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Sunset at Castle Stalker.
Castle Stalker is a inland keep located on the tidal islet of Loch Laich Scotland. This was the castle seen in the the final scene of Monty Python's the Holy Grail.
Scanned lith print.
Mamiya 645 ProTL w/ M-S 300 mm/f5.6.
Aug 6, 2022.
Fomapan 100 in Rodinal 1+100, semistand 1 h.
Lith printed on Fomatone MG 131 and developed in Wolfgang's new Easy Lith FT Special (homemade variant (25A+25B+15D+450H2O)).
Toned in Se 1+9, 30-45 sec.
This is what the Norwegian Blue was longing (pining) for
(Monty Python's Flying Circus).
Well, it's a Pine anyways, but admittedly not Norwegian ;-)
“What did the Romans ever do for us?”
I love that line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and have thought it appropriate in many circumstances. Naturally, it came to mind when I was wandering through the magnificent Roman ruins of Jerash – Ancient Gerasa or Garshu – in northern Jordan. These extensive ruins, so far away from the epicentre of the Roman City-State, are an imposing illustration of one of the greatest empires the world has seen.
Although not as big as the one in Rome, the Hippodrome in Jerash is the best preserved example in the world.
For the story, visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/ancient-jerash-jordan...
“What did the Romans ever do for us?”
I love that line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and have thought it appropriate in many circumstances. Naturally, it came to mind when I was wandering through the magnificent Roman ruins of Jerash – Ancient Gerasa or Garshu – in northern Jordan. These extensive ruins, so far away from the epicentre of the Roman City-State, are an imposing illustration of one of the greatest empires the world has seen.
Although not as big as the one in Rome, the Hippodrome in Jerash is the best preserved example in the world.
For the story, visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/ancient-jerash-jordan...
"And now for something completely different" as John Cleese used to say however this is not the Monty Python`s Flying Circus but ICM on the highway.
Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks
We're Here! : The Ministry Of Silly Walks
Running out of ideas for your 365 project? Join We're Here!
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews. Instead, we are just a short distance away in London’s busy shopping precinct on Regent Street, where amidst the throng of London’s middle-class housewives and upper-class ladies shopping for amusement, two maids – Edith who is Lettice’s maid and her best friend Hilda who is the maid for Lettice’s friends Margot and Dickie Channon - are enjoying the pleasures of window shopping under the wide canvas awnings of Selfridges on their day off. The usually busy footpath outside the enormous department store with London’s biggest plate glass windows seems even busier today as the crowds are swelled by visitors who have come in from the outer suburbs of London and elsewhere around England to do a little bit of early Christmas shopping. Already Edith is noticing that the shops are busier than usual, and even though Christmas is still a good two months away, there are signs of Christmas cheer with bright and gaudy tinsel garlands and stars cut from metallic paper hanging in shop windows and gracing shop counters. Around them, the vociferous collective chatter of shoppers mixes with the sound of noisy automobiles and chugging double decker busses as they trundle along Regent Street.
“So how are things at Hill Street, Hilda?” Edith asks her best friend as the pair stand before a window display of brightly coloured umbrellas just perfect to brighten the upcoming winter days. “Have you settled in alright?”
“Oh yes, I’ve settled in just fine,” Hilda begins, but her voice belies concerns.
“I sense there is a but. Don’t tell me it’s worse than awful old Mrs, Plaistow’s?”
“Oh no!” Hilda assures her friend, raising her glove clad hands in defence. “Far from it. It’s just that, well…” She pauses. “I don’t know where Mrs. Channon learned her housekeeping skills.”
Edith laughs. “Don’t be silly, Hilda. Mrs. Channon is a lady, and a future marchioness. She isn’t meant to know how to cook and clean! That’s what you are there for.”
“No Edith. I didn’t mean that.” Hilda deflects.
Edith tuns to her friend, but is momentarily distracted by the passing parade of shoppers behind them on the pavement and passenger faces in the fogged up windows of a red and cream double decker bus as it chugs noisily past them, belching out fumes. “What do you mean then, Hilda?”
“I meant that she doesn’t have the first idea about housekeeping. She’s the one who comes to me, asking me how much the housekeeping budget for the week should be.”
“Oh dear! Doesn’t Mrs. Channon give you a set amount each week then?”
“Well, I tried that, but it fluctuates from week to week.” Hilda replies exasperatedly. “Some weeks she gives me more than I’ve asked for. Sometimes she asks me if what I’ve quoted is enough, and some weeks she just adds extra in anyway, telling me to splurge on something extravagant to cook, or worse yet to buy something special and frivolous for myself!”
“No!” Edith gasps in incredulity.
“And yet on other weeks I tell Mrs. Channon how much I need, and she tells me that she can’t quite meet that budget.”
“Well maybe that’s why Mrs. Channon gives you a bit extra sometimes, to put aside for a rainy day.”
“To be honest, I don’t think Mrs, Channon would know a rainy day if it slapped her in the face with a wet fish*.” The pair of maids titter girlishly for a moment with their hands to their mouths as they imagine Margot Channon being slapped in the face with a salmon or a kipper. “She seems to have no real concept about money, other than she either has it or she hasn’t.”
The pair move across to the next window featuring an array of pretty autumnal hats with wide and narrow brims made of straw and brightly patterned fabric decorated with a mixture of feather, fur and floral trims.
“I don’t think either Mr. or Mrs. Channon even know the meaning of the word budget.” Hilda carries on. “Take these for example,” She points to the hats. “Mrs Channon’s father, Lord de Virre gave Mr. and Mrs. Channon a motor car as a wedding gift, but it sits gathering dust in the garage at Hill Street and they seldom use it because they don’t have the money for petrol to fill it. Yet they take taxis everywhere. I’m forever having to go down to the corner to the taxi stand to fetch one for them. And then Mrs. Channon comes home from a day of shopping with three, mind you three, new hats she really doesn’t need, and she asks me if I have sixpence left over from the housekeeping for the driver waiting downstairs to be paid!”
“Oh, that does sound rather chaotic, Hilda.”
“Chaotic is right!” Hilda agrees. “Mrs. Channon is just lucky that I do know how to work on a budget, and I don’t go spending the extra money she gives me some weeks on frippery and do have enough to cover the shortfalls when they happen. And goodness knows what that Pegeen did when she was working as maid at Hill Street!”
“Oh dear! Did you find another Pegeen present the other day?”
“Did I ever! Mr. and Mrs. Channon had Lord and Lady de Virre for supper the other night, so they had Harrods cater it.”
“You had the money for that then?”
“Yes, luckily, from Mr. Channon. Anyway, they asked for lobster, so when I went to the drawer for the lobster piks** I found it stuffed not only with a jangle of odds and ends of silverware, but half a dozen empty oyster shells, no doubt left over from another dinner party!”
“You’re lucky they didn’t smell!”
“I think they’d been there for a few months.” Hilda remarks dubiously. “I mean, I know Pegeen is Irish, but surely even they have dustbins in Ireland!”
Edith giggles again. “At least you have jolly good stories to regale me with on our days off, Hilda.”
The pair meander to the next window which is crowded with clusters of small children with their noses pressed to the glass, their harried mothers or frustrated nannies trying desperately to get them to come away. Peering over the top of the children’s heads, they see it is a window full of wonderful toys: teddy bears***, tin soldiers, brightly painted wooden castles and forts, games, blocks and books.
As they look, Edith’s eyes fall upon something and she gasps, clapping her hands in delight.
“What is it, Edith?” asks Hilda.
“Come on!” Edith says, grasping Hilda’s right hand in her left. “We have to go inside! I just found the perfect Christmas present!”
The pair enter Selfridge’s grand department store by one of the three revolving doors and are immediately enveloped by the wonderful scent of dozens of perfumes from the nearby perfumery counters. Despite Hilda’s protestations at being drawn away from the perfume and beauty counters, the pair make their way upstairs to the toy department.
The pair meander between tables laden with mountains of boxed dolls, teddy bears, toy tea sets and dolls’ house furnishings, jostling for space with excited children in toy heaven escorted by their frazzled parents. The air is punctuated with laughter, squeals of delight and the occasional sharp slap and harsh words of admonishment when a child does more than just look at what is on display.
“What are we looking for?” Hilda asks in a desultory fashion as she tags along behind Edith who charges about like a woman with a purpose.
“I’ll know when I see them.” Edith says excitedly. Then she spies what she is seeking. “Ahh, how perfect! Right next to the register!”
The pair brusquely walk over to a glass topped counter on which sits a brightly polished brass cash register. In front of it is a display of wooden and plush rabbits, and there, nestled amongst them, a selection of books written by Beatrix Potter. Excitedly, Edith deposits her newly acquired from the Petticoat Lane Market**** second-hand snakeskin purse – almost an exact replica of Lettice’s – onto the glass counter. She snatches up a copy of ‘The Tale of Samuel Whiskers’ and ‘The Tale of Two Bad Mice’.
“I wonder which one he’d like?” Edith ponders as she holds the two brightly coloured books in her hands. “Then again, he does like rabbits.” she mutters aloud as she puts them back and takes up a copy of ‘The Tale of Benjamin Bunny’.
“Beatrix Potter Books?” Hilda queries, screwing up her nose as she sidles up alongside her friend, hooking her black handled brolly on the raised edge of the counter. “What do you want them for?” Then she pauses, her eyes growing wide. “Bert hasn’t got some poor stewardess in the family way has he, Edith?”
Edith’s eyes roll as she turns to her friend. “No, my brother hasn’t done any such thing, I’ll thank you very much, Hilda. No, these are for Mrs, Boothby.”
“Mrs. Boothby?” Hilda queries, thinking of the mature Cockney charwoman***** employed by both her mistress, Margot, and Edith’s mistress, Lettice, who does all the hard graft that neither she nor Edith have to do. “What on earth would Mrs. Boothby want with Beatrix Potter Books?”
Edith sighs in exasperation. “You can be so literal sometimes, Hilda! They aren’t for Mrs. Boothby. They are for…” Edith pauses mid-sentence and thinks before she speaks. Several weeks ago, Edith met Mrs. Boothby’s son, a forty-two year old man who is a simple and gentle giant with the aptitude of a six year old. The old Cockney charwoman’s words ring in her ears about how it is easier for her not to mention that she has a son, not because she is ashamed of him, but because not everyone would understand her wanting to keep and raise a child with such difficulties. She knows that Mrs. Boothby has taken her into her confidence by introducing her to her son, Ken. “For one of her grandchildren.” Edith fabricates.
“Grandchildren? I didn’t even know Mrs. Boothby had children, never mind grandchildren!”
“Well, there’s a lot about Mrs. Boothby you don’t know, Hilda.”
“And how do you know about her grandchildren, Edith?”
“Don’t you remember, Hilda? I went over to Mrs. Boothby’s in Poplar a few weeks ago and she sold me a second-hand sewing machine that she had found for me.” Altering the truth a little, Edith goes on, “Her grandson was playing next door. Mrs. Boothby’s neighbour looks after all the little local children whilst their parents work. He is quite partial to Peter Rabbit, so I thought I might buy him a new Beatrix Potter book for Christmas.”
“That’s very good of you, Edith.” Hilda acknowledges.
“Oh, it’s the least I can do Hilda, after Mrs. Boothby having sold me that sewing machine so cheaply. I’d never have been able to afford a new one. It’s made such a difference for me already.”
“May I help you, Miss?” asks a young shopgirl who has slipped up silently to the register as Edith and Hilda have been chatting.
“How much are these each?” Edith asks.
“They are three and six, Miss.” the shopgirl replies with a smile. “A lovely gift for birthday or Christmas if I may, Miss.”
