tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35383932009-01-03T09:15:32.768ZAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comBlogger899125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-48901482960429497892009-01-03T02:09:00.010Z2009-01-03T09:15:32.777Z

One of the pleasures of having my nephew over from Switzerland for Christmas was a pretty rare opportunity to see London from a special vantage point. As I've said here, I have been no great fan of the visually intrusive Gherkin, but I do admit its charisma. Its virtue, in this instance, was that of of being extremely tall - the old saw holding true that "It's better to be on the inside looking

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-11954538171965481002008-12-24T01:58:00.006Z2008-12-24T02:21:10.846Z

'Aren't we enlarged by the scale of what we're able to desire? Everything, the choir insists, might flame; inside these wrappings burns another, brighter life, quickened, now, by song: hear how it cascades, in overlapping, lapidary waves of praise? Still time. Still time to change.' (Mark Doty: Messiah)

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-38582575375185858262008-12-19T03:24:00.015Z2008-12-24T03:21:37.055Z

The last picture in this line-up is by Adriaen van Ostade, of a Dutch painter in his studio; it illustrates well the source of a persistently repeated feature of 17thC Dutch painting, the left-of-canvas window. It is probably giving on to the famous cool North light, but can one tell? I saw how often this occurs while looking up some Vermeer sources. Having checked through a few books and on the

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-40595452346961316952008-12-16T04:30:00.001Z2008-12-16T04:33:48.406Z

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-23092052332296240352008-12-16T03:51:00.013Z2008-12-17T08:33:57.150Z

This is Angelina, she's small and plastic & held together with an old elastic band. I remember exactly the moment I bought her one freezing winter day in the late 1940's. We must have been a bit hard up then, I wanted a new dolly very much and I think Mum probably managed to divert a little cash from the housekeeping. In her winter coat and hat, she took me (in pixie hood and gloves on strings)

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-2021333708699239912008-11-27T13:45:00.008Z2008-11-27T14:31:30.778Z

John Sumrow's photo "The Reading Lamp" is satisfyingly surreal. As my aunt used to say "Anna, you're straining your eyes with that book, you must have direct light when you're reading."

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-58606764832665541582008-11-24T02:43:00.014Z2008-11-24T07:01:15.381Z

Busy week. Loads of passengers to ferry around - everyone wants to go for flu jabs. I had one myself for the first time - a decision that made me feel generationally categorised. On one pick-up, as I approached the front door of a large, isolated house, I felt that I was being watched; glancing at a window, I saw sixteen blue eyes fixed on me. The house pets were 8 Siberian Huskies of stunning

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-50766656489376772032008-11-11T05:30:00.010Z2008-11-11T08:05:43.791Z

. Tavik Frantisek Simon (1877-1942) b. Czechoslovakia. Tavik, working in a variety of mediums, produced a huge body of work that demonstrated myriad styles....and competencies. When he's good he's very good, when he's bad he could work for Cadbury's. All in all, that makes for a bit of interesting browsing?

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-24580283965603990492008-11-09T19:38:00.011Z2008-11-10T00:47:57.730Z

There is absolutely nothing original left to be written about Barack Obama, still it seems important to write something. A lifetime of observing the theatricals of world politics leaves me finally unable to suspend my disbelief in any new performance. I want to allow myself the same surge of hope that I felt with the advent of Kennedy, Mitterand, Walesa, Gorbachev, Mandela, Blair; they

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-27347176359701646442008-11-09T19:22:00.008Z2008-11-11T05:30:05.982Z

Priceless! How I wish I'd been invited, I do love a cream tea.

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-30909517542490661532008-11-04T21:35:00.008Z2008-11-05T01:56:22.253Z

I loved Sade for her elegant performance and for her backing musicians - especially Stuart Matthewman on saxophone. Her last album came out right back in 2000. I have been giving her a revival today, playing Diamond Life a couple of times while peeling a barrowload of apples for the freezer.

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-19696557523709131382008-10-28T23:58:00.035Z2008-10-29T12:24:46.872Z

IT'S STRANGE IN HERE On Sunday, just for a lark I tried an hour of noting down occasional thoughts as they ran through my head... Raining, lie in a bit, listen to singing/Vouchsafe, good word, derivation French?/email Abbey, say how brilliant choir is, rich, bold sound/ What does Lisa Jardine teach?/ Frippery; people show glam' underwear through top clothes in times of plenty, not my drawers/

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-51071787628776874912008-10-28T01:50:00.002Z2008-10-28T01:54:11.558Z

Robert Delaunay: Nude Woman Reading. 1915.

