abandoned traditional stone cottage in the Scottish Caingorms. Its location, the way its natural construction materials merge back into the landscape they were taken from and its beautiful way of decaying really touched me and madem me think of how we have become so detached of the landscapes we live in, building with materials which are universal and characterless, losing local flair and culture.

MG -TD-Midget-RD

Year of construction: 1950

Cylinder capacity: 1.250 cc - 4 cylinder

Power ouput: 57 HP/ 43 Kw

Maximum speed: 130 km/h

Cruise speed: 90 km/h

Dual carburetor

4 - speed gearbox

The manufacturer of the MG was originally a dealer of the Morris Motor Company, and this dealer began independently producing sports cars in 1924.

The basis of which was to lower the chassis of a Morris Cowly while adding a sporty body.

With this design named "MG", an abbreviation of "Morris Garage" the manufacturer became synonymous with the term "sports cars" and this brand name was promoted through many succesful racing events.

Due to the enormous succes with their sports cars, MG outgrew its home for three times, but in 1935 all of the MG's holdings were sold to the car manufacturer "Moris Motor Company".

MG would never be the same after that as fewer new models were made and participation in racing was discontinued.

The real death blow to MG was inflicted by British Leyland which squandered the illustrious name in the 1970s because it only produced characterless cars and stopped putting the famous MG- emblem on their cars.

Since 2011, Chinese carmaker "SAIC- Motors" became the owner of the MG brand name, and in 2011 the characterless MG-MG-6 reappeared in the United Kingdom.

This was followed in 2019 by the MG-ZS-EV SUV, but this model is also one of a dozen in a dozen........

It's a brutally hot spring afternoon just outside of Reeseville at the Bobolink Rd overpass, as Canadian Pacific's eastbound freight ducks under the classic wooden timber bridge. The Soo Line SD60's are still out and about, albeit in much different paint schemes, but the Bobolink Rd. wooden timber bridge is slated for destruction this week. Heavy machinery is on sight to do the deed of replacing the last wooden overpass between Chicago and St. Paul on the former Milwaukee Road main. I'm confident the new spancrete, run of the mill, characterless bridge will make a fine backdrop as the same description of equipment roll underneath it. Like it or not, nothing is forever. This old Milwaukee Road B&B built bridge will be missed.

SOO 6036,6062 East

Reeseville, WI.

May 14, 2012

Copper Beech Tree forest

2022

MInolta X300

sigma lens

expired Kodak color Plus scanned with an epson 4490 as a BnW negative.

I shot this around November 2022. I'd paid to have the roll developed and scanned locally by a C41 lab boasting

a Noritsu scanner. what I received was a dull characterless grainy flat excuse of a photo.

This has had minimal processing. Just selected BW negative in the Epson software by error

and was rewarded I believe with a far more interesting result. The snowfall on the copper beech tree leaf litter was quite remarkable in contrast.

this is a location I'll definitely not forget.

A spoonbill in wetlands at Monte Gordo, a tourist resort at the eastern end of Ria Formosa..

I found this town fascinating. The beach has regimented rows of loungers and umbrellas with a lining of bars and restaurants. Inland there is a layer of characterless high-rise hotels and apartment blocks. However, move inland a little more and there is a huge pine forest with walking trails, freshwater wetland and salt marsh. All teem with wildlife.

Stillness prevailed on an impounded Cuttagee Lake a few mornings ago. Council's plans for demolition of the heritage timber bridge and its replacement with a wider and characterless concrete version seemed far away.

HD PENTAX-DA 20-40mm f2.8-4 Ltd.

CSX empty coal train E887 is nearing its destination as it splits the L&N searchlight signals at CP-Dortha just north of the yard at Corbin, KY. E887 is a train off the CN at Curtis, IN, and is bound for loading at one of the mines of the CV Sub east of Corbin.

The CSX 'CC' subdivision is the old L&N Cincinnati - Corbin mainline, connecting to the ex B&O 'Toledo Sub' to the north and ex L&N 'KD' sub to the south. One of 4 north-south through routes on the CSX system, the CC is the least active in 2024. Once home to as many as 30 daily scheduled trains in the mid 1990s, the CC now hosts only the M541/542 pair as regularly scheduled trains. Coal empties from the north and south frequently run to serve the handful of active mines left in the area and a pair of locals serving the few remaining online customers. Some bulk commodity traffic now takes the CC due to the washouts and temporary closure of the Clinchfield, but in time those trains will return to Clinchfield rails. CSX has began more single tracking of this line, removing the second main between Ryland and Visalia, and here between Frantz and Dortha. Some of the classic L&N searchlights have also come down, with modern characterless safetran vaders taking their place.

A corner that has recently become bland.

Characterless 21st century architecture.

LR3347

I should imagine these lanes would have been very unsanitary in the past!

I'd love to wander around here at dusk after rain when the stone setts are all shiny and the old lamps are on.

My hometown of Bingley in West Yorkshire was full of these narrow side lanes, ginnels and snickets in my childhood.

I can just remember them, all lost to the 'slum' clearances in the late 60's and 70's. Replaced by shoddy, characterless housing, the old communities thoughtlessly destroyed. If only they had had the foresight to improve them instead - they'd probably be full of antique shops and expensive wine bars by now...

