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(chwilówka, kredyt, picie, problem)

The León´s Cathedral probably has been the most modified gothic building in the world, since the problems in the foundations started centuries ago, lot of arquitect in Spain have tried to repair them and evolve the building with the style of the time, finally, in the XVI and XVII centuries, architects evolved the cathedral to plateresque and baroque style, with a main facade, south facade and finally a cupole, getting worse the solutions than the main problem, finally in XIX century, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando proclaimed the León,s Cathedral, the first monument of the spanish heritage. trying to save it of the ruin.

11/7/15 "The problem is not the problem, the problem is your attitude about the problem" -Pirates of the Caribbean

Happy #sailingshipsaturday! Hope you all are able to ride Sailing Ship Columbia before they close for next year, it's a great way to relax. Even though it will be gone for quite some time, We try to keep a positive attitude as new changes are to come.

Tag #dailydisneyland365 in your photos for a chance to be featured! #dailydisneyland365 #DD365 #disney #disneyside #disneyland #disneylandresort #californiaadventure #disneyland60 #diamondcelebration #60 #60thanniversary #60years #disneylandchristmas #disneylandholiday #christmas #holiday #anaheim #california #ABC7Eyewitness #disneylanddave #disneylandhd #disneylandphotography #disneyland1901 #fd101look #featuresofdisney #mydisneycentral #sailingshipcolumbia #pirateslair #riversofamerica

 

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wrapbullysoc: Nice pic!

 

adisneydreamforever: The caption is great!

 

dailydisneyland365: @wrapbullysoc Thank you!

 

dailydisneyland365: @adisneydreamforever Thank you, as much as we're going to miss this next year we try to remain positive and make the most of this wondeful attraction!

  

These pics were taken '81 and '82 . Taken with my old ROLLIE ROLLIFLEX 35 MM SLR with a 50 mm lens.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbYgbVoIPkQ

 

www.arqueologiadelperu.com/peru-one-of-the-three-wonders-...

Peru

 

[caption id="attachment_414208" align="alignright" width="150"] Resembling an ornate garden maze from above, suqakollos are a patterned system of raised cropland and water-filled trenches. Photograph: Ronald Reategui[/caption]

 

On the hardscrabble, treeless highland plain that joins Peru with Bolivia, farmers have eked out an existence for thousands of years amid bitter winters and the harsh sun, at 4,000 metres above sea level and higher.

 

As scientists predict climate change will make the Altiplano’s weather even more inclement and unpredictable, today’s farmers are reviving an ancestral system of cultivation and irrigation using what looks like an intricate piece of land sculpture.

 

Resembling an ornate garden maze from above, suqakollos – or waru-warus – are a patterned system of raised cropland and water-filled trenches.

 

Alipio Canahua, an agronomist working with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), says that the ancient agricultural system, which could date back 3,000 years, actually creates its own microclimate.

 

“It captures water when there are droughts and drains away water when there’s too much rain, meaning that it irrigates the crops all year round,” he says. “When it comes to temperature, we’ve measured a rise of three degrees centigrade in the immediate environment around it – this can save a significant percentage of the crops from being killed in frosts.”

 

A suqakollo can also be a small oasis in the scorching daytime sun, which yellows even the coarse highland grass, known as ichu – the main fodder for the alpacas and llamas herded by the local Aymara people.

 

Canahua has been leading the resurgence of this ancient farming system with local communities, restoring old suqakollos and building new ones.

 

[caption id="attachment_414209" align="alignleft" width="150"] Sonia Ticona, a local indigenous Aymara leader, explains that her community are reviving techniques used by their great-great-grandfathers. Photograph: Ronald Reategui[/caption]

 

Sonia Ticona, a local indigenous Aymara leader who has been working with Canahua, says that in her village, the women work harder than the men to dig the trenches which are filled with water.

 

“Our great-great-grandfathers used the suqakollo system then at some point, and we don’t know why, they stopped. Now we are restarting it and bringing it up to date – men and women working together.”

 

Potatoes have been sown this season – next year it will be quinoa – in a carefully planned crop rotation, explains Canahua. While the yields are smaller than cultivating in larger fields, beating the plummeting winter temperatures, which can reach -20C, can prevent devastating crop losses.

 

The suqakollos project is one of several globally important agricultural heritage systems (GIAHS) funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which is working with the regional governments of Cusco and Puno. Along with Peru’s agricultural ministry, the FAO is promoting family farming with the GIAHS methodology.

 

Canahua’s only frustration is that it’s not possible to make the suqakollos as big as Puno’s pre-hispanic people did. Archaeologists say that people have lived on the Altiplano – on the shores of the highest navigable lake, Lake Titicaca – for some 8,000 years, and traces of the ancient canals still mark the high plain. Roads and boundaries between communal lands, however, have limited the space available.

 

John Preissing, the FAO’s representative in Peru, says the pilot project has produced more than double the normal crop yields.

 

“We can’t isolate just the fact that we‘re using suqakollos but we can say that between the water management, the soil management and the fertiliser management, we are reaching double the harvest numbers.”

 

Figures for 2013-14 indicate that suqakollo’s crop yields for quinoa are 3.2 tonnes per hectare, more than double the average of 1.3 tonnes per hectare for the same crop grown on the plain.

 

Ancestral crops like quinoa, and its kiwicha and kaniwa varieties, could make this labour-intensive, complex farming system worthwhile; international demand for the superfoods has multiplied the price, bringing in extra income for these smallholder farmers.

 

Dan Collyns

 

India

 

[caption id="attachment_414210" align="alignright" width="150"] The Chand baoli near Jaipur extends almost 100ft into the ground, making it one of the deepest and largest stepwells in India. Photograph: dbimages/Alamy[/caption]

 

Across large swaths of the Thar desert in western India, traditional techniques for harvesting the little amount of rain that falls has helped people survive the powerful effects of the sun for centuries.

 

The most beautiful of these are step wells – known as baolis in Hindi – large, stone structures built to provide water for drinking and agriculture. Baolis have existed for at least 1,000 years and were constructed in towns and alongside serais (travellers’ inns), across the desert and into Delhi.

 

Baolis exist in all shapes and sizes and are essentially reservoirs built into the earth. Groundwater is pulled up from a circular well at the bottom and rainwater is collected from above. A set of steps – on one or more sides of the structure – lead down to the water level, which fluctuates depending on the amount of rain. More recently, electric pumps have been installed in many baolis to help retrieve the water.

 

“Step wells are etched into people’s collective memory so deeply, they are now part of their DNA, passed on from one generation to another,” says Farhad Contractor of the Sambhaav Trust, an ecological conservation group.

 

[caption id="attachment_414211" align="alignleft" width="150"] Workers carry out conservation work at Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliyas baoli in New Delhi. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/EPA[/caption]

 

Today, many baolis have fallen prey to rapid urbanisation and neglect. In Delhi only around 15 survive but local groups are fighting to protect and preserve them. While 700mm of rain falls on Delhi every year, half of the city has been declared a dark zone – where the groundwater level has depleted so much that the rate of recharge is less than the rate of withdrawal – by the groundwater authority. Rainwater harvesting, therefore, is key to a secure water supply for India’s second-biggest city.

 

One such baoli restored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) was built in the 14th century in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti, a medieval village in Delhi named after Sufi saint, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. In 2008, parts of the baoli walls collapsed due to sewage water seeping into the structure and the local residents using it as a rubbish dump. The pool was drained and the rubbish, garbage and sludge that had accumulated over the past 700 years was removed to reach the foundation of the baoli some 80 feet below ground level. While the water in the baoli is still not potable, it can be used for cleaning and agriculture.

 

Experts say the baoli model can be replicated anywhere in the world with similar climatic conditions and physiological features. Contractor has been invited to Morocco where he is working on a project to build baolis and smaller wells, known as beris in Hindi.

 

But large baolis need large catchment areas, and in Delhi space is an issue. While the majority of the physical structures of baolis are protected – some by being sited inside historic monuments – urban development in Delhi has had a greater impact on their water levels; storm drains divert rain away from baoli catchment areas.

 

Diwan Singh, an activist with non-profit Natural Heritage First, says that even though many baolis in Delhi are surrounded by buildings, the wells can still be recharged. “Catchment area management is the key. In the small areas of land between the baolis and buildings, rainwater harvesting pits could be built to divert rainwater away from the storm drains,” he says. “Once in the pit, water will percolate through the soil and recharge the nearby baoli, allowing modern development and ancient structures to co-exist side by side.”

 

Nivedita Khandekar

 

Kenya

 

[caption id="attachment_414212" align="alignright" width="150"] The construction of a sand dam involves building a concrete barrier or wall across a seasonal river. Photograph: Geoffrey Kamadi[/caption]

 

Makueni County – just over 100 miles south of Nairobi – has one of the most inhospitable environments in the country.

 

The region’s sandy loam soil supports little else besides the thorny, stunted shrubs that stretch for miles, interspersed only by gigantic baobab trees or some species of the hardy acacia. The only food crops cultivated here are sorghum, cassava and pigeon peas – drought-tolerant crops. With an average annual rainfall of just 600mm, meaningful agriculture is nearly impossible.

 

Water access is a big problem. In Kenya, 63% of the population use an improved source of drinking water and 46% live below the poverty line. Women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa spend up to four hours a day fetching water, according to the One campaign.

