Bénch

Monday, April 15, 2019

Jeremy Corbyn & Dianne Abbott at Elland Cricket Club

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Jeremy-Corbyn-15th-April-2019/

[inclu

Tuesday, April 09, 2019

oné hundréd stokérs

view my photos *here

Early on Sunday Me ,Cath & Chris drove to Rawden .

Cath was attending a Retreat Day at The White Eagle Lodge.

After dropping Cath off, me & Chris drove to the Russian Baths in Bramley.

I went there about 5 years ago. Since then, it was closed by Leeds Council .However it has recently reopened as a "Community Pool",run by volunteers & goodwill.

It has a really good vibe. and the locals are breathing the life back into this 1904 Edwardian Bath House.

"Russian Baths" is a rather grand title for what is ,essentially, a tiled steam room.

But maybe ,as beer tastes better out of glass rather than plastic, so steam feels better in tiles rather than the plastic shells modern steam rooms have?

Returning,we parked in Rawden crematorium (next to the White Eagle Lodge) And ,while waiting for Cath & her friends to finish , I wandered around the beautiful grounds & took some photos......

On Monday we all went to Harrogate Turkish Baths. Ive been going there for 30+ years , usually once or twice a year.

They monitized it too much these days, but I still find it sweet.

The attendant today told a story I had never heard before. I dont know how true it is, but it conjures up an interesting image ,for me, that illustrates "Victorian Values" .

The Top Hot Room ( temperature 70C/160F + plus) is heated through its marble floor. In the 19th century this heat came from a coal furnace in the basement below.

While the Toffs sat sweating & having their brows wiped by Attendants dressed in servant costumns ,below ,in the cellars, it took 100 men to be constantly stoking the furnace boilers.

Some things dont change!

By the way , Newcastle Turkish Baths reopens this summer (details the link below)

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/newcastle-city-pool-turkish-baths-15699537

https://www.whiteagle.org/north-of-england

https://bramleybaths.com/

https://www.turkishbathsharrogate.co.uk/
Young-Fathers-23-rd-March-2018Manchester-Ritz/
http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/_000HOME/HOMEPAGE.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur

a lady drawing & drinking Harrogate's sulphur water. it's surprisingly warm to the touch !

Saturday, April 06, 2019

Hidden Project :update #1

Jack Davies and Paul Soanes enact 'The Specials Constables '

Red Saunders website went 'live' this morning.

Extra stuff will be added by him as things progress.

On it you can watch a 5 minutes promotional video that explains things .

(Me & Cath are featured on this film )

You can also donate to the crowd funding here:

My own photos from the Moston stage are here https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Red-SaundersPETERLOO-MASSACRE-RECREATION-TABLEAUX/

I will repost as it develops further .Watch this space!

Friday, March 29, 2019

in chinatown

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Manchester-28th-March-2019/

Neil (aka 'Nodge') ,who I've known for 20 years.Pictured above.Here he is writing in The Guardian this February."Project fear:what will Brexit gothic fiction look like"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/feb/11/project-fear-what-will-brexit-gothic-fiction-look-like

tv studio lighting can be a bugger sometimes......

Thursday, March 28, 2019

"the moon's a balloon" ( David Niven)

See here: for this week's sepia saturday

"Going up and down but never getting anywhere"........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon%27s_a_Balloon

In 1972, as Charles Duke was training to visit the moon with Apollo 16, he regretted spending so much time away from his wife and sons.
“So just to get the kids excited about what dad was going to do, I said, ‘Would y’all like to go to the moon with me?'” “We can take a picture of the family and so the whole family can go to the moon.” “I talked with Dotty and the boys about it and they were delighted about having a picture of the Duke family on the Moon,” he wrote in his autobiography, Moonwalker.
“So one day, Ludy Benjamin, a NASA photographer and good friend, came over to our house in Lago and took a picture of the four of us. On the back of the picture I wrote, ‘This is the family of astronaut Charles Duke of planet Earth, who landed on the moon on the twentieth of April 1972.’
Then we all signed it and put our thumbprints on the back.”
On April 23 Duke and John Young went exploring with the lunar rover in the Descartes Highlands, and he dropped the photo, wrapped in plastic, onto the surface and photographed it with his Hasselblad camera.
He left it there. “After 43 years, the temperature of the moon every month goes up to 400 degrees [Fahrenheit] in our landing area, and at night it drops almost absolute zero,” he said in 2015.
“Shrink wrap doesn’t turn out too well in those temperatures.
It looked OK when I dropped it, but I never looked at it again and I would imagine it’s all faded out by now.”

Saturday, March 16, 2019

willing

The Sepia Saturday post this week has it's theme around "dance".

But I am shocked by the murder of those poor Muslims this week by white right- wing extremists in New Zealand.

The world has gone mad.

I have many Muslim friends.I weep with them tonight.

My contribution this week is a selection of photos of me, around the late 90's around Halifax.

They seem very innocent compared with today.....

Read here:

Saturday, March 09, 2019

the fernweh

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/G-i-g-s/The-Fernweh/

https://louderthanwar.com/fernweh-new-album-preview/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7acWSPY4JL1lCrHBHJonXL?si=DYiJ_2uOR26J1ItwpT2Odg

A Bert Jansch song:

Friday, March 01, 2019

Grassington & Halifax

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Grassington/

& Accrington below......

Friday, February 22, 2019

For the Turnstiles

"billboards" !!!

It was warm today in England ( for February )

So, on a whim ,me and my son Chris jumped in the car at midday & pointed it in the general direction of the West Coast.

No idea where we were going ,other than "the seaside".

We later found ourselves on the beach at Hest Bank,Morecambe Bay. Dont worry, I havent heard of it either! Sort of a 'One-Horse Town [ only the horse must have drowned......? ]
*Crazy ;) *

Anyway.a Nice day.

The temperatures reached 20 degrees (amazing for England in February) And Chris took photos of me & a Ladybird.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Ralph Winston Fox

Nationalism is like cheap alcohol:

First, it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, and then it kills you.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

this week....

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/This-Week/

Me & Chris went to Malham on Wednesay.

On Thursday me & Cathy went to Manchester.

Friday, I went with Phil, Martin & Jim drinking in Manchester,

Friday, February 01, 2019

you will never be as sexy as me........

Between ages 10 & 12 I used to go to a second-hand record shop up Haley Hill in Halifax ( next door to a 'temperance bar' )to buy Buddy Holly records.
He was my first 'rock god'. (de-throned in 1965 by Bob Dylan)
I liked Buddy's style. geeky-ugly:awkward;shy. The complete opposite of Elvis . Elvis's whole style seemed to me "you will never be as sexy as me'. Not what a 10 year old yorkshire lad needs to hear.......

Holly was more a big brother & friend to me than a competitor.( and 100% better musician IMHO)
Anyway.tomorrow ( 3nd February) is the 60th year since Holly died in that plane crash.

I went to Hebden Bridge Antiques

again today. i found these two photos on the sepia saturday

theme of "hats" & "men walking"... *just* about scraped it!?
(Plus a "bonus track" we see Buddy, Jerry Lee Lewis & The Big Bopper walking to a plane )

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

grayston unity

Me and Cathy were in Halifax tonight at The Grayston Unity to hear John Alker' [pictured] talk on the History of Peterloo. We love both John & the bar!