Sunday, September 30, 2018

golden slumbers


Llyn Cwm Bychan.
 Llanbedr . A week's stay in a really remote cottage up Snowden.....
After a long strange journey (through a place I didnt know) we were greeted by  a home baked cake the owner had left us..
Crumbs!
 Keep checking back here for my photos of our travels throughout the week ( + a few images from last week)
.https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Llanbedr/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanbedr


 
Doigellau.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

a postcard of the hanging.


We go see Julie Hesmondhaigh (formally of Accrington) in a play in Manchester next Thursday.
 https://www.royalexchange.co.uk/whats-on-and-tickets/the-greatest-play-in-the-history-of-the-world-2018
Then we bugger off to Mid-Wales for a week  in a rented cottage .......i may take photos?
to give you an idea of what me & Cath might look like in Red Saunders 'Peterloo' might look like.....this is one he did earlier...  
William Cuffay and the London Chartists, 1842 
"The 1832 Reform Act had extended the vote to more men with property but the working class still did not have a vote. A nationwide campaign involving men and women called for change and they became known as The Chartists, the first mass working class movement in Britain. The People’s Charter of 1838 demanded votes for all men, constituencies of equal size, the abolition of the property qualification, annual parliaments and salaries for members of Parliament. Portrayed is a meeting of the London Chartists in Whitechapel, in 1842, with William Cuffay, the son of a slave and the elected President of the London Chartists. He was transported to Tasmania for his endeavours, later pardoned, and continued to be politically active there."
http://redsaundersphoto.eu/1842.html

Friday, September 14, 2018

ferryman has hands of stone.

https://thejournalofantiquities.com/2016/08/31/the-bridestones-near-todmorden-west-yorkshire/

Bride Stones, Todmorden
One of the people at Ken's birthday Do last night in Halifax was Jason Foster.A lovely bloke .Above is one of his works. His website is here https://www.360cities.net/profile/jasonfoster
Jason Foster.
Meanwhile.In other news..
.this STV programme about the late great Jackie Leven was uploaded onto youtube a couple of days ago.

fish

I'm afraid I will have to go for the 'and surprise us with an old photograph of your own choice.....' option for this week's sepia saturday 
So!
Dear sweet Sepians.This week I give you the solitary sport of 'French Fishing'........
This postcard is one of a dozen or so similar ones  being sold at Hebden Bridge Antique Centre
.All cute kids: All individual portraits.
French fish must be very patient and helpful...........?

On Monday Me , Chris & Cathy went to Harrogate. I had a session at it's Turkish Baths .
It must be three years since I last went! It's still a bit like heaven for me ( 160 degrees in the top room).
On Tuesday we went to see the surrealist photos of Lee Miller They were great . It's the first time I have been to The Hepworth. Very disappointed in the building itself.Its an ugly Stalinist mess.

On Wednesday we went to Crawshawbooth Quaker Meeting House . It's over 300 years old & is the oldest Quaker building in the World.It's beautiful & caretaker Phil told me it has a ghost.
 How Cool! A Quaker Ghost......
We spent a couple of hours talking with the caretaker , Phil. Lovely bloke. I hope to visit again ( it's up near my friend Bob in Bacup).
On Thursday I met with Ken in Halifax to drown his birthday.
You can see some of my photo of the week here........
You wouldn't know it from these photos, I suppose, but it's been a very cruel week for me personally.
 view/examine these new photos here https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Harrogate-Wakefield/

Thursday, September 06, 2018

oh! qu'est beau.

See  here ,other contributions to this week's sepia saturday
Mine is a postcard I found at http://www.hebdenantiques.co.uk/
"steps" certainly."flowers" i think too? (In the lady's hat...?)

Thursday, August 30, 2018

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Mother, yon lion's et Albert.............

