Seaside Man

Is this a Greenfinch? I think it is. Really good birdwatchers amaze me. When I was out on Borth Bog with my camera a few months ago I met a serious twitcher who asked me "Have you seen anything interesting?". So I told him I'd seen a dragonfly and he mentioned several sorts of bird I hadn't even heard of that he'd spotted. Then he says:

"Look, there's a Reed Warbler"!

I looked where he pointed and couldn't see anything. Then he described where it was and all I could see was a brown dot. Heaven knows what characteristics he was using to identify it. I think it takes a lot of time and dedication to get good at that dark art!

Cheers, Tom.

Sorry about the rubbish picture, but I snatched it quickly through the balcony door taking my life in my hands as I did so. You should have seen Molly our cat move when the wind and rain raged in! The wind is whipping the tops off the waves, as I hope you can see in the picture. On the beach yesterday I felt as if I was going to get blown away, and I'm not exactly insubstantial.

Cheers, Tom.

(click on the picture to enlarge it)

In 1975, Peter Schmidt (Painter) and Brian Eno (musician and producer) produced a set of 113 inspirational cards in a box. The set was called "Oblique Strategies" and each card was printed with text to help guide towards productive thinking in a creative context. The entire list is here:

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/Ed1.html

Some of the suggestions are:

"Ask people to work against their better judgement"

"Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency"

"Do something boring"

"Mechanize something idiosyncratic"

"Remember those quiet evenings"

The one I used for the photograph above was:

Turn it upside down

Cheers, Tom.

I did a very very stupid thing yesterday. I was cutting the edges off a picture to put it into my sketchbook using a craft knife and a metal ruler, something I have done hundreds of times before. On this occasion, the index finger of my left hand was hanging slightly over the edge of the ruler. I sliced off a large piece of skin and it started bleeding. A lot. Very painful too.

It’s OK now and healing nicely - I don’t even have a plaster on it - but I feel such a fool for making such an elementary mistake with something I’ve done so many times before.

I’m choosing to treat this as a learning experience: never get over-confident when dangerous things are in use, and respect sharp knives.

Cheers, Tom.

Lost in silence, sitting here
remembering
the first gold-green of early spring.
So sweet the breeze,
so soft the days of misty bliss,
of memories.
The birth of total trust.

Into the heat, of summer's sun,
the sands of time strewn on a beach
that held the moon so long,
eternity held out a hand
to all who fell
under the spell
of silvery star dust.

But dreamers waken,
broken spells lie dashed
like fragile shells,
the souls they held now vanished,
the bits and pieces fall
then call upon a wintry wind
that swirls to fate's slow waltz,
and dance alone in moonlight
now stained October rust.

-- Patricia A Boudreau

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The car in the picture is for sale and has been parked there next to the sea wall for about a month. When it first appeared it was in great condition: the rust has appeared since then. My bicycle rusted to uselessness in 3 months in our back yard, so I wonder how much longer the car has before it becomes scrap?

Cheers, Tom.

P.S. I painted out the number plate, and the picture gets bigger if you click on it.

I couldn't have asked for a more cheery sight when I poked my head out of the bedroom door this morning. I hope nature looks as lovely where you are today.

Cheers, Tom.

Helen and I watched Heima last night. It’s a documentary about the 2006 homecoming concert tour by the ethereal Icelandic post-Rock band Sigur Ros. It’s a stunningly beautiful film that shows Iceland off tremendously well and gives a great insight into the band. I strongly recommend it to anyone, whether you like the music or not.

I honestly can’t recommend this highly enough. It looks amazing, sounds amazing. Absolutely mesmerizing.

Their music is sometimes quiet and acoustic, and sometimes builds to blistering crescendos, but it always remains melodic and intimate. Here is the trailer for the film:

The photos I used here are by: John Best, Halldór Sveinbjörnsson, Bossily, Finnbogi Helgason, Ívar Bórólfsson, Philip Hutchinson and Anton Brink.

Cheers, Tom.

It's been one of those years when the leaves stayed green for ages until a massive storm knocked them all off before they had a chance to turn autumnal. Luckily, yesterday, I saw the above. The massive storm was what did this:

That is the largest pile of seaweed I've ever seen on the beach. It only does that after a fairly severe storm, so it must have been even worse than I thought.

Cheers, Tom.

They won’t expect to get it back!

Cheers, Tom.

That’s how I feel about the picture above. It’s grainy and low quality but something about it just appeals to me.

I get the same thing from certain pieces of music and certain films. This piece of music struck a deep chord in me the first time I heard it (which is ironic as there are no chords in it):

That’s the Sarabande from Bach’s 5th suite for solo Cello in C minor, played there by Rostropovich. It’s a slow sequence of single notes lasting a little under 4 minutes yet it seems to say so much. It seems appropriate on today, Remembrance Day. This was the piece played on September 11th 2002 (by Yo Yo Ma) in remembrance of the World Trade Centre bombings.

