Apparently it's advertising a car, for some inexplicable reason (in case you're wondering, it's the one with the brand name that makes it sound like lady parts).
Monday 30 November 2009
I have no idea
This image has been appearing all over the Sunday supplements. For some unfathomable reason I find it hugely, hugely erotic.
Apparently it's advertising a car, for some inexplicable reason (in case you're wondering, it's the one with the brand name that makes it sound like lady parts).
Apparently it's advertising a car, for some inexplicable reason (in case you're wondering, it's the one with the brand name that makes it sound like lady parts).
Aren't you all grown up!
Thrilling news involving Pacey from Dawson's Creek (I mean, hot starlet Joshua Jackson):
He's to star in a new movie version of genius 1960s tv sci-fi series, UFO.
Made by those marianation Gods Gerry & Sylvia Anderson, UFO was meant to be the adult equivalent of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the rest.
In fact, it was camper than an international Boy Scouts convention, due in no small measure to the costumes -- take the lovely Peter Gordeno, seen here in his uniform which I can only describe as a sort of string-vest style shirt:
All the crew on his submarine had to wear string-vests, including the laydeez, although in truth the crew on Moonbase had it worse -- there, the laydeez all had to wear silver lamé tights and, for some unknown reason, purple wigs:
I realise that, by now, I have almost certainly lost you, but this was 1969, the year of space possibilities (the moon landing had just taken place), and UFO was set in the futuristic time of, er, 1980.
Which is strange, because essentially they are refighting the Second World War (the all-female control room on Moonbase is just like those images of WRENs (the female Royal Navy), who staffed control rooms on land in WW2 while the brave boys were out at sea with the guns and the bombs and shit).
Did I tell you the lovely Peter Gordeno was in it, wearing his string-vest shirt through which you caught glimpses of his manly torso, his nipples and a forest of intra-pectoral manly hair...? I did? Er... there were some other blokes in it, too:
At the time, this was one of the most expensive tv series ever made, although clearly the budget didn't stretch to more than a single fighter plane (this one, piloted by the lovely, er, Peter Gordeno, appeared, on its own, week after week after week. God knows what would have happened if the aliens had managed to destroy it).
Still, luckily this frightfully advanced alien race, able to travel at, apparently, 75 million miles per second (!), had rubbish weapons that couldn't aim properly and had no means of defending their ultra-fast UFOs from the fearless Peter Gordeno, in his manly, er... [cont. on p.94].
He's to star in a new movie version of genius 1960s tv sci-fi series, UFO.
Made by those marianation Gods Gerry & Sylvia Anderson, UFO was meant to be the adult equivalent of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the rest.
In fact, it was camper than an international Boy Scouts convention, due in no small measure to the costumes -- take the lovely Peter Gordeno, seen here in his uniform which I can only describe as a sort of string-vest style shirt:
All the crew on his submarine had to wear string-vests, including the laydeez, although in truth the crew on Moonbase had it worse -- there, the laydeez all had to wear silver lamé tights and, for some unknown reason, purple wigs:
I realise that, by now, I have almost certainly lost you, but this was 1969, the year of space possibilities (the moon landing had just taken place), and UFO was set in the futuristic time of, er, 1980.
Which is strange, because essentially they are refighting the Second World War (the all-female control room on Moonbase is just like those images of WRENs (the female Royal Navy), who staffed control rooms on land in WW2 while the brave boys were out at sea with the guns and the bombs and shit).
Did I tell you the lovely Peter Gordeno was in it, wearing his string-vest shirt through which you caught glimpses of his manly torso, his nipples and a forest of intra-pectoral manly hair...? I did? Er... there were some other blokes in it, too:
At the time, this was one of the most expensive tv series ever made, although clearly the budget didn't stretch to more than a single fighter plane (this one, piloted by the lovely, er, Peter Gordeno, appeared, on its own, week after week after week. God knows what would have happened if the aliens had managed to destroy it).
Still, luckily this frightfully advanced alien race, able to travel at, apparently, 75 million miles per second (!), had rubbish weapons that couldn't aim properly and had no means of defending their ultra-fast UFOs from the fearless Peter Gordeno, in his manly, er... [cont. on p.94].
Sunday 29 November 2009
Testing, testing
When I was considerably younger than the fine-looking chaps in this photo, this happened to me:
There were only two of them, my friends, I mean, rather than three.
