Category: images

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Moooooo!

Due to a forthcoming engagement which just might be an opportunity to tout for work I made some cards via moo on flickr. Choose a picture or selection of pictures to appear on one side of the card, define one set text for the other. Simple.

I should have known, having seen other people’s moo cards. I should have known, having helpfully been informed of the dimensions of the cards several times during the process. But still it came as a surprise. It’s like looking at pictures through a letterbox. A particularly narrow letterbox.

Although initially disconcerting, this turns out not to be a bad thing. Before you finalise the order each picture chosen is displayed on a page with a thin rectangular template over it which you can wiggle around, rotate or make smaller (ie zoom in on a detail of the picture).

It’s really interesting to see what ends up in a narrow slit in the middle of each picture. Sometimes it’s just never going to work but most times there’s a very pleasing, and rather surprising, new image to be seen. I’m not going to want to give them away.

And in non-bovine, listed, news I was sent a haiku by text message yesterday. Such a surprising and delighting thing, I’m still polishing it in my brain and smiling when I think of it. A new mode of transmission perfectly suited to this venerable form. And what an amazing thing to think of doing.

Secondborn announced this morning “my breath smells like a colobus monkey”. I asked how he knew this and he said he had many tiny noses on his tongue. When I explained that it wasn’t the method of detection so much as the colobus I was enquiring about he replied airily that he’d sniffed them at the zoo. And they smell? horrible.

Returning to the vexed subject of dog treats (Pedigree dentastix for small dogs are more expensive, per kilo, than parmesan cheese), I was further incensed to notice on a recent trip to the supermarket that Pedigree dentastix for unfeasibly hugely mutantly massive slobbery dogs are about half the price, per kilo, of those for small-but-perfectly-formed gorgeous dogs. So my clever compromise, although it pains me to be handing cash over to this wicked company which discriminates against the companions of sensibly dimensioned canines, is to by a box of the huge ones and cut them in half. Thus reducing the dog treat bill from £13 to £4 per month. Ca-CHING!

And finally, as they say on all the best lists of news, Curious George is excellent and exceedingly cute fun for all the family. And, not being a colobus, he doesn’t even smell.

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999th…

…picture on my Flickr account

hamleys by bus

I’m really pleased with a few of the recent ones, particularly the street photos which don’t have a reflection of some sort in them. But reflections still seem to float my boat and I also like this one in the roof of the British Museum’s Great Court

great court roof

I suppose to really make sense of it you need to know what the roof itself looks like. So see below.

Continue reading “999th…”

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Loathing manacles

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Via Erzsebel‘s Clock

Continue reading “Loathing manacles”

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Robert the Giant Easter Bunny and the screen breaks

fishnets

I’ve been away from the keyboard and cavorting in the meatspace, basking in the joy of friends. And of course the boys are on holiday and require entertainment of one sort or another. I am delightfully happy.

One problem with actually doing stuff is that there’s so much to savour and so little time to write about it, but the continuing discipline of a picture a day gives a framework for memory.

The picture above, for instance, is the table of the abode in which I found myself on the morning of the visit of Robert the Giant Easter Bunny who brought mini eggs and some rather sophisticated dark chocolate balls. Robert, it seems, is the name of one of the oversized lagomorphs to which I have already had cause to refer. I’m told his breeder is disenchanted with the proposed North Korean farming programme having discovered that only the apparatchiks were getting to eat them.

I have learnt to hula-hoop; been down the biggest slide in the Tate Modern; bought wool to knit for the newly-arrived miracle baby of a dear friend (in the new-look John Lewis); been to the theatre not once but twice, one trip with my father which may be the start of a regular treat; cooked and been cooked for and drunk many a fine vintage; floated home through a world of infinite complexity and walked under the soft spring sunshine in many places with many friends.

Tomorrow the boys, Maizy and I set out in the van to this campsite until the end of the week. We’re hoping the weather will be good but, in a clear demonstration of the maxim that more information is not necessarily better information we are bewildered by the range of meteorological prognostications available for the same town over the same period:

bbc.jpg

yahoo.jpg

accuweather.jpg

met-office.jpg

Further digesting shall take place of the extraordinary week on Holy Island, about which Alistair has already written and pictured. I’m not sure I’ve got the words.

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Reintegration

Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever.

leaf

dissolution

rotting wood

Hmm. I remembered it as “Our ashes roll from soul to soul, And go on for ever and ever.” Given that I planned to have this tattooed somewhere I need to rethink which I prefer. Or just rethink. Maybe it should be the ouroboros snake with a mobius twist in the shape of the infinity symbol after all.

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Illimitabilityness

three

eye

more lichen

…on the earth is dumped the pure and the impure, excreta, urine, saliva, pus, blood, the earth does not loathe those, in the same manner develop a mind similar to earth. When you develop a mind similar to earth, arisen contacts of like and dislike do not take hold of the mind and stay.

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Time lines

This was one of those moments, seconds passing and the jet shooting across the sky. A glance up, an interminable fumbling with the power switch, Maizy tugging impatiently on her lead. A second longer and the harmony would be gone, or at least changed beyond my ability to appreciate it.

lines in the sky

There is a phrase “bitterness is a poison I drink hoping you die”. This was a revelation to me when I first heard it about six months ago although goodness knows the concept of self-harm as a response to an external situation is not foreign to me.
My revelation of today (thank you, therapist) is that the anaconda coils of anxiety crushing my ribs, an ever-tightening straight-jacket of stasis even as I struggle to escape are… wait for it… entirely of my own making!

I am enmeshed in a time net, knotted in not-doing.

Why this might be is beyond me. It’s childish, short-sighted, cowardly and above all hurts me more than anyone else.

