01 Thursday Sep 2016
Posted in Diversions
Tags
big wheel, bike, Dreamland, funfair, Kent, Margate, margate beach, rollercoaster, thanet
Down to Dreamland, Margate on a scorching hot day in the last week of August.
And a bonus pic from Margate beach.
10 Wednesday Aug 2016
Posted in Diversions, London, Music, Photography
Snapped on my way home from the excellent Caught by the River Thames festival on Sunday. Highlights of the event:
I hope they do it again next year.
09 Tuesday Aug 2016
Posted in Diversions, Photography
Tags
A lunchtime diversion to Ickworth NT on our way to Norfolk for a few days’ break. I don’t really want to drift in to reviewing National Trust properties, but it was nice, quite quiet, and pretty photogenic; and also a pleasant change from eating at motorway service stations.
31 Sunday Jul 2016
Posted in Diversions, Photography
Tags
black and white, bnw, eurostar, France, Fuji XT10, holiday, lille, monochrome, photography, travel
A great weekend in Lille, travelling by Eurostar from Ebbsfleet International (about which I could get quite evangelical – for its convenience, if not its glamour and sophistication: the train left Lille Europe at 17.36 local time on the way home and we got into our house in SE7 at 18.20).
I visited France a lot as a child and – a bit like with camping the previous weekend – couldn’t imagine at the time that I wouldn’t do so regularly forever, but then through my 20’s and 30’s hardly went at all. It felt good to be back there, and to see my daughter discover Orangina, waffles, pain au chocolat, and all those things that are readily available in London but somehow much better in France. Paris next year, I think.
30 Thursday Jun 2016
Posted in Diversions
I’ve seen stag beetles around Greenwich a few times but never before in my back garden.
Strange, lumbering, and slightly prehistoric-looking beast; it’s made me want to buy a macro lens and start doing this kind of thing properly.
21 Tuesday Jun 2016
Posted in Diversions, London
A trip to see the Tate Modern’s new extension before it opened to the public. Ideas of a relaxed lunch round the corner before strolling round the new galleries went out of the window when arrived at Bankside to find queues out of the restaurant doors, and a longer queue out of the Tate Modern itself. It didn’t take long to get in, in the end, and the whole event was pretty well organised. Some first impressions:
I recommend Peter Watts’s much more detailed write-up, with interesting context on how the Tate came to take on Bankside (and not Battersea) power station.
20 Monday Jun 2016
Posted in Diversions
After the grimmest week in politics that I can remember – like the moment we saw the exit poll results on General Election day last year, but strung out 24 hours a day – I felt the need to do something. My friend Nikki (whose piece about Thursday I recommend you read here) dropped off some Stronger In posters to stick up in our front windows: a tiny, tiny thing in the grand scheme of things, and I wish I’d done some proper campaigning weeks ago now, though. May this week be over and done with as quickly as possible and deliver a decent majority for Remain. I’d be happy if we never had another referendum in my life – particularly one as stupid, unnecessary and divisive as this one.
Better things:
The post brought three new/old records:
Bert Jansch’s From The Outside, another excellently presented and re-mastered reissue from Earth Recordings. Not his best album, but good to hear.
Harry Beckett’s Still Happy, ’70’s Brit-jazz-funk reissued on a new label based along the road in Plumstead, My Only Desire Records (which I learnt about from this write-up on Richard Williams’ excellent The Blue Moment blog).
Alasdair Roberts and James Green’s Plaint of Lapwing. If it sounds as good as it looks, it’ll be very good indeed.
A quiet afternoon swim at Charlton Lido (10 of us in the pool at 3pm on a summer Saturday – I do worry how they’re going to keep it viable while maintaining their policy of doing almost no promotion or marketing…). Made some progress with my front crawl in anticipation of a free lesson c/o Speedo booked in for next Saturday; not sure if I’m looking forward to it, but I do need it.
02 Thursday Jun 2016
Posted in Diversions, London, Music, Photobooks, Photography
Work, plus the all-pervading sense of existential despair engendered by politics in 2016. Or maybe I’m just coming down with a cold.
Some good things that came by via Twitter and MixCloud through the day:
Fantastic photos of London c.1970-71 by David Wisdom: “I was more entranced by the continued existence, both architectural and human, of a London that stretched back in time before The Beatles, before The Wars, back to the slophouses of Dickens, back to the slatterns and toffs of William Hogarth and back to the Romans.”