And the original communities would still be in shoddy housing, just somewhere on the outskirts. (Old codger rant over.)

The Dew Drop Inn,

Built c.1874, and then owned by the Charrington Brewery, now private residences.

Unfortunately, many of the beautiful original features have been removed leaving it dull and characterless.

LR3854 © Joe O'Malley 2020

It does seem unfair to the vast spread of the Southern & Central Highlands that I invariably 'home-in' on a handful of stand-out peaks most of the time. It's no lie, however, to say that in-between these touchstone mountains lies much that is characterless or that is sullied by humanity badly enough to avoid a second glance.

I'd posted so many photos of Bidean nam Bian last winter that this one drew the short straw & went to the back of the queue. It was sheer good fortune that the lower ridge in the implied foreground (Bealach Fuar- chathaidh) began to catch the low rising sun - & to do so in perfect alignment with my distant subject matter.

Also, I'm aware that it could be argued that the 3:1 aspect ratio only creates superfluous areas in this scene, but I've made my bed . . . :- )

www.ravishlondon.com/londonstreetart

Together Shoreditch and Spitalfields in the East of London constitute the most exciting place to be in London. The population is young, dynamic and imaginative; Friday and Saturday nights are a riot with a plethora of bars and clubs many with their own unique flavour. But what makes this area really special is that Shoreditch and Spitalfields comprise what one might call, ‘the square mile of art’; a de factor open air art gallery; with graffiti, posters and paste-ups being displayed on the main streets, down the side roads and in all the nooks and crannies of this post-industrial environ.

From Eine’s huge single letters being painted on shop shutters, to the haunting propaganda posters of Obey, to Cartrain’s political black and white pop-art; and to the one very small bronze coloured plastic circle, with the imprint of a dog shit and a man's foot about to step into it, which I once saw pasted to a wall, there is an incredible diversity.

Being on the streets, the work can be destroyed, taken or painted over at any minute. It is fragile and transient. Furthermore the juxtaposition of different pieces of art is random and unpredictable both in content and its location, which means that each day throws up a new and unique configuration of work within the streets, which you can only experience by travelling through the city.

Street Art Beginnings

The reasons for why East London has seen the flowering of street art are manifold. The post-industrial legacy of Shoreditch’s crumbling low-rise warehouses, not only provides an environment in which the artists and designers can do their work, but East London’s proximity to the City of London provides an economic source of support for the artists and designers; and finally Shoreditch with its building sites, old dilapidated warehouses provides a canvas upon which those artists can display their work and increase their commercial value.

Set against the characterless nature of the steely post-modernity of the city, the autumnal colours of the terraced warehouses in Shoreditch, no bigger than four to five stories high; offer a reminder of the legacy of a thriving fabrics and furniture industry which blossomed in the seventeenth Century. Both Shoreditch and Spitalfields have industrial pasts linked to the textiles industry, which fell into terminal decline by the twentieth century and was almost non-existent by the end of Wolrd War II. The decline was mirrored in the many three to four storey warehouses that were left to decay.

The general decline was arrested in the 1980s with the emergence of Shoreditch and Hoxton (Hoxton and Shoreditch are used interchandeably to refer to the same area) as a centre for new artists. It is difficult to say what attracted the artists to this area. But it was likely to be a combination of the spaces offered by the old warehouses, the cheap rents, and the location of Shoreditch and Spitalfields close to the City of London; where the money was to buy and fund artistic endeavour.

Not just that but post-war Shoreditch dominated by tens of post-war tower blocks, built amidst the ruins of the terraced housing that lay there before, which was bombed during World War II; had the rough edge which might inspire an artist. Shoreditch hums with the industry of newly arrived immigrants but also of the dangers of the poorer communities which inhabit these areas. Homeless people can be found sat underneath bridges on the main thoroughfares on Friday and Saturday nights; and Shoreditch is apparently home to one of the largest concentrations of striptease joints and a number of prostitutes. So, Shoreditch is a crumbling dirty, dodgy, polluted mess but it also has money; and these two factors provide an intoxicating mix for artists, who can take inspiration from their environment, but also rub shoulders with people who have the kind of money to buy their work.

By the early nineties Hoxton’s reputation as a centre for artists had become well established. As Jess Cartner-Morley puts it ‘Hoxton was invented in 1993. Before that, there was only 'Oxton, a scruffy no man's land of pie and mash and cheap market-stall clothing…’ At that time artists like Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin were taking part in ‘A Fete Worth than Death’ an arts based event in Hoxton. Gradually these artists began to create their own gravity, attracting more and more of their own like. Clubs and bars began to emerge, as did a Hoxton style, ‘the Hoxton fin’ being a trademark haircut. Many designers and artists located around Shoreditch and Spitalfields. Shoreditch has also become a hive of studios for artists, vintage fashion shops, art students and musicians.

At the same time as an artistic community was forming fuelled by money from the City, London was subject to a revolution in street art. According to Ward, writing for Time Out, the street art scene began in the mid-1980s as part of London’s hip-hop scene. Graffiti artists, emulating what was going on Stateside, began to tag their names all over London. According to Ward many of those pioneers ‘went on to paint legal commissions and are at the heart of today’s scene’. That is to say, from the community of artists congregating in East London, a number were inspired by graffiti, and because the East London, with its countless dilapidated warehouses, and building sites, offered such a good canvas; they went on to use the East London as a canvas for their work.