“I’ll take this one, thank you.” Edith smiles, handing over ‘The Tale of Benjamin Bunny’ to the girl behind the counter and delving into her new snakeskin purse purchase to find the correct money, pleased to have found what she hopes will be a welcome Christmas present for Ken Boothby, the gentle giant of Poplar.
*These days we usually associate slapping people with a wet fish to Monty Python’s Fish Slapping Dance, but the term “to be slapped with a wet fish” goes back as far as the early Twentieth Century, if not earlier. In Marcel Proust’s novel, ‘Swann’s Way’ (1913, Dr Cottard compliments Odette by saying “I’d rather have it in my bed than a slap with a wet fish”. Two lines further on, the narrator refers to the statement as “that old joke”. The term however really came into the popular vernacular between the wars in the 1920s and 1930s.
**A lobster pick or lobster fork is a long, narrow food utensil used to extract meat from joints, legs, claws, and other small parts of a lobster.
***Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in America and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early Twentieth Century, the teddy bear, purportedly named after American President Theodore Roosevelt, became a popular children's toy very quickly, and by 1922 when this story is set, a staple of many children’s nursery toys.
****Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
*****A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
This joyful shop counter display of children’s treasures may not appear to be what they really are, for however lifelike they are, they are in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Central to this story, the copies of Beatrix Potter’s books are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! These are amongst the smaller number that do not open. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. In this case, the magazines are non-opening, however what might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The two wooden rabbits are in fact wooden Christmas ornaments from Germany which I was given when I was about six. The plush white rabbit I acquired from an online stockist of miniatures on E-Bay. The Benjamin Bunny box and also the Noah’s Ark you can see on the shelves in the background, come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.
The brightly shining cash register was supplied by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom.
Edith’s snakeskin handbag with its gold clasp and chain comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. Hilda's umbrella comes from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
Monastir also called Mīstīr, is a city on the central coast of Tunisia, in the Sahel area, (20 km south of Sousse and 162 km south of Tunis). Traditionally a fishing port, Monastir is now a major tourist resort. Its population is about 104,535. It is the capital of Monastir Governorate.
Monastir was founded on the ruins of the Punic–Roman city of Ruspina. The city features a well preserved Ribat that was used to scan the sea for hostile ships as a defence against the attacks of the Byzantine fleet. Several ulema came to stay in the Ribat of this peaceful city for contemplation. The Ribat was also one of the filming locations for both the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
Tunisian ex-president Habib Bourguiba was born in Monastir, and his mausoleum is located in the city. Many other famous politicians are also from Monastir.
“What did the Romans ever do for us?”
I love that line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and have thought it appropriate in many circumstances. Naturally, it came to mind when I was wandering through the magnificent Roman ruins of Jerash – Ancient Gerasa or Garshu – in northern Jordan. These extensive ruins, so far away from the epicentre of the Roman City-State, are an imposing illustration of one of the greatest empires the world has seen.
For the story, visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/ancient-jerash-jordan...
"The Ministry of Silly Walks" is a sketch from the Monty Python comedy troupe's television show Monty Python's Flying Circus. The episode first aired on September 15, 1970. This sketch involves John Cleese as a bowler-hatted civil servant in a fictitious British government ministry responsible for developing silly walks through grants. Cleese, throughout the sketch, walks in a variety of silly ways. It is these various silly walks, more than the dialogue, that has earned the sketch its popularity. Cleese has cited the physical comedy of Max Wall, probably in character as Professor Wallofski, as important to its conception."
“What did the Romans ever do for us?”
I love that line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and have thought it appropriate in many circumstances. Naturally, it came to mind when I was wandering through the magnificent Roman ruins of Jerash – Ancient Gerasa or Garshu – in northern Jordan. These extensive ruins, so far away from the epicentre of the Roman City-State, are an imposing illustration of one of the greatest empires the world has seen.
Temple ruins dominate the horizon around us.
For the story, visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/ancient-jerash-jordan...
Parking your car beside the turning and winding road you can walk in a couple of minutes to the Caldeira Velha, where you find hot springs and a waterfall with warm water between a micro climate of lushy greens.
Caldeira Velha, São Miguel, Azores
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I meant a normal walk, not a silly walk:
Watch here: Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks
54x54 boxpleat
Pour un défi avec sebl et yureiko avec comme thème «Inattendu». J'ai donc pensé à ce sketch de «Monty Python's flying circus» où «PERSONNE ne s'attend à l'inquisition espagnole!» J'ai donc incorporé les trois personnages du sketch dans un modèle en 2D. Il est possible d'obtenir davantage de personnages en plus de faire paraître celui du centre vers l'arrière.
For a challenge with sebl and yureiko with «Unexpected» as the theme. I thought about this sketch from «Monty Python's flying circus» where «NOBODY expects the spanish inquisition!» I then incorporated the three characters from the sketch in one 2D model. It is possible to have as many characters as you want as well as have the center one appear behind the others.
... salud, buenas luces y mucha felicidad!!!! / ... cheers, good lights and lots of happiness!!!!
... Music: "Always look on the bright side of life" from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"
Lo que sonó en mi Flickr durante 2015... :)
Enero
001.- Manolo García - Un año y otro año
002.- Eels - I Like The Way This Is Going
003.- Travie McCoy ft. Bruno Mars - Billionaire
004.- Sammy Davis Jr - Eee O Eleven
005.- The Rembrandts - I'll be there for you
006.- Loquillo Y Los Trogloditas - Cadillac Solitario
Febrero
007.- BluePearl - City of Sound
008.- Eels - Things The Grandchildren Should Know (Live)
Marzo
009.- Roxette - Fading Like A Flower
010.- Fleetwood Mac - Dreams
011.- Eels - I Need Some Sleep
012.- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Windows
013.- Elton John - Circle Of Life
014.- Muse - Resistance
015.- Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way
016.- Lilly Wood & The Prick and Robin Schulz - Prayer In C
017.- El Ultimo de la Fila - Lapiz y Tinta
018.- Paul Weller - Have You Made Up Your Mind
019.- White Town - Your Woman
020.- J. S. Bach - Aria (Oboe Concerto)
Abril
021.- Eels - New Alphabet
022.- Eels - Flyswatter
023.- Black Label Society - Scars
024.- Jeff Buckley - A satisfied Mind
025.- El Ultimo de la Fila - A Veces Se Enciende
Mayo
026.- Cantina Band - John Williams
027.- Jeff Buckley - Everybody here wants you
028.- Rihanna & Kanye West & Paul McCartney - Four Five Seconds
029.- El último de la fila - En los árboles
030.- Talking Heads - (Nothing but) Flowers
031.- Yoriyos - Endoscopises
032.- Naotarou Moriyama - Sakura
033.- John Williamson - Flower On The Water
034.- HIGH4 feat. IU - Not Spring, Love, or Cherry Blossoms
035.- Foals - Balloons
036.- Queen - Bicycle Race
037.- Mark Ronson, The Business Intl. - The Bike Song
038.- Dolly Parton - Yellow Roses
039.- Supertramp - It's Raining Again
040.- Monty Python's - Galaxy Song
041.- The Rolling Stones - Out Of Time
Junio
042.- Grizzly Bear - Yet Again
043.- The Exciters - Tell Him
044.- Tell Him - Versión de Linda Ronstadt
045.- Tell Him - Versión de Vonda Shepard
046.- Tell Him - Versión de Luis Aguilé
047.- Johnny Thunder - Tell Her
048.- Lana Del Rey - Blue Velvet
049.- Jeremy Loops - Basil
050.- Manolo García - Malva
Julio
051.- Cracker - Low
052.- Silverchair - Ana's Song (Open Fire)
053.- Dire Straits - Solid Rock
054.- Joël Fajerman - Flowers Love
Agosto
055.- Blake Shelton - The More I Drink
056.- Eels - Saturday Morning
057.- The Roots - The Seed
058.- Manolo Garcia - Exprimir la Vida
059.- Twiddle - When it Rains it Pours
Septiembre
060.- Amy Macdonald - This Pretty Face
061.- R.E.M. - Orange Crush
062.- Dire Straits - The Bug
063.- Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat
064.- The Lab Rats - Devil's Train
065.- Flambards - Song of Christina
066.- Manic Street Preachers - Autumnsong
Octubre
067.- Trio Los Panchos - La hiedra
068.- Blur - The Universal
Noviembre
069.- Robin Gibb - Juliet
070.- Linkin Park - Hands Held High
071.- Russian Red - Cigarettes
Diciembre
072.- Linkin Park - Waiting For The End
En el primer comentario tenéis enlaces a la música que usé en 2011, 2012, 2013 y 2014.
Gracias por vuestras visitas y comentarios!!
Un besuco!!
Cada 25 de mayo se celebra el “Día de la Toalla”, un tributo de los fans de Douglas Adams, autor de la serie “Guía del autoestopista galáctico”. ¿Y por qué una toalla, os preguntaréis los que aún estéis pensando en qué me ha dado? Sencillo, porque Adams aseguraba en su obra que todo autoestopista galáctico debe llevar una... ¿Acaso hacen falta más explicaciones? ^_^
"Y lo que es más importante: una toalla tiene un enorme valor psicológico. Por alguna razón, si un estraj (estraj: no autoestopista) descubre que un autoestopista lleva su toalla consigo, automáticamente supondrá que también está en posesión de cepillo de dientes, toallita para lavarse la cara, jabón, lata de galletas, frasca, brújula, mapa, rollo de cordel, rociador contra los mosquitos, ropa de lluvia, traje espacial, etc. Además, el estraj prestará con mucho gusto al autoestopista cualquiera de dichos artículos o una docena más que el autoestopista haya «perdido» por accidente. Lo que el estraj pensará es que cualquier hombre que haga autoestop a todo lo largo y ancho de la galaxia, pasando calamidades, divirtiéndose en los barrios bajos, luchando contra adversidades tremendas, saliendo sano y salvo de todo ello, y sabiendo todavía dónde está su toalla, es sin duda un hombre a tener en cuenta." (Douglas Adams - Guía del autoestopista galáctico)
Por si alguien no lo sabe, hoy también es el día del Orgullo Friki, conmemorando que el 25 de mayo de 1977 se estrenó Star Wars... :)
Gracias por vuestras visitas y comentarios!!
Besucos!!
PD. Cuando hice esta foto, pensé en intentar recrear, de un modo u otro, a la Sibila délfica que pintó Miguel Ángel en la Capilla Sixtina, pero al final pensé que me venía que ni pintada para hoy... ;)
Another strike for my back door last night!
This little blighter panicked and shot indoors, but I was able to catch him with a glass and saucer and set him free again!
I also found an extinct (for info read about Monty Python's dead parrot!) June Bug on my back doorstep … sad that. Let's hope there'll be plenty more!
Window cleaned by Serif's Affinity Photo! 😂
Acknowledging Monty Python's "Life Of Brian"
Another view of the Collared Aracari, an intermediate-sized member of the toucan family. Like the toucans, they are frugivores and are common in the Caribbean lowlands and up into the foothills.
Title: "Trust in Me (The Python's Song)" is the song sung by Kaa to hypnotise Mowgli in the popular Walt Disney 1967 film 'The Jungle Book'.
Subject: Wagler's Pit Viper (Tropidolaemus wagleri), named after the German herpetologist Johann Georg Wagler, but it can sometimes be called the "temple viper", as there are many of these snakes at the Buddhist/Taoist temple this photo was taken at, namely Snake Temple - or Temple of the Azure Clouds - in Penang, Malaysia.