Right. Now. While I spend another four years or so seeking the root cause I can at least attempt to ameliorate the asphyxiating anaconda angst.

Unfortunately the advice said to be given by the US Government on what to do in the event of an anaconda attack is not proving useful:

1. If you are attacked by an anaconda, do not run. The snake is faster than you are.

2. Lie flat on the ground. Put your arms tight against your sides, your legs tight against one another

3. Tuck your chin in.

4. The snake will come and begin to nudge and climb over your body.

5. Do not panic

6. After the snake has examined you, it will begin to swallow you from the feet and – always from the end. Permit the snake to swallow your feet and ankles. Do not panic

7. The snake will now begin to suck your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a long time.

8. When the snake has reached your knees slowly and with as little movement as possible, reach down, take your knife and very gently slide it into the side of the snake’s mouth between the edge of its mouth and your leg, then suddenly rip upwards, severing the snake’s head.

9. Be sure you have your knife.

10. Be sure your knife is sharp.

Snopes tells me (as I suspected) that it’s false, but provides no alternative strategy.

(Snakes. Aren’t they just brilliant? and the words associated with them… “Ouroboros“, “cthonic serpents“, “caduceus” etc etc… but this is merely wasting time. Back to the coal face to cast off a coil.)

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Good things

I had a carefully linked list of recent good things which lead one to the next in a pleasing series of elegant segue-ways and I appear to have deleted it by mistake. Never mind.

The first good thing, which occurred after the demise of the list, has to be the result – a draw, but an honourable one. I speak, of course, of the firstborn’s endeavours on the AstroTurf this morning. He scored the equaliser.

w00000t

Almost as good was the long lens which came with the E-400… not bad for a first sporting shot I thought. Shame his mother hadn’t washed his socks though.

Staying with the family, my gorgeous cousin Jules got married. She’s beautiful. She’s funny. Talent oozing out of her fingertips – acting, singing, directing. And so clever they didn’t have a grade high enough for her degree. I love her.

Here she is giving a specially customised rendition of “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love” at her wedding reception.

Jules is a singer

Obviously I want to be her, but it’s rather too late now so I take delight in watching her being her.

And on Monday I had the most wonderful time at Mr Beelicious’ birthday party.

jonathan in another brilliant hat

We met on Holy Island last August where already his excellent taste in headgear was well in evidence. He came from New York to celebrate at Les Trois Garcons. The food was fabulous, the decor outrageous-flamboyant-baroque and his friends so delightful and interesting and funny and sympa.

After eating we were taken upstairs to the living quarters of two at least of the trois garcons which had enough quirk and fluff and spangles to keep me happy for several lifetimes. And an African grey parrot with which I (and others) immediately fell in love. It was a night I hope never to forget, thank you so much Mr B!

To the realm of work. The major excitement for us at Global Voices was the launch of the new Reuters Africa site. It has a feed of the relevant Global Voices content on every country page across the entire continent.

The announcement made quite a splash since it’s the first time that blogger content has been incorporated quite so extensively in a mainstream media site. My friends and colleagues Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman both wrote great analyses of its significance and from openDemocracy came an excellent article by Becky Hogge.

The comments on the announcement article also let me discover the blog of my friend and former BBC colleague the journalist Lara Pawson who is currently in Luanda, Angola, and also writes for openDemocracy.

Hold that openDemocracy thought, we’ll be coming back to oD a bit later. Because this is where the filaments multiply beyond my ability to keep a single thread. We’ll continue with GV and another great thing which is the appointment of Sami Ben Gharbia as our new Advocacy Coordinator. Yes, for those of you with good memories, the same Sami Ben Gharbia of the Tunisian Prison Map about which I waxed lyrical last year.

We stay with the people of GV and move to the lovely Neha Viswanathan, our South Asia Editor (and reader of 3000 blogs). Quite how she finds the time to do anything beyond her work I don’t know but she does. She came over the other day and, despite being a confirmed dog person, fell for the cat big time. She also writes. Beautifully.

Click through to the previous link and you will see a picture of the aforementioned cat. The writing may be a response to or triggered by the picture – in other words ekphrasis. And, delightfully, the theme for this month’s edition of qarrtsiluni is that very thing. You can submit an image for inclusion in the gallery which acts as a seedbed of potential textual inspiration and you can submit “poetry or poetic prose” inspired by any of the gallery images or any other image you choose.

This is where Ariadne’s thread proves inadequate for navigating the maze of contemporary existence. I cannot, for the life of me, knit or even navigate a path from ekphrasis to Bamako, although no doubt it is possible. So I have to invoke the oD reference I asked you to keep in mind, and on your needle, earlier.

Some weeks ago I mentioned going to see the film, Bamako. The next day I interviewed the director, Abderrhamane Sissako, and the executive producer, Maji-da Abdi for openDemocracy. They also happen to be married, Maji-da speaks English and translates for Abderrhamane of whose European languages French is better. The interview is here.

This was one of those interviews where everything “clicked”. I have been privileged to talk to many interesting and inspiring people over the years. Abderrhamane and Maji-da are up there with the best. The more I think about the more convinced I am that everyone should see this film. It’s even had good reviews in the London press – do yourself a favour, go and see it!

This is the downside of infrequent blogging – the complexity of the catchup. However there was another good thing fueling this marathon. Purchased from the recently opened Nigerian wine merchant’s down the road is a delicious Saumur blanc from Saint Vincent in the Loire Valley. Spicy, as promised. Pale amber in colour. Complex. Citrus. A honey nose. And I’ve finished the bottle.

Also, while accentuating the positive, my pictures got some fan mail today. They were pleased, I was delighted. Which reminds me there hasn’t been a picture of ages. Here’s one the boys and I all like called “pollen”.

pollen

Good night!