Little seems to have been written about the individual journey’s particular street artists have taken to get to where they are, which help illuminate some of the issues talked about in this section. Cartrain said that Banksy was a huge influence for him commenting that, "I've sent him a few emails showing him my work and he sent me a signed piece of his work in the post."

What created the East London street art scene may also kill it

The East London urban art scene is unlikely to last forever, being the symptom of a delicate juxtaposition of industrial decline and economic forces.

The irony is that the same factors which are responsible for the creation of the East London art scene are likely to destroy it.

Politicians from all parties, spiritual leaders for global capital, tell us of the unstoppable forces of globalisation. They say if Britain is to continue to dip its paw into the cream of the world’s wealth it needs to become a post-industrial service economy; suggesting a rosy future of millions of Asians slaving away co-ordinated by keyboard tapping British suits, feet on desk, leant back on high backed leather chairs, secretary blowing them off.

Art, which is feeble and dependent upon the financial growth of an economy for its survival, will have to shape itself around the needs and demands of capital.

The financial district of the City of London, lying to the south of Shoreditch, has been successfully promoted as a global financial centre, and its mighty power is slowly expanding its way northwards. Plans are afoot for the glass foot soldiers of mammon, fuelled by speculative property investment, to gradually advance northwards, replacing old warehouses with a caravan of Starbucks and Japanese sushi places and a concomitant reduction in dead spaces to portray the art, increased security to capture and ward off street artists, increased property prices and the eventual eviction of the artistic community. Spitalfields has already had big corporate sized chunks taken out of it, with one half of the old Spitalfields Market being sacrificed for corporate interests in the last five years.

So then the very same financial forces, and post-industrial legacy, which have worked to create this micro-environment for street art to thrive, are the same forces which will in time eventually destroy it. Maybe the community will move northwards, maybe it will dissipate, but until that moment lets just enjoy what the community puts out there, for its own financial interests, for their own ego and also, just maybe, for the benefit of the people.

Banksy

Banksy is the street artist par excellence. London’s street art scene is vibrant and diverse. There is some good, cure, kitschy stuff out there, but in terms of creativity and imagination Banksy leads by a city mile. His stuff is invariably shocking, funny, thought provoking and challenging.

Banksy considers himself to be a graffiti artist, which is what he grew up doing in the Bristol area in the late eighties. According to Hattenstone (2003) Banksy, who was expelled from his school, and who spent some time in prison for petty crimes, started graffiti at the age of 14, quickly switching over to stencils, which he uses today, because he didn’t find he had a particular talent for the former. His work today involves a mixture of graffiti and stencils although he has shown a capacity for using a multitude of materials.

Key works in London have included:

•In London Zoo he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in six-foot-high letters.

•

•In 2004 he placed a dead rat in a glass-fronted box, and stuck the box on a wall of the Natural History Museum.

•

•‘A designated riot area’ at the bottom of Nelson’s Column.

•

•He placed a painting called Early Man Goes to Market, with a human figure hunting wildlife while pushing a shopping trolley, in the British Museum.

•

His work seems to be driven by an insatiable desire to go on producing. In an interview with Shepherd Fairey he said, ‘Anything that stands in the way of achieving that piece is the enemy, whether it’s your mum, the cops, someone telling you that you sold out, or someone saying, "Let’s just stay in tonight and get pizza." Banksy gives the impression of being a person in the mould of Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher or Lance Armstrong. Someone with undoubted talent and yet a true workaholic dedicated to his chosen profession.

Its also driven by the buzz of ‘getting away with it’. He said to Hattenstone, ‘The art to it is not getting picked up for it, and that's the biggest buzz at the end of the day because you could stick all my shit in Tate Modern and have an opening with Tony Blair and Kate Moss on roller blades handing out vol-au-vents and it wouldn't be as exciting as it is when you go out and you paint something big where you shouldn't do. The feeling you get when you sit home on the sofa at the end of that, having a fag and thinking there's no way they're going to rumble me, it's amazing... better than sex, better than drugs, the buzz.’

Whilst Banksy has preferred to remain anonymous he does provide a website and does the occasional interview putting his work in context (see the Fairey interview).

Banksy’s anonymity is very important to him. Simon Hattenstone, who interviewed Banksy in 2003, said it was because graffiti was illegal, which makes Banksy a criminal. Banksy has not spoken directly on why he wishes to maintain his anonymity. It is clear that Banksy despises the notion of fame. The irony of course is that ‘Banksy’ the brand is far from being anonymous, given that the artist uses it on most if not all of his work. In using this brand name Banksy helps fulfil the need, which fuels a lot of graffiti artists, of wanting to be recognised, the need of ego.

Banksy is not against using his work to ‘pay the bills’ as he puts it. He has for example designed the cover of a Blur album, although he has pledged never to do a commercial job again, as a means of protecting his anonymity. Nevertheless he continues to produce limited edition pieces, which sell in galleries usually for prices, which give him a bit of spending money after he has paid the bills. Banksy has said, ‘If it’s something you actually believe in, doing something commercial doesn’t turn it to shit just because it’s commercial’ (Fairey, 2008). Banksy has over time passed from urban street artist into international artistic superstar, albeit an anonymous one.

