Life Observed

I wonder who's bench this is? I wonder how they got the letters to stick out like that. It's just weird.

In the nineteen seventies it was all the rage to decorate your house with woodchip. It was considered the height of fashion, along with all things brown and beige.  You would park your brown Morris Marina outside your beige brick house and marvel at new fangled boil in the bag fish in sauce or instant Vesta Curry while watching Poldark or Faulty Towers on your orange Sony TV.

Do you remember Ox-bow lakes? Oh, those long distant Geography lessons.  We were taught about OS maps, Limestone, chalk uplands and of course rivers and their ox-bow lakes.  Well, here is one in the making on the south coast.  So it was true, all that stuff we were told at school. Fancy that. In that case, I wonder, do we still have an Empire?

Where would we be without proper organisation?  In fact, where would we be without a Health and Safety policy, Political Correctness, the Quality System and Risk Assessment? It is these requirements and many others like them than support British Industry.

Once again scientists are trying to tell us that a solar eclipse is caused by the Moon getting in the way of the Sun. What are the chances of that happening? It's ridiculous to even consider it. It is an unusual event and I thought I would photograph it a day in advance to avoid the rush. No, as sensible people know, the Sun is hollow like half a walnut shell. The inside is black, and every now and then the Sun rotates so we see the black bit.  Now why it does this even scientists can't tell us.

Do you remember those Physics lessons at school with the magnets and the iron filings? Do you remember dripping acid on iron filings in Chemistry lessons? Surely that has to be the worst job in the world. You turn up at work and there is a big block of iron and your file. That will be your task for eight hours.  The next day:  I wonder what I will be doing today? Oh yes, I remember, filing a big block of iron.

I spotted this maker's stamp on a garden pot recently, complete with thumb print. Ancient pottery also carries the finger prints of the long dead potter. I guess this is a case of leaving your mark on history..

This old painted panel records the fact that this Norman church is supported by rent from a nearby house and from a patch of land. The money is to be set aside for repairs to the church. The names of the benefactors are unknown.

There is a large market for fake watches these days. All the name brands have been faked and the results are astonishing. Some fakes are very hard to distinguish from the real thing. It is no wonder we consumers have to be on our guard. Take this "Time" watch for example. I was drawn to the stylish lines and I bought it from a reputable pound shop on the high street, but I can't help wondering if it is a fake. It is a shame that it doesn't actually go, but it tells the right time twice a day, which is nice.

When a company is small and hungry the guiding principle is "move fast and break things".  When you are inventing a new electric mousetrap it is inevitable that things will go wrong. You just start again and head off in a new direction. Then the company grows. Someone wants to know why there is no signing-in book by the front door, why the fire escape signs are not the correct shade of green. Now the principle has to be "think fast and blame things". We have all been there. Finally a Quality System is put in place and Regulatory Requirements become paramount.  Now it is difficult to make new things, it is tricky to change existing things and according to the extensive paperwork there is no reason for anything to fail. Everyone is accountable and when things do go wrong then the guilt must be apportioned.  Now everyone is worried all day long, protecting their own back, looking to move the problem on to someone else. The corporate culture has

Well, here we are inside an early Norman or late Saxon church on a quiet March afternoon. The low spring sunshine illuminates the thousand year old round arch, the column ... and the LED fake candle.

You know what it is like. You look around and find that everyone else is the same and it is you that is the odd one out... Happens all the time to me

Here is another case of "keeping your eyes open". When we visited the excellent St Cross almshouses a while back I spotted that the sunlight streaming in through a window was reflected off the shiny floor. This imparted a strange light to the stone pillars which had me reaching for my telephoto lens.