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, commissioned the theatre in the late 1880s. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and intended to be a home of English grand opera. The theatre opened as the "Royal English Opera House" in January 1891 with a lavish production of Arthur Sullivan's opera Ivanhoe. Although this ran for 160 performances, followed briefly by André Messager's La Basoche, Carte had no other works ready to fill the theatre. He leased it to Sarah Bernhardt for a season and sold the opera house within a year at a loss. It was then converted into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed successfully by Charles Morton. In 1897, the theatre began to screen films as part of its programme of entertainment. In 1904, Alfred Butt became manager and continued to combine variety entertainment, including dancing girls, with films. Herman Finck was musical director at the theatre from 1900 until 1920. The Marx Brothers appeared at the theatre in 1922, performing selections from their Broadway shows.
In 1925, the musical comedy No, No, Nanette opened at the Palace Theatre, followed by other musicals, for which the theatre became known. The Sound of Music ran for 2,385 performances at the theatre, opening in 1961. Jesus Christ Superstar ran from 1972 to 1980, and Les Misérables played at the theatre for nineteen years, beginning in 1985. In 1983, Andrew Lloyd Webber purchased and by 1991 had refurbished the theatre. Monty Python's Spamalot played at the theatre from 2006 until January 2009, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert opened at the Palace in March 2009 and closed in December 2011. Between February 2012 and June 2013, it hosted a production of Singin' in the Rain.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastir,_Tunisia
Monastir (Arabic: المـنسـتير Al-Munastîr, from the Greek μοναστήριον "Hermit's Cell, monastery", called [lmiˈstiːr] in Tunisian Arabic), is a city on the central coast of Tunisia, in the Sahel area, (20 km south of Sousse and 162 km south of Tunis). Traditionally a fishing port, Monastir is now a major tourist resort. Its population is about 71,546. It is the capital of Monastir Governorate.
History
Monastir was founded on the ruins of the Punic–Roman city of Ruspina. The city features a well preserved Ribat that was used to scan the sea for hostile ships as a defence against the attacks of the Byzantine fleet. Several ulema came to stay in the Ribat of this peaceful city for contemplation. The Ribat was also one of the filming locations for both the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
Transportation
The city has Monastir – Habib Bourguiba International Airport with flights from most Western European countries. It is run by Tepe Akfen Ventures Airport Holding (TAV).
Economy
Nouvelair has its head office in Monastir in the Dkhila Tourist Zone,[1][2] near the Hôtel Sahara Beach.[3]
Notable people
Tunisian ex-president Habib Bourguiba was born in Monastir, and his mausoleum is located in the city.
International relations
Twin towns – Sister cities
Monastir is twinned with: Germany Münster, Germany
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastir,_Tunisia
Monastir (Arabic: المـنسـتير Al-Munastîr, from the Greek μοναστήριον "Hermit's Cell, monastery", called [lmiˈstiːr] in Tunisian Arabic), is a city on the central coast of Tunisia, in the Sahel area, (20 km south of Sousse and 162 km south of Tunis). Traditionally a fishing port, Monastir is now a major tourist resort. Its population is about 71,546. It is the capital of Monastir Governorate.
History
Monastir was founded on the ruins of the Punic–Roman city of Ruspina. The city features a well preserved Ribat that was used to scan the sea for hostile ships as a defence against the attacks of the Byzantine fleet. Several ulema came to stay in the Ribat of this peaceful city for contemplation. The Ribat was also one of the filming locations for both the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
Transportation
The city has Monastir – Habib Bourguiba International Airport with flights from most Western European countries. It is run by Tepe Akfen Ventures Airport Holding (TAV).
Economy
Nouvelair has its head office in Monastir in the Dkhila Tourist Zone,[1][2] near the Hôtel Sahara Beach.[3]
Notable people
Tunisian ex-president Habib Bourguiba was born in Monastir, and his mausoleum is located in the city.
International relations
Twin towns – Sister cities
Monastir is twinned with: Germany Münster, Germany
My daughter talked me into going to see Monty Python's Spamalot. Just thinking about that song "Always look on the bright side of life." still makes me laugh.
“What did the Romans ever do for us?”
I love that line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and have thought it appropriate in many circumstances. Naturally, it came to mind when I was wandering through the magnificent Roman ruins of Jerash – Ancient Gerasa or Garshu – in northern Jordan. These extensive ruins, so far away from the epicentre of the Roman City-State, are an imposing illustration of one of the greatest empires the world has seen.
Although not as big as the one in Rome, the Hippodrome in Jerash is the best preserved example in the world.
For the story, visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/ancient-jerash-jordan...
When the idea of the Dunes of Levant collab formulated with my fellow builder friends, I knew immediately that I want to a few
scenes from my favorite movie. Today we set up the collab in Binningen, Basel, which gave me the opportunity to take a better shot of this classic scene.
Anyone remember the trailer for Monty Python's Holy Grail film? For gondolas read gannets.... ;) These need more careful processing as the high key look goes patchy very easily but you get the idea...
all those muted colors & earth tones, plus grey skies & dark weather, make it necessary for me to play with color! This has been percolating in my head for a while. fringe inspired by creativechick :-) this is a portrait of my rat, Buggy. This is 5" x 4.5" without measuring the fringe. sold
I will put the text from the auction here:
"As you can see, it depicts a smiling white rat with sparkling pink eyes. This is a portrait of my dear little friend Buggy, otherwise known as Empress Humbug the First.
*Buggy's Story
You might not like some parts of the story, but all good stories have some scary parts in them.
Buggy came to me almost two years ago, bought with the intention that she be a meal for my pet snake. As I carried her to the snake tank, she twisted her body around, reached up, & I was sure I was about to get a nasty bite! but - she enthusiastically licked my hand as I held her by the tail in my python's tank (I know better now - the snakes don't eat live food anymore & I certainly don't hold rats by the tail anymore!)
At the most hopeless moment in her life, when all signs indicated certain imminent doom, she only expected that her friendly overture would be welcomed. It was the innocent trust & generosity of nature in this most reviled of vermin, the rat, that melted my heart. She rode my shoulder as I sheepishly explained to my husband that we had a new pet, & I began my rat research.
It was nearly Christmas, so she was named Humbug. She's a wonderful friend & I am lucky to know her. I tried to capture her personality in this artwork, & I think I did a pretty good job.
Buggy went in for surgery this past week for some benign growths to be removed. She is doing wonderfully, & it is all the more suiting that this painting is made of 'stitches' - because she has quite a few stitches right now! But she is just fine.
When I feel hopeless, or when I am overcome by cynicism or the temptation to think poorly of people in general, I think of Buggy offering friendship & kissing the hand that held her inches from a sleepy snake. & I am humbled by my little white rat & her nobility of spirit. If the lowly rat is generous enough to offer kindness freely, can I try to do the same? I thank her for the lesson :-)
Created this motion graphic for this week's theme of "Time" on the Moncton Photography Facebook page. With a tip of the (bowler) hat to John Cleese in one of his most iconic roles in Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Ministry of Silly Walks. One of my good friends recently commented that my last animation was "Terry Gilliam Mk II". =)
I bought the Cleese / Ministry of Silly Walks watch some time ago. They are made by the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild.
Music: "Drink To The Pretty Djembe Noise" by Speck featuring SmoJos, fluffy, HEJ31, Stefan Kartenberg from CCMixter.org.
‘The Zero Theorem’ by Director Terry Gilliam
I clearly remember taking the shot (on the left) and thinking ‘wow, what an amazing painterly sky… it would make a lovely canvas print for somebody’s living room’. Little did I know that less than a year later I’d be emailing this image to a Hollywood Visual Effects advisor for use in Terry Gilliam’s film ‘The Zero Theorem'.
After a tantalising ten-month wait for the cinema release, I finally got to see how the visual effects team had adapted the original image for the silver screen. It was impressive to say the least. The realisation that my photography was part of a production of this magnitude was incredible and almost hard to believe.
So, if you decide to immerse yourself in the weird and wonderful dystopian world of Gilliam’s latest theatrical film, look out for the sunset sky. After all, it appears in several scenes and it’s the only utopian setting throughout the movie so it should be easy to spot. Oh, and wait until you see the finale scene with Christoph Waltz!
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Stars of ‘The Zero Theorem’ include Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Thierry, David Thewlis, Lucas Hedges, Matt Damon, Ben Whishaw and Tilda Swinton amongst others. Terry Gilliam is probably most well-known for his work on Monty Python’s Flying Circus and films such as Brazil, Twelve Monkeys and Time Bandits.
Here's a link to my website 'Published Work' page and follow the link to the official movie trailer:
Monastir features a well preserved Ribat that was used to scan the sea for hostile ships. Several ulema came to stay to the Ribat of this peaceful city for contemplation. The Ribat was also one of the filming locations for Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square
Trafalgar Square is a square in central London, England. With its position in the heart of London, it is a tourist attraction; and one of the most famous squares in the United Kingdom and the world. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. Statues and sculptures are on display in the square, including a fourth plinth displaying changing pieces of contemporary art, and it is a site of political demonstrations.
The name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars. The original name was to have been "King William the Fourth's Square", but George Ledwell Taylor suggested the name "Trafalgar Square".
The northern area of the square had been the site of the King's Mews since the time of Edward I, while the southern end was the original Charing Cross, where the Strand from the City met Whitehall, coming north from Westminster. As the midpoint between these twin cities, Charing Cross is to this day considered the heart of London, from which all distances are measured.
In the 1820s the Prince Regent engaged the landscape architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir Charles Barry and was completed in 1845.
Trafalgar Square ranks as the fourth most popular tourist attraction on earth with more than 15 million annual visitors.
The square consists of a large central area surrounded by roadways on three sides, and stairs leading to the National Gallery on the other. The roads which cross the square form part of the A4 road, and prior to 2003, the square was surrounded by a one-way traffic system. Underpasses attached to Charing Cross tube station allow pedestrians to avoid traffic. Recent works have reduced the width of the roads and closed the northern side of the square to traffic.
Nelson's Column is in the centre of the square, surrounded by fountains designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1939 (replacing two earlier fountains of Peterhead granite, now at the Wascana Centre and Confederation Park in Canada) and four huge bronze lions sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer; the metal used is said to have been recycled from the cannon of the French fleet. The column is topped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, the admiral who commanded the British Fleet at Trafalgar.
The fountains are memorials to Lord Jellicoe (western side) and Lord Beatty (eastern side), Jellicoe being the Senior Officer.[1]
On the north side of the square is the National Gallery and to its east St Martin-in-the-Fields church. The square adjoins The Mall via Admiralty Arch to the southwest. To the south is Whitehall, to the east Strand and South Africa House, to the north Charing Cross Road and on the west side Canada House.
At the corners of the square are four plinths; the two northern ones were intended for equestrian statues, and thus are wider than the two southern. Three of them hold statues: George IV (northeast, 1840s), Henry Havelock (southeast, 1861, by William Behnes), and Sir Charles James Napier (southwest, 1855). Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone controversially expressed a desire to see the two generals replaced with statues "ordinary Londoners would know".[2]
On the lawn in front of the National Gallery are two statues, James II to the west of the entrance portico and George Washington to the east. The latter statue, a gift from the state of Virginia, stands on soil imported from the United States. This was done in order to honour Washington's declaration he would never again set foot on British soil.[3]
In 1888 the statue of General Charles George Gordon was erected. In 1943 the statue was removed and, in 1953, re-sited on the Victoria Embankment. A bust of the Second World War First Sea Lord Admiral Cunningham by Franta Belsky was unveiled in Trafalgar Square on 2 April 1967 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.[4]
The square has become a social and political location for visitors and Londoners alike, developing over its history from "an esplanade peopled with figures of national heroes, into the country’s foremost place politique", as historian Rodney Mace has written. Its symbolic importance was demonstrated in 1940 when the Nazi SS developed secret plans to transfer Nelson's Column to Berlin following an expected German invasion, as related by Norman Longmate in If Britain Had Fallen (1972).
