Autumn No 2

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Guthlac

Big Wheel Dazzle Ship Edward 7th Statue Pier Head Tate Liverpool

The next selection of Autumn images

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I won’t sit down and I won’t shut up….

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Guthlac

Nude Woman Lying Stick Woman - Nude 001 Tony Hopkins

Trying out some new pens today – interesting results

 

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Corbyn – The Continued Freenzy

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Guthlac

Jeremy Corbyn appeared to remain silent during the national anthem at the Battle of Britain memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral…

The Guardian – Caroline Davies – Tuesday 15 September 2015

You have to wonder just how bad things are going to get when this is the first sentence of an article about Jeremy Corbyn in The Guardian.   When did it become mandatory to sing the national anthem? In another part of today’s Guardian Polly Toynbee gave a very lukewarm support of Corbyn which makes you wonder just how many people on the left side of politics has Corbyn pissed off when he can’t even get Polly Toynbee to support him wholeheartedly.

Of course he doesn’t help himself by trying to pretend he is still just a back bencher MP who suddenly people listen to.  I know I suggested the he should do his own thing but I didn’t think he would not even accept there is a difference between being a back bencher and leader of the opposition.  His current refusal of talking to the media isn’t going to help in the long run as all it does is leave a vacuum which will happily be exploited by his political enemies on both sides of the House of Commons.

Of course it is still early days and I am sure he will adapt and become a little more media savvy because to win the next election he will need to appeal to more than the frenzied world  of the Internet and left wing politics.  He needs to find a voice that goes beyond the safety zone of his fans to the far greater world outside who, I suspect, are very sceptical because they are reading the drip drip scare stories about Corbyn.

Then there are events, dear boy, events.  I am not convinced he has yet woken up to the fact just how damaging his previous pronouncements are going to be to him and the politics he wants to pursue.   I will give you one possible scenario.   The IRA, or one of its splinter groups, murders a policeman or soldier in Northern Ireland (such as the 2009 attack) which given the current political turmoil in Northern Ireland is perhaps not too far fetched.  How will Jeremy Corbyn react to this?  He certainly can’t run for cover and not talk to the media and when he does he will have all his so called IRA sympathy comments thrown back in his face.  Even if he does refuse to talk directly to the media but rather issue a press release this would be an utter disaster.  Suddenly, all that frenzy on line during his campaign will look what I suspect it really is, not a great deal.

This doesn’t mean that Jeremy Corbyn can’t win as he has some interesting ideas that need to be fleshed out but once they have been might actually be vote winners.  It is just that if he keeps leaving a vacuum the media very quickly will fill that void with their own stories, few of which will be favourable to Corbyn.  I guess this is one of  the difference between sitting on the back benches carping and actually having to lead.  A lesson I am not convinced Jeremy Corbyn will ever truly learn.

PS

As an antidote to this piece I found Chris Mullin’s Corbyn’s first 100 days as Prime Minister a fascinating read.  Mullin wrote a book in the 1980’s called A Very British Coup and this article was a very good update to that book.

 

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Noir

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Guthlac

Noir

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The mountain that Corbyn faces

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Guthlac

Nuneaton

This is the top fifty or so seats in the current parliament that Labour have to make a good attempt at taking if they want any chance of winning the next general election.  This comes from the UK Polling Website.

The above caption was applicable prior to to the 2015 election and as we know Labour made little or no headway in any of these.  I have highlighted Nuneaton which Labour worked hard to take only to see a 4% swing to the Conservative Party.  This is just a small snapshot of the real problem that Jeremy Corbyn faces far from the packed meeting halls and online noise.  This doesn’t mean he can’t change things or that events won’t help but sounding different is all very well but when it comes to the struggle for power will it be enough.   Only time will tell.

PS

The list above is for the 2015 constituencies – we don’t know what the 2020  election map will look like but it is unlikely to be kind to the Labour.

 

 

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Be careful what you wish for

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Guthlac

Hubris is, according to Wiki is a word of Greek origin meaning extreme pride and self confidence which, as we all know, usually comes before a fall.  So it is just at the moment in the Tory press and parts of the Conservative Party.  They have got exactly what they wanted, Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour Party and they will be wheeling out every type of attack against the man possible over the next few months.  Only problem is I doubt few people will be listening as they will be far more interested in the collapse of the Conservative Government as it ties itself in knots over the connected problems of Europe and the ever increasing refugee crises.  I suspect by Christmas of this year things will be getting really bad because we might just have our own Kos incident somewhere in the English Channel and the whole facade will crumble.

