So the weather forecast suggested it was going to be a bright frosty morning – unfortunately no one told the the weather ! It was certainly chilly but not as bright as I would have wanted. No matter as it was still a wonderful watching the sunrise over Burrough Hill iron age fort.
For better or worse or worse 2018 is over. I’m not sure what a year it was for me but I have a feeling when I look back it will be a mixture of highs and lows but the one good thing is – I’m still here! The photo above is one of the last I made in 2018 and you may wish draw whatever conclusions you like from it.
A Christmas present I bought myself was a book called Magnum Contact Sheets and if you wonder what the book contains well the title is pretty self explanatory. I have always found contact sheets fascinating as they allow the viewer explore the creative process that the photographer went through. In this spirit here is the contact sheet from my trip to the seaside yesterday. From this sheet these are the photographs I selected:
Make of that what you will. Happy New Year.
So we are in a Theresa May induced coma at the moment. Parliament is away and the news isn’t all about Brexit…only of course it is. The idea of putting off the meaningful vote until January is that it would mean that MPs would lose their bottle when facing up to the problems associated with leaving the EU without a deal. However, as with most of Theresa May’s political calculations, I think that all that has really happened is that most MPs have now accepted the unacceptable, leaving without a deal, as what is actually going to happen and have started to think about how best to make this work to their own advantage. There will be some who will fight until the bitter end but my feeling is that the battle has been lost and now we must all move on and make the most of our new suboptimal world.
Of course the one country that is going to be screwed more than any other is the Republic of Ireland. Not only will they have lost their big beast in the European Union who was willing to come to their aid when needed but also they are looking very exposed to other EU countries who will be looking around for someone to blame. They could end up facing the worst of all world should the British government introduce taxation policies designed to attract big business from abroad to locate their international HQ’s in Britain. If this were to happen then there is a possibility that a major part of the Republic’s tax base could disappear which would cripple the economy and most likely bankrupt the government.
Of course the EU could help them but this also assumes that the EU’s central role will remain unchanged post Brexit. Up until now there has been a great amount solidarity amongst the other 27 EU countries when deal with the Brexit negotiations. However, should the EU’s policy fail i.e. Britain leaves without a deal then you can expect that solidarity start to breakdown especially if EU products start to be priced out of the UK market – the most likely one to feel the pinch would be wine imports – wine is produced in vast quantities outside of the EU and these producers would be only too happy to sell as much wine as they can to the UK – especially if the tariffs are reduced. (I wrote about this back in 2016 and the data gives you some idea of the problems the EU wine producers would face.)
The thing about wine is that it is very easy to place import duties on and we have been doing that for as long as there has been import duties. If this were to happen then one of the countries most affected would be Italy and the current government aren’t exactly best buddies with the EU at the moment. A reduction in wine exports to the UK as a result of a failed EU negotiation is going to flame the fires already smoldering in Italy. With Britain gone then Italy becomes the third largest country in the EU and suddenly has a lot more political clout than it did before. This would mean any EU strong arm tactics against the Italy are less likely to work. This could in turn cause the Italian economy to take a nosedive starting a Euro crash which requires the EU to call upon the financial muscle of Germany as well as the financial capacity of the city of London to help sort out. (No there isn’t anything like the capacity within the EU – perhaps one day there might be but it is doubtful – just look at how many jobs financial institutions have shipped out of the city to other EU countries. If you want a career in high finance you’re not going to get the opportunities in Frankfurt that you are in the city of London.)
In short if we think that things are suboptimal in April 2019 should Britain leave without a deal then things could go very badly wrong for the EU as well. If this is the case then what hope is there for the Republic of Ireland getting much in the way of meaningful support from the EU?
Of course this is all ifs and buts and maybes. Unfortunately we are reaching the point of no return and my feeling is we are all going to have to get used to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland being outside of the European Union without any trade deal in place after the 29th of March 2019. Expect April to be an interesting month! Not sure what use all those new Irish passports are going to be?
Beam me up Scottie!
So that was Christmas and what have you done? Well for me I have been pulling my yearbook together and well just making some sketches. Well it beats watching the nonsense (most of it) that is on the TV!
So the plan was to drive to the coast and spend Christmas on the beach. This being England and not southern California the ambient temperature on the beach would be around freezing but that wasn’t a problem as we could wrap up warm. However, fog at Peterborough put an end to that so we were left with a walk around the empty streets of Leicester. Actually it was quite enjoyable.
For my sins I watch a lot of photography related vlogs on YouTube. Some are really useful and most are mildly entertaining. Perhaps the most interesting thing about their output is the divide between the young and old: The younger vloggers are all about kit and equipment and noise and fury where as the older vloggers tend to have a more considered opinion on photographic kit and photography in general. I guess this is art imitating life.
However, what is not mentioned enough in all of these vlogs is light – the one ingredient that most photographs need. This morning I was able to explore the suitable effect that diffused light has on my local park and it changed it into a menacing place – not least because the river was in full flow having burst its bank yesterday. It was wonderful if a little cold.
I have a very ambivalent attitude to Christmas. For more years than I care to recall I have worked on Christmas day or night – strangely enough I can’t recall actually ever working on lates on Christmas day. So my family Christmas could well be before or after the actual day and I always have a rye smile on my face when I hear people talking about working on or near to Christmas day.
Anyway this morning we went out and did our normal food shopping, Christmas for us had been on Friday due to other family complications. What I didn’t think would happen is that our local supermarket car park would be almost full half an hour before shopping was supposed to start. However, whilst the shop was busy most of the people who had parked their cars in the car park weren’t shopping there but rather across the way at the shopping centre.
As we sat drinking our coffee watching the Christmas shopping mayhem below it was rather a relief to know that we had done all that and now Christmas day is just another day. I wonder what we might get up to?
The only way is up from today (well at least up here in the northern hemisphere). Tomorrow the long haul to summer starts. Thank goodness for that!
Oh the joys of a lack of sleep or is that getting older? Not sure but out this came this image – I haven’t got the first clue if this means anything at all.
So what have I done today? Well let me see I have mapped out where all the medieval religious institutions were located in and around west Leicestershire. I know this is a very niche pursuit but it is one I find very rewarding.
Apart from that I have prepared a selection of images to be printed and framed. They are all images I have published on this blog before but this time I have cropped them to fit a square.
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