 

But things are changing for the better, thanks to an ancient water harvesting technique being used in the dry regions. Sand dams, which were invented by the Romans in 400BC, have become an important source of water for domestic and agricultural needs.

 

Sand dams are constructed by building a concrete barrier or wall across a seasonal river with a firm bedrock. As the river flows, sand in the water is deposited behind the wall. Over time, layers of sand build into a reservoir for water, which remains stored in the sand once the river level drops. Evaporation is virtually impossible below a metre of sand – no matter how intense the sun – and the water is clean and safe for immediate drinking as the sand acts like a filter.

 

[caption id="attachment_414213" align="alignleft" width="150"] A woman collects water stored beneath the sand. Photograph: Geoffrey Kamadi[/caption]

 

The Africa Sand Dam Foundation (ASDF) has been facilitating the construction of the dams alongside Excellent Development (ED), a UK-based NGO that has enabled the construction of 838 sand dams in rural dry lands across eight countries. The work of ED has improved access to clean water for more than 800,000 people, according to Jonny McKay, the NGO’s communications manager.

 

Not only have the sand dams improved water security for local communities. Villagers are also coming together to form self-help groups to construct the dams with assistance from the NGOs, and to initiate agro-based economic schemes.

 

“We are able to practise agribusiness now that we have water available for irrigation,” says Elizabeth Ndungune, the chairwoman of the Star Thange self-help women’s group in Ulilinzi. Using water from the sand dam built on the nearby River Thange, the group can now grow kale, tomatoes, beans and other crops. They sell whatever they harvest and pool the proceeds, which help families pay for school fees.

 

While sand dams are a cheap and simple solution to some complex problems, they can fail if they are not applied in a way that meets the users’ needs. “The biggest challenge is ensuring that the technology is applied to specific local conditions and people’s needs, rather than simply being replicated from one place and situation to another,” says McKay.

 

But the initiative is gaining momentum and expanding not only to other parts of the country, but to Tanzania, Chad, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and even to India.

 

Geoffrey Kamadi

Ruby Wax was born 19th April, 1953, Ruby Wachs in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Jewish parents who left Austria in 1939 because of the Nazi threat. She later majored in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Ruby Wax said I couldn't stand being a nobody. America put too much value on being tall and blonde. So I used laughter to make people take notice.

  

Ruby Wax came to England in 1977 and Ive been grateful ever since. (OK so I wasnt even born then but I make up for it now!)

 

Ruby always wanted to be famous, so decided to become an actress. She didn't get in to RADA but was awarded a place at the Scottish equivalent, before later joining the Royal Shakespeare Company alongside Helen Mirren, getting all the wench parts.

 

I really could never find my niche. I was a terrible actress, I couldn't sing, I couldn't do characters, I couldn't do an English accent and I lived in England, so I was narrowing it down'

 

She started off writing for Not the Nine O Clock News.

 

She met French and Saunders at a party and worked alongside them a number of times, on television in Happy Families, at charity events such as Hysteria and notably the sitcom Girls on Top. Apparently meant to be a kind of female Young Ones, French, Saunders and Wax all co-starred and co-wrote this ITV series. Ruby played Shelley Dupont, a stereotypically loud American dying for a career in show business. Not a huge hit, Girls on Top nevertheless gave the trio the chance to find their feet in comedy.

 

Ruby eventually got a chat show after drunkenly interviewing Michael Grade (who was head of Channel 4 at the time) in a tent at the Edinburgh festival. She subsequently made a range of programmes (most featuring her name in the title!) but as I have only seen a selection I can only write about the ones I know

 

In the 1988 show Ruby's Celebrity Bash, Ruby 'interviewed' stars including Joanna Lumley, Patricia Hodge and Felicity Kendall. More staged and rehearsed than Rubys more recent interviews, they included acted bits and prepared one-liners to the cameras. But although the interviews are set up they are still hilarious. Ruby breaks into Joanna Lumley's house - smashing windows and then hiding behind her sofas!! She gets thrown out but returns later with a ladder and calls up into the window, before climbing up and breaking in again. Joanna Lumley's character is very much a premonition of Patsy, who ends up in a mental institution and has cupboards filled with alcohol! The show was very much pre-Abfab, and an early and unusual role for Joanna in comedy at the time. Ruby Wax later became the script editor for Absolutely Fabulous, coming up with many of the one-liners.

 

In 1992 Ruby did a stand-up comedy show at the Wimbledon Theatre, now available on video as Wax Acts. Written by Ruby, it consists of amusing monologue and observational comedy. Her description of childbirth is almost enough to put you off for life, pain-wise she says, 'it's like sitting on the Eiffel tower and spinning' - ouch indeed!

 

Ruby's Health Quest (1995) followed Ruby as she went in search of alternative medicines, advice and treatments in aid of seeking perfect health. Several years ago she took a BBC director's course, people will get sick of me and my ego will have to be removed, but I'd still like to express my view of the world.

 

Ruby Wax has experienced episodes of depression for most of her life, but it wasn't until she finally checked into a clinic, that she realised how widespread mental health problems are: "It's so common, it could be anyone. The trouble is, nobody wants to talk about it. And that makes everything worse."

 

Divorce twice and is currently married to television producer and director Ed Bye, who produces some of the series of her long time friends and working partners, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Wax and Bye have three children together, daughters Marina and Madeline, and one son, Max.

  

.....but a penguin ain't 1? This toy belongs to a 9 year old boy. What's he know 'bout 99 problems? I HOPE he means penguin considering the lyrics to the actual Jay-Z song and all.

Benburb Street [originally Barrack Street] was the location for the first Dublin Corporation housing scheme in the late nineteenth century. Because of a desire to keep public housing as low cost as possible the Corporation constructed homes in areas with long standing social problems and as they did not address the ongoing anti-social issues problems remain today in many city centre locations. Way back in the 1830’s the area around Royal Barracks [now Collins Barracks] in Dublin had a very bad reputation as was described in local newspapers as follows “scenes of riot, drunkenness and gross indecency” were common place, and that the area was home to many prostitutes but lacking in “persons of decent and moral habits”.

 

Up until recently the area was a very active red-light district area but the prostitutes now appear to have been replaced by drug addicts and the homeless and the current anti-social problems are now so bad that the historic “Croppies Acre” park is now closed to the public.

 

The Office of Public Works (OPW), which is charged with maintaining the park, said in a public statement that they had been forced to permanently padlock the gates because of public health fears. "Specialist cleaners are employed to remove hazardous material such as used syringes," said an OPW spokeswoman. "However, as resources are not sufficient to keep the park clear of dangerous materials at all times and thus safe for public access, the park has had to be closed to the public." Anti-social behaviour was also threatening public safety, according to the OPW, which said it doesn't have the manpower or money to put security at the site. Drug-users and street drinkers continue to scale the walls of the park, near Heuston Station, which is strewn with dirty hypodermic needles, broken glass, beer cans, wine cartons and old clothes.

 

So I stripped her down: a messy job, but not difficult, providing you take out the centre seat and the panel underneath (which is designed to come out in 10 seconds flat), to get a bit of light on an otherwise dark subject.

 

Simply (don't you hate it when people say that? but this time it really is simple) undo the six nuts which hold the drum onto the output flange, then slacken off the hand-brake adjuster until the drum can be persuaded to come off (which may need a hide hammer), and slide the drum back to sit on the propshaft, out of our way.

 

And here's the nub of the problem (though that missing spring didn't help). The operating mechanism was well and truly clagged up with the gunge of ages. Several squirts with brake cleaner got the mess off, then Mrs W sat inside, gently operating the hand-brake, while I was underneath getting everything free, then applying a good coat of CopperSlip to the moving parts. Reassemble, making sure that all the six nuts are torqued up evenly so the drum is truly square to the flange; then adjust the shoes in the normal way.

 

The missing spring was an interesting problem, as it's very, very tight, and almost impossible to stretch up to engage, when you're lying underneath the vehicle. If you slip, you'll hit the underside very hard, probably losing a knuckle or two's worth of flesh in the process.

 

As JY used to say: this is what you do.

 

First, get a couple of pairs of safety goggles, one for you, one for your assistant: if this goes wrong, there'll be bits of broken spring flying around, which you don't want in anybody's eye. Next, take out the driver's seat cushion, and the plate underneath it. This exposes the fuel tank, but there's enough space inboard of that to drop through a loop of baler twine. (If you have a Land-Rover, it almost goes without saying that you should have yards of baler twine readily to hand.) Use about four feet, knotted securely into a loop. Engage the bottom end of the spring in its hole, then hook the top end with your dangling loop, and get an assistant standing by to haul up steadily, but really pretty hard, on the loop: stout gloves are recommended to prevent cutting the hands. This seems to be about the only reliable way to stretch the spring enough that you, underneath the vehicle, will then be able to steer the end over its upper locating hole. Your assistant above relaxes the mighty pull, and everything slips into place. Cut away the baler twine, because it's not coming out any other way.

I always thought that people who bash GIMP's name are just flamers and trolls. But this comment seems to be from a person who does not know what the GIMP is...

Bolton's finest traffic warden goes to book the wedding transport

 

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

It took China long way to develop and produce a true supersonic fighter aircraft: in March, 1964, Shenyang Aircraft Factory began the first domestic production of the J-7 jet fighter. However, the mass production of the aircraft, which had been developed through Soviet help, license production and reverse-engineering, was severely hindered by an unexpected problem—the Cultural Revolution. This incident and its consequences resulted in poor initial quality and slow progress.