Tom.

Some of you reading this will be familiar with Banana the Poet, sometimes also known as Michele. She has a series of poetry books being released, and has organised a “blog tour” to help publicise them. This post of hers describes the success of one of her books, and more details are available on her blog:

http://banana.blog.co.uk/2009/11/03/what-do-you-think-of-it-so-far-banana-s-book-blog-tour-7296953/

Some time ago, she asked me to send her some interview questions. I did so and she has answered them in her own style, even writing a special poem for number 7. So here we are, 10 questions and 10 answers:

(This picture is by my partner Helen)

1. If a picture paints a thousand words, how many words paint a picture?

I try for as few as possible. because I'm quite lazy and get bored quickly.

2. What remarkable things have you found in unexpected places?

I find remarkable things everywhere; never in unexpected places because I expect to find remarkable things everywhere and I'm always looking, so I'm trained like Inspector Clouseau to always be ready for that "Not now Cato!" moment.

3. What do you wonder about?

Everything, all the time.

4. How would you organise a successful revolution?

I couldn't organise myself out of a wet paper bag This blog tour has stretched me to my organisational limits. I'm more the sporadic subversive type who throws ideas out there recklessly and leaves the 'doing anything about it' to other people.

5. Would you rather be a novel or a poem? Why?

I'd definitely rather be a novel. They last longer. Poems are lovely but short and quickly read. I'm emphatically on the side of lasting longer when it comes to my own existence.

6. Is writing about music like dancing about architecture?

I've never danced about architecture although I understand the druids did a bit of that around Stonehenge and other stone circles. Yes I suppose so. Both are methods of self expression and can be artistically employed to convey feelings and other esoteric opinions regarding either music or solid structures.

Very large structures have historically inspired people to dance around them for various reasons; large fountains for example will cause a certain jigging motion in those who need the loo and I have no doubt that when the Eiffel Tower was completed there must have been some dancing involved as a celebration of the event.

7. Why are manhole covers round?

Holey Moley.

Consider the lowly manhole
beneath you on the ground;
It gets no accolade or prize
yet there it's always found.

With lorries trundling over
anonymous and brown;
Ignored by all except the blokes
who use them to climb down.

I'd not thought much about them
til quizzed by Seaside man,
and then I thought I'd write a poem
about the hole that's prefixed man.

Why is a manhole round he asked?
At first I was perplexed;
So I thought I'd ask my man
as it's a hole named for his sex.

I was not much surprised
that he had an answer;
I married him for his know how
well it wasn't for his 'skill' as a dancer!

'Why manholes are round,'
he told me with a grin,
'is it's the only shape of cover
that cannot be dropped in.'

'A rectangle or a diamond
or star shape or a square
could be somehow inverted
and slip through without much care.'

Then I looked at Wikipedia
and found some other reasons,
and found a non-round manhole
from the land of pizza - four seasons.

In the ancient capital from long ago
Italians then called home
there were rectangular manholes
which no doubt did fall in Rome.

So does deep in some ancient sewer
lie a corpse amongst the moles?
Bonked to death by the cover
of an ancient Ro-manhole?

8. What would be the title of your autobiography?

I would have liked "On the Other Hand" - but Fay Wray had it first. Maybe I could have "On the Other Other Hand"?

9. "Less is more only when more is too much" - true or false?

True

10. What question would you least like to be asked?

"Do you recognise this body?" asked as they whip the cover off a cadaver.

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I’m sure you will all join me in wishing Banana the greatest of success with her blog tour and with her books.

Cheers, Tom.

 

 

(Click on the picture to enlarge it)

It's a glorious but very cold morning. I can't hang about as I need to get out and about before the mist disappears. I took the above picture from my bedroom window.

Cheers, Tom.

There are very many "blogs" here at BCUK selling things. This one for example:

http://bestsellerlcdtv.blog.co.uk/2009/11/08/samsung-ln19b360-19-inch-720p-lcd-hdtv-review-7331249/

So I thought I'd have a look to see how many times the same text occurs on the internet:

"Bought this 19" Samsung TV for our renovated kitchen and it looks great and works great. Sound is a little tinny but fine for this use. Unit is compact and lightweight so it kind of blends in with the countertop and other appliances that have black on them"

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22Sound+is+a+little+tinny+but+fine+for+this+use%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

The answer is 319. There are 319 different websites with exactly that text on it. Some are "personal" blogs, some are review sites, some are selling sites. The adverts all link to Amazon where you can buy the television. Someone is being paid (presumably ultimately by Samsung, Amazon or both) to make posts all over the internet linking back to Amazon. I'm guessing they get paid on the basis of how many times people click on the links to go to Amazon.

Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I really don't like this. The advert is set up to look like a comment from a normal buyer, but no normal person I know would paste the same comment onto 319 sites. This practice devalues looking up reviews on the net because you can't trust any of them to be by real people.

Here is my suggestion: Never, ever click on one of those links selling tellies, laptops, phones, cameras, or whatever. Always be skeptical about any reviews you read online. There is a good chance that someone has been paid to post it.

Cheers, Tom.

P.S. The original comment appears to have been made at Amazon on September 19th. I wonder how the author feels about having her work posted all over the net by Steven Maxwell, female, age 28 from Liverpool?

My apologies for the poor quality of the picture, but is that snow on those distant hills? Brrr! Very cold morning.

I was privileged to see a rather nice moon last night. Here it is (it gets slightly bigger if you click on it):

And a nice bit of Sunday music for you, this is a rather nice clip of Creedence playing "Bad Moon Rising":

Cheers, Tom.

The waves are monsters today. No surfers though. I wonder why that is?

I hope everyone is well and having a good weekend.

Cheers, Tom.

(click on the picture to enlarge it)

Last night was Guy Fawkes Night when we commemorate burning an effigy of a Roman Catholic who tried to blow up parliament, and let off lots of fireworks. I was hoping to get out with camera and tripod and get lots of pictures of fireworks, but: I didn’t: it was just too windy!

So instead I hark back to Halloween when I was here:

http://seasideman.blog.co.uk/2009/11/01/learning-from-lanterns-7284772/

taking pictures of lanterns. I’ve noticed before that if you have a large camera round your neck, people approach you and this occasion was no exception. A rather drunk lad (at about 6PM!) shouted at me “How much for a photo?”. I told him I wasn’t selling photographs and he swore and walked on. Then the bunch in the picture above appeared and pretty much begged me to take their picture, so I did.

I had to use Flash as it was so dark, and the result was some rather nasty red-eye. The girl 4th from the left for example:

But with a bit of simple software trickery I did this:

Fixed! The cause of Redeye is the light from the flash going straight into the pupil of the eye, bouncing off the back of the eye and coming out again, reddened by the blood at the back of the eye. This normally only happens if the flash is close to the lens, as happens whenever a built-in flash is used. This is just one of the reasons that professional photographers tend to use a flash unit separate from the camera, or as a minimum attached to the top so that it is some distance from the lens.

Thankfully, a bit of software trickery can fix it without too much effort!

Cheers, Tom.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8342888.stm

The article is about banning smoking in hospital car parks and grounds, but it was this that caught my eye:

“Last month MPs supported a backbench amendment to the UK government's Health Bill to outlaw cigarette vending machines in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

‘I think that most people would agree that banning tobacco vending is the right way forward’” -- says Health Minister Edwina Hart

Would they? I wouldn’t. I supported the ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants as this means the staff don’t have to get poisoned, because it means you can go to such places without ending up stinking, and because the smokers can still smoke, they just have to walk a few paces to do so. However, the last time I checked, smoking was legal. While it remains legal, buying and selling fags shouldn’t be restricted. If the government seriously think this will cause less smoking they are even nuttier than I already think they are. The smokers I have known tend to have enough with them to cover their nights out, whether this be 40 Camel or an ounce of Golden Virginia.

This is just yet more New Labour nonsense that grabs headlines yet achieves nothing, and that has been their modus operandi since day 1 they got in power. They’ll be out at the next General Election to be replaced by David Cameron and his sleazy cronies who will crow for a few months, be in power for 10 years and then be replaced by Nu-New Labour.

This illusion of democracy, that our votes actually mean anything or “make a difference“, endures even though we’ve been flip-flopping between these 2 parties for almost 100 years now.

Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss. An amazing version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” here, with Pete Townshend on his own with an acoustic guitar:

Cheers, Tom.

Hello SeasideMan,

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Hmmm...

...for anyone who wants to see it.

I'd say more but I'm in a hurry!

Cheers, Tom.

I spent 25 years in a scientific world, getting my degree and then as a computer programmer. The world I inhabited then was a very precise one. To get the computers to do exactly what you want and absolutely nothing else requires systematically thinking of all the possibilities and then catering for them. And then there is the users. The prompt says very clearly "Press Y to continue", so why have they typed in 37? A former boss of mine said he used to test the programs sometimes by sitting on the keyboard. I never saw him do it though.

And now I am a photographer it's all different. No more black and white right or wrong, it's all tones and shades of meaning, and "I wonder what happens if I do this". There are no lucky accidents in programming, but there are with photographs. And yet to get the very best results, one important thing is the same for both: you have to know what you want.