And, truth be told, I rather wanted them to succeed in stripping me.
Of course, I had to put up a credible resistance, for appearance's sake.
"Plausible deniability" I believe is the modern term.
And, after all, they might have been deliberately testing me, to see if I was really, you know, queer.
Their instincts were absolutely correct.
There were only two of them, my friends, I mean, rather than three.
And, truth be told, I rather wanted them to succeed in stripping me.
Of course, I had to put up a credible resistance, for appearance's sake.
"Plausible deniability" I believe is the modern term.
And, after all, they might have been deliberately testing me, to see if I was really, you know, queer.
Their instincts were absolutely correct.
Building the M&GN
Railways predate the invention of photography, so the earliest images we have are mostly watercolours and ink sketches, or prints derived from them (most famously by JC Bourne):
While in the early days railway construction was fascinatingly new, by the time camera technology had developed to a point where it was easily portable the novelty had worn off.
There are therefore relatively few photographs of a Victorian railway under construction, which makes the discovery of a cache taken by a resident engineer on the M&GN all the more special:
Between 1890 and 1893, Charles Stansfield Wilson took around 70 photographs during the construction of the M&GN's 18 mile extension from the market town of Bourne to a connection with the Midland Railway at Saxby*.
Here Wilson recorded "during" and "after" shots of the construction of a rather grand overbridge near Saxby (note the delicate tapering of the piers).
In this delightful shot, the brick and stone arch of the underbridge (at Sewstern Road, Wymondham) has been completed, as has the embankment to carry the railway from one side. The tracks are now being used to bring spoil to deposit to the left of the arch, to continue the embankment:
This delightful shot is Grimsthorpe Park Bridge, and to the right it shows the contractor's temporary track (laid to help with construction), while the left shows the "permanent way" (so-called because it is, of course, the finished railway) -- here just in need of its final ballast:
This rather complex arrangement shows the M&GN passing underneath bridges at New Saxby Curve, near the junction with the Midland Railway:
Here's a view of another complex of bridges not far from those seen above, showing an underbridge crossing the River Eye:
Morkery Lane Bridge, at Castle Bytham, is a rather pleasing skew bridge, although the presence of the horse and cart is a reminder that there were no motorised road vehicles when this bridge was built, so the volumes of traffic on the lane would be very small:
A little further along the track, at Potter's Hill, Castle Bytham, the railway plunges into a cutting and this delightful overbridge elegantly spans the tracks:
The magnificent 5-arch viaduct at Lound is one of the most solid engineering features on the M&GN: over 1.5 million bricks were used in its construction. The central arch spans the relatively modest Lound Beck (now known as the East Glen River), and the arches on either side spring across the marshy flood plain. Unfortunately it suffered subsidence throughout its life:
Nonetheless, it was patched up and reinforced, and here it is today, still standing:
Whereas the M&GN had numerous bridges, it only had one tunnel -- at Toft, at the extreme western end of the system. Just 300 metres long it still required 2.5 million bricks to construct, but it avoided the need for sharp gradients:
Here the M&GN crosses the East Coast Mainline (the principal London-Scotland route of the Great Northern Railway, as it was at the time). While the GNR only has two tracks (plus a ropey-looking siding) the way has been built for four, and the M&GN's girder bridge has a sufficiently wide span that it would not need to be rebuilt if the GNR quadrupled its track (as it shortly after did):
And this is the last of Wilson's photographs in this post, a simple bridge over a narrow lane near Saxby:
I'll finish with a couple of shots to show what all that engineering was for -- here, goods traffic vies with passenger trains at Saxby station in the 1950s:
And here a modest-looking Ivatt 4MT hauls a heavy summer excursion train out of Sutton Bridge station:
It's sad to think that while some of these M&GN structures survive, they no longer serve any useful purpose.
* If you want to be pedantic, the M&GN wasn't legally formed until 1893 so this started out as the Midland & Eastern Railway's extension, etc.
While in the early days railway construction was fascinatingly new, by the time camera technology had developed to a point where it was easily portable the novelty had worn off.
There are therefore relatively few photographs of a Victorian railway under construction, which makes the discovery of a cache taken by a resident engineer on the M&GN all the more special:
Between 1890 and 1893, Charles Stansfield Wilson took around 70 photographs during the construction of the M&GN's 18 mile extension from the market town of Bourne to a connection with the Midland Railway at Saxby*.