 

This, in turn, resulted in full scale production only coming about in the 1980s, by which time the J-7 design was showing its age. However, through the years the J-7 saw constant development and refinement in China.

 

One of the many directions of the prolific J-7 family was the J-7III series, later re-coded J-7C. This variant was in so far special, as it was not based on the 1st generation MiG-21F. It was rather a reverse-engineered MiG-21MF obtained from Egypt, but just like the Soviet ejection seat, the original Soviet radar failed to impress Chinese, so a domestic Chinese radar was developed for the aircraft called the "JL-7". JL-7 is a 2 cm wavelength mono pulse fire radar weighing 100 kg, with a maximum range of 28 km, and MTBF is 70 hours.

 

However, due to the limitation of Chinese avionics industry in the 1980s, the performance of the domestic Chinese fire control radars were not satisfactory, because due to their relatively large size, the nosecone had to be enlarged, resulting in decrease in aerodynamic performance of the series. As a result, only very limited numbers of this series were built.

 

The J-7III prototypes comprised a series of a total of 5 aircraft, equipped with domestically developed HTY-3 ejection seat and KL-11 auto pilot. These machines had to be powered by the domestic WP-7 engine (a copy of the MiG-21F's Tumansky R-11) because the intended WP-13F (a license build of the Tumansky R-13) failed to meet the original schedule. The J-7III was planned to enter service in 1985, but due to the delay of WP-13 development, it was not until 1987 when the design was finally certified.

 

Production of the true J-7C fighter started in 1989, when the WP-13 became available, but only a total of 17 were built until 1996. It was soon superseded by the J-7IIIA, the prototype of the more sophisticated J-7D. This upgraded all-weather fighter was equipped with KJ-11A auto pilot, JD-3II TACAN, ADS-1 air data computer, Type 563B INS, WL-7A radio compass, Type 256 radar altimeter, TKR-122 radio, 930-4 RWR, 941-4A decoy launcher, and an improved JL-7A radar.

The fighter was to be armed with PL-7 & PL-8 AAMs and carried a twin 23 mm gun (a copy of the MiG-21MF's ventral GSh-23-2 cannon). A HK-13A HUD replaced HK-03D optical sight in earlier models. The upgraded JL-7A fire control radar had look-down/shoot-down capability added.

 

The production J-7D received an uprated WP-13FI engine, and initial certification was received in November 1994, but it was not until more than a year later in December 1995 when the model was finally fully certified due to the need to certify the WP-13FI on the aircraft. But, again, the results were not satisfactory and only 32 were built until 1999.

 

Even though the J-7C and D had been developed from a much more modern basis than the earlier MiG-21F derivatives, the "new" type offered - except for the more capable radar and the all-weather capability - no considerable benefit, was even less manoueverable in dogfight situations, more complex and expensive, and also had a very limited range. What was needed was a revolutionary step forward.

 

Such a proposal came from Chengdu Aircraft Corporation's general designer Mr. Wang Zi-fang (王子方) in 1998, who had already worked on the J-7D. He proposed the addition of fuselage elements that would partly replace the inner wing sections and create lift, but also offer additional room for more and better avionics, allowing the carriage of state-of-the-art weaponry like the PL-11 AAM, together with more internal fuel. Furthermore, the adaptation of the WS-13 turbofan, a new engine for which project work had just started and which would improve both range and performance of the modified aircraft.

 

In 2000, while an alternative design, the J-7FS, had been under parallel development and cleared for service by then, CAC received green lights for a developmental technology demonstrator under the label J-7DS (S stands for Shi-yan, 试验, meaning "experimental" in Chinese).

 

While the general third generation MiG-21 outlines were retained, the blended wing/body sections - certainly inspired by US American types like the F-16 and the F-18 - and a new, taller fin changed overall proportions considerably. Esp. from above, the bigger wing planform with extended LERXes (reminiscent of the MiG Analog experimental delta wing aircraft that were used during the Tu-144 development in the Soviet union) created the impression of a much more massive and compact aircraft, even though the dimenions remained unchanged.

 

Thanks to the additional space in the BWB sections, new and better equipment could be installed, and the aerodynamics were changed, too. For instance, the J-7's air brakes under the forward fuselage were deleted and replaced by a new pair of splayed design, stabilizing the aircraft more effectively in a dive. The single air brake in front of the ventral fin was retained, though, as well as the blown flaps from the MiG-21MF.

 

The ventral gun pod with a domestic copy of the GSh-23-2 was also deleted; this space, together with the air brake compartment, was now used for a semi-recessed laser range finder, so that guided ammunition could be deployed. But a gun was retained: a new, more effective Type 30-I 30 mm (1.18 in) cannon (a copy of the Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-30-1) with 150 rounds was placed into the port LERX, under the cockpit.

Inside of the LERX on the other side, compartments for new avionics (esp. for the once more upgraded JL-7B fire control radar) were added. With this radar and weapons like the PL-11 missile, the aircraft finally achieved the long desired BVR interception capability.

 

Flanking the new, longer WS-13 engine, the BWBs held extra fuel tanks. For en even more extended range and loiter time, provisions were made for a fixed air-refuelling probe on the starboard side under the cockpit.

Under the inner wings, an additional pair of pylons was added (for a total of seven), and overall ordnance load could be raised to 3.000 kg (6.600 lb).

 

The first J-7DS first flew in summer 2005, still only powered by an WP-13I engine, for a 22-month test program. Three prototypes were built, but only the first two aircraft were to fly – the third machine was only used for static tests.

The driving force behind this program was actually the PLANAF, the People's Liberation Army, Naval Air Force (中國人民解放軍海軍航空兵). While the Chinese Air Force rather placed its bet on the more modern and sophisticated Chengdu J-10 fighter, the PLANAF was rather looking for a more simple and inexpensive multi-role combat aircraft that could carry out both air defence and strike missions, and replace the ageing (and rather ineffective) J-8 fighters and Q-5 attack aircraft, as well as early J-7II fighters with limited all-weather capability. Consequently, the type was only operated by the PLANAF from 2010 onwards and received the official designation J-7DH ("H" for 海军 [Haijun] = Navy).

 

Production was still continuing in small numbers in late 2016, but the number of built specimen is uncertain. About 150 J-7DH are supposed to be in active service, mostly with PLANAF Northern and East Fleet units. Unlike many former J-7 variants (including its ancestor, the PLAAF's more or less stillborn C and D variants), the J-7DH was not offered for export.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 14.61 m (47 ft 10½ in)

15.69 m (51 ft 5 in) with pitot

Wingspan: 7,41 m (24 ft 3½ in)

Height: 4.78 m (15 ft 8½ in)

Wing area: 28.88 m² (309.8 ft²)

Aspect ratio: 2.8:1

Empty weight: 5,892 kg (12.977 lb)

Loaded weight: 8,240 kg (18.150 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 9,800 kg (21.585 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× Guizhou WS-13 turbofan with a dry thrust of 51.2 kN (11,510 lbf)

and 84.6 kN (19,000 lbf) with afterburner

 

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2.0, 2,200 km/h (1.189 knots, 1.375 mph)

Stall speed: 210 km/h (114 knots, 131 mph) IAS

Combat radius: 1.050 km (568 nmi, 652 mi) (air superiority, two AAMs and three drop tanks)

Ferry range: 2,500 km (1.350 nmi, 1.550 mi)

Service ceiling: 17,500 m (57.420 ft)

Rate of climb: 195 m/s (38.386 ft/min)

 

Armament:

1× Type 30-I 30mm (1.18") cannon with 150 rounds in the port forward fuselage;

7× hardpoints (6× under-wing, 1× centerline under-fuselage) with a capacity of 3,000 kg maximum (up to 500 kg each); Ordnance primarily comprises air-to-air missiles, including PL-2, PL-5, PL-7, PL-8, PL-9 and PL-11 AAMs, but in a secondary CAS role various rocket pods an unguided bombs of up to 500kg caliber can be carried

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another Chinese whif, and again a MiG-21 derivative - a fruitful source of inspiration. The J-7DH is not based ona real world project, though, but was rather inspired by an article about a Chinese 2020 update for the MiG-21 from Japan, including some drawings and artwork.

The latter depicted a late MiG-21 with some minor mods, but also some characteristic F-16 parts like the chines and the BWB flanks grafted to it - and it looked good!

 

Since I recently butchered an Intech F-16 for my Academy T-50 conversion (primariliy donation the whole landing gear, including the wells), I had a donor kit at ahnd, and I also found a Mastercraft MiG-21MF in my stash without a true plan. So I combined both for "something Chinese"...

 

The build was pretty starightforward - except for the fact that the Intech F-16 is a rather clumsy affair (donating the fin and the fuselage flanks) and that no part from the Mastercraft MiG-21 matches with another one! Lots of improvisation and mods were necessary.

On the other side, the F-16 parts were just glued onto the MiG-21 fuselage and blended into one with putty (in several layers, though).

 

The fin was taken wholesale from the F-16, but clipped by about 5mm at the top. I originally wanted to use F-16 wings with wing tip launch rails and the stabilizers, too, but when I held them to the model it looked wacky - so I reverted to the Fishbed parts. The stabilizers were taken OOB, but the wing span was reduced at the roots, so that the original MiG-21 wing span was retained. Only the landing gear wells had to be adapted accordingly, but that was easier than expected and the result looks very organic.