News of a new SoulJazz Records compilation: Venezuela 70. A nagging thought in my brain says I can’t just buy everything that comes out on SoulJazz, but there would be worse ways to build a record collection. Anyway, the teaser track sounds great:
Ghostpoet’s Soho Radio show threw up a few great tracks, in particular Herbie Hancock’s Wiggle Waggle, which I’d never heard before – an excellent bit of soul-funk apparently recorded for a kids’ tv show; also Rangda, whose album I’d made a mental note to buy when I heard the single on Soundcloud then immediately forgot about.
Photobook collection addition
Got home to find East End by John Claridge had arrived in the post, published by Spitalfields Life blog, which I’d quite forgotten ordering. It’s good: nicely produced with a lot of images in,and smartly edited. I’m not a huge fan of that blog’s prose style but its commitment to photography, never mind its overall scope of recording the history of Spitalfields – and in particular the history of ordinary people – in detail, is hugely impressively.
01 Wednesday Jun 2016
Posted in Diversions
Back from Oxford via a short tour of Jericho and a Lebanese lunch, only to discover midway back on the Jubilee line that I’d left my bag (with camera) on the train. We are now at the mercy of the kindness of strangers and the efficiency of First Great Western’s lost property organisation. I try to be stoical about these things – they’re only possessions, in the end we’re all dead, etc – but it’s a Fuji X100t and they’ve not even been replaced by an upgraded model yet. I’ve had two cameras stolen before, so I’m not particularly sentimental about them as possessions, but previously the annoyance of losing them has been tempered slightly by the thought of newer, better replacements. Fingers crossed that FGW has the bag and manages to connect it with my lost luggage claim.
Otherwise, a dull, damp afternoon spent playing the records I bought over the weekend while logging the loss of my bag through various systems – pleased to find Daniel Romano’s ‘secret’ new album (by his side-project(?)/alter-ego(?) Ancient Shapes) tucked away in the sleeve of Mosey (which, incidentally, is split over two 45RPM 12″s. In mono…).
Failing to swim
I should have gone to the lido for the first day of the nominal summer swimming season but a combination of bad mood from losing my bag and the weather put me off; finding out what they’ve done to upgrade the cafe will have to wait (I can’t say that I’m optimistic – this is the lido cafe that doesn’t have a view of the pool from inside the cafe: a work of particular genius on behalf of the architect. But maybe they’ll have shrugged the functional provincial leisure centre cafe of the early 90’s vibes and come up with something a bit more welcoming).
Other things
I enjoyed these photos from the 1960’s of workers in a Suffolk village going to the pub after work on the Guardian.
I didn’t enjoy the new Stone Roses single, which I’d somehow managed to avoid since it was released. My hopes weren’t high, but really…What were they thinking? We shouldn’t expect people to keep making the same music they made briefly decades before, but it’s hard to imagine that they’re really satisfied with what they’ve put out; none of the lightness of touch or melody that they had once in evidence, and none of the style left in the guitar playing. Quite a sad way to end up. But maybe they’re having the time of their lives?
Daniel Romano – Mosey
01 Wednesday Jun 2016
Posted in Diversions
The first swim of June felt like the last swim of March: damp air, grey skies and a cold headwind. There’s never a bad swim at Charlton Lido but the outdoor spin class and its terrible music does harsh the vibes of a relaxed evening swim a bit; like being in the front room of a really nice pub while a terrible disco goes off in the function room. But still, the swim worked its brain-settling magic eventually.
I saw the biggest flock of parakeets I’ve seen over Hornfair Park from the pool. Usually there are two or three circling around but tonight there were probably a dozen. They’re easily spotted: bright green against a grey sky.
Other things:
Good to hear a new song from Ryley Walker in advance of his new album. It didn’t grab me straightaway, but nor did his last album and that grew on me very quickly after a couple of listens.
My friend-from-off-of-The-Twitter, Niall McDiarmid has announced a well-deserved exhibition of his work, and is doing a print sale to support it. Buy yourself one, I say: http://www.niallmcdiarmid.com/exhibitions.php. I’m waiting until payday, though.
This Guardian long read on betting shops was very good and also very depressing.
My heart was cheered by this interview with The Handsome Family on Pete Paphides’ Soho Radio show. I wish I’d got round to booking tickets for their show at the 100 Club, though.
NeilClasper 