This is a sepia saturday post.
  The  week's suggested themes are MUSIC : SINGERS : GRAMOPHONE : RECORDS.
I looked through my own old photos and struggled.....the best I could find was the photo below which  I took of the Canadian singers Kate & Anna McGarricle when they  played Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in 1975.
I got my first record player on my 6th birthday (1957):
 It was,even then, an antique.A big brass beast:a windup affair! You had to change the needle ever time you played a record!
Fortunately I was only given one 78 record to go with it.It was Stanley Holloway's monologue about a lad called "Albert" who goes on holiday to Blackpool with his Mum & Dad and gets eaten by a lion in the zoo.
were my mum&dad giving me a message...? (we went to Blackpool most summer holidays)
 Anyway.Listening to it again now, it's still quite funny.......Northern Humour... Albert & The Lion:lyrics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Holloway 
Aged 11.My brother Zyg bought me my first 'proper' record player & my first LP.("The Buddy Holly Story") The first record I bought myself was "The Folk Blues of John Lee Hooker". I fell in love with Tupelo Blues........... Which was a bit 'hard-core' for a young Yorkshire lad who also quite liked the Monkees & Beatles..
*John Lee Hooker would have been 101 on the 22nd August 2018.(6 months older than my own Dad).Rest in Peace both XX*
john lee hooker – tupelo blues from directors guild on Vimeo.

I dont seem to have any other photos that relate to this week's theme.
I did find the above  in Hebden Bridge's Antique shop.Not a jolly crew...but they  do have an solitary instrument in view.
 The photo's  origin is French, I think.
They look like they have just spotted  a lion......?

Monday, August 20, 2018

Peterloo 2018:

Me, Cath & Martin attended the Annual Peterloo Memorial in Manchester on Sunday.
.It's the 4th year we have been present.
We also took part in casting for the  Peterloo Massacre Tableaux
See all my photos here:

Thursday, August 09, 2018

a great light creates deep shadows........

The post title was taken from a book I'm currently reading "The Sorrow Of Angels" by Jon Kalman Stefánsson
"We're in a leaky rowing boat with a rotten net, and we're going to catch stars".
This post was originally intended for last week's Sepia Saturday theme.(  Illusions:trick photos: big& small) But I was too late submitting, so.......I'm thinking  it can equally apply this week instead?
To see other people's contributions , visit http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2018/08/sepia-saturday-431-11-august-2018.html

I took this photo on 30 August 1997.In Howth near Dublin .It was the weekend Princess Dianne died in Paris.
 I was with Julie Boardman and her friend His Drayness (who i went to teacher training college with) Julie said "take a photo of me squashing this man" ( a sepia display of 1900's images..this one being   The Giant's Causeway in Ireland's 'Six Counties'.)
So I did!
  This week we booked seats at Manchester Royal Exchange to see  this: play in September.It's currently playing the Edinburgh Festival and stars Julie Hesmondhalgh.
Quote of the day (again from the Edinburgh Festival) .
Frankie Boyle "..has acid words for anyone who is worried about plastic in the ocean when there are refugees drowing in it..." (Independent)

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

leave no trace

079384974936
For my 66th birthday, Me Cath & Chris went into Manchester.
 We had a meal at  Marble Arch on Rochdale Road (they have created a rather cool beer garden since the last time i visited) . Later, we went onto  to see Leave No Trace
at https://homemcr.org/
A story of lost tribes.

Matthew Zimnoch in Pennsylvania is
a freelance trombonist, a classically trained baritone (vocalist), composer, music director and band leader.
Today he sent me this audio for my birthday & to be included on this post.

Thursday, July 19, 2018

they dont dance like carmen no more.......

we raised a glass to IP 161.142.48.88 —Malaysia: meanwhile....................
Tony T. from the Rochdale Hamam
here , at the begining of the month, I talked about plans to attend the 50th Anniversary of Carter Lane Youth Hostel in London where I used to work.(the old Choirboys School opposite St Pauls Cathedral)
Unfortunately, my son Chris was taken ill while we were in North Wales last week.I thought it best not to travel to London at the weekend.......
A coincidence.One of the blokes who organised the London event  was  Brian Charlton who worked there at the same time as me.
He now owns a Post Office near Newborough Beach in North Wales.
 He invited us down next time we travel to Wales (we do seem to be going there a lot at the moment...dont we..)