 

With more wing area, I added a third pair of hardpoints under the wing roots, and I kept the gun under the cockpit in the LERX. That offered room inside of the fuselage, filled by a laser rangefinder in a canoe fairing where the original gun used to be.

 

On the tail, a new jet nozzle was mounted, on the fuselage some air scoops and antennae were added an an IR sensor on the nose. A new seat was used in the cockpit instead of the poor L-shaped OOB thing. The PL-2 & -11 ordnance consists of simple AIM-9Bs and slightly modified AIM-120, plus some launch rails from the scrap box.

  

Paintings and markings:

Modern Chinese military aircraft are hardly benchmarks for creative paint schemes - and the only "realistic" option in this case would have been a uniform grey livery. The original J-7C PLAAF night fighters carried a high contrast sand/dark green/light blue livery, similar to the MiG-21 export scheme (a.k.a. "Pumpkin"), but I found the latter not suitabel for a naval operator.

 

I eventually found a compromise, using one of the J-7C schemes as pattern but using grey tones instead - still not very colorful, but the "clover" patterns would help disrupt the aircraft's outlines and support the modern look and feel of this whif.

 

Basic colors are Humbrol 140 (Dark Gull Grey, FS 36231) and 165 (RAF Medium Sea Grey) from above, plus 122 (IAF Pale Blue, FS 35622) on the undersides. With the dark grey pattern placed with no direct connection to the Pale Blue undersides, there's even a blending effect between the tones - not spectacular, but IMHO effective.

 

The cockpit interior became pale teal (a mix of Soviet Cockpit Blue and white), while the landing gear wells were painted with a mix of Humbrol 56, 119 and 225 - for a yellow-ish, dull metallic brown. The wheel discs became bright green (Humbrol 131), and any di-electric panel and the radome became deep green (Humbrol 2).

 

The decals come from a Begemot MiG-21 sheet (roundels), while the tactical 5-digit code comes from an Airfix 1:72 B-17 sheet. The yellow code is a bit unusual, as well as its place on the fin, but both occur on Chinese fighters.

The code itself is based on the information published in the 2010 book “Chinese Air Power” by Yefim Gordon und Dmitriy Komissarov, where the Chinese code system is explained – I hope that it is more or less authentic.

 

The kit received a light black ink wash and some dry painting with lighter blue-grey shades, but no weathering, since modern Chinese aircraft tend to look pretty clean and pristine. Since the kits both did not feature much surface details, and a lot of the few OOB details got lost during the PSR process for the BWB wing sections, I painted some details and panel lines with a soft pencil - a compromise, though. Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

  

The result is a pretty subtle whif, and with the F-16 parts added the result even looks very conclusive! From above, the extra fuselage width makes the Fishbed look very massive, which is underlined by the extended stabilizer span. But I think that retailing the original MiG-21 delta wing was a good decision, because it helps retaining the Fishbed's "fast" look.

I am just not 100% happy with the finish - but for the crappy kits I used as basis it's O.K.

 

 

Dogs need regular exercise, even on cold wet days..

 

Dog-owners 'lead healthier lives'

 

If you want to live a healthier life get a dog, research suggests.

 

The companionship offered by many pets is thought to be good for you, but the benefits of owning a dog outstrip those of cat owners, the study says.

 

A psychologist from Queen's University, Belfast, said dog owners tended to have lower blood pressure and cholesterol.

 

Writing in the British Journal of Health Psychology, she says that regular "walkies" may partly explain the difference.

 

Dr Deborah Wells reviewed dozens of earlier research papers which looked at the health benefits of pet ownership. She confirmed that pet owners tended in general to be healthier than the average member of the population.

 

However, her research suggested that dog ownership produced more positive influence than cat ownership.

 

As well as lower blood pressure and cholesterol, she said dog-owners suffered fewer minor ailments and serious medical problems.

 

There was also the suggestion that dogs could aid recovery from serious illnesses such as heart attacks, and act as 'early warning' to detect an approaching epileptic seizure.

 

Or in my opinion having something to talk to that doesn't argue or contradict you during a walk may just lower youre stress level

 

Collective Memories

 

“A better kind of medicine for a better kind of world….” – Dr. C. F. Menninger

 

At the turn of the century, psychiatric hospitals were asylums, places for long-term care. The Topeka State Hospital, regarded as state-of-the-art in its day, was built in 1872 to provide “rest cure”. 70% of state hospital patients would remain hospitalized for life. Many patients had no further contact with their families. Problems ranging from patient neglect, abuse, forced sterilizations of patients, and the murder of a therapist by a patient plagued the Topeka State Hospital through its history. It lost its accreditation in 1988, and closed in 1997. The main building was demolished in 2010.

 

The Menninger Diagnostic Clinic opened in 1919, much to the chagrin of concerned citizens who feared a “maniac ward.” Because of the stigma of mental illness, the doctors had to bring patients in under erroneous diagnoses.

 

In 1925, Dr. C.F. Menninger, with sons Karl and Will, opened a 13-bed Sanitarium and Psychopathic Hospital in Topeka. They believed that mental illness could not only be treated, but cured. By 1935, Fortune magazine praised the Menninger Clinic as the “best private hospital west of the Alleghenies”. The Menningers worked collaboratively with other physicians to develop cooperative diagnosis and treatments for patients. Moods, emotions, and anxieties were treated as scientifically as temperatures and infections.

 

The doctors of the Menninger Clinic developed milieu therapy. All aspects of the patients’ experiences were to be therapeutic. Everyone from housekeepers to psychiatrists was involved in patient care. The Menningers hired artists to lead drawing, painting and sculpture classes. Patients worked in gardens, in the shops, and other activities that would increase their skills and confidence.

 

Dr. Will served in the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, and helped develop mental health care for the military’s 2.5 million World War II veterans in need of mental health treatment. One hundred doctors joined the clinic to work with the Veterans Administration. Dr. Karl and Dr. Will wrote books, lectured, toured, and advocated for mental health. Dr. Will’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is still used in psychiatric training and practice. Topeka became the largest psychiatric training center in America.

 

"...Our conception of psychiatric hospitals here is not confinement; we think they are places in which to be treated, places in which to learn to understand one's self, to learn how to live." – Dr. Karl Menninger

In the 1940s – 1950s, the Menningers worked to reform state hospitals, including the Topeka State Hospital. After 5 years, the Menningers’ reform led to 80% of patients returning home after one year.

 

Dr. Will was on the cover of Time magazine in 1948, and Dr. Karl was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981, the only psychiatrists to be so honored. The Menninger Clinic in Topeka closed in 2003. The Menninger Clinic and Foundation is now affiliated with Baylor University and the Methodist Hospital System in Houston, Texas, and is a world leader in psychiatric treatment, research, and education.

 

Info from: www.menningerclinic.com/about/Menninger-history.htm

Did your smartphone went swimming? Or you just accidentally dropped it right into the harm’s way? Or enjoyed the rain with your priced possession in your pocket? To be honest this is situation is faced by many smartphone owners once in a while. The smartphone takes a deadly plunge right into water which is followed by freaking out and trying almost anything and everything to bring it back to life.

 

If your smartphones comes with a removable battery then remove the back panel and take out the battery as soon as you can after taking it out of water. Leaving it switched on can cause it to short circuit. If your smartphone comes with a non-removable battery then shut it down immediately by pressing the power button for 5 seconds to prevent further damage.

 

Remember in either case do not try to turn it on in any case as short circuit can occur and chances are fair that your phone will not be able to see another light of day. Shutting it down prevents it from short circuiting.

 

Remember keep it in screen up direction all times whether drying or not. Gravity is a fascinating thing and it will prevent water from reaching your display.

Open you phone up using necessary tools and gently use a dry cloth or paper towel to absorb the water by dabbing on the affected areas. Do not wipe hurriedly as you may spread water and it may do more harm than good. Moisture corrodes the circuit inside your phone so try to take out as much moisture as you can. You can use a vacuum cleaner to suck out the water from all the ports and openings as well as from the circuit board. Vacuum cleaner is the best hep you can get immediately when water is logged in your phone.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some Background:

The Hawker Typhoon was a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft. It was intended to be a medium-high altitude interceptor, as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane, but several design problems were encountered and it never completely satisfied this requirement.

 

Even before Hurricane production began in March 1937, Sydney Camm had embarked on designing its successor. Two preliminary designs were similar and were larger than the Hurricane. These later became known as the "N" and "R" (from the initial of the engine manufacturers), because they were designed for the newly developed Napier Sabre and Rolls-Royce Vulture engines respectively. Both engines used 24 cylinders and were designed for over 2,000 hp (1,500 kW); the difference between the two was primarily in the arrangement of the cylinders – an H-block in the Sabre and an X-block in the Vulture. Hawker submitted these preliminary designs in July 1937 but were advised to wait until a formal specification for a new fighter was issued.

 

In March 1938, Hawker received from the Air Ministry, Specification F.18/37 for a fighter which would be able to achieve at least 400 mph (640 km/h) at 15,000 feet (4,600 m) and specified a British engine with a two-speed supercharger. The armament fitted was to be twelve 0.303” Browning machine guns with 500 rounds per gun, with a provision for alternative combinations of weaponry. The basic design of the Typhoon was a combination of traditional Hawker construction, as used in the earlier Hawker Hurricane, and more modern construction techniques; the front fuselage structure, from the engine mountings to the rear of the cockpit, was made up of bolted and welded duralumin or steel tubes covered with skin panels, while the rear fuselage was a flush-riveted, semi-monocoque structure. The forward fuselage and cockpit skinning was made up of large, removable duralumin panels, allowing easy external access to the engine and engine accessories and most of the important hydraulic and electrical equipment.

