with Phil & Ken in Halifax

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Halifax18th-June-2018/

 In February 1985, British birder David Hunt led a tour around India.
One of the stops was Jim Corbett National Park, in Uttar Pradesh, which has a large tiger population. The park provides an armed guard to each group of visitors, and they’re required to stay on the trails. As his party explored the park, though, Hunt heard an unknown call and walked a short distance off the track. Minutes later there was a scream. When his friends rushed to help, they discovered his mauled body in a clearing nearby.

His friend Bill Oddie wrote:
"When David’s body was recovered, so was his camera. Later on, the slides were developed … The first one is a nice close-up of a Spotted Owlet sitting on a branch … Then he must have heard a noise behind him, or maybe just sensed that he was not alone. Keeping crouched, he turned and saw a tiger pacing to and fro at the edge of the clearing.

 The next slide is of the tiger. It is some way away, walking to the right. On the next picture it is walking to the left. In the next one, it is facing the camera. In the next, it has begun to move forward, still looking straight at the lens. 

The next is closer. Then closer. And closer still. The final picture is of a frame-filling shot of the tiger’s head, eyes blazing and teeth exposed in a snarl.

 “If David had kept shooting on his motor-drive, the whole thing must have happened in barely ten seconds,” Oddie added. “Crouched behind a camera, looking through the viewfinder and especially when using a telephoto lens, you don’t realise how close your subject has got. Neither, at the time, do you care. All you are focusing on is the picture. Press cameramen in war situations call it ‘camera blindness.’ It has proved fatal before.”

 (From Oddie’s Follow That Bird!, quoted in Stephen Moss’ A Bird in the Bush, 2004.)

"leaving the stage door": Victoria Theatre, Halifax.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-bird-in-the-bush-by-stephen-moss-754874.html

with Hydn,Martin & Ken in Manchester

happy days

Before seeing Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days" in Manchester today, we also saw Cathy's relative Julie Hesmondhalgh

That was nice, wasnt it...? I talked about Julie here ,previously........
 http://everton.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-almighty-sometimes.html

Julie follows this blog !

 Imagine....!

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/June-7-9-2018/ https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/may/31/happy-days-review-maxine-peake-winnie-climate-chaos-beckett?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

at the movie pictures

"Avid photographers celebrate the viewfinder as a means of helping us see the world anew. 

But psychology research has shown that under some conditions taking a photo of something actually makes it harder to remember.

 One possible reason is that we give less attention to an experience when we know that it will be safely stored in a photograph. 

But in a new paper in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Julia Soares and Benjamin Storm from the University of California show that the photo-taker’s memory will suffer whether they expect to keep the photo or not..........." The British Psychological Society

i blame the hippy at southport station who came up to me & said he knew where I could buy some "cheap grass".......

  Southport Lawnmower Museum

" Despite all this, I have sympathy for the obsessive photographers........ it’s easy to feel that a memory isn’t evidence enough that something happened. It’s too dreamlike......."

  "if life isnt lived through a lens, is it lived at all?"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/27/life-lived-through-lens-photography-instagram-holidays 

Me & Chris on the road through  Sheranozy (photo taken by Cathy)

The French are so full of shit.

The two most famous things about France are "The  Guillotine" and The   Champs-Elysees,

. right?

Turns out, they were both stolen from the English. 

The Guillotine was invented in

Halifax Yorkshire.

The  Boulevards of Paris  were the brain child of  Louis Napoleon who was exiled  in Southport in 1838. 

He lived near   Lord Street , and when he returned to France he remodeled the city to look like that bit of Lancashire!

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/apr/25/guardianleaders





Two further twists for me.

• I was born on Lord Street in Halifax.

•  Once, when visting my Dad's birthplace in Eastern Poland my family proudly showed me the village's one & only Historical Landmark.

 "Look" they said excitedly.I looked where they pointed, but saw nothing but a barren ,empty dirt track. "that" they said "is where "Napoleon's Army marched through on the way to Russia..."
Sometime, you cant see history?

"You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go for a long time? " Hilary Mantel.

 A few days after the Manchester Bomb 12 months ago a young Muslim lad called Baktash Noon walked into Manchester City centre..........
He then blindfolded himself.
He stood perfectly still. Arms outstretched and proceeded to offer hugs to the other grieving people of Manchester.
With a felt pen, he had written  on a bit of cardboard:

 "I'm a Muslim + I trust you.do you trust me enough for a hug?"