Fourth plinth
The fourth plinth on the northwest corner, designed by Sir Charles Barry and built in 1841,[5] was intended to hold an equestrian statue of William IV, but remained empty due to insufficient funds.[6] Later, agreement could not be reached over which monarch or military hero to place there.
In 1999, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) conceived the Fourth Plinth Project, which temporarily occupied the plinth with a succession of works commissioned from three contemporary artists. These were:
•Mark Wallinger: Ecce Homo (1999) – Wallinger's Ecce Homo – the Latin title of which means "Behold the man", a reference to the words of Pontius Pilate at the trial of Jesus Christ (John 19:5) – was a life-sized figure of Christ, naked apart from a loin cloth, with his hands bound behind his back and wearing a crown of barbed wire (in allusion to the crown of thorns). Atop the huge plinth, designed for larger-than-life statuary, it looked minuscule. Some commentators said that, far from making the Man look insignificant, his apparent tininess drew the eye powerfully; they interpreted it as a commentary on human delusions of grandeur.[citation needed][7]
•Bill Woodrow: Regardless of History (2000)[8]
•Rachel Whiteread: Monument (2001) – Whiteread's Monument, by an artist already notable for her controversial Turner Prize-winning work House and the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, was a cast of the plinth in transparent resin placed upside-down on top of the original.[9]
Companies have used the plinth (often without permission) as a platform for publicity stunts, including a model of David Beckham by Madame Tussauds during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.[5] The London-based American harmonica player Larry Adler jokingly suggested erecting a statue of Moby-Dick, which would then be called the "Plinth of Whales".[10] A television ident for the British TV station Channel 4 shows a CGI Channel 4 logo on top of the fourth plinth.[11]
The best use of the fourth plinth remains the subject of debate. On 24 March 2003 an appeal was launched by Wendy Woods, the widow of the anti-apartheid journalist Donald Woods, hoping to raise £400,000 to pay for a nine-foot high statue of Nelson Mandela by Ian Walters.[12] The relevance of the location is that South Africa House, the South African high commission, scene of many anti-apartheid demonstrations, is on the east side of Trafalgar Square.
A committee convened to consider the RSA's late-1990s project concluded that it had been a success and "unanimously recommended that the plinth should continue to be used for an ongoing series of temporary works of art commissioned from leading national and international artists".[13] After several years in which the plinth stood empty, the new Greater London Authority assumed responsibility for the fourth plinth and started its own series of changing exhibitions:
•Marc Quinn: Alison Lapper Pregnant (unveiled 15 September 2005) – a 3.6-metre, 13-tonne[5] marble torso-bust of Alison Lapper, an artist who was born with no arms and shortened legs due to a condition called phocomelia.[14]
•Thomas Schütte: Model for a Hotel 2007 (formerly Hotel for the Birds) (unveiled 7 November 2007) – a 5-metre by 4.5-metre by 5-metre architectural model of a 21-storey building made from coloured glass. The work cost £270,000 and was funded primarily by the Mayor of London and the Arts Council of England. Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery and chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group that recommended Quinn's and Schütte's proposals to the Mayor in 2004, said: "There will be something extraordinarily sensual about the play of light through the coloured glass ... [I]t's going to feel like a sculpture of brilliance and light."[5][15]
•Antony Gormley: One & Other (6 July – 14 October 2009) – for a hundred consecutive days, 2,400 selected members of the public will each spend one hour on the plinth. They are allowed to do anything they wish to and are able to take anything with them, provided they can carry it unaided. Volunteers for the Fourth Plinth were invited to apply through the website www.oneandother.co.uk, and were chosen so that ethnic minorities and people from all parts of Britain were represented. For safety reasons, the plinth is surrounded by a net, and a team of six stewards is present 24 hours a day to make sure that, for instance, participants are not harmed by hecklers. There is a live feed of the plinth on the Internet sponsored by TV channel Sky Arts.[16][17] Gormley has said: "In the context of Trafalgar Square with its military, valedictory and male historical statues, this elevation of everyday life to the position formerly occupied by monumental art allows us to reflect on the diversity, vulnerability and particularity of the individual in contemporary society. It's about people coming together to do something extraordinary and unpredictable. It could be tragic but it could also be funny."[17]
In February 2008, Terry Smith, the chief executive of trading house Tullett Prebon, offered to pay more than £100,000 for a permanent statue acceptable to "ordinary Londoners" of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park in recognition of his work as commander of No. 11 Group RAF during the Battle of Britain, as it was this Group that was responsible for the defence of London. A Greater London Authority spokesman said: "There are many worthy suggestions for statues on the fourth plinth and some people feel passionately about each of them. All proposals will be judged on their merits including its current use as one of the most high profile sites for contemporary public art in London. The cost of erecting the current work on the plinth is £270,000. The cost of a permanent monument is likely to be considerably more."[18] Subsequently, it was announced in May 2009 that in autumn that year a 5-metre high fibreglass statue of Sir Keith would be placed on the fourth plinth for six months, with a 2.78-metre bronze statue permanently installed in Waterloo Place.[19]
Fountains
When the square was first built in 1845, the fountains' primary purpose was not aesthetics, but rather to reduce the open space available and the risk of riotous assembly. They were originally fed by a steam engine behind the National Gallery from an artesian well underground. However, the engine were generally considered to be underpowered, so in the late 1930s the decision was made to replace them with stone basins and a new pump. At a cost of almost £50,000, the fountains were replaced with a design by Sir Edwin Lutyens and the old fountains were sold to donors and became gifts to Canada, eventually installed in Ottawa and Regina, where they are still in use today.[20][21] The Lutyens design is now listed Grade II.
Further restoration work became necessary and was completed by May 2009. The pump system was replaced as only one of three pumps was functioning. The new pump is capable of sending an 80-foot (24.4 m) jet of water into the air.[22] A new LED lighting system was also installed during this restoration to reduce the cost of lighting maintenance as the old incandscent bulbs cost £1,000 to replace and were failing regularly. The new lighting has been designed with the London 2012 Summer Olympics in mind and for the first time will project many different combinations of colours on to the fountains.[20] In addition, the new lighting system has a much lower energy requirement and will reduce the carbon footprint of the lighting by around 90%.[22]
Pigeons
The square used to be famous for its feral pigeons, and feeding them was a popular activity with Londoners and tourists. The National Portrait Gallery displays a 1948 photograph of Elizabeth Taylor posing there with bird seed so as to be mobbed by birds. The desirability of the birds' presence has long been contentious: their droppings look ugly on buildings and damage the stonework, and the flock, estimated at its peak to be 35,000, was considered to be a health hazard. In 1996, police arrested one man who was estimated to have trapped 1,500 birds for sale to a middleman; it is assumed that the birds ended up in the human food chain.[citation needed]
In 2000, the sale of bird seed in the square was controversially terminated and other measures were introduced to discourage the pigeons, including the use of trained falcons. Supporters of the birds – including Save the Trafalgar Square Pigeons – as well as some tourists continued to feed the birds, but in 2003 the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone enacted byelaws to ban the feeding of pigeons within the square.[23] Due to frequent circumvention of these byelaws, on 10 September 2007 further byelaws were passed by the Westminster City Council to ban the feeding of birds on the square's pedestrianised North Terrace, the entire perimeter of the square, the area around St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, the space directly in front of the National Gallery, Canada House, South Africa House and parts of The Mall, Charing Cross Road and The Strand.[24] There are now few birds in Trafalgar Square and it is used for festivals and hired out to film companies in a way that was not feasible in the 1990s.
Redevelopment
In 2003 the redevelopment of the north side of the square was completed. The work involved permanently closing the main eastbound road there – diverting it around the rest of the square and demolishing part of the wall and building a wide set of stairs. This construction includes two Saxon scissor lifts for disabled access, public toilets, and a small café. Plans for a large staircase had long been discussed, even in original plans for the square. The new stairs lead to a large terrace or piazza in front of the National Gallery, in what was previously a road. Previously access between the square and the Gallery was via two busy crossings at the north east and north west corners of the square. The pedestrianisation plan was carried out in the face of protests from both road-users and pedestrians concerned that the diversion of traffic would lead to greater congestion elsewhere in London. However, this does not seem to have happened;[citation needed] the reduction in traffic due to the London congestion charge may be a factor.
New Year events
For many years, revellers celebrating the start of a New Year have gathered on the square, despite a lack of civic celebrations being arranged for them. The lack of official events in the square was partly because the authorities were concerned that actively encouraging more partygoers would cause overcrowding.
Since 2005, a firework display centred on London Eye and the South Bank of the Thames near the Square has given spectators a fitting start to the New Year.
VE Day celebrations
Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) was 8 May 1945, the date when the Allies during the Second World War formally celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Trafalgar Square was filled with British subjects wanting to hear the formal announcement by Sir Winston Churchill that the war was over. Trafalgar Square was also used as a place of celebration by people travelling there from all over the country. On 8 May 2005 the BBC held a concert hosted by Eamonn Holmes and Natasha Kaplinsky to celebrate the 60th anniversary of VE Day.
Christmas ceremony
There has been a Christmas ceremony at Trafalgar Square every year since 1947. A Norway Spruce (or sometimes a fir) is given by Norway's capital Oslo and presented as London's Christmas tree, as a token of gratitude for Britain's support during World War II. (Besides the general war support, Norway's Prince Olav, as well as the country's government, lived in exile in London throughout the war.) As part of the tradition, the Lord Mayor of Westminster visits Oslo in the late autumn to take part in the felling of the tree, and the Mayor of Oslo then comes to London to light the tree at the Christmas ceremony.[25]
Political demonstrations
Since its construction, Trafalgar Square has been a venue for political demonstrations, though the authorities have often attempted to ban them. The 1939 fountains were allegedly[who?] added on their current scale to reduce the possibility of crowds gathering in the square as they were not in the original plans.
By March of the year Nelson's column opened, the authorities had started banning Chartist meetings in the square. A general ban on political rallies remained in effect until the 1880s, when the emerging Labour movement, particularly the Social Democratic Federation, began holding protests there.
On "Black Monday" (8 February 1886), protesters rallied against unemployment; this led to a riot in Pall Mall. A larger riot (called "Bloody Sunday") occurred in the square on 13 November 1887.
One of the first significant demonstrations of the modern era was held in the square on 19 September 1961 by the Committee of 100, which included the philosopher Bertrand Russell. The protesters rallied for peace and against war and nuclear weapons.
Throughout the 1980s, a continuous anti-apartheid protest was held outside South Africa House. More recently, the square has hosted the Poll Tax Riots (1990) and anti-war demonstrations opposing the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war.[26]
The square was also scene to a large vigil held shortly after the terrorist bombings in London on Thursday, 7 July 2005.[27]
Sports events
On 21 June 2002, 12,000 people gathered in the square to watch the England national football team's World Cup quarter-final against Brazil on giant video screens which had been erected specially for the occasion.[28]
In the early 21st century, Trafalgar Square has become the location to the climax for victory parades. It was used by the England national rugby union team on 9 December 2003 to celebrate its victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and then on 13 September 2005 for the England national cricket team's victory against the Australia national cricket team in The Ashes.
On 6 July 2005 Trafalgar Square was a gathering place to hear the announcement that London had won the bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
In 2007, Trafalgar Square hosted the opening ceremonies of the Tour de France.