Banksy has a definite concern for the oppressed in society. He often does small stencils of despised rats and ridiculous monkeys with signs saying things to the effect of ‘laugh now but one day we’ll be in charge’. Whilst some seem to read into this that Banksy is trying to ferment a revolutionary zeal in the dispossessed, such that one day they will rise up and slit the throats of the powers that be, so far his concern seems no more and no less than just a genuine human concern for the oppressed. Some of what seems to fuel his work is not so much his hatred of the system but at being at the bottom of it. He said to Hattenstone (2003) ‘Yeah, it's all about retribution really… Just doing a tag is about retribution. If you don't own a train company then you go and paint on one instead. It all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something - that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it’

Charlie Brooker of the Guardian has criticised Banksy for his depictions of a monkey wearing a sandwich board with 'lying to the police is never wrong' written on it. Certainly such a black and white statement seems out of kilter with more balanced assessments that Banksy has made. Brooker challenges Banksy asking whether Ian Huntley would have been right to have lied to the police?

Brooker has also criticized Banksy for the seemingly meaninglessness of some of this images. Brooker says, ‘Take his political stuff. One featured that Vietnamese girl who had her clothes napalmed off. Ho-hum, a familiar image, you think. I'll just be on my way to my 9 to 5 desk job, mindless drone that I am. Then, with an astonished lurch, you notice sly, subversive genius Banksy has stencilled Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald either side of her. Wham! The message hits you like a lead bus: America ... um ... war ... er ... Disney ... and stuff.’ Brooker has seemingly oversimplified Banksy’s message, if indeed Banksy has one, to fuel his own criticisms. It is easy to see that for many the Vietnam painting tells us that the United States likes to represent itself with happy smiling characters, that hide the effects of its nefarious activities responsible for the real life faces of distress seen on the young girl. Something that we should be constantly reminded of. But then that’s a matter of politics not of meaninglessness.

Banksy’s ingenuity comes through in his philosophy on progression, ‘I’m always trying to move on’ he says. In the interview he gave with Shepherd Fairey he explained that he has started reinvesting his money in to new more ambitious projects which have involved putting scaffolding put up against buildings, covering the scaffolding with plastic sheeting and then using the cover of the sheets to do his paintings unnoticed.

Banksy has balls. Outside of London he has painted images in Disney Land; and on the Israeli wall surrounding Palestine. How far is he willing to push it? What about trying something at the headquarters of the BNP, or on army barracks, or at a brothel or strip club employing sex slaves, or playing around with corporate advertising a la Adbusters?

www.ravishlondon.com/londonstreetart

1965 Opel calender - Black Forest, Germany

While most of the world seems to be sipping often characterless chardonay's these days when it comes to white wine, you can give me a stonedry German Riesling any time. An Opel Rekord stationwagen drives past workers in a vineyard near the Yburg Castle in Baden Baden, Schwarzwald (Black Forest).

Question: how did Opel call its stationwagons in those days?

Possibly one of the most photographed signals at Barnetby BE49 which has most likely been felled and carted away for scrap now being replaced by a characterless LED thing. I know it is progress and probably cost saving but I'm sure a platform end shot certainly won't be the same in the future.

60 047 is seen in the background working the 12.16 Rectory Junction to Lindsey discharged tanks, a little immaterial to the shot but worth a mention all the same.

This house no longer exists. It's been torn down for a characterless development of houses

The Bristol RE became the bog standard single decker in many National Bus Company fleets, being built in large quantities during the nineteen sixties. The earliest ones had this characterless flat-front and windscreen shown here, while later variants had a more curved front profile. Probably the only reason I bothered to photograph this in April 1978 was to capture the place name on the destination blind as a title shot for the next section of cine film. Thirty years later the subject is now of interest as an example of the nowadays rare Bristol RE in the colours of Hants & Dorset, ready to leave Bournemouth for Swanage. Captured from one of my old super 8 cine films.

Resurrected shot from around 2015. This is a scene soon to be tragically lost, with the introduction of characterless fixed-formation passenger units replacing the Class 91 and 43 locomotive-hauled trains, ending generations of locomotives operating out of the legendary King's Cross.

My take on very often photographed New Brighton lighthouse. Thats a second time in a row that I went out to shoot something expecting some nice weather and got dull characterless overcast weather:) Thanks for looking, let me know what you think if you got a minute:)

450 sec. exposure at f8, ISO 100, with big and small stopper stacked (for those who is interested:)).

I was soaked in miseries and no peace,

All I needed was some love and solace,

Crushed in isolation and drenched in pain,

I am losing out the meaning of life in plain,

Mutilated in patriotism and national identity,

I am considered as an outcast not one of you,

Unleashed the ignorant traditions of that place,

And I set myself free from that endless pain,

I hate those things called promises and love,

Because all this society gives you is hate,

Hypocrisy of systems and cultures exist,

I am called ‘too liberal’ for my beliefs,

I do not have to comply with your rules,

I am not an outraged, characterless woman,

I know my limits and where to press STOP,

Your fooled by the cover of the book,

But you never bothered knowing inside,

Your are such a beauty hunter, did you know?

You yearn for lust and then call it love,

I am losing out the meaning of being myself,

Because your selfishness doesn’t allow me,

To know myself better in a way no one does.