This whole thing started because david Cameron thought it would be such a good wheeze to offer the unreformed (unreformable) wing of the  Conservative Party the chance to let their prejudices over Europe finally be put to the people who, if truth be known, don’t give too hoots about the European Union other than to moan about the latest artifical scare created by the Daily Mail/Express etc.   Cameron is trying to get some amendments to the relationship of Britain to the rest of Europe as part of this process.  However, he is frustrating what little hope he may have getting anything by dragging his feet over the refugee crises by basically saying, ‘It’s nothing to do with me guv..’ whilst forgetting his role in the Libyan debacle.  Europe is not listening.  However, his party’s listening    and everytime he opens his mouth he seems to make things worse.  Suddenly the strains that the Labour Party are going to feel over the next few months don’t seem that bad.

The one thing that Labour have got going for them at the moment is that they no longer sound like the Tory party.   Whether this is enough to win the next election I have grave doubts but at least they now have a genuine Labour voice of someone who seems to believe in something.  yes the next few months are going to be very rocky for Labour but this will subside as the catastrophic earthquakes take place on the government benches.  The best thing that Labour can do right now is Let Jeremy be Jeremy and get him out there as much as possible rather than playing silly games in the House of Commons.  Whether it will be enough only time will tell.  Let the Games Begin.

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Autumn – some blasts from the past

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Guthlac

Strange Evening Light Acer leaves - Leicester Glazed wall at dusk - DMU - Leicester Rose Hips - Braunstone Damp autuminal maple leaves - Enderby Road in the evening sun - Lowesby Three Horses - Houghton on the Hill Noon Column - Billa Barra

Birds flying over other birds at dawn in winter

Birds flying over other birds at dawn in winter

Fishing in the mist - Cropston Red Deer - Cervus elaphus - group together in dawn mist

 

Here is a small collection of some of the Autumn photographs I have made in the past.  Some are a bit cliched I know but they are nonetheless very Autumnal.  Of course I won’t be able to make half of the photographs here as I no longer have the equipment to do so – but this makes the project all the more interesting.

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Autumn No. 1 – I’m really excited to bring you the best ever…

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Guthlac

20150910-IMG_4612-Blue Berry 20150910-IMG_4614-Elder Berry 20150910-IMG_4624- Teasel

I do apologise for the hyperbole in the title but I have been infected by Apple speak after watching the greatest announcement ever, see I’m at it again, the iPad/iPhone/Apple TV launch last night.  I’m not sure which is worse – the unadulterated garbage coming out of the snake oil salesman and women’s mouths or that they might actually believe this guff.

As for my thoughts on the products well I think the iPad Pro is wonderful machine looking for a home.  I cannot see where it would fit into anybody’s work flow other than in some high end design house as most of the functions/apps demo’d last night don’t seem to fit on the iPad at all but rather on a much larger screen ie a professional design environment.  As for the medical use well I can’t believe that many medical students would be able to afford an iPad Pro whilst at the same time paying for their studies let alone the significant amount of money the software firm would want for their app.  Anyway don’t most medical staff now work from digital images of scans etc with patents?  The MS Office stuff looked interesting but that didn’t make any real use of the power of the iPad Pro let alone it’s screen.

The Apple TV looked interesting for only one reason, clearly Apple are trying to enter the games console market.  As for all the other functions we’ll have to wait and see but I have no faith that Siri works anything like they claim in the real world and so could become a Newtonesque millstone when trying to use this as the cornerstone of how things will work.

The iPhone looked interesting because of the new camera.  3D touch might be interesting but my experience of it’s sibling is somewhat underwhelming.  The one interesting thing shown last night, and it really demonstrates Apple’s ability distort reality was the Live Photos capability.  For those of you who didn’t watch the presentation Live Photos are 1.5 second video clips that the camera captures when you take a still image with the iPhone 6s.  You can then activate them by pressing on the photo image on the screen and suddenly the photo comes alive.  However,  these are not video clips no they are Live Photos but of course they are video clips and no matter how much Apple might claim that that they don’t take up much space they will.  Also they are captured by default so you storage is  going to be full of this pointless function.  This is progress and ‘super exciting’…we’ll see.

The presentation started off with an update to the Apple Watch which is the least fashionable watch I know yet Apple seem to think that it is.  I can say this as I own an Apple Watch and it is a really useful piece of kit and if I own anything then it is bound to be the least fashionable thing around.  According to my local Apple store the only watch that is really selling is the Sport which is the least expensive and yet most adept for the machine that it is.

Overall then the presentation was lacking anything that could be called groundbreaking but rather interesting upgrades.  However, this doesn’t make for great hyperbole so isn’t how things were presented but that’s Apple for you.

As for the photos they are the first from a project I’ve started called Autumn.  This is hardly original but I felt I to do something to rekindle my photographic fires.   They feel like early preseason friendlies or preliminary sketches but then again it is early autumn so we’ll have to see how things develop.

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Requiem for a tall building

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Guthlac

A Twin brushes Nude Eleanor

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Some times I feel really embarrassed to be a …..

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Guthlac

Woman in Red Dress

This has been one of the most depressing days I can remember in a long time and just to add to my sense of depression I have read some of comments on FB.  I really must live in another world.  Perhaps tomorrow will be better – I doubt it.

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