Other uses
This painting (c. 1865) by an unknown artist is southwards across Trafalgar Square, with the towers of the Houses of Parliament on the skyline
Trafalgar Square is popularly used in films to suggest a generic London location (as an alternative to Big Ben) or less frequently, Britain in general. It featured prominently in films and television during the Swinging London era of the late 1960s, including The Avengers, Casino Royale, Doctor Who, The Ipcress File and Man in a Suitcase.
Trafalgar Square was used for portions of two sketches from the BBC comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus. In a continuation of the sketch Collecting Birdwatchers' Eggs, several people in tan trenchcoats wander around the square mocking the famous pigeons. The sketch Olympic Hide and Seek also starts here. This sketch features Graham Chapman as British contestant Don Roberts and Terry Jones as Francisco Huron, his competitor from Paraguay in a contest that ends in a tie after more than 11 years. Chapman catches a taxi near the base of Lord Nelson's Column at the beginning of the sketch. Trafalgar Square also appears in cartoon form in several of Terry Gilliam's animations.
Trafalgar Square is also featured in the comic version of V for Vendetta as the location that the V's meet the army and defeat them, without a single fired shot due to sheer numbers (and the work of the Original V).
The square was also the location of the successful "World's Largest Coconut Orchestra" world record attempt on 23 April 2007. The record was set on St George's Day, and was followed by a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The world record attempt was linked with the use of coconuts during the film as well as the stage show Spamalot.
In May 2007, the square was grassed over with 2,000 square metres of turf for two days as part of a campaign by London authorities to promote "green spaces" in the city.[29]
In July 2007, the square held a parade and concert for the 60th independence of Pakistan from Great Britain. The event included many legendary sports and celebrity performances and many exhibitions of Pakistan's heritage and culture. It was recorded to be the biggest gathering of expat Pakistanis in the whole of Europe. It was televised live with Geo TV, a private Pakistani television and the High Commission of Pakistan.
Every year on the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October), the Sea Cadet Corps holds a parade in honour of Admiral Lord Nelson and the British victory over the combined fleets of Spain and France at Trafalgar. The Areas of the Sea Cadet Corps are represented by seven 24-cadet platoons, made up of 12 male and 12 female cadets. They represent the Eastern Area, London Area, Southern Area, Southwest Area, Northwest Area, Northern Area and Marine Cadets. The National Sea Cadet Band also parades, as does a Guard and Colour Party.
On 30 April 2009, an estimated 13,500 people visited the square between 6:00 and 7:00 pm to a mass sing-a-long, organised by telephone company T-Mobile, to co-opt individuals as part of a commercial advertisement.
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, commissioned the theatre in the late 1880s. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and intended to be a home of English grand opera. The theatre opened as the "Royal English Opera House" in January 1891 with a lavish production of Arthur Sullivan's opera Ivanhoe. Although this ran for 160 performances, followed briefly by André Messager's La Basoche, Carte had no other works ready to fill the theatre. He leased it to Sarah Bernhardt for a season and sold the opera house within a year at a loss. It was then converted into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed successfully by Charles Morton. In 1897, the theatre began to screen films as part of its programme of entertainment. In 1904, Alfred Butt became manager and continued to combine variety entertainment, including dancing girls, with films. Herman Finck was musical director at the theatre from 1900 until 1920. The Marx Brothers appeared at the theatre in 1922, performing selections from their Broadway shows.
In 1925, the musical comedy No, No, Nanette opened at the Palace Theatre, followed by other musicals, for which the theatre became known. The Sound of Music ran for 2,385 performances at the theatre, opening in 1961. Jesus Christ Superstar ran from 1972 to 1980, and Les Misérables played at the theatre for nineteen years, beginning in 1985. In 1983, Andrew Lloyd Webber purchased and by 1991 had refurbished the theatre. Monty Python's Spamalot played at the theatre from 2006 until January 2009, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert opened at the Palace in March 2009 and closed in December 2011. Between February 2012 and June 2013, it hosted a production of Singin' in the Rain.
In June 2016, the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opened at the theatre.[Wikipedia]
Shortly before Jay and I disembarked from the boat taking us around Derwentwater to Lodor Falls, we passed the southern end of the lake and the wooded slopes of the diminutive but no less impressive fell, Castle Crag, a rocky bastion for trees. It sounds like a location from Monty Python's 'Holy Grail', the twin to Castle Arrggghhh but it's real, and even though it can't match the height of its surrounding stony brethren, it is very beautiful, either from afar or from within its woody environs. Fortunately for us, it was at this point in our journey that the clouds started to break formation, finally allowing the gleeful, eager sun to wrestle its way between their dark bodies, its bright clear light setting the leafy ramparts of Castle Crag all aglow.
From this aspect it looks as if nature has always ruled there but on the Crag's far side the evidence of man's detrimental influence is more than obvious, with the remains and ruins of slate quarrying everywhere, although, nature is well on her way to reclaiming her own. You can see it in the piles of slate debris poking out from the clutches of triumphant trees, to the gaping, smooth-sided and angular water-filled holes, to the eerily beautiful, flat and stony open glade near the top, that has all shapes and sizes of sharp, sword-like slivers of slate standing upright or at odd angles, like some long forgotten, otherworldly graveyard or failed monument to our industrial hubris, and it even has stunning 360º views from the top… In other words it's a photographer's dream location, especially if you're into B/W, especially on misty or overcast days…hmmm, must go back!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square
Trafalgar Square is a square in central London, England. With its position in the heart of London, it is a tourist attraction; and one of the most famous squares in the United Kingdom and the world. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. Statues and sculptures are on display in the square, including a fourth plinth displaying changing pieces of contemporary art, and it is a site of political demonstrations.
The name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars. The original name was to have been "King William the Fourth's Square", but George Ledwell Taylor suggested the name "Trafalgar Square".
The northern area of the square had been the site of the King's Mews since the time of Edward I, while the southern end was the original Charing Cross, where the Strand from the City met Whitehall, coming north from Westminster. As the midpoint between these twin cities, Charing Cross is to this day considered the heart of London, from which all distances are measured.
In the 1820s the Prince Regent engaged the landscape architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir Charles Barry and was completed in 1845.
Trafalgar Square ranks as the fourth most popular tourist attraction on earth with more than 15 million annual visitors.
The square consists of a large central area surrounded by roadways on three sides, and stairs leading to the National Gallery on the other. The roads which cross the square form part of the A4 road, and prior to 2003, the square was surrounded by a one-way traffic system. Underpasses attached to Charing Cross tube station allow pedestrians to avoid traffic. Recent works have reduced the width of the roads and closed the northern side of the square to traffic.
Nelson's Column is in the centre of the square, surrounded by fountains designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1939 (replacing two earlier fountains of Peterhead granite, now at the Wascana Centre and Confederation Park in Canada) and four huge bronze lions sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer; the metal used is said to have been recycled from the cannon of the French fleet. The column is topped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, the admiral who commanded the British Fleet at Trafalgar.
The fountains are memorials to Lord Jellicoe (western side) and Lord Beatty (eastern side), Jellicoe being the Senior Officer.[1]
On the north side of the square is the National Gallery and to its east St Martin-in-the-Fields church. The square adjoins The Mall via Admiralty Arch to the southwest. To the south is Whitehall, to the east Strand and South Africa House, to the north Charing Cross Road and on the west side Canada House.
At the corners of the square are four plinths; the two northern ones were intended for equestrian statues, and thus are wider than the two southern. Three of them hold statues: George IV (northeast, 1840s), Henry Havelock (southeast, 1861, by William Behnes), and Sir Charles James Napier (southwest, 1855). Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone controversially expressed a desire to see the two generals replaced with statues "ordinary Londoners would know".[2]
On the lawn in front of the National Gallery are two statues, James II to the west of the entrance portico and George Washington to the east. The latter statue, a gift from the state of Virginia, stands on soil imported from the United States. This was done in order to honour Washington's declaration he would never again set foot on British soil.[3]
In 1888 the statue of General Charles George Gordon was erected. In 1943 the statue was removed and, in 1953, re-sited on the Victoria Embankment. A bust of the Second World War First Sea Lord Admiral Cunningham by Franta Belsky was unveiled in Trafalgar Square on 2 April 1967 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.[4]
The square has become a social and political location for visitors and Londoners alike, developing over its history from "an esplanade peopled with figures of national heroes, into the country’s foremost place politique", as historian Rodney Mace has written. Its symbolic importance was demonstrated in 1940 when the Nazi SS developed secret plans to transfer Nelson's Column to Berlin following an expected German invasion, as related by Norman Longmate in If Britain Had Fallen (1972).
Fourth plinth
The fourth plinth on the northwest corner, designed by Sir Charles Barry and built in 1841,[5] was intended to hold an equestrian statue of William IV, but remained empty due to insufficient funds.[6] Later, agreement could not be reached over which monarch or military hero to place there.
In 1999, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) conceived the Fourth Plinth Project, which temporarily occupied the plinth with a succession of works commissioned from three contemporary artists. These were:
•Mark Wallinger: Ecce Homo (1999) – Wallinger's Ecce Homo – the Latin title of which means "Behold the man", a reference to the words of Pontius Pilate at the trial of Jesus Christ (John 19:5) – was a life-sized figure of Christ, naked apart from a loin cloth, with his hands bound behind his back and wearing a crown of barbed wire (in allusion to the crown of thorns). Atop the huge plinth, designed for larger-than-life statuary, it looked minuscule. Some commentators said that, far from making the Man look insignificant, his apparent tininess drew the eye powerfully; they interpreted it as a commentary on human delusions of grandeur.[citation needed][7]
•Bill Woodrow: Regardless of History (2000)[8]
•Rachel Whiteread: Monument (2001) – Whiteread's Monument, by an artist already notable for her controversial Turner Prize-winning work House and the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, was a cast of the plinth in transparent resin placed upside-down on top of the original.[9]
Companies have used the plinth (often without permission) as a platform for publicity stunts, including a model of David Beckham by Madame Tussauds during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.[5] The London-based American harmonica player Larry Adler jokingly suggested erecting a statue of Moby-Dick, which would then be called the "Plinth of Whales".[10] A television ident for the British TV station Channel 4 shows a CGI Channel 4 logo on top of the fourth plinth.[11]
The best use of the fourth plinth remains the subject of debate. On 24 March 2003 an appeal was launched by Wendy Woods, the widow of the anti-apartheid journalist Donald Woods, hoping to raise £400,000 to pay for a nine-foot high statue of Nelson Mandela by Ian Walters.[12] The relevance of the location is that South Africa House, the South African high commission, scene of many anti-apartheid demonstrations, is on the east side of Trafalgar Square.