Shot: not by me, random image

Los Angeles,USA

So nice to see a good pub-sign and this is especially pleasing. Pub-signs used to be one of the great incidental pleasures of wondering around British towns and villages, often beautifully painted and much loved.

Recently however they have become few and far between, often replaced with a bland, corporate style design; a minimalist doodle in white on a grey background has unaccountably appeared everywhere. Forgettable, characterless and utterly lacking in imagination; sadly like so many 'gastro-pub' interiors.

Long may this one last!

GBRF class 66 No.66753 approaches Guide Bridge station with the 6E09 0720 Liverpool Biomass Tml Gbf to Drax Aes (Gbrf) 5th July 2025.

Once a very important large railway location Guide Bridge is a small shadow of its former self. Situated to the east of Manchester and on the western end of the long closed 1500V D.C electrified Manchester to Sheffield Woodhead route it boasted a four platformed station with handsome red bricked buildings, extensive wagon yards and a large stabling point for refuelling locomotives.

The Woodhead route lost its Manchester to Sheffield passenger services in 1969 but was an important freight route for coal from the Yorkshire coalfields across to the Lancashire power stations, these were hauled over the Pennines by the iconic electric class 76 locomotives which were then changed for diesel power at Guide bridge to carry on to their destinations.

The shortsighted closure of the Woodhead route in 1981 and the demise of coal traffic spelt the end for this busy railway centre.

The line as far as Hadfield and glossop was upgraded to 25KV for local passenger services but the original 1500V D.C catenary structures are still in place.

A new "modern" characterless functional station now serves the community with regular trains to Manchester Piccadilly

I visited Guide Bridge several times in the 1970's it was a fabulous place for a rail enthusiast, this is the first time I've been back - for me there are lots of ghosts.

I managed to pop into York station for a little while yesterday, the winter light was wonderfull, couldn't resist getting a shot of a passing Azuma under the great canopy of the station.

I recall the excitement of seeing a new Azuma for the fist time, in its grey base coat. A sleek stealthy machine fit the modern railway. That excitement soon changed to boredom, they are bland and characterless, passive almost. Give me a gutsy brute of a wedge of HST any day.

While spending the Easter weekend on Anglesey, my wife and I had a day trip to Penmon Lighthouse and Beaumaris. I was really looking forward to trying out the new graduated ND filters that my wife bought me for my birthday the previous week. Unfortunately, the weather was very overcast with characterless, blanket-like skies! This was the best shot I got during our visit to Penmon, but I'm happy with the result of my first attempt using filters.

Part of three photos showing some of the construction of a medical office building for most of the block bounded by Polk Street and Van Ness Avenue on the east and west and Cedar and Geary Streets on the north and south. This building (now completed) created medical offices supporting the a new Hospital (also, now completed) across Van Ness Avenue (the building under construction in the background).

With construction in this area going apeshit, the disruption/change to this neighborhood has, so far, been enormous and neither the hospital nor this office building were even completed. The homeless in the neighborhood are visibly, being driven into the streets and you see many of them wandering about aimlessly. On a personal level my ophthalmologist moved to a nearby, cement, office building. Built in the 80s, it is as characterless as it is nondescript.

Finally, the geotagged map says this neighborhood is "Lower Nob Hill." Lower Nob Hill is a recent, bullshit appellation created by pimping real estate personnel to try and give cachet to this traditionally, down and out neighborhood. In reality, this area is part of Polk Gulch, a subset of the Tenderloin and closer to Russian Hill and Pacific Heights, both of which are easily as wealthy as Nob Hill.

If you don't like the shot, check out the video of Pete and Eddie (hold the command (or control) key and click the link): www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUAky0rlLEY

View "Walk By Vacancy" on black or on white.

© 2020 Jeff Stewart. All rights reserved.

As I have had such a great response to this photo I thought I would explain how and why I came to take it.

I intentionally went out to take a photo of a Routemaster bus before they all disappeared to be replaced by more modern, global style, and in my opinion characterless buses. The Routemasters have come to be an icon of London but now there are just a few left running on tourist routes.

I also intended to selective colour it as I have here but originally thought this location near BBC Radio would be the best place to take it.

However when I arrived in central London near Trafalgar Square the lighting was so spectacular that I stayed there too long and just managed to walk around the corner and take this shot outside Charing Cross station before leaving.

Just a bit of fortune to have something come together so well with the cyclist and Porsche all at the same time. If only it was always that easy.

Can’t call myself a tall glass of water because, duh, I’m not made of glass or related to Mr. Glass from the movie unbreakable. I have been to the museum of glass and gone to each of the Venetian islands and seen glass blowing (spent most of my time talking to the blower about resident evil if you can believe it). I have not blown glass which in this context would be like blowing myself but again, not made of glass. So I’m a tall drink of water. That apparently has some downside though since being a tall drink of water has been said to originate from a South Dakota writer in the early 1900s who was describing a tall characterless and ineffective person. Also said to originate in Scotland and the southeast US. Who knows. All I can tell you is that when I started this I thought it meant tall sexy lady. At best it means a tall guy who is probably a dope. Regardless still good to drink a gallon of water a day. Not more than that though. I read that in 2007 a woman died drinking two gallons of water in three hours trying to win a radio contest that would get her kid a Nintendo. Think she was tall?

