at and taking off at Heathrow are way too low to be bothered about airplanes like the one I was in.

The entire British Concorde fleet in 1986

Here:

Alternative title: Five Concordes sniffing the arse of another Concorde. A Twitter commenter agrees.

As someone once said about a battleship: “This is how to waste public money.”

One of my most lasting regrets is that I never photoed Concorde, even though my first digital camera predated its demise.

Not ordinary things.

Those Frenchies do love their motorbikes

Yes they do. Here are some I photoed on my recent trip to their country:

And here is a particularly interesting motorbike specimen, which I spotted inside a shop in Perpignan:

You see what they did there? They put a classic motorbike next to one of the great design classics of the twentieth century, the Barcelona Chair. What this says to me is: This motorbike is a work of art also. My photos are not works of art, on account of unwanted reflections, but they make the point I’m making well enough.

The best motorbike I encountered, and photoed with its owner’s proud permissions, was this one, photoed right at the end of my stay, while being driven back to Carcassone Airport:

The nearest thing to this bike I could find on the www was this. Not a perfect match, but an exact match on the colour scheme front.

I like to think that the French see something philosophical, Sartrian, existentialist, in their bikes. What with you riding a motorbike, today could be your last day alive! So climb on your bike and find your true self! Or something. I put this or something like it to a friend earlier this evening, and she said maybe they like bikes because unlike us lot here, they have roads which you can really ride motorbikes on properly. Sadly, I think that makes more sense.

“The turquoise really was that turquoise …”

I love this photo:

For all the reasons he says, and particularly because of (see above) the turquoise bits on the left as we look.

And this lighthouse photo is pretty nice too. Again with the crashing waves.

Although, question. The acronym “RBOSS” signifies the excessive use of photo-editing to beef up photo-colours to absurd levels of colourfulness. And I also hate this. I always try to leave colours just as they came out of the camera. But what actual words do the letters R, B, O, S and S actually stand for?

6 for 7

I love it when this kind of thing happens:

Except of course when it happens to one of the teams I support. Which it didn’t because this was earlier this morning in Australia’s Big Bash League, and who cares who wins that? Well, a few Australians I suppose.

I thought of calling this posting 647, but I reckon that would be one puzzle too many for non-cricket-obsessives.

In proper cricket, South Africa have followed on against England, but it’s now raining. Tune into that here. Although, if you care you’ll already know that, and if you don’t care you won’t care.

In earlier versions of this posting I counted the numbers and wickets wrongly. Sorry. But then again, not that sorry.

Remember to photo the ordinary things

This is great advice:

Wallsend in 1963 by Colin Jones. If you are a young photographer who is just starting out remember to photograph the ordinary things in life, eventually time will make them extraordinary.

Got this from my Twitter feed. Twitter is not only bile and stupidity. It depends who you are following. I follow some photoers. That they typically have different political opinions to me is, for me, a feature rather than a bug, because I see into other political minds.