 We went for a meal at the Border Rose in Walsden on Thursday night. various tribes from Halifax,Bacup & Halifax.....
photos= https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/The-Border-Rose-19th-July-2018/

Friday, July 13, 2018

Donald Trump


"come and play with us Danny......... for ever and ever and ever............."


Thursday, July 12, 2018

my father was a lighthouse keeper......

you can see my week's photos here:

[lyrics:]
I have mentioned here before that ,on my Family Tree ,I am related to the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. 
His father, Robert designed over 30 lighthouses.
 Here we are at South Stack ,Angelsey, yesterday.
"...Books may nurture the soul but lighthouses save lives.."[read more] 

Jimmy Buffett:Record Plant Sausalito, October 18, 1974. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Buffett

Sunday, July 01, 2018

I'm chasing shadows in the gallows

the above audio is from The Grateful Dead in 1969. Rolling Stone say it's one of their best ever gigs.
 Dream Bowl, Vallejo, California
February 22nd, 1969
 That's good enough for me ! I've been in a Dead State of Mind this past hot week . Track two is especially beautiful.
 I have been looking into my plans for travel to London for this: event in London in a couple of weeks time (the same weekend Trump comes to town!).
 Its at the youth hostel I worked in 1971-1972 in the City of London.Opposite St Paul's .Read about my mispelt  youth here:
 (I have been in touch with  Clive, in the hope of a meetup that weekend?)

Monday, June 25, 2018

Saturday, June 23, 2018

Alice Longstaff

"the lost negatives" were only found,developed & printed this year.
Here is a bookies-runner in Hebden Bridge Park (inside   the  shelter under the canal bridge).1950's

Today we also went to this: exhibition of the photos of Claude Cahun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Cahun  
 I read this in the literature & laughed out loud...!


Is this why Megan Markel is always smiling?

young fathers on Joolz Holland recently.

I'm chasing shadows in the gallows 
Collecting what was stolen from me ......
Me and Cath have seen them live twice.
Love them to bits.
great punk values.
we last saw them in March this year. here: are my images of the night.
This month they were banned from a festival in Germany for their opposition to Israel’s oppression of Palestine.
read about this here

Friday, June 22, 2018

the devil's harvest

This week's sepia saturday is themed around "farms"& "agriculture" "harvest"
My dad's family come from the eastern Polish city of Białystok . It is a big (rather primitive) agricultural region.
The first image (a still from a 1990 home movie) is of a conversation i was having with  an old  family neighbour ( he was a tad drunk himself here!)
He is , telling me a rather gruesome story about how another  village local ,in the winter of 1943  got so drunk one night that he tried to stagger home in the dark but ,tripped alone and fell into a well.
After a mass search, he was found drowned  the next next morning
. The Devil's Harvest perhaps....?
This second image I took (also in 1990) on the family farm.......
My Cousin Marak & Uncle Czesek.
Finally , a home movie I took in 1965. It begins & ends with a few brief shots of my Dad & Mum.Inbetween, my Uncle collecting the honey.


image: me in The Blue Teapot in Mytholmroyd on Wednesday. audio: live Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, UK; May 14, 2018.Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan.
 "Pangaea" (the title of this song) refers to  is  hypothetical supercontinent that included all current land masses, believed to have been in existence before the continents broke apart........
Finally.I was sad to hear that Danny Kirwan died on June 8.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Kirwan 
I saw him play live several times.He saw difficult times (eg he ended up homeless & sleeping rough on the streets of London.)
Not a good look.
 Here he is in his pomp playing with Fleetwood Mac in Seattle,March 10.1972.
( In the context of this post,forgive the pun. "Oh well" )

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

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

Saturday, June 09, 2018

Thursday, June 07, 2018

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

Phil's Birthday

  My friend of 60 years Phil got married just a week ago to Iris . (He died last Sunday ) .  Today was Phil's Birthday . We went o...