The disused station building at Georgemas Junction is unfortunately slowly being allowed to rot and will, without any preventative measures, surely become beyond saving in the not too distant future. The only shelter at this lonely wind swept outpost now being a characterless bus shelter which does little to inspire the soul or stop the weather!!! Anyway although the former station building still stands, and though not entirely in original condition, many original features can still be found. The entrance doors being a great example of something that was obviously made to last, and has done. Looking through the filthy windows much of the interior is still in one piece and a timetable, dated 1985, is on the wall. What a waste of a perfectly useful building which could be a great addition to passenger facilities for the FNL.

It can be done !, rebuilding in the Victorian style instead of looking tragically dull in a characterless modern style.

LR3567

This huge structure stood at the mouth of the station, on a gantry over the low level lines, which were gone at this time. The entire area has been lost to more characterless glass and steel.

The buildings on the left were low enough that the spire of St Bride's church was visible from here, though out of frame a little further to the left. The last building of this row with it's back to the line was the Old King Lud pub, which unlike the others, has survived, though no longer as a pub.

A very brief visit (as I booked on for work at 02:30) to a damp London Kings Cross this morning before my train home. A busy scene almost devoid of 'plastic', well for 5 minutes...

It's very sad to think that another iconic London terminus, will soon be full of characterless traction that won't be worth a second look!

From left to right 91102, 43317, 43299 & 800106

inaugurate verb: to put something into use

Turn up on election day in Australia and I'll bet London to a brick on you'll be offered a democracy sausage. There'll be equal odds that it will be cooked on a flat barbecue plate by someone from a local service club or school auxiliary, slapped diagonally on a piece of square, fluffy, characterless, sliced white bread, buried beneath undercooked onions if you're there early, or cremated ones if you're there late, and garnished with dead horse.

celebrate verb: to honour or praise

The sausage is a wondrous thing; a mystery bag of bits and pieces — whether it's upper class or as down-to-earth as a Scottish haggis. It is never celebrated more democratically than when it's laid down in the embrace of a bun, dressed here in a simplified form that you might encounter in København; a world away from the queue to vote.

This wiener is a pale simulacrum of the frankfurter it could be. Stuffed with ground bits rejected then selected for their inferiority, and wrapped in a dyed orange/brown skin, it'll have to do for this inauguration. Dressing this dog is the first, the inaugural task of a new batch of red kraut — fermented in the Danish-style with fennel seeds. The mustard is sweet, in the Swedish-style, and the onions are just a few metres from where they grew in this green land.

commemorate verb: to mark or celebrate

Here's to the not so humble hotdog! It commemorates its disparate parts, its humble origins in Germany, its adoption and adaptation around the World, symbol of getting together, getting along and the whole made better than the sum of its parts.

No 27 040 and a couple of parcels vans feature in this charming scene (freezing temperature notwithstanding).

The station has changed hugely since this was taken. The overall roof has gone, as has the original station building, which has been replaced by something smaller, modern and characterless.

10 January 1978.

Photo by and courtesy of Peter James.

I was cutting through 38th to get to B&H and saw Esposito's had changed their frontage. They may have done that a while ago, I don't pass along here often. I took a shot of this 8 years ago (below). I loved that signage. Now replaced, it seems very generic and a bit characterless.

New York

Taken with my digital Fujifilm X20

old buildings facing characterless newer buildings

Three photos showing some of the construction of a medical office building for most of the block bounded by Polk Street and Van Ness Avenue on the east and west and Cedar and Geary Streets on the north and south. The building (now completed) created medical offices supporting the a new Hospital constructed across Van Ness Avenue (to the left and out of view in this photo).

With construction in this area going apeshit, the disruption/change to this neighborhood has, so far, been enormous and neither the hospital nor this office building at the time the photo was taken were even completed. The homeless in the neighborhood are being driven visibly into the streets and you see many of them wandering about aimlessly. On a personal level my ophthalmologist moved to a cement, office building nearby. Built in the 80s, it is as characterless as it is nondescript.

The building in the background with the horseshoe-shaped arched windows housed the Avalon Ballroom from 1966 to 1969 where many, many great rock and roll bands played.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_Ballroom

archive.org/details/gd68-10-12.sbd.eD.10909.sbeok.shnf

Finally, the geotagged map says this neighborhood is "Lower Nob Hill." Lower Nob Hill is a recent, fake, appellation created by pimping real estate personnel trying to give cachet to this traditionally, down and out neighborhood. In reality, this area is part of Polk Gulch a subset of the Tenderloin, and is closer to both Russian Hill and Pacific Heights, both of which are easily as wealthy as Nob Hill.

The Skoda Yeti had a great fan following and all the Yeti enthusiasts mourn the passing of the popular car from production.

My Yeti was registered 18Oct 2017 and production had ceased by that time, making it one of the last ever to be built. It is a 4x4 and is the second main variant of the car, with the first version having the rounded running lights.

Replaced now by three different cars, the anonymous and characterless Kodiaq and Karoq soon to be followed by the Kamiq.

Sadly will likely be torn down this summer due to a lack of funding to make the repairs necessary to make the structure safe for pedestrians. Not to worry though, there is a characterless concrete bridge near by to use along with busy oncoming traffic

St Andrew, Metton, Norfolk

Metton's is a church that I keep coming back to. It's handily placed for revisits, being set just south of Cromer, one of my regular starting points for bike rides. But there is something else too, something that seems to call me back to experience its quiet, dim stillness above the lonely road of the village.