 

The Typhoon’s service introduction in mid-1941 was plagued with problems and for several months the aircraft faced a doubtful future. When the Luftwaffe brought the new Focke-Wulf Fw 190 into service in 1941, the Typhoon was the only RAF fighter capable of catching it at low altitudes; as a result it secured a new role as a low-altitude interceptor.

 

By 1943, the RAF needed a ground attack fighter more than a "pure" fighter and the Typhoon was suited to the role (and less-suited to the pure fighter role than competing aircraft such as the Spitfire Mk IX). The powerful engine allowed the aircraft to carry a load of up to two 1,000 pounds (450 kg) bombs, equal to the light bombers of only a few years earlier. Furthermore, from early 1943 the wings were plumbed and adapted to carry cylindrical 45 imp gal (200 l; 54 US gal) drop tanks increasing the Typhoon's range from 690 miles (1,110 km) to up to 1,090 miles (1,750 km). This enabled Typhoons to range deep into France, the Netherlands and Belgium.

 

From September 1943, Typhoons were also armed with four "60 lb" RP-3 rockets under each wing. Although the rocket projectiles were inaccurate and took considerable skill to aim and allow for ballistic drop after firing, "the sheer firepower of just one Typhoon was equivalent to a destroyer's broadside".

By the end of 1943, eighteen rocket-equipped Typhoon squadrons formed the basis of the RAF Second Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF) ground attack arm in Europe. In theory, the rocket rails and bomb-racks were interchangeable; in practice, to simplify supply, some used the rockets only, while other squadrons were armed exclusively with bombs, what also allowed individual units to more finely hone their skills with their assigned weapons.

 

The Typhoon was initially exclusively operated in the European theatre of operations, but in 1944 it was clear that a dedicated variant might become useful for the RAF’s operations in South-East Asia. In the meantime, Hawker had also developed what was originally an improved Typhoon II, but the differences between it and the Mk I were so great that it was effectively a different aircraft, and it was renamed the Hawker Tempest. However, as a fallback option and as a stopgap filler for the SEAC, Hawker also developed the Typhoon Mk. IV, a tropicalized late Mk. I with a bubble canopy and powered by the new Bristol Centaurus radial engine that could better cope with high ambient temperatures than the original liquid-cooled Sabre engine. The Centaurus IV chosen for the Typhoon Mk. IV also offered slightly more power than the Sabre and the benefit of reduced vulnerability to small arms fire at low altitude, since the large and vulnerable chin cooler could be dispensed with.

 

3,518 Typhoons of all variants were eventually built, 201 of them late Mk. IVs, almost all by Gloster. Once the war in Europe was over Typhoons were quickly removed from front-line squadrons; by October 1945 the Typhoon was no longer in operational use, with many of the wartime Typhoon units such as 198 Squadron being either disbanded or renumbered.

The SEAC’s few operational Mk IVs soldiered on, however, were partly mothballed after 1945 and eventually in 1947 handed over or donated to regional nascent air forces after their countries’ independence like India, Pakistan or Burma, where they served as fighters and fighter bombers well into the Sixties.

 

The Burmese Air Force; initially only called “The military”, since there was no differentiation between the army’s nascent servies, was founded on 16 January 1947, while Burma (as Myanmar was known until 1989) was still under British rule. By 1948, the fleet of the new air force included 40 Airspeed Oxfords, 16 de Havilland Tiger Moths, four Austers, and eight Typhoon Mk. IVs as well as three Supermarine Spitfires transferred from the Royal Air Force and had a few hundred personnel.

The Mingaladon Air Base HQ, the main air base in the country, was formed on 16 June 1950. No.1 Squadron, Equipment Holding Unit and Air High Command - Burma Air Force, and the Flying Training School, were placed under the jurisdiction of the base. A few months later, on 18 December 1950, No. 2 Squadron was formed with nine Douglas Dakotas as a transport squadron. In 1953, the Advanced Flying Unit was formed under the Mingaladon Air Base with de Havilland Vampire T55s, and by the end of 1953 the Burmese Air Force had three main airbases, at Mingaladon, Hmawbi, and Meiktila, in central Burma.

 

In 1953, the Burmese Air Force bought 30 Supermarine Spitfires from Israel and 20 Supermarine Seafires as well as 22 more Typhoon Mk. IVs from the United Kingdom. In 1954 it bought 40 Percival Provost T-53s and 8 de Havilland Vampire Mark T55s from the United Kingdom and two years later, in 1956, the Burmese Air Force bought 10 Cessna 180 aircraft from the United States. The same year, 6 Kawasaki Bell 47Gs formed its first helicopter unit. The following year, the Burmese Air Force procured 21 Hawker Sea Fury aircraft from the United Kingdom and 9 de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otters from Canada. In 1958, it procured 7 additional Kawasaki Bell 47Gs and 12 Vertol H-21 Shawnees from the United States. Five years later, No. 503 Squadron Group was formed with No. 51 Squadron (de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otters and Cessna 180s) and No. 53 Squadron (Bell 47Gs, Kaman HH-43 Huskies, and Aérospatiale Alouettes) in Meiktila.

 

When the non-Burman ethnic groups pushed for autonomy or federalism, alongside having a weak civilian government at the center, the military leadership staged a coup d'état in 1962, and this was the only conflict in which the aging Burmese Typhoons became involved. On 2 March 1962, the military led by General Ne Win took control of Burma through a coup d'état, and the government had been under direct or indirect control by the military since then. Between 1962 and 1974, Myanmar was ruled by a revolutionary council headed by the general. Almost all aspects of society (business, media, production) were nationalized or brought under government control under the Burmese Way to Socialism, which combined Soviet-style nationalization and central planning, and also meant the end of operation of many aircraft of Western origin, including the last surviving Burmese Typhoons, which were probably retired by 1964. The last piston engine fighters in Burmese service, the Hawker Sea Furies, are believed to have been phased out in 1968.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 32 ft 6 in (9.93 m)

Wingspan: 41 ft 7 in (12.67 m)

Height: 15 ft 4 in (4.67 m)

Wing area: 279 sq ft (25.9 m²)

Airfoil: root: NACA 2219; tip: NACA 2213

Empty weight: 8,840 lb (4,010 kg)

Gross weight: 11,400 lb (5,171 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 13,250 lb (6,010 kg) with two 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs

 

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Centaurus IV 18-cylinder air-cooled radial engine with 2,210 hp (1,648 kW) take-off

power, driving a 4-bladed Rotol constant-speed propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 412 mph (663 km/h, 358 kn) at 19,000 ft (5,800 m)

Stall speed: 88 mph (142 km/h, 76 kn)

Range: 510 mi (820 km, 440 nmi) with two 500 lb (230 kg) bombs;

690 mi (1,110 km) "clean";

1,090 mi (1,750 km) with two 45 imp gal (200 l; 54 US gal) drop tanks.[65]

Service ceiling: 35,200 ft (10,700 m)

Rate of climb: 2,740 ft/min (13.9 m/s)

Wing loading: 40.9 lb/sq ft (200 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.20 hp/lb (0.33 kW/kg)

 

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.787 in) Hispano Mk II cannon in the outer wings with 200 rpg

Underwing hardpoints for 8× RP-3 unguided air-to-ground rockets,

or 2× 500 lb (230 kg) or 2× 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs or a pair of drop tanks

  

The kit and its assembly:

The Hawker Typhoon is IMHO an overlooked WWII aircraft, and it’s also “underwiffed”. I have actually built no single Typhoon in my 45 years of model kit building - time to change that!

Inspiration was a lot of buzz in the model kit builder community after KP’s launch of several Hawker Tempest kits, with all major variants including the Sabre- and Centaurus-powered types. While the Tempest quickly outpaced the Typhoon in real life and took the glory, I wondered about a Centaurus-powered version for the SEA theatre of operations – similar to the Tempest Mk. II, which just came too late to become involved in the conflict against the Japanese forces. A similar Typhoon variant could have arrived a couple of months earlier, though.

 

Technically, this conversion is just an Academy Hawker Typhoon Mk Ib (a late variant without the “car door”, a strutless bubble canopy and a four-blade propeller) mated with the optional Centaurus front end from a Matchbox Hawker Tempest. Sounds simple, but there are subtle dimensional differences between the types/kits, and the wing roots of the Matchbox kit differ from the Academy kit, so that the engine/fuselage intersection as well as the wing roots called for some tailoring and PSR. However, the result of this transplantation stunt looked better and more natural than expected! Since I did not want to add extra fairings for air carburetor and oil cooler to the Wings (as on the Tempest), I gave the new creation a generous single fairing for both under the nose – the space between the wide landing gear wells offered a perfect location, and I used a former Spitfire radiator as donor part. The rest, including the unguided missiles under the wings was ordnance, was taken OOB, and the propeller (from the Academy kit) received an adapter consisting of styrene tubes to match it with the Matchbox kit’s engine and its opening for the propeller axis.