A committee convened to consider the RSA's late-1990s project concluded that it had been a success and "unanimously recommended that the plinth should continue to be used for an ongoing series of temporary works of art commissioned from leading national and international artists".[13] After several years in which the plinth stood empty, the new Greater London Authority assumed responsibility for the fourth plinth and started its own series of changing exhibitions:
•Marc Quinn: Alison Lapper Pregnant (unveiled 15 September 2005) – a 3.6-metre, 13-tonne[5] marble torso-bust of Alison Lapper, an artist who was born with no arms and shortened legs due to a condition called phocomelia.[14]
•Thomas Schütte: Model for a Hotel 2007 (formerly Hotel for the Birds) (unveiled 7 November 2007) – a 5-metre by 4.5-metre by 5-metre architectural model of a 21-storey building made from coloured glass. The work cost £270,000 and was funded primarily by the Mayor of London and the Arts Council of England. Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery and chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group that recommended Quinn's and Schütte's proposals to the Mayor in 2004, said: "There will be something extraordinarily sensual about the play of light through the coloured glass ... [I]t's going to feel like a sculpture of brilliance and light."[5][15]
•Antony Gormley: One & Other (6 July – 14 October 2009) – for a hundred consecutive days, 2,400 selected members of the public will each spend one hour on the plinth. They are allowed to do anything they wish to and are able to take anything with them, provided they can carry it unaided. Volunteers for the Fourth Plinth were invited to apply through the website www.oneandother.co.uk, and were chosen so that ethnic minorities and people from all parts of Britain were represented. For safety reasons, the plinth is surrounded by a net, and a team of six stewards is present 24 hours a day to make sure that, for instance, participants are not harmed by hecklers. There is a live feed of the plinth on the Internet sponsored by TV channel Sky Arts.[16][17] Gormley has said: "In the context of Trafalgar Square with its military, valedictory and male historical statues, this elevation of everyday life to the position formerly occupied by monumental art allows us to reflect on the diversity, vulnerability and particularity of the individual in contemporary society. It's about people coming together to do something extraordinary and unpredictable. It could be tragic but it could also be funny."[17]
In February 2008, Terry Smith, the chief executive of trading house Tullett Prebon, offered to pay more than £100,000 for a permanent statue acceptable to "ordinary Londoners" of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park in recognition of his work as commander of No. 11 Group RAF during the Battle of Britain, as it was this Group that was responsible for the defence of London. A Greater London Authority spokesman said: "There are many worthy suggestions for statues on the fourth plinth and some people feel passionately about each of them. All proposals will be judged on their merits including its current use as one of the most high profile sites for contemporary public art in London. The cost of erecting the current work on the plinth is £270,000. The cost of a permanent monument is likely to be considerably more."[18] Subsequently, it was announced in May 2009 that in autumn that year a 5-metre high fibreglass statue of Sir Keith would be placed on the fourth plinth for six months, with a 2.78-metre bronze statue permanently installed in Waterloo Place.[19]
Fountains
When the square was first built in 1845, the fountains' primary purpose was not aesthetics, but rather to reduce the open space available and the risk of riotous assembly. They were originally fed by a steam engine behind the National Gallery from an artesian well underground. However, the engine were generally considered to be underpowered, so in the late 1930s the decision was made to replace them with stone basins and a new pump. At a cost of almost £50,000, the fountains were replaced with a design by Sir Edwin Lutyens and the old fountains were sold to donors and became gifts to Canada, eventually installed in Ottawa and Regina, where they are still in use today.[20][21] The Lutyens design is now listed Grade II.
Further restoration work became necessary and was completed by May 2009. The pump system was replaced as only one of three pumps was functioning. The new pump is capable of sending an 80-foot (24.4 m) jet of water into the air.[22] A new LED lighting system was also installed during this restoration to reduce the cost of lighting maintenance as the old incandscent bulbs cost £1,000 to replace and were failing regularly. The new lighting has been designed with the London 2012 Summer Olympics in mind and for the first time will project many different combinations of colours on to the fountains.[20] In addition, the new lighting system has a much lower energy requirement and will reduce the carbon footprint of the lighting by around 90%.[22]
Pigeons
The square used to be famous for its feral pigeons, and feeding them was a popular activity with Londoners and tourists. The National Portrait Gallery displays a 1948 photograph of Elizabeth Taylor posing there with bird seed so as to be mobbed by birds. The desirability of the birds' presence has long been contentious: their droppings look ugly on buildings and damage the stonework, and the flock, estimated at its peak to be 35,000, was considered to be a health hazard. In 1996, police arrested one man who was estimated to have trapped 1,500 birds for sale to a middleman; it is assumed that the birds ended up in the human food chain.[citation needed]
In 2000, the sale of bird seed in the square was controversially terminated and other measures were introduced to discourage the pigeons, including the use of trained falcons. Supporters of the birds – including Save the Trafalgar Square Pigeons – as well as some tourists continued to feed the birds, but in 2003 the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone enacted byelaws to ban the feeding of pigeons within the square.[23] Due to frequent circumvention of these byelaws, on 10 September 2007 further byelaws were passed by the Westminster City Council to ban the feeding of birds on the square's pedestrianised North Terrace, the entire perimeter of the square, the area around St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, the space directly in front of the National Gallery, Canada House, South Africa House and parts of The Mall, Charing Cross Road and The Strand.[24] There are now few birds in Trafalgar Square and it is used for festivals and hired out to film companies in a way that was not feasible in the 1990s.
Redevelopment
In 2003 the redevelopment of the north side of the square was completed. The work involved permanently closing the main eastbound road there – diverting it around the rest of the square and demolishing part of the wall and building a wide set of stairs. This construction includes two Saxon scissor lifts for disabled access, public toilets, and a small café. Plans for a large staircase had long been discussed, even in original plans for the square. The new stairs lead to a large terrace or piazza in front of the National Gallery, in what was previously a road. Previously access between the square and the Gallery was via two busy crossings at the north east and north west corners of the square. The pedestrianisation plan was carried out in the face of protests from both road-users and pedestrians concerned that the diversion of traffic would lead to greater congestion elsewhere in London. However, this does not seem to have happened;[citation needed] the reduction in traffic due to the London congestion charge may be a factor.
New Year events
For many years, revellers celebrating the start of a New Year have gathered on the square, despite a lack of civic celebrations being arranged for them. The lack of official events in the square was partly because the authorities were concerned that actively encouraging more partygoers would cause overcrowding.
Since 2005, a firework display centred on London Eye and the South Bank of the Thames near the Square has given spectators a fitting start to the New Year.
VE Day celebrations
Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) was 8 May 1945, the date when the Allies during the Second World War formally celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Trafalgar Square was filled with British subjects wanting to hear the formal announcement by Sir Winston Churchill that the war was over. Trafalgar Square was also used as a place of celebration by people travelling there from all over the country. On 8 May 2005 the BBC held a concert hosted by Eamonn Holmes and Natasha Kaplinsky to celebrate the 60th anniversary of VE Day.
Christmas ceremony
There has been a Christmas ceremony at Trafalgar Square every year since 1947. A Norway Spruce (or sometimes a fir) is given by Norway's capital Oslo and presented as London's Christmas tree, as a token of gratitude for Britain's support during World War II. (Besides the general war support, Norway's Prince Olav, as well as the country's government, lived in exile in London throughout the war.) As part of the tradition, the Lord Mayor of Westminster visits Oslo in the late autumn to take part in the felling of the tree, and the Mayor of Oslo then comes to London to light the tree at the Christmas ceremony.[25]
Political demonstrations
Since its construction, Trafalgar Square has been a venue for political demonstrations, though the authorities have often attempted to ban them. The 1939 fountains were allegedly[who?] added on their current scale to reduce the possibility of crowds gathering in the square as they were not in the original plans.
By March of the year Nelson's column opened, the authorities had started banning Chartist meetings in the square. A general ban on political rallies remained in effect until the 1880s, when the emerging Labour movement, particularly the Social Democratic Federation, began holding protests there.
On "Black Monday" (8 February 1886), protesters rallied against unemployment; this led to a riot in Pall Mall. A larger riot (called "Bloody Sunday") occurred in the square on 13 November 1887.
One of the first significant demonstrations of the modern era was held in the square on 19 September 1961 by the Committee of 100, which included the philosopher Bertrand Russell. The protesters rallied for peace and against war and nuclear weapons.
Throughout the 1980s, a continuous anti-apartheid protest was held outside South Africa House. More recently, the square has hosted the Poll Tax Riots (1990) and anti-war demonstrations opposing the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war.[26]
The square was also scene to a large vigil held shortly after the terrorist bombings in London on Thursday, 7 July 2005.[27]
Sports events
On 21 June 2002, 12,000 people gathered in the square to watch the England national football team's World Cup quarter-final against Brazil on giant video screens which had been erected specially for the occasion.[28]
In the early 21st century, Trafalgar Square has become the location to the climax for victory parades. It was used by the England national rugby union team on 9 December 2003 to celebrate its victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and then on 13 September 2005 for the England national cricket team's victory against the Australia national cricket team in The Ashes.
On 6 July 2005 Trafalgar Square was a gathering place to hear the announcement that London had won the bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
In 2007, Trafalgar Square hosted the opening ceremonies of the Tour de France.
Other uses
This painting (c. 1865) by an unknown artist is southwards across Trafalgar Square, with the towers of the Houses of Parliament on the skyline
Trafalgar Square is popularly used in films to suggest a generic London location (as an alternative to Big Ben) or less frequently, Britain in general. It featured prominently in films and television during the Swinging London era of the late 1960s, including The Avengers, Casino Royale, Doctor Who, The Ipcress File and Man in a Suitcase.
Trafalgar Square was used for portions of two sketches from the BBC comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus. In a continuation of the sketch Collecting Birdwatchers' Eggs, several people in tan trenchcoats wander around the square mocking the famous pigeons. The sketch Olympic Hide and Seek also starts here. This sketch features Graham Chapman as British contestant Don Roberts and Terry Jones as Francisco Huron, his competitor from Paraguay in a contest that ends in a tie after more than 11 years. Chapman catches a taxi near the base of Lord Nelson's Column at the beginning of the sketch. Trafalgar Square also appears in cartoon form in several of Terry Gilliam's animations.
Trafalgar Square is also featured in the comic version of V for Vendetta as the location that the V's meet the army and defeat them, without a single fired shot due to sheer numbers (and the work of the Original V).
The square was also the location of the successful "World's Largest Coconut Orchestra" world record attempt on 23 April 2007. The record was set on St George's Day, and was followed by a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The world record attempt was linked with the use of coconuts during the film as well as the stage show Spamalot.
In May 2007, the square was grassed over with 2,000 square metres of turf for two days as part of a campaign by London authorities to promote "green spaces" in the city.[29]
In July 2007, the square held a parade and concert for the 60th independence of Pakistan from Great Britain. The event included many legendary sports and celebrity performances and many exhibitions of Pakistan's heritage and culture. It was recorded to be the biggest gathering of expat Pakistanis in the whole of Europe. It was televised live with Geo TV, a private Pakistani television and the High Commission of Pakistan.
Every year on the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October), the Sea Cadet Corps holds a parade in honour of Admiral Lord Nelson and the British victory over the combined fleets of Spain and France at Trafalgar. The Areas of the Sea Cadet Corps are represented by seven 24-cadet platoons, made up of 12 male and 12 female cadets. They represent the Eastern Area, London Area, Southern Area, Southwest Area, Northwest Area, Northern Area and Marine Cadets. The National Sea Cadet Band also parades, as does a Guard and Colour Party.
On 30 April 2009, an estimated 13,500 people visited the square between 6:00 and 7:00 pm to a mass sing-a-long, organised by telephone company T-Mobile, to co-opt individuals as part of a commercial advertisement.
No. 19 The Brass
I ended up sticking on the man holding my brother’s passport. The supervisor wasn’t all too happy with this and every time he stopped to have a chat with someone in the busy departure hall, I interrupted his conversation to ask: “Excuse me, is this about the passport?!” After the second interruption the supervisor was clearly fed up and decided to return to the passport check desk. My brother joined us with the other supervisor and yet a third man with a big moustache appeared. This man wore an army uniform adorned with many fancy colours and although the man was rather short, the others looked up to him. He quickly took control of the situation, grabbed the ticket and the passport and ordered the ‘stamp-man’ to put down his stamps. He handed my brother his passport and ticket. “This time we will overlook your mistake. Now don’t do it again!”
I couldn’t help wondering if this man had ever seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian… It didn’t matter. We had to run. Our plane was waiting and wouldn't wait much longer. They had begon offloading our luggage. We ran towards the gate and I put my carry-on through the xray. We were so close now. I could see the plane.