I first came here with the late Tom Muckley in the summer of 2005, if you could call it a summer that year. Long, sultry days in June gave a promise of things to come, but the promise was never really fulfilled. July was not a particularly wet one, but neither was it very sunny. In East Anglia, we awoke again and again to gloomy cloud and a kind of ineffectual drizzle that eventually petered out, the clouds breaking. But the days never warmed up, and all too soon evening closed in. By early August, the hedgerows were still as green as they had been six weeks previously, and the conservation areas of graveyards had become jungles.

There was an illusion that the summer was still held in a fitful suspense. But already, the barley and wheat fields were being harvested, the lanes clogged by mud from combines and tractors, the signs all around of everything being safely gathered in. The evenings became cooler, the horse chestnuts began threatening to turn. Soon, it would be time for back to school promotions in the town shops, and the excitement of posters for harvest suppers on village noticeboards. Soon, it would be autumn.

But all that was in the future. In the first few days of August, the low cloud began to retreat, and there were high skeins of it dissolving above the rolling hills south of Cromer. Too early in the day to take advantage of it, we headed under overcast skies through tiny lanes banked up with green hedges. All the roads were narrow, and it seemed impossible that we were less than two miles from the nearest A road, less than six miles from Cromer, less than two hundred miles from central London. The fields were silent, the stillness in the air timeless.

Through the high banks we twisted, eventually coming out into the deep cut village of Metton, barely a hamlet really. A few council houses straggled beside the church. There were some larger, older houses to the east, and a farmer had cut a maze through his crops for children to run wild and freely in. We could hear their shouts from the churchyard. It was a lovely place to be, at once ancient and yet full of young life.

Most recently I returned to Metton in June 2019. The weather forecast had promised sunshine, but I'd got out at Roughton Road station under heavy cloud, and my bike ride to Felbrigg, my first port of call, had been into the chill of a wind carrying the occasional misty shreds of a sea fret from the coast, invisible beyond the northern horizon. But as I came into Metton, the clouds parted, and I felt the warmth of the sun for the first time that day like a benediction, and I pushed my bike through the awkward gate into the narrow churchyard.

St Andrew is a simple, aisleless 14th century church, heavily Victorianised with the introduction of late medieval-style window tracery. The high pitched nave roof rather overwhelms it all. As often in this part of Norfolk, refurbishing of the flint has been a cheap option, and that seems to have happened on the tower here. The most interesting feature is at the foot of the tower, for there is a processional way running from north to south, the western face of the tower being hard against the churchyard boundary. The northern side of the chancel is windowless now, but the prospect from the south, away from the village street, is gentle and timeless.

It must be said that this is always a gloomy interior to step into. This is mostly the fault of the Victorian restoration, which ceilured the roof, leaving nothing but a functionless wallplate with fascinating grotesques on it. The restoration here was fairly middle-of-the-road. The town church benches must have seemed the very thing in the 1870s, but today they are characterless and dull, out of keeping with the peace outside. You can't help thinking that the nave would be improved if they were replaced with modern wooden chairs. But the chancel recalls earlier days, rustic and simple, with a pammented floor and bare furnishings. The flowers make it feel a place at once well-loved and well-used, a delight. There are roundels of Flemish glass in the east window, set here by the Dennis King workshop in the early 1960s. A bishop stands and a monk kneels before the crucifixion. Another monk, a donor perhaps, kneels before St Jerome in the desert. An angel holds a chalice and a crucifix.

By the south door, hidden under the table, is a fine civilian brass to Robert and Matilda Doughty. Robert died in 1493, and presumably the brass was put in place before the death of his wife, because the place for her dates has been left blank. There are also a couple of brass inscriptions in the nave. One is directly beside the fine, if over-plastered, Norman tub font, which rather looks as if it was originally designed to stand against a wall or a pillar.

A curiosity is welded to the north wall, beside the door. This is the 19th century parish truncheon, a fascinating survival. These objects were symbols of authority rather than implements of aggression, but all the same I couldn't help wondering if it had cracked a few parish heads, and quite what the 18th century parishioners would say if they could come back and see it so fondly displayed.

I stood for a while, breathing in the silence. A bird started up in the churchyard, but it seemed distant. It was time to go. It struck me, not for the first time, that there is something sad about this church. Not exactly oppressive, for it calls me back again and again, but a feeling that this Victorian interior which had seemed so bright and earnest a century and a half ago has faded. It has seen its congregation shrink, as if they were leaving one by one, leaving only an echoing emptiness, except for services. The patina of the varnish and the tiles has dulled, and the whole place broods beneath the ceilure. Only the chancel still seems alive.

And there was something else, of course. As I signed the visitors' book, I noticed that several recent visitors mentioned their prayers for April. I thought that this was a lovely thing, that they remembered. I remembered too. Thirteen year old April Fabb's disappearance on the edge of this tiny village in the spring of 1969 haunted me as a little boy at the time, and still haunts East Anglia today. It regularly reappears in the news, most recently because of the event's fiftieth anniversary. Outside, beside the porch, an inscription to her memory on a headstone reads: Will you of your charity remember in your prayers APRIL FABB a child who disappeared from this parish in April 1969 of whom nothing has since been heard.