  

Painting and markings:

This was initially a challenge since the early Burmese aircraft were apparently kept in bare metal or painted in silver overall. This would certainly have looked interesting on a Typhoon, too – but then I found a picture of a Spitfire (UB 421) at Myanmar's Air Force Museum at Naypyidaw, which carries camouflage – I doubt that it is authentic, though, at least the colors, which markedly differ from RAF Dark Green/Dark Earth and the bright blue undersides also look rather fishy. But it was this paint scheme that I adapted for my Burmese Typhoon with Modelmaster 2027 (FS 34096, B-52 Dark Green, a rather greyish and light tone) and 2107 (French WWII Chestnut, a reddish, rich chocolate brown tone) from above and Humbrol 145 (FS 35237, USN Gray Blue) below – a less garish tone.

 

As usual, the model received a black ink washing and post-panel-shading for dramatic effect; the cockpit interior became very dark grey (Revell 06 Anthracite) while the landing gear became Medium Sea Grey (Humbrol 165), as a reminder of the former operator of the aircraft and its painting standards. The red spinner as well as the red-and-white-checkered rudder were inspired by Burmese Hawker Sea Furies, a nice contrast to the camouflage. It's also a decal, from a tabletop miniatures accessory sheet. This contrast was furthermore underlined through the bright and colorful national markings, which come from a Carpena decal sheet for exotic Spitfires, just the tactical code was changed.

 

After some signs of wear with dry-brushed silver and some graphite soot stains around the exhausts and the guns the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

  

Voilà, a whiffy Hawker Typhoon – and it looks better than expected. Not only does the brawny Centaurus look good on the rather burly Typhoon, the transplantation worked out better than expected, too. However, with the radial engine the Typhoon looks even more like an Fw 190 on steroids?

 

Whitinsville Christian 85, Hopedale 63: Undermanned..By Jared Keene/Daily News staff..At 6-foot-6, senior Paul Manning is the main rebounder and inside threat on Hopedale’s boys basketball team...Just 2:25 into last night’s contest with Dual Valley Conference rival Whitinsville Christian, however, Manning picked up his second foul, earning him a spot on the bench for the rest of the half...The Crusaders took full advantage, out-rebounding the hosts by 18 in the first half while lighting it up from the field in a 85-63 victory...“If I didn’t get those silly fouls at the beginning of the game, I felt like I would have played the whole first quarter, so that alone would have kept the rebounding up to par with the other team,” Manning said. “We wouldn’t have been down so much.”..Hopedale coach Tony Cordani saw a variety of factors key the visiting Crusaders...“They came ready to play and I don’t know what their percentage was in the first half, but they shot the ball extremely well,” said Cordani after his team fell to 6-3 (2-1 DVC). “And Paul got into a little foul trouble, so we couldn’t rebound with them. The combination of their exceptional shooting in the first half and our lack of rebounding was the difference, I thought.”..Whitinsville Christian seemed to set the tone early by forcing a turnover and an airball on the Blue Raiders’ first two offensive possessions...The Crusaders held a 19-9 lead after the first quarter, thanks in large part to their eight offensive rebounds — allowing for second-chance opportunities — and tough man-to-man defense that seemed to fluster the Hopedale offense...“One of our keys to the game was to win the rebounding battle tonight and keep them off the offensive glass and for the most part we did a pretty good job of that,” Whitinsville coach Jeff Bajema said. “We’ve also been working hard on our defense. We don’t have the height this year, but we’ve got some quick guards and kids that like to defend. That’s our game right now.”..In the second quarter, the Crusaders also started taking advantage of the various zone defenses the Blue Raiders played. Whitinsville Christian spread the floor and used quick, crisp ball movement to end up with numerous open 3-pointers...Of the seven triples the Crusaders hit for the game, five came in the second quarter, a period in which the visitors built their lead to 25 by halftime (50-25). Two of those five treys came from the hand of Colin Richey, who finished with a game-high 20 points...“I’ve seen these guys play on a number of occasions and the teams that have gone man-to-man (against them), Richey has been able to penetrate and then he becomes a problem,” Cordani said of the decision to play zone. “I was just hoping that we could weather the storm a little bit and have some in the tank at the end. It was a gamble we took. I guess we’ll see what happens next time we play them.”..Hopedale came out a different team in the third quarter, out-rebounding Whitinsville by six while outscoring the Crusaders 22-12 to pull within 62-47...Just 15 seconds into the fourth quarter, the Blue Raiders cut the lead to 13, but that was the closest they got the rest of the way, as Whitinsville used a 14-4 run to take its lead back up to 23 at 76-53 and ice the game...--------------..Colin Richey led all scorers with 22 points, including two 3-pointers for the visiting No. 9 Crusaders (4-1, 3-0 Dual Valley). Tyler VandenAkker added 15 points, and Antonio Estrella scored 12 for Whitinsville Christian. Jeremy Bacon's 15 points paced the Blue Raiders (6-3, 2-1). ..WHITINSVILLE CHRISTIAN.Name.FGM.3PM.FTM.Pts..Tim Dufficy.4.2.0.10.Eric Monroe.1.1.0.3.Connor Dolan.2.0.0.4.Scott Ebbeling.1.0.1.3.Jesse Dykstra.4.0.0.8.Antonio Estrella.6.0.0.12.Colin Richey.8.2.4.22.Grant Brown.3.2.0.8.Tyler VandenAkker.7.0.1.15.Totals.36.7.6.85..HOPEDALE.Name.FGM.3PM.FTM.Pts..Colby Caso.1.0.0.2.Cole Dedonato.0.0.0.0.Shane Finnegan.2.2.0.6.Kevin Lynch.4.1.0.9.Evan Lerner.2.0.2.6.Ian Strom.4.1.0.9.Dan Manoli.1.0.0.2.Paul Manning.4.0.1.9.Jeremy Bacon.3.0.9.15.Nick Walker.2.1.0.5.Totals.23.12.12.63.

 

Shot at ISO 3200, Aperture of 2.8, Shutter speed of 1/500 and Focal Length of 135.0 mm

Taken with a Minolta/Sony AF 70-200mm F2.8 G lens and processed by Aperture 3.2.2 on Monday January-09-2012 20:43 EST PM

I’ve been wanting to take a city break in summer, rather than in the cold months for a while, so rather than heading for the Lake District for a week of toil on the fells when Jayne could get a week off, we took off from Liverpool for Paris. Flight times were nice and sociable but it meant we were on the M62 car park at a busy time in both directions – it’s a shambles! I’ve stopped over in Paris a dozen times – on my way to cycling in the Etape du Tour in the Alps or Pyrenees – and had a few nights out there. Come to think about it and we’ve spent the day on the Champs Elysees watching the final day of the Tour de France with Mark Cavendish winning. We hadn’t been for a holiday there though and it was a bit of a spur of the moment decision. Six nights gave us five and a half days to explore Paris on foot. I had a good selection of (heavy) kit with me, not wanting to make the usual mistake of leaving something behind and regretting it. In the end I carried the kit in my backpack – an ordinary rucksack – to keep the weight down, for 103 miles, all recorded on the cycling Garmin – and took 3500 photos. The little Garmin is light and will do about 15 hours, it expired towards the end of a couple of 16 hour days but I had the info I wanted by then. This also keeps the phone battery free for research and route finding – I managed to flatten that once though.

 

What can I say – Paris was fantastic! The weather varied from OK to fantastic, windy for a few days, the dreaded grey white dullness for a while but I couldn’t complain really. We were out around 8.30 in shorts and tee shirt, which I would swap for a vest when it warmed up, hitting 30 degrees at times, we stayed out until around midnight most nights. It was a pretty full on trip. The security at some destinations could have been a problem as there is a bag size limit to save room in the lifts etc. I found the French to be very pragmatic about it, a bag search was a cursory glance, accepting that I was lugging camera gear, not bombs around, and they weren’t going to stop a paying customer from passing because his bag was a bit over size.

 

We didn’t have a plan, as usual we made it up as we went along, a loose itinerary for the day would always end up changing owing to discoveries along the way. Many times we would visit something a few times, weighing the crowds and light etc. up and deciding to come back later. I waited patiently to go up the Eiffel Tower, we arrived on Tuesday and finally went up on Friday evening. It was a late decision but the weather was good, the light was good and importantly I reckoned that we would get a sunset. Previous evenings the sun had just slid behind distant westerly clouds without any golden glory. It was a good choice. We went up the steps at 7.30 pm, short queue and cheaper – and just to say that we had. The steps are at an easy angle and were nowhere near as bad as expected, even with the heavy pack. We stayed up there, on a mad and busy Friday night, until 11.30, the light changed a lot and once we had stayed a couple of hours we decided to wait for the lights to come on. This was a downside to travelling at this time of year, to do any night photography we had to stay out late as it was light until 10.30. The Eiffel Tower is incredible and very well run, they are quite efficient at moving people around it from level to level. It was still buzzing at midnight with thousands of people around. The sunset on Saturday was probably better but we spent the evening around the base of the Tower, watching the light change, people watching and soaking the party atmosphere up.

 

Some days our first destination was five miles away, this is a lot of road junctions in a city, the roads in Paris are wide so you generally have to wait for the green man to cross. This made progress steady but when you are on holiday it doesn’t matter too much. Needless to say we walked through some dodgy places, with graffiti on anything that stays still long enough. We were ultra-cautious with our belongings having heard the pickpocket horror stories. At every Café/bar stop the bags were clipped to the table leg out of sight and never left alone. I carried the camera in my hand all day and everywhere I went, I only popped it in my bag to eat. I would guess that there were easier people to rob than us, some people were openly careless with phones and wallets.