Here Wilson recorded "during" and "after" shots of the construction of a rather grand overbridge near Saxby (note the delicate tapering of the piers).
In this delightful shot, the brick and stone arch of the underbridge (at Sewstern Road, Wymondham) has been completed, as has the embankment to carry the railway from one side. The tracks are now being used to bring spoil to deposit to the left of the arch, to continue the embankment:
This delightful shot is Grimsthorpe Park Bridge, and to the right it shows the contractor's temporary track (laid to help with construction), while the left shows the "permanent way" (so-called because it is, of course, the finished railway) -- here just in need of its final ballast:
This rather complex arrangement shows the M&GN passing underneath bridges at New Saxby Curve, near the junction with the Midland Railway:
Here's a view of another complex of bridges not far from those seen above, showing an underbridge crossing the River Eye:
Morkery Lane Bridge, at Castle Bytham, is a rather pleasing skew bridge, although the presence of the horse and cart is a reminder that there were no motorised road vehicles when this bridge was built, so the volumes of traffic on the lane would be very small:
A little further along the track, at Potter's Hill, Castle Bytham, the railway plunges into a cutting and this delightful overbridge elegantly spans the tracks:
The magnificent 5-arch viaduct at Lound is one of the most solid engineering features on the M&GN: over 1.5 million bricks were used in its construction. The central arch spans the relatively modest Lound Beck (now known as the East Glen River), and the arches on either side spring across the marshy flood plain. Unfortunately it suffered subsidence throughout its life:
Nonetheless, it was patched up and reinforced, and here it is today, still standing:
Whereas the M&GN had numerous bridges, it only had one tunnel -- at Toft, at the extreme western end of the system. Just 300 metres long it still required 2.5 million bricks to construct, but it avoided the need for sharp gradients:
Here the M&GN crosses the East Coast Mainline (the principal London-Scotland route of the Great Northern Railway, as it was at the time). While the GNR only has two tracks (plus a ropey-looking siding) the way has been built for four, and the M&GN's girder bridge has a sufficiently wide span that it would not need to be rebuilt if the GNR quadrupled its track (as it shortly after did):
And this is the last of Wilson's photographs in this post, a simple bridge over a narrow lane near Saxby:
I'll finish with a couple of shots to show what all that engineering was for -- here, goods traffic vies with passenger trains at Saxby station in the 1950s:
And here a modest-looking Ivatt 4MT hauls a heavy summer excursion train out of Sutton Bridge station:
It's sad to think that while some of these M&GN structures survive, they no longer serve any useful purpose.
* If you want to be pedantic, the M&GN wasn't legally formed until 1893 so this started out as the Midland & Eastern Railway's extension, etc.
Watching, man
Yesterday I started watching Watchmen. I knew it was a mistake within about five minutes, but I persevered for about an hour before retiring, hurt.
In fact, it is true to say that I have derived infinitely more pleasure out of the four photos shown here (of this fine chap dressed-up as Dr Manhattan at the Fremont Solstice Parade) than I have from the entire experience so far of viewing Watchmen.
This fine-looking man exhibits a mastery of story and character that seems far beyond the people involved in making the film.
His sense of visual poetry is also vastly more obvious, while the drama he brings to even the most everyday of actions speaks volumes:
Yeah, I know which one I'd rather be watching.
In fact, it is true to say that I have derived infinitely more pleasure out of the four photos shown here (of this fine chap dressed-up as Dr Manhattan at the Fremont Solstice Parade) than I have from the entire experience so far of viewing Watchmen.
This fine-looking man exhibits a mastery of story and character that seems far beyond the people involved in making the film.
His sense of visual poetry is also vastly more obvious, while the drama he brings to even the most everyday of actions speaks volumes:
Yeah, I know which one I'd rather be watching.
Perfection
Can I introduce "Travis"?
Travis is a beautiful boy with a tiny winkie.
He is not a professional model, but an enthusiastic amateur exhibitionist.
His winkie is delightful.
A perky mouthful.
Travis is, in truth, only a semi-exhibitionist.
I would prefer him to be out about -- and proud of -- his delightful physique.
But I truly grateful for what he has given to us in this sequence.