This is a greatly photographed part of the viaduct. It takes your breath away for a moment when you first see it, and I did just stand and stare for a few minutes I have to confess. To date I haven't seen a photograph that genuinely does the reality of what you see ANY justice.

What you are actually looking at is the sight through the perfectly aligned ovals in each of the Viaduct piers. There are 37 in all, going down the valley, over the little river, and up the other side. This was done to help reduce the number of bricks needed for construction, and in turn helped to create what is regarded as 'one of the most elegant' viaducts in Britain.

Gotta love Victorian engineering...it's so much more awe inspiring than many of today's characterless creations...

random title of course! ;)

I gave him this quick face up today cause I want to take him with me to my parents for the holidays, when I usually have good photo opportunities with different backgrounds. :)

He is my first boy with asian features that I love but I'm finding him so hard to photograph!!

He is still nameless and characterless - originally I wanted him to be a yakuza, bad guy from japanese mafia but I changed my mind . :p

I'm making a list of japanese (or korean, asian) boy names I like and accepting suggestions! :)

Maybe doesn't need to be japanese ... ocidental names are ok if I find a fitting one. ♡

the population explosion in INDIA and BANGLADESH is readily apparent once you get out of the airports.

Traffic stalls at times for an hour.

The heat, with people begging constantly ,the mad rushing crowds, inability to even cross a street without being hit by a motorist has made street shooting quite an arduous task.

The subjects though are amazing and keep me going back, though at times i swear I never will.

I find Western society i.e. Manhattan quite dull, predictable, characterless, featureless, colorless, monotonous, unexciting, uninspiring, unstimulating, lacking variety, lacking variation, lacking excitement, lacking interest, unimaginative, uneventful, lifeless, soulless, unoriginal, derivative, commonplace, prosaic, run-of-the-mill, humdrum, unremarkable, banal, plodding, ponderous, and pedestrian to put it briefly.

There is no place like India. None!

I do worry that this “surpassing” China in population poses a huge problem for Indians. Thats a topic for another time.

www.allexamnotes.com/2017/03/population-explosion-causes/

the image:

A woman using/abusing children ( maybe hers or rented from another woman ) to walk the streets with her hand out, tugging at your shirt for money or milk.

Old Delhi

Photography’s new conscience

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

glosack.wixsite.com/tbws

This sight is so bland and characterless that it took me a some time of forced looking to even notice it. There are many areas in Melbourne like it.

Taken just above The Little Shore, minutes before sunset. This fence/railing is starting to look a little worse for wear in places so I'd imagine they'll replace it with some characterless monstrosity within the next few years.

Fingers crossed they can keep it going a hit longer with a few repairs instead!

HFF everyone!

© All rights reserved.

The Fox Theater, in near continuous operation since its opening in 1928, is one of many movie palaces that once dotted the city of Detroit. Now it is only one of a few.

Unfortunately a first-run movie cannot be seen in a movie palace such as this in the city of Detroit. One must go to a multiplex to view a movie without the gilded plaster, ushers, organ preludes, or even a curtain. What is settled for today is cheap, characterless cinderblock boxes that may have disappointing sound and projection .

Architect: C. Howard Crane. Restored in 1988 and is open for various live shows.

I changed the original drawing and hope you like the second version as well. The first time I drew a same subject twice because Prof Chen said draw it again when he heard I am not satisfied with the first version (The first one was finished at the location).

As I said, I want to ask people and myself, when did we move from warm, wooden, old house to cold, hard, characterless, big apartment? Do you know who is living beside you? Have you ever invited them to your apartment having some tea?

When I stood in front of the big building, I felt a little bit sad. This old wooden house will disappear very quickly in Taipei. I must draw it before that.

With work soon to start on the second phase of the Dawlish Seawall the colonnade that runs under platform one of Dawlish station will soon be consigned to history when replaced by more characterless concrete.

For the record a five-car Class 221 "Super Voyager" can be seen in the distance running along Marine Parade working Arrvia Cross Country's (AXC) early morning service from Penzance to Glasgow Central on Friday the 23rd of September 2016.

Peter photographed the Green Bus Service Ford/Willowbrook and for good measure took a rear 3/4 as well. Although intended as a bus picture it does show the changes to Carrs Lane. A glance at the 'today' shot shows the traffic flow has been reversed, the dirty brick, chewing gum spotted pavement we have today is new and pristine awaiting laying in Peter's shot. One of the fine terra-cotta buildings has also gone, replaced by a characterless Travelodge.

In today's picture the road is blocked by recovery vehicles trying to recover NXWM's Volvo 4283 which has staggered into Birmingham and given up the ghost at its terminus. In both pictures the right hand side is dominated by the wall of Marks & Spencer.

VBF 697J was a Ford R192 with Willowbrook DP45F body, it was new to Greatrex of Stafford 2/1971 now with Green Bus Service as number 21 in their fleet.

Copyright Peter Shoesmith 1986, Geoff Dowling 2019: All rights reserved

So it's weird to have a doll with no established character. Especially a gianty one. He has presence. I can ignore the characterless tinies....he's very not ignorable. Plus I love him. He's my current favorite XD

I don't know where to put him tho. He can't be with my big group, the Alex group, as he's too big and out of scale with them. He's not a minimee, which leaves one other option and it has a lot of teeth....