So, I am going to try and discipline myself to ask "What am I trying to do here?" before I release the shutter, every time.

Cheers, Tom.

Sometimes, a natural photo opportunity just sticks itself under your nose and says "Here I am!". The surfing students were getting a short talk from teacher so I grabbed the moment to snap their boards.

Click the picture to enlarge it.

Cheers, Tom.

Last night was the Machynlleth lantern parade for Halloween, so Helen and I toddled over there to photograph it. It was quite a difficult shoot. There were people milling around all over the place, light things, dark things and a great deal of movement. In short, everything that conspires to make taking photographs difficult.

I got some OK shots, so did Helen, and we learned from it. Next time we'll do better. I need to get bolder and I should have done some research before the event: how many lanterns, how long does it last, etc.

Life presents us lots of learning opportunities if we can only recognise them.

Cheers, Tom.

Deep in the bosom of the gentle night
Is when I search for the light
Pick up my pen and start to write
I struggle, fight dark forces
In the clear moon light
Without fear... insomnia
I can't get no sleep

I used to worry, thought I was goin' mad in a hurry
Gettin' stress, makin' excess mess in darkness
No electricity, something's all over me, greasy
Insomnia please release me and let me dream of
Makin' mad love to my girl on the heath
Tearin' off tights with my teeth
But there's no release, no peace
I toss and turn without cease

Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast
At least a couple of weeks
Since I last slept, kept takin' sleepers
But now I keep myself pepped
Deeper still, that night I write by candle light
I find insight, fundamental movement
So when it's back this insomniac take an original tack
Keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack
I get no sleep
I can't get no sleep

One sees mud and the other stars" - Frederick Langbridge

A quote which makes you think, but you can sometimes see interesting things by looking down instead of up:

Cheers, Tom.

The mind works in mysterious ways. When sorting through my pictures to make deletions last night (Woohoo now down to 4500!!), I found the above picture of a pigeon that I took in a small square in London earlier this year. My mind immediately flashed to Tom Lehrer's song "Poisoning pigeons in the park" which I haven't heard for about 20 years or so.

A neural link took me from an image of the pigeon to this song:

Cheers, Tom.

It was 20C here yesterday. For the end of October, t-shirt weather feels strange, but I'm not complaining. Bees were out and about and so were butterflies:

I wonder if this means we are in for a mild winter or a severe one?

Cheers, Tom.

I was horrified to discover last night that I have over 6000 photographs stored on my computer. I thought I was quite good at sifting wheat from chaff, but clearly I‘m not! I shall slowly work my way through them and delete the rubbish ones.

The trouble is that many of them are documenting events that Helen and I went to and I simply don’t want to delete them, even if they aren’t very good. I really do need to get much more picky!

The squirrel is a chap I photographed on a trip to London earlier in the year. Click on him to enlarge him.

Cheers, Tom.

It was dark at 5PM last night. I can't believe how quickly these winter nights seem to have come upon us this year. We have 4 or 5 months of long dark nights to look forward to.

I'm not a fan of flash photography because it's harsh, it flattens colours and contrast and it can give nasty reflections off shiny surfaces. But sometimes, it can be the only way to get a shot. The picture above of tractors on a trailer was taken in pretty much complete darkness, and the flash was the only way to take it. In this case it's worked quite well. The bright red colour has come across effectively, and the utterly black background sets it off nicely. There are a few reflections, but nothing too distracting.

Cheers, Tom.

http://www.350.org/

Congratulations to all the organisers and participants of the event in Borth, and the global organisers too. The events round the world gained much publicity and media coverage. The local event here was shown on the BBC Wales news last night, and also on the Welsh Channel 4 (S4C) news. It will be in the local paper on Wednesday. It was nice that our local LibDem MP Mark Williams attended. My friend Siwan was interviewed, and S4C showed it.

A few pictures from yesterday are below. Mark Williams is the man in the dark suit (but no tie) perched on the arm of the armchair. Click on any of the images to enlarge them.

Cheers, Tom.

http://www.350.org/

"On 24 October, people in 181 countries are coming together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history. At over 5200 events around the world, people are gathering to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis"

The event in Borth should be a good one. If you are anywhere near us here on the West coast of Wales, it's on the beach beneath the lifeboat station from 1 until 5PM. The official 350 photograph, hopefully with 350 people in it, will be taken at 3:50. There is a Beach Art event. There will also be lantern-making workshops, free bicycle maintenance, sand castles and sculptures. Games and prizes will follow the photograph.

We had a trial run yesterday which was most successful. The film of this should be on BBC Wales early evening news tonight, and also on S4C. The above picture is from yesterday.

Are you attending an event today?

Cheers, Tom.

(Click the picture to enlarge it)