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-74930726861027971662008-10-24T15:36:00.041Z2008-10-25T01:51:17.213Z

Radio. For top-drawer comedy writing, Ed Reardon's Week takes some beating. Ed undergoes anger-management training in this week's episode, but not before fulminating some fabulous rants. There's a recognizable librarian in there too, not that that's any inducement for you to listen, of course. Movies. My quantum of interest has revived slightly, enough anyway to make a date with Bond on 31st

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-85516625952957890602008-10-18T22:24:00.016Z2008-10-20T11:56:24.949Z

Night Owlet Bedclothes flung aside, I cross cold lino to the window where A breeze flaps the blind, Its wooden acorn silenced in my hand. Pulled by their laughter, Kneeling for a better view, I watch my family and their friends, Grown-ups, apart, enjoying adult things. Under the laburnum and the beech, They spend a summer evening carelessly. Glasses with froth from vanished ale Stand on the

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-75434523144871256682008-10-18T18:19:00.031Z2008-10-19T09:59:27.318Z

The perennial problem is to define daily priorities, not just about essentials like seeing the doc' or replacing a tyre, but just simple preferences. And having decided on an objective, stating it and sticking to it. All the self-help books tell you to be brutal and subjective. But I always get hurled about by interruptions. Take today, G went off to Norwich and I got up early to make breakfast

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-32181680966481230272008-10-08T03:15:00.006Z2008-10-08T03:33:40.653Z

Life intervened. Sorry.

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-25649720831846146442008-08-19T23:44:00.004Z2008-08-20T01:20:42.413Z

My nephew has fulfilled a long-held ambition to be a band photographer. He did a publicity shoot and went front-stage for Swiss band Choo Choo and made a great job of it. I'm really proud of him and so chuffed that he got and seized the chance. (Photo by Jo)

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-69454468966113029062008-08-17T01:52:00.018Z2008-08-17T02:59:02.024Z

While doing a subject search at Flickr, I came, by chance, across this powerful image of an old woman in a bookshop - her body language expressing total concentration. It's a magical capture that lingered in my mind. I'm glad that finding it it led me to his fine set of photographs of people reading.

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-9648170592050176762008-08-09T20:15:00.006Z2008-08-09T21:38:14.185Z

An occasional feature among rural homes is sewage disposal without recourse to a main sewage system. My Mum's little house was built in the 60's with drainage to a septic tank and this method continues to be perfectly successful and saves quite a bit on the water bill. Each July comes the time when we must call in someone to pump out and remove the sludge. In the old days this was referred

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-27037004070552996932008-08-07T20:54:00.006Z2008-08-07T22:04:12.737Z

Childe Hassam The Garden Table (1910) and The Skyscraper Window (1934)

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-2914650263221983162008-08-02T19:42:00.018Z2008-08-08T02:21:39.560Z

Every so often one comes along that makes it all worthwhile. I swear that this is pretty well verbatim. Me: Lovely to see you again. Been doing anything exciting? Elderly Lady Passenger: Well, I've been to Scotland; coach trip with me usual firm, I've been five times now. Have a good time? It was OK but I got stuck with an awful old geezer in the next seat to me, a right old woman, he had

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-60002632304013372272008-07-27T19:21:00.015Z2008-08-17T02:43:28.574Z

In the same way that the camera surrendered itself entirely to Marilyn Monroe, so is the violin the willing creature of Nigel Kennedy. He has musical genius without doubt and something more, that even some of the greats did not have in such measure, the ability to call out the soul of the instrument. He is a one-off, eccentric, scruffy, annoying, endearing, populist, self-promoting, but always

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-48968181896488750442008-07-23T20:52:00.011Z2008-07-24T22:11:19.452Z

Artist Marja-Leena Rathje has been writing about her 3-D scanning techniques. It fired up some of her correspondents, including me, to have a go. I scanned five of my favourite stones/fossils (lid open, covered up with a black cloth) with my cheap old Tevion scanner from Aldi. The wonderful cat stone found at Brancaster beach gave me the idea of lifting a pattern from each stone with

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538393.post-33068018290136225472008-07-20T18:47:00.007Z2008-07-20T20:05:13.642Z

I only recently noticed Michael Gambon's extremely beautiful hands while watching an old Maigret episode. Long fingers, expressive gesture, shapely nails are features I might have observed. Always in work, he went big with an extraordinary performance in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective; I have followed him with pleasure through the Poliakoffs, Layer Cake, myriad TV and film parts to Harry

Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14391855198080087422noreply@blogger.com