“What is this?” The security man opened my bag and took out a small cardboard box. “They are bicycle bells, sir. We love cycling in Holland and these big bells are nice presents to give away.” The security guard was alone. His commanding officer was a couple of x-ray machines away checking on my brother’s bag.
The guard lowered his voice. “This is illegal. This is economic export.” “Excuse me”: I replied, “... are you implying I would open a shop in The Netherlands, selling four cheap bicycle bells?” It was so obvious where this was going. “If I let you pass with this box, what will you do for me?”
These situations are always delicate. Any answer to this security guard, alone in an airport gate could be the wrong one. But after everything we had gone through at this airport today, it was getting absurd. I glanced at the officer near my brother. He was done. My brother was ready to board the plane. I decided to laugh out loud as if the guard had made a joke. “Do you mean you want one of my bicycle bells?” I said, loud enough to resonate through the hall.
The guard looked over his shoulder and saw the commanding officer looking our way. “Go!” “Go now!”
A blonde flight attendant, looking stunning in her blue and white KLM uniform, handed me a Dutch newspaper and a cold glass of milk. “Alstublieft meneer, welkom aan boord.”
It already felt good to be home.
Rev. Brian Cohen takes a sneak peek at the poster for Monty Python's Life of Brian, curious as to the title character with whom he shares a common name.
Monty Python's Life of Brian was released in 1979 and created quite a furor amongst religious types as being blasphemous. It wasn't but it did take a satirical look at the fecklessness of organised religion. But most importantly, it was hysterically funny with classic scene after classic scene.
As a note of trivia, the script was completed and filming about to start when the financing was pulled by the backers. A friend of Python Eric Idle came to the rescue and financed the film because he wanted to see it made so he could watch it. That friend was Beatle George Harrison whose production company, Handmade Films, provided the money to ensure the film would be completed.
We're Here looks at The Monty Python Side of Religious Expression today.
There is barely any color left in this 56 year-old 3.5x5 inch photograph of me and my brother.
Photos of that era had a tendency to start fading after a few years. Our Dad snapped this shot but I can't remember what type of camera or film he used, probably Kodak or Polaroid. A few years ago my brother scanned this photo and produced a digital image which I tweaked using photo editing software to bring that moment back to life. A little bit of color is all you need if your editing software offers a large "color saturation" adjustment.
I remember how dry and crispy the grass was on that day. It must have been late summer. I know it was hot. The shrubs had a perfume and I recall the faint odor of freshly painted shutters on the windows. Mom and Dad were proud of our place and kept it spic n span.
Mom kept a watchful eye on newspaper ads. Occasionally, Sears or Montgomery Ward would offer a 2 for 1 deal on boys clothing. Mom and Dad taught us what it meant to be frugal and thrifty. Dad's DIY burr haircuts and home maintenance projects showed us how to save money. I still cut my own hair. It ain't pretty but it feels good when I think of the money I've saved over the years.
We received those bikes (Huffy Cheater Slick) the previous Christmas and spent the summer of '69 polishing our fenders with Dad's Turtle Wax. I used my allowance to purchase a speedometer for my bike at the local Western Auto store and I'm not exactly sure why 😜 since I never reached more than 20 mph. I guess I thought it was cool. Back then, our world consisted of a few blocks within our neighborhood in Lexington, Kentucky. We would meet with our friends and see who could lock their brakes and lay down the longest skid-mark, or ride down to Southland Shopping Center to get an ice-cream cone, a comic book and some bubble gum.
I never watched CBS News-man Walter Cronkite (or Waller Crank-Tight as Dad called him) who appeared each evening on 1 of our 4 TV channels, but I remember watching Neil Armstrong plant his feet on the Moon.
Years later, I discovered how many headlines made history that year, how time has changed the world, and how some things never change.
Space
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins performed the first successful manned moon landing and Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. The Mariner 6 Mars probe was launched from the United States and Soviet space probes Venera 5 & 6 arrived in Venus' atmosphere and were able to transmit information about the planet for 50 minutes before the Soviets lost contact.
Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force’s investigation into unidentified flying objects known as UFOs, officially came to an end on December 17.
Music
The Woodstock Festival was held near White Lake, New York, attracting 350,000 music fans. Woodstock featured some of the top rock musicians of the era including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, Joe Cocker, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In England, the Isle of Wight Festival attracted an audience of approximately 150,000 to watch 26 performers including Bob Dylan, The Who, Blonde On Blonde, Joe Cocker, The Moody Blues and Free. A free concert organized by the Rolling Stones was held at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, California with problems caused by the use of Hells Angels as Bouncers resulting in a number of deaths.
The Beatles released their Abbey Road album and gave their last public performance from the roof of Apple Records in London. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married at Gibraltar, and had their honeymoon "Bed-In" for peace in Amsterdam. The John Lennon Album "Two Virgins" featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the nude were confiscated at Newark Airport. Brian Jones, former Rolling Stones Guitarist drowned after a drinking and drug binge.
Led Zeppelin released Led Zeppelin II to critical acclaim, Pink Floyd released their Ummagumma album, The Rolling Stones released their Let It Bleed album and The Who released their Tommy album featuring the hit classic Pinball Wizard. Elvis Presley scored his final number one hit with the song Suspicious Minds.
Popular Songs: The Rolling Stones -- " Honky Tonk Woman ", The Beatles -- " Get Back" and "Come Together ", Johnny Cash -- "Daddy Sang Bass", Zager and Evans -- "In The Year 2525", The Archies -- "Sugar Sugar" and The Fifth Dimension -- "Aquarius".
Politicians
Richard Nixon was sworn in as the 37th U.S. president and Golda Meir became the first female prime minister of Israel. Moammar Gadhafi, a military captain at the time, deposed King Idris and assumed control of Libya. Charles de Gaulle Resigned as French President. Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower died after a long illness at the age of 79 and Ho Chi Minh, the president of North Vietnam also died at the age of 79.
US Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove off a bridge into a tidal pond after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing passenger Mary Jo Kopechne who was trapped inside the vehicle. Kennedy did not report the accident for nine or ten hours.
Sea
Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail around the world solo without stopping. Donald Crowhurst's sailing trimaran Teignmouth Electron was found drifting and unoccupied in mid-Atlantic; it was presumed that Crowhurst committed suicide (or fell overboard) at sea earlier in the month having falsified his progress in the solo Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.
John Fairfax landed in Hollywood Beach, Florida near Miami and became the first person to row across an ocean solo. The SS United States, the last active United States Lines passenger ship, was withdrawn from service and the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was entered into service.
The Australian light aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne sliced the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half killing 82 of her crew.
Flight
The Boeing 747 "jumbo jet" was flown for the first time, taking off from the Boeing airfield at Everett, Washington. The 747 also made its first passenger flight carrying 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle to New York City.
In Toulouse, France, The Concorde made its first successful flight with a maximum cruising speed of 2,179 km (1,354 miles) per hour, more than twice the speed of sound and The Hawker Siddeley Harrier known as the "Jump Jet" was entered into service with the Royal Air Force.
Despite temperatures of -43C at altitudes of 29,000 ft. 22-year-old Cuban refugee Armando Socarras Ramirez survived in the wheel well of a DC-8 from Havana, Cuba, to Madrid, Spain, wearing only light clothing.
Medicine
On 4 April 1969, Domingo Liotta and Denton A. Cooley replaced a dying man's heart with a mechanical heart inside the chest at The Texas Heart Institute in Houston as a bridge for a transplant. The man woke up and began to recover. After 64 hours, the pneumatic-powered artificial heart was removed and replaced with a donor heart.
A teenager known as 'Robert R.' died in St. Louis, Missouri, of a baffling medical condition. In 1984 Robert R's condition was identified as the earliest confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America.
Doctors at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, made medical history on April 22nd, when they performed the first human eye transplant on 54-year-old John Madden. Because the donor eye had not been preserved enough to keep it viable, the procedure failed to restore Madden's sight.
Weather
During the last week of February a snowstorm hit the Northeastern U.S. region. The storm had a Regional Snowfall Index (RSI) of 34.03 making it a Category 5 storm. Mt. Washington in New Hampshire had over 8 feet of snow during the storm. On February 25 alone, Mt. Washington had over 4 feet of snow: 49.3 inches, which is still the one-day record.
Category 5 Hurricane Camille, the most powerful tropical cyclonic system at landfall in history, hit the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and left $1.5 billion dollars in damage (1969 dollars).
Crime
Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin were shot at Blue Rock Springs Park in Vellejo, California. They were the second (known) victims of the Zodiac Killer. Mageau survived the attack but Ferrin was pronounced dead-on-arrival at Richmond Medical Center. Two months later, The Zodiac Killer stabbed Bryan Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard at Lake Berryessa. Hartnell survived but Shepard died. During the following month, The Zodiac Killer shot and killed taxi driver Paul Stine in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, marking the infamous serial killer's last known slaying.
Members of the Manson Family invaded the home of actress Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski in Los Angeles. The followers killed Tate (who was 8.5 months pregnant), and her friends: Folgers coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring. Also killed was Steven Parent, leaving from a visit to the Polanskis' caretaker. More than 100 stab wounds were found on the victims, except for Parent, who had been shot almost as soon as the Manson Family entered the property. The following day the Manson Family killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, a wealthy Los Angeles businessman and his wife.
Police raid Stonewall Inn on June 28th a gay club located in New York City ending The Stonewall Riot.
In a Los Angeles court, Sirhan Sirhan admitted that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pled guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. (he later retracted his guilty plea). The trial began of the "Chicago Seven" accused of inciting a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Boxing champion Muhammad Ali was convicted of evading the draft after he refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army. Arrest warrants were issued by a Florida court for Jim Morrison on charges of indecent exposure during a Doors concert.
The Unexplained
Six-year-old Dennis Martin disappeared while camping in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Dennis was last seen by his father going behind a bush to hide, intending to surprise the adults with the other children. After not seeing him for about five minutes and when the other children had returned to the campsite, his father became concerned and began searching for him. His father ran down the trail for nearly two miles, until he was sure he could not have gotten any farther. After several hours, they sought help from National Park Service rangers. The search effort was the most extensive in the park's history, involving approximately 1,400 searchers and a 56-square-mile (150 km2) area. Dennis was never found.
While campaigning in Leary, GA, future president Jimmy Carter and several other guests at a Lion's Club Meeting witnessed an Unidentified Flying Object. Carter later filed the incident with the International UFO Bureau and in 1977 he became the first U.S. President with an official record of a UFO sighting.
Business
The first automatic teller machine (ATM) in the United States was installed in Rockville Centre, New York. Samsung Electronics was founded in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Donald and Doris Fisher opened the first Gap store on Ocean Avenue in San Francisco and Wal-Mart incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
New Products
Seiko Astron - world’s first commercial quartz wristwatch
Capri-Sun, juice concentrate drink
Charms Blow Pops
Fla-Vor-Ice popsicles
Kelloggs Frosted Mini Wheats
Funyuns Onion Flavored Rings by Frito-Lay
Gain detergent by Proctor & Gamble
Hawaiian Tropic Suntan Lotion
Manwich canned sloppy joe sauce by ConAgra and Hunts
Nerf Brand Toys by Parker Brothers
Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Cookies
Orville Redenbacher's Popcorn by Chester Inc.
Tic Tac mints by Ferrero
Restaurants
Dave Thomas opened his first Wendy's restaurant in a former steakhouse in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Captain D's was founded as "Mr. D's Seafood and Hamburgers" by Ray Danner with its first location opening in Donelson, Tennessee. The Long John Silver's restaurant chain opened its first store on Southland Drive in Lexington, Kentucky (I was there) and Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips was founded by S. Robert Davis and Dave Thomas with its first location in Columbus, Ohio.
Dan W. Evins opened the first Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on Highway 109 in Lebanon, TN. By 1977 he had opened 13 stores from Kentucky to Georgia. In 2020 there were 664 stores in 45 states.
Sports
San Francisco Giant Willie Mays became the first major league baseball player since Babe Ruth to hit 600 career home runs. The New York Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles four games to one in one of the greatest World Series upsets in baseball history. The Montreal Expos became the first Major League Baseball team to be founded outside the U.S., Mickey Mantle retired from baseball and professional footballer Pelé scored his 1,000th goal.
Mario Andretti won the Indy 500, the only victory in the "Great American Race" for the legendary Andretti family as a driver.
War
The Battle of Dong Ap Bia, also known as Hamburger Hill, began on May 10th. Although the heavily fortified Hill 937 was of little strategic value, U.S. command ordered its capture by a frontal assault, only to abandon it soon thereafter. U.S. losses during the ten-day battle totaled 72 killed and 372 wounded.
Persons who were born during the years from 1944 to 1951, and who celebrated their birthdays on September 14, marked the occasion without being aware that their birthday would be the first date selected in the new U.S. draft lottery on December 1.
Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the My Lai Massacre story, the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in the Sơn Tịnh District of South Vietnam.
Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States met in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
250,000 people marched on Washington in protest of the Vietnam War and the very first U.S. troop withdrawals were made from Vietnam.
Hollywood
Several blockbuster and now classic films were released in 1969. 20th Century Fox released Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katharine Ross. Columbia Pictures released Easy Rider starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. Paramount Pictures released True Grit starring John Wayne, Glen Campbell and Kim Darby. Midnight Cowboy starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight was released and won three Academy Awards.
Other notable film releases of 1969: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Funny Girl, The Love Bug, Hello Dolly!, Where Eagles Dare, and Paint Your Wagon.
At 24 years old, a young and nude Helen Mirren established her first major film role in Age of Consent starring James Mason and directed by Michael Powell.
Best known for her role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, American actress and singer Judy Garland died while in London of an accidental barbiturate overdose less than 2 weeks after her 47th birthday.
Television
The first episode of Hee Haw aired on the CBS network with guest stars Loretta Lynn and Charlie Pride. Scooby-Doo also aired its first episode on the CBS network. The Brady Bunch was broadcast for the first time on ABC. Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired on BBC One and Sesame Street aired its first episode on the NET network. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was established and The Galloping Gourmet with host Graham Kerr debuted in the U.S.
NBC aired the last episode of the original Star Trek series "Turnabout Intruder" Starring Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and Majel Barret (Nurse Chapel) the only actors to appear in both the series finale and the first pilot Star Trek: The Cage (1966).
Technology
The first message was sent over ARPANET, the forerunner of the internet and the first ARPANET link was established (the progenitor of the global Internet).
The Microprocessor ( a miniature set of integrated circuits ) was invented opening the door for the computer revolution that followed.
UNIX was developed by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs.
Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith developed the charge-coupled device (CCD) while working at Bell Laboratories, producing the world's first solid-state video camera just a year later.
Cars
Pontiac Firebird Trans Am the epitome of the American muscle car was introduced. Chevrolet produced 3,675 Pace Car Edition Camaro Z11's and Ford offered the new Capri in everything from the basic 1.3-litre to the meaty 3.0-litre V6.
The Plymouth Road Runner captured the spotlight as Motor Trend's Car of The Year. Engine options included the standard 383 and optional 426 Hemi with the mid-year introduction of the 440 A12 Six Pack performance option.
U.S. Cost of Living 1969 vs 2023 (updated 5/21/2023)
yearly income 1969: $9,400 (2023 dollars: $77,700)
yearly income 2023: $53,490
new house 1969: $25,600 (2023 dollars: $211,610)
new house 2023: $436,800
new car 1969: $3,400 (2023 dollars: $28,104)
new car 2023: $47,000
1 gallon of gas 1969: 35 cents (2023 dollars: $2.89)
1 gallon of gas 2023: $3.54
1 loaf of white bread 1969: 23 cents (2023 dollars: $1.90)
1 loaf of white bread 2023: $2.50
This was a catchphrase of the Gumbys from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
The Our Daily Challenge group has chosen If I only had a brain as the topic for today.
Stuck for an idea for your daily 365 photo? Join the Our Daily Challenge group for inspiration.
With Terry Gilliam, film director and former member of Monty Python, at BFI Southbank, London, 17 September 2019.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus first aired on 5th October 1969.
Johann Strauss II was one of the most prolific composers of the 19th century. He wrote the beautiful Blue Danube Waltz in 1867, when it was first performed with verses by a male choral group. It was not well received, and later restructured into a string orchestra piece as a commissioned work for the Paris Exhibition. It has since become one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire.
It gained new popularity in 1968 as a result of its prominent use in the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's influential film "2001: A Space Odyssey." It was also featured in such diverse productions as the Warner Brothers cartoon "A Corny Concerto," the Japanese film "Battle Royale," and the literally explosive sketchwork of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."
Strauss began his professional career as a bank clerk, but decided to follow in his father's musical footsteps. He formed an orchestra that toured Vienna and abroad playing light Viennese music. He composed everywhere and anywhere, and was always jotting down music notes for later reference. If a piece of paper, napkin or tablecloth was not handy he would write on his clothing. The Blue Danube Waltz was originally sketched on one of his shirts.
Strauss composed more than 400 waltzes, but also wrote dances, gallops, quadrilles, polkas, and operettas as well, including "Die Fledermaus" and the "Tritsch Tratsch Polka."
Go here to get a MUCH closer look of this lovely swan, named Seraphim.
[+]
As a way of returning the extraordinary generosity and support you
have all shown me in this great community, whenever I upload a new
pic or series of shots this year, I'll provide a link to another flickr
photog whose work, personality, or spirit I feel you should discover.
Visit and introduce yourself. Make a friend. Share the love.
Open your eyes to oooh_caro today.
A cone and new leaf growth on a larch tree in RSPB Carngafallt near Rhayader.
The larch is the only deciduous conifer in the UK, as well as being the subject of Monty Python's 'Trees of Britain' sketch.
"Probably pining for the fjords..."
~ The Dead Parrot Sketch, from Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969)
Monty Python's Flying Circus
The Spanish Inquisition is interrogating an old woman…
"Cardinal Ximinez: Cardinal Fang! Fetch... the Comfy Chair!
Cardinal Fang: [horrified] The Comfy Chair?
Cardinal Ximinez: (to the terrified old woman) Now, you will sit in this chair until lunch time, with nothing but a cup of coffee at eleven!"
THIS comfy chair is at Kylie Jaxxon's The Trace. When I saw her lounging about I had to run fast, push her off the chair and take one TOO! ｡◕‿◕｡
It IS a wonderful chair in a most picturesque location. Go see for yourself:
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Trace/19/83/21
Wearing: Ball-jointed doll avatar by Coco, Kimono jacket by Gato, Rexa pants by Zibska, Stagioni boots by Maitreya, Chibi hair by Wasabi Pills, Sweet Pea hairpieces by Lode, Choker and bracelet by Swallow
Kylie's chair is by Kuro
Windlight: FS - Torley Midday Vintage Village (tweaked)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastir,_Tunisia
Monastir (Arabic: المـنسـتير Al-Munastîr, from the Greek μοναστήριον "Hermit's Cell, monastery", called [lmiˈstiːr] in Tunisian Arabic), is a city on the central coast of Tunisia, in the Sahel area, (20 km south of Sousse and 162 km south of Tunis). Traditionally a fishing port, Monastir is now a major tourist resort. Its population is about 71,546. It is the capital of Monastir Governorate.
History
Monastir was founded on the ruins of the Punic–Roman city of Ruspina. The city features a well preserved Ribat that was used to scan the sea for hostile ships as a defence against the attacks of the Byzantine fleet. Several ulema came to stay in the Ribat of this peaceful city for contemplation. The Ribat was also one of the filming locations for both the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
Transportation
The city has Monastir – Habib Bourguiba International Airport with flights from most Western European countries. It is run by Tepe Akfen Ventures Airport Holding (TAV).
Economy
Nouvelair has its head office in Monastir in the Dkhila Tourist Zone,[1][2] near the Hôtel Sahara Beach.[3]
Notable people
Tunisian ex-president Habib Bourguiba was born in Monastir, and his mausoleum is located in the city.
International relations
Twin towns – Sister cities
Monastir is twinned with: Germany Münster, Germany
“What did the Romans ever do for us?”
I love that line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian and have thought it appropriate in many circumstances. Naturally, it came to mind when I was wandering through the magnificent Roman ruins of Jerash – Ancient Gerasa or Garshu – in northern Jordan. These extensive ruins, so far away from the epicentre of the Roman City-State, are an imposing illustration of one of the greatest empires the world has seen.
Although not as big as the one in Rome, the Hippodrome in Jerash is the best preserved example in the world.
For the story, visit: www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/ancient-jerash-jordan...
And now for something completely different. Some of you may recognize that line from the British television show Monty Python's Flying Circus. It was one of my favorite shows and I can still remember many of the lines and skits. I think I have a two-volume book with every script of the show. They used this catch phrase to transition to something that was outrageously different.
My transition is not as outrageous as the show, but many of you know my work as a nature photographer that focuses on documenting my travels. I often try new things and, over the years, I have found a love for Urbex (urban exploration) Photography. Simply defined, Urbex is the exploration of man-made structures, mainly (in my case) abandoned buildings that once housed the unusual. I don't regularly post these photos, but I should, as I really enjoy taking them. They are not everyone's cup of tea, but I like the history of the places that I explore, and try to document what urban decay has done to once thriving places.
This photo of tags in Lonaconing Silk Mill is an example. The silk mill closed in 1957 and was the last operating mill of its kind in the United States. The years have not been kind to the mill, but much of the interior is unchanged from the day it closed it's doors. The owner of the mill is trying to raise funds to repair it and allows photographers access to shoot it.
Google AI analysis
The image shows a lively street scene, possibly during a festival or parade. In the foreground, a woman of African-American descent with long braided hair is joyfully holding a large python around her neck and shoulders. She is wearing a white shirt, and a colorful beaded necklace, standing near other people in the crowded street. The background is filled with other people, many in colorful costumes, suggesting a festive atmosphere. Some buildings, showing signs of age, are visible in the background. There are purple, green, and gold colors present, and Mardi Gras beads are seen around the necks of several people in the crowd. The woman appears confident and comfortable handling the snake, suggesting she may be a snake handler or part of a parade.
The woman's joyful expression and the snake's calm demeanor suggest a comfortable and trusting relationship between them. There are a variety of people in the background, appearing to be a mix of ages, races, and economic backgrounds, all seemingly enjoying the festive event. The overall feel is that of a community celebration. There is an older man with glasses and a purple hat who also seems happy to be around the snake. A man in a top hat and elaborate costume is visible to the left, adding to the carnival-like atmosphere. The image seems to be taken with a high-quality DSLR camera due to the detail and depth of field. It's a candid shot with a warm tone, likely taken on a twilight evening during the Mardi Gras season.
The intricate detailing in the costumes and the python's subtle color variations are details that are easy to miss at first glance. The scales on the snake's skin shimmer in the available light, and the depth of field allows for focus on the woman with the snake and creates a slight blur to those behind and on the side, directing the viewer's eye to the main subject. The subtle expressions on bystanders' faces reveal their different reactions to the snake, some looking curious, others amused or even slightly apprehensive. The man with the top hat seems to be holding some kind of instrument, possibly a musical instrument. The overall effect is a vibrant scene that's brimming with life and intricate details that add to the festive mood.