Travis is a beautiful boy with a tiny winkie.
He is not a professional model, but an enthusiastic amateur exhibitionist.
His winkie is delightful.
A perky mouthful.
Travis is, in truth, only a semi-exhibitionist.
I would prefer him to be out about -- and proud of -- his delightful physique.
But I truly grateful for what he has given to us in this sequence.
Soothing
Being an Old Fart, I remember the days when hitting the "on" button on a desktop computer led to it very slowly growling and grinding into life, with the result of the looooong booting-up being just a blank screen displaying nothing more than:
C:/
No, I have no idea, either. If you were lucky, you might have a black screen with the text displayed in some version of Courier, normally a sickly lime-green colour.
In the intervening years software has grown like Topsy, much of it spurred by the widespread adoption of the Graphical User Interface and WYSIWYG techniques. The resulting bloatware too often serves to slow everything down, distracting you from writing rather than aiding it.
So imagine my surprise and delight to discover a whole class of programmes like JDarkRoom, word processor packages that take a resolutely minimalist approach.
With JDarkRoom, what you get is an enormous black screen; all the widgets and toolbars hidden leaving just you and the screen. When you start to type it's back to that Courier font, albeit now in a rather seductive green.
And it's so peaceful.
You can concentrate on writing, on letting words form on the "page" rather than worrying about formatting or indenting or any of the other numerous tricks that now take up half our mind, distracting us from the real business of producing the words at hand.
The down side? Well, so far I have been utterly unable to make many of the commands work -- in fact, it's been a struggle to find a complete list of commands (I still haven't). I know Ctrl-S means save. And I know Esc means quit. But I can't cut and paste, and nor can I even open a new document -- everything has to be over-written on the one document I did succeed in opening (and which automatically reopens whenever I turn on the program. Which I guess is handy if you're writing a novel).
I have certainly never been able to find this screen, the Holy Grail of JDarkRoom's controls (and pressing F6 on my MacBook, which is supposed to give this screen, simply turns on Number Lock):
When I want to format my text, I open the file as a Word document (it's all saved in rtf) and then go about my business.
This separation of the two processes is, for me, helpful. I just wish I could have a teeny bit more control over JDarkRoom. But even without it, I am in love with it.
Sometimes the simplest things are the best.
C:/
No, I have no idea, either. If you were lucky, you might have a black screen with the text displayed in some version of Courier, normally a sickly lime-green colour.
In the intervening years software has grown like Topsy, much of it spurred by the widespread adoption of the Graphical User Interface and WYSIWYG techniques. The resulting bloatware too often serves to slow everything down, distracting you from writing rather than aiding it.
So imagine my surprise and delight to discover a whole class of programmes like JDarkRoom, word processor packages that take a resolutely minimalist approach.
With JDarkRoom, what you get is an enormous black screen; all the widgets and toolbars hidden leaving just you and the screen. When you start to type it's back to that Courier font, albeit now in a rather seductive green.
And it's so peaceful.
You can concentrate on writing, on letting words form on the "page" rather than worrying about formatting or indenting or any of the other numerous tricks that now take up half our mind, distracting us from the real business of producing the words at hand.
The down side? Well, so far I have been utterly unable to make many of the commands work -- in fact, it's been a struggle to find a complete list of commands (I still haven't). I know Ctrl-S means save. And I know Esc means quit. But I can't cut and paste, and nor can I even open a new document -- everything has to be over-written on the one document I did succeed in opening (and which automatically reopens whenever I turn on the program. Which I guess is handy if you're writing a novel).
I have certainly never been able to find this screen, the Holy Grail of JDarkRoom's controls (and pressing F6 on my MacBook, which is supposed to give this screen, simply turns on Number Lock):
When I want to format my text, I open the file as a Word document (it's all saved in rtf) and then go about my business.
This separation of the two processes is, for me, helpful. I just wish I could have a teeny bit more control over JDarkRoom. But even without it, I am in love with it.
Sometimes the simplest things are the best.
Saturday 28 November 2009
Mystery photos
A rather odd pair of photos has been brought to my attention:
No, I have no idea what is going on here, but it looks like copious quantities of alcohol may have been involved.
Any suggestions?
No, I have no idea what is going on here, but it looks like copious quantities of alcohol may have been involved.
Any suggestions?
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