He then  stood alone,  blindfolded, for over an hour.
He was met with hundreds of ,all positive , returns of affection.
A wonderful display of mutual trust.
An example to us all.(I wouldnt ,as a wimp, have had the balls to do that!)
 St Anne's Church in Manchester is currently holding a display of paintings recording this event .
Me & Cath  went to look at this on Wednesday afternoon & to lay some flowers in memory of the 22 people ( the majority ,children)who were murdered.
https://www.manchester.anglican.org  Cathy turned 60 this week. As well as this visit to Manchester on Wednesday, on Monday we went to Liverpool to see the newly opened John & Yoko Exhibition.http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/exhibitions/double-fantasy/
 Here are a few photos of this week.
You can see all these individual images here at https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/
You may view in hi-res: download & share to your hearts content!(You may do this freely, in any manner desired, even without naming the source)

60

a slideshow will follow.........

frank

 https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/17052018/

https://www.royalexchange.co.uk/whats-on-and-tickets/the-cherry-orchard

relaxing in a ballet school............

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Halifax-16518/

live at the deaf institute

One of the videos I took .I'm having problems downloading videos files at present(?) So I,ve had to reduce file size & the quality isn't currently as good as it could be/will be.........anyway......
 Thursday night, me & Cath went to Manchester's deaf institute
to see  Simone Felice .
It's the third time we have seen him in the past four years. If you don't know his music, one of his songs ( "Radio Song") was featured on the soundtrack of the recent Oscar winning movie "three billboards"...

Cath  in the downstairs bar.

you can see all the day's photos here: https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Simone-FeliceManchester-Deaf-Institute10-th-May-2018/
I have 3 better videos I will add later once I,ve sorted out my "file-size problems".................
http://www.simonefelice.com/ 

"when I speak to kids I tell them the best kung fu move is to run ,dont fight"~ Benjamin Zephaniah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Zephaniah  Apologies.i need to catch up with my comments soon......
Lovely sunny weekend in England.
 see slideshow below for my photos. Me &
Cathy go to Manchester on Thursday to The Deaf Institute to see Simone Felice. https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/May-Day-Bank-Holiday-weekend2018/

Shall be the maws of kites.........

This week's  sepia saturday ,; seems to be around the themes of people;bathing:seaside; sand; etc
Today I visited (for the first time) Hebden Bridge Antiques Centre well worth a general look around.But what especially pleased me was a big buckety -thing selling old/random sepia photography! Hundreds...!
 Its very unusual to see this nowadays.50p each .Which I thought "not bad".

 it would take me hours to look at them all (must go back next week) but I did find several concerning this week's theme.
 Here are two.(no notes on the back)

the maws of kites (at the seaside!)

On the subject of seachanges , Me & Cathy voted this morning in the UK Local elections. We voted again for Jeremy Corbyn's socialist Labour Party. In addition, I went out canvassing for the party this evening.Here is Cathy pictured with fellow Party member Rodger.

You, my American visitors,remember the name Jeremy Corbyn .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn 

Think of him as a scruffy, slightly more radical   Bernie Sanders, who rides a bike & grows his own veg...!

He could well be Britain's new Prime Minister within the next 12 months. 

Cathy with Roger O'Doherty.

Square Chapel.

https://www.squarechapel.co.uk/

Evuna

(l/r) Brother Zyg:Me:Sister-in-Law Jean:Jean's sister Mary:Cathy.

A lovely day in Manchester today with my brother Zyg: sister-in-Law Jean: & her sister Mary.

A grand Spanish meal at Evuna on Deansgate.

We also attended a Lunchtime Concert at Chetham's School of Music 

Zyg;Mary;Jean & Cathy Zimnoch.

hall of mirrors

One figure jumped straight out at me from this week's sepia saturday prompt photo. the elderly lady above (in black )looks very much like my great-grandmother from Perth in Scotland
 I never knew what she looked like until I found an old 4 inch X 4 inch negative among my Mum's effects after she died in September 4 th 2008. I developed that negative. It was rather disturbed by it at the time.

Now I know that genetics pass on similar physical features. But this was more , this lady looks identical to my Mum (albeit , a rather austere version).
The woman in black in the prompt-photo isn't identical in the same way...but certainly near enough to comment on ..................

My Mum, the year before she died.

San Francisco; November 16, 1980