 

We didn’t enter the big attractions, it was too nice to be in a museum or church and quite a few have a photography ban. These bans make me laugh, they are totally ignored by many ( Japanese particularly) people. Having travelled around the world to see something, no one is going to stop them getting their selfies. Selfies? Everywhere people pointed their cameras at their own face, walking around videoing – their self! I do like to have a few photos of us for posterity but these people are self-obsessed.

 

Paris has obviously got a problem with homeless (mostly) migrants. Walk a distance along the River Seine and you will find tented villages, there is a powerful smell of urine in every corner, with the no alcohol restrictions ignored, empty cans and bottles stacked around the bins as evidence. There are families, woman living on mattresses with as many as four small children, on the main boulevards. They beg by day and at midnight they are all huddled asleep on the pavement. The men in the tents seem to be selling plastic Eiffel Tower models to the tourists or bottled water – even bottles of wine. Love locks and selfy sticks were also top sellers. There must be millions of locks fastened to railings around the city, mostly brass, so removing them will be self-funding as brass is £2.20 a kilo.

 

As for the sights we saw, well if it was on the map we tried to walk to it. We crossed the Periphique ring road to get to the outer reaches of Paris. La Defense – the financial area with dozens of modern office blocks – was impressive, and still expanding. The Bois de Boulogne park, with the horse racing track and the Louis Vuitton Centre was part of a 20 mile loop that day. Another day saw us in the north east. We had the dome of the Sacre Couer to ourselves, with thousands of tourists wandering below us oblivious of the entrance and ticket office under the church. Again the light was fantastic for us. We read that Pere Lachaise Cemetery or Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise was one of the most visited destinations, a five mile walk but we went. It is massive, you need a map, but for me one massive tomb is much the same as another, it does have highlights but we didn’t stay long. Fortunately we were now closer to the Canal St Martin which would lead us to Parc de la Villette. This was a Sunday and everywhere was both buzzing and chilled at the same time. Where ever we went people were sat watching the world go by, socializing and picnicking, soaking the sun up. As ever I wanted to go up on the roof of anything I could as I love taking cityscapes. Most of these were expensive compared with many places we’ve been to before but up we went. The Tour Montparnasse, a single tower block with 59 floors, 690 foot high and extremely fast lifts has incredible views although it was a touch hazy on our ascent. The Arc de Triomphe was just up the road from our hotel, we went up it within hours of arriving, well worth the visit.

 

At the time of writing I have no idea how many images will make the cut but it will be a lot. If I have ten subtly different shots of something, I find it hard to consign nine to the dark depths of my hard drive never to be seen again – and I’m not very good at ruthless selection – so if the photo is OK it will get uploaded. My view is that it’s my photostream, I like to be able to browse my own work at my leisure at a later date, it’s more or less free and stats tell me these images will get looked at. I’m not aiming for single stunning shots, more of a comprehensive overview of an interesting place, presented to the best of my current capabilities. I am my own biggest critic, another reason for looking at my older stuff is to critique it and look to improve on previous mistakes. I do get regular requests from both individuals and organisations to use images and I’m obliging unless someone is taking the piss. I’m not bothered about work being published (with my permission) but it is reassuringly nice to be asked. The manipulation of Flickr favourites and views through adding thousands of contacts doesn’t interest me and I do sometimes question the whole point of the Flickr exercise. I do like having access to my own back catalogue though and it gives family and friends the chance to read about the trip and view the photos at their leisure so for the time being I’m sticking with it. I do have over 15 million views at the moment which is a far cry from showing a few people an album, let’s face it, there’s an oversupply of images, many of them superb but all being devalued by the sheer quantity available.

 

Don’t think that it was all walking and photography, we had a great break and spent plenty of time in pavement bistros having a glass of wine and people watching. I can certainly understand why Paris is top of the travellers list of destinations

Additional Photos in Set.

www.flickr.com/photos/morbius19/sets/72157639873090445/

Pellucidar Series. Trailer youtu.be/sbmtCBhPkyg?t=1s

 

Doug McClure (David Innes), Peter Cushing (Dr. Abner Perry), Caroline Munro (Princess Dia), Cy Grant (Ra)

Directed by Kevin Connor

Doctor Abner Perry and his student, David Innes travel below the Earth's surface in a gigantic drilling machine. The scientific duo stray from their original geological course and end up in a strange land thousands of miles beneath the Earth. There they find a civilization of humans ruled over the cruel Sagoths, a race of strange creatures that serve the Mahars, a species of telepathic and prehistoric flesh eating bird monsters. David and the batty doctor Perry must find the means to destroy the Mahar city and free the enslaved people of Pellucidar.

The one cinematic adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' series of novels based on his fictional world of Pellucidar. It's a fantastic realm at the center of the Earth featuring a wild menagerie of monsters and vicious creatures. The monsters seen in the Amicus film are pretty faithful to those in Burroughs' book, only they are less violent taking into account that the film version is made for the kids or the young at heart. Conner's direction is good and the film moves along from one set piece to the next with very few slow spots. The only time the film really bogs down are several scenes featuring lots of walking around in dark caves and tunnels.

Other than that, the production design of Maurice Carter is stunning and commendable. The entire film is shot on studio sets and this adds immeasurably to the fantasy elements found herein. Carter handled designing duties on the first three of the John Dark & Kevin Conner quartet of lost world fantasy movies. Michael Vickers handled the rousing score which could certainly do with an issue on DVD. Vickers also returned to do scoring duties on WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978), the fourth in this quartet, but the only one not a Burroughs novel.

The opening theme is right adventurous and majestic. Similar to the playfulness of the ending theme, the score changes drastically once the intrepid explorers enter the bizarre world of Pellucidar. Possessing an otherworldly and alienesque sound, the music for the Pellucidar sequences perfectly matches the unearthly and quasi-prehistoric locations.

Doug McClure returns in full on hero mode playing a brash, yet brave, stranger in a strange land quickly turning into something of a civilized Tarzan character. There's not as much time spent with the characters as there was for the previous entry and most especially the one that follows it. However, McClure, Cushing and Munro get just enough depth for the viewer to not want to see anything bad happen to them. AT THE EARTH'S CORE is purely escapist comic book entertainment and that's all it want to be is entertainment. Anybody looking for subtext, or a serious and realistic picture would do well to look elsewhere.

McClure was known for roles in numerous American western television programs most notably on the long running western show, 'The Virginian'. He occasionally appeared in genre work on television in between the western programmers, but his career changed once he appeared in THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975). After that, more and more movie roles came his way including some extreme horror starring roles. His four lost world adventure movies are high points and memorable efforts in his long career.

Peter Cushing plays the wonderfully daffy Doctor Abner Perry. Comparable to his role as Dr. Who in two cinematic adaptations of the famed British science fiction series, Cushing plays Perry as a lively and spirited soul despite his age. Perry has no problem getting in on the action which is most prominent during a scene where he makes a bow and arrow out of the surrounding fauna to dispel an attack by a giant fire breathing frog monster that makes a hasty and unannounced appearance.

Cushing also relives one of his most memorable lines from HORROR EXPRESS (1972). In that film, he responds to a query that he may in fact be the monster on the train, "Monster? We're British you know." In CORE, the Mahar creatures use telepathy to control their victims. In an attempt to hypnotize Perry, Cushing blurts out stoically, "You can't mesmerize me! I'm British!"

The stunning beauty of Caroline Munro is one of the main reasons for male viewers to tune in. Her pouty veneer showcases an inherent sexiness that threatens to burst forth from her limited and somewhat revealing costume. Munro was one of the most famous Hammer girls despite never really getting a role worthy of her talents. Her turn in CAPTAIN KRONOS: VAMPIRE HUNTER (1972) was pretty good, but Amicus seemed to get a bit more mileage out of her looks in AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976).

By the time STARCRASH (1978) rolled around, Munro was in full on fighting femme fatale mode playing an intergalactic bombshell in a movie that mixed STAR WARS bravado with BARBARELLA style silliness.

When AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976) was released, it ultimately became the biggest grossing Amicus production ever with $3.5 million in box office returns. It was also the last. The next film, THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977), which was not really an Amicus picture, came close to matching it with $3 million in profit. Despite the successes of the dinosaur opuses, the end of Amicus was nigh when shady business practices and the subsequent dissolving of the partnership of Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky spelled doom for the company.

There were a couple other notable lost world movies made by European filmmaker, Juan Piquer Simon. Those films were THE FABULOUS JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1976) and MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND (1980). The latter picture featured Peter Cushing briefly onscreen. There was also another series of similar style adventure yarns in 1977 to 1980. It was a trilogy of US-Japan co-productions between America's Rankin/Bass Productions and Japan's Tsuburaya Productions.

The trilogy began with THE LAST DINOSAUR (1977) and continued with THE BERMUDA DEPTHS (1978) and concluded with THE IVORY APE (1980). All three went straight to television in the United States but played theatrically on the international circuit. There's no doubt the success of Amicus' lost world epics inspired these other productions.

At one time the chief rival to the famous (and infamous) Hammer Studios, it's questionable whether Amicus could have survived in the changing markets what with big budget Hollywood blockbusters becoming the norm since the release of JAWS in 1975. This style of fantasy adventure was becoming extinct much like the dinosaurs featured in the Conner movies. The resurgence didn't take place till the release of JURASSIC PARK in 1993.

For their time, movies like AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976) offered the type of serial inspired thrills that prospered in the 30's and 40's. Compared with the other three films, CORE contains so many more cliffhanger moments. The third film, THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT comes close as the final act is a rapid fire exchange of close calls and tight spots for the heroes.

In CORE, there's the journey to the Mahar city replete with dangers from giant man eating monsters, the ensuing escape from the city, the duel with "Jubal, the Ugly One", returning to the city to destroy the Mahar's, a duel between man and monster and finally, the obliteration of the Mahar city. It would seem the writers of WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978) took the template laid down for AT THE EARTH'S CORE for the later film as there are several similarities which are discussed in that films review elsewhere on this site.

AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976) is a highly enjoyable monster romp made during a more simpler time when sheer imagination fueled the ambitions of filmmakers capabilities. A time when budgetary constraints were channeled towards the imagination and creativity of those putting their vision up on the big screen. If you come to these types of movies with an open mind, a big smile and a buttery bucket of popcorn, you're sure to walk away with the notion you've just had a good time enjoying an old style adventure for kids, both young and old alike.

 

Whenever I can't find Lucy I look up. I usually find her on top of something very high - she's sitting on top of the food cupboard in the kitchen here - and often have to get a step ladder to 'rescue' her. She hasn't been outdoors yet, but somehow I get the feeling she's going to enjoy climbing trees!

from a novel I am currently reading, "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa...

Give Image Credit To: 'https://recondoil.com'. Hyperlink: RecondOil

Problem solving with RCECC - Red clowns enter caves carefully - Read Choose Estimate Calculate Check

rosegoldsavage.blogspot.de

Thank you dear David, Chiara, and Paul :-)

 

PS I wish the solution to all problems were this simple!

The problem with hiking in a rainforest, there's vegetation all over the place. I had to climb up on a fallen tree to get an almost-unobstructed shot at the Hoh and it's weird bluish-white color.

__________________________________________________

Summer 2015: "Up was Down"

 

July 3rd: Olympic National Park: Rialto Beach in the morning, Hoh Rainforest in the afternoon.

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It's now become part of our travelling calendar - we go on a city break for Jayne’s birthday in January - no presents for birthday's and Christmas, we travel instead. This year it was Seville. We had to drive 180 miles south to Stansted to fly there though, Friday afternoon on the A1, such fun... It was a really good drive down in actual fact, the best day for months, glorious blue sky and a fantastic sunset- and I was in a car. We got stung for tea and drinks in the Radison Blu but we were overnighting and leaving the car so we didn't have much choice. Ryanair aagh! Again no choice. To be fair to the abrasive Irish man O Leary things are better than they used to be and it was an acceptable flight.

 

We were hoping for better weather than we got- don't you always? It was. cold, windy and after some initial beautiful sun on our first afternoon, it was mostly grey. The wind died but so did the sun. The other little problem was that it was my turn for the awful cold that Jayne had been trying to get over. I was under the weather in more ways than one all week, it was only a cold but it was the worst I've had for ages and it didn't help my mood, particularly when the sun was absent. We had a few hours of really nice light here and there and I made the most of it - I think!

 

Seville has miles and miles of narrow cobbled streets, they seem to go on for ever. They are almost random in layout and it is extremely difficult to find your way around, it's easier to just keep walking and see what you find. So we did! The architecture is stunning and the history is fascinating. Aside from the ancient history the two events that seem to have had a massive recent influence are the Expo's of 1929 and 1992. The incredible buildings or 'Pavilions' that were built for a one off event are now part of the reason that people visit the city. The 1929 pavilions are fantastic, each one is a story in itself and a destination in its own right but there are a lot of them in Parque Maria Luisa. Plaza Espana, built by the hosts of course, is the biggest and I would imagine that you could make a project out of photographing the individual ceramic tile displays around it on their own. These incredible buildings really need the light to be right to get images that people want to see, flat bright light from bright grey skies is good for certain things but dramatic architecture deserves better - or maybe I'm looking for the easy way option. The other discovery that we made, we found just down the road from the hotel, about an hour into the trip – The Metropol Parasol. A giant lattice work parasol, apparently called ‘The Mushrooms’ locally and apparently the world’s largest wooden structure. You have to look twice, having discovered that it is wood. Only later did we discover that we could get to the top and there is an extensive walkway around the top of it. It is built on top of ancient ruins, ( still intact and viewable) a food market and bars etc. and has a plaza around it and on it, that is buzzing on weekend evenings. Walking around the top, the first people up it one day and being back to watch the sunset later was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

 

The 1992 Expo also covered a massive area but left behind lots of modern - and some very strange - buildings and arenas. Some are of a temporary nature and get dismantled others find a new use. The land used was on an island between two branches of the River Guadalquivir – Isla de la Cartuja. The branch that goes through the city is now a canal, blocked at its northern end by a barrier with a motorway on it, and is used extensively for water sports, mainly rowing. Many of the buildings are now used by private companies as headquarters , others have a very derelict look. The whole area- even though it is home to the theme park- which was shut for the winter, has a neglected air about it. There are weeds growing everywhere but fountains are switched on, which seemed odd. Unlike the city a short distance away, there are no cafes or bars or other people around for that matter, just us meandering through. The car park that was created for the event is massive, it stretches for miles, and I really mean miles. Totally derelict, just the odd person or dog walker around. There is even a railway line terminating here, in the middle of nowhere a modern and apparently unmanned station, like a ghost station. At this point, across the river proper is open countryside, much flatter than I expected and very easy for local walkers and cyclists to get to - also very calm and quiet, a place to linger and enjoy the peace.

 

As usual I researched and discovered as we walked, we averaged around 13 miles a day and tried to get off the beaten track. We were out around 8.15, before sunrise, and had orange juice, coffee and Tostada with the locals for breakfast. The trouble is that there are many miles of walking in a relatively small area, some streets are only a few feet wide so there are a lot of them to explore. Incredible ancient churches and squares are around every corner- it's a very religious place - Catholicism rules in Spain. Unfortunately many are only a few feet away from the building next to it and it is difficult to get a decent shot of them. Seville is also famous, historically, as a producer of ceramic tiles. A building isn’t complete without a tile display of some sort and it would be very easy to make a project out of tiles alone. It may be a little boring for any companions though!

 

We walked the length of the embankment a couple of times, it has graffiti from end to end, several miles of massive concrete walls covered in everything imaginable, from marker pen scribbling to works of art. It was suggested to me that allowing people to paint here might prevent them from daubing property and monuments in the city- it hasn't! Most alleyways and shutters have been attacked to a greater or lesser degree. Spain has very high youth unemployment and maybe this plays a role. To be truthful though we haven't seen a city that's free of graffiti. The other problem is dogs- or what they produce, it's everywhere, absolutely everywhere, in a week we saw only one person remove his dogs mess. Fortunately the city streets are cleaned exceptionally well, some of the cleanest we have come across, men (and a lot of women) and machines are washing and sweeping endlessly.

 

Having had the wettest winter on record at home - almost three months of rain - we didn't want more rain but we got it. The upside was the water and the reflections that it created made photography on the cobbled streets more interesting, particularly at night. I usually find that it takes me a while to get into the groove on a trip and this one was no different, I didn't start shooting with total disregard - street shots- for a couple of days. Whilst the locals wore quilted jackets and scarves we got down to tee shirts at times, the warmer afternoons would be welcome in summer, never mind January, in Huddersfield. I envied the cyclists, being able to train in temperatures like this in winter - I wish! You need a lot less willpower to get out there and train hard in pleasant weather.

 

From a photography point of view I had a frustrating time, I never felt to get to grips with the place- other than on the streets at night. Writing this on my phone on the flight home, I haven't a clue what I've got to work with when I get back. I usually edit first and write later. Generally I have a first look, I'm disillusioned, I then revisit and see things differently- thankfully! Architectural shots with a grey sky could be destined for the monochrome treatment, we'll soon see. I'm still editing stuff from our London trip before Christmas, it's getting decent views in black and white and I quite enjoy looking at them myself.

We visited most of the notable tourist destinations, and went up anything that we could. Seville doesn't have a high point-it's flat! Nothing really stands head and shoulders above the city. The Cathedral tower is over 300 feet but the Cathedral itself fills a lot of the view on some aspects. Being square and having to look through bars in recesses you don't really get a completely open aspect. A new 600 foot tower is close to being finished, it's an office block and I couldn't find any mention of it being a viewing point in the future.

 

Oranges were the last thing on my mind when I suggested going to Seville. There are 25000 orange trees in Seville and now is the time that they are laden with big-and sour- Seville oranges, they are everywhere, apparently they are the property of the city authorities and will be harvested and sent to the UK to be made in to marmalade at some point in the near future. These trees will soon be covered in fragrant blossom, the city will smell beautiful for a couple of months. Studying the surrounding area it would be good to tour in March or April I would think, the scents, longer days and better weather would make for a fantastic trip. One for the future. The sunrise on our final morning was the best of the week, this was what we had looked forward to, we had to leave for the airport at 9.00...... Needless to say it was raining hard as we drove the last twenty miles home. Nothing new there then.

 

As usual I have aimed to present a pretty extensive collection of photographs of our chosen destination, some, at first glance will be pretty mundane shots of everyday life on the streets, often though, close inspection will reveal something humorous, something that needs a bit of thought. Others are definitely just people going about their holiday or work. Travelling with someone else it wouldn’t be fair to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to nail the perfect long exposure or HDR image of a cathedral or similar in perfect light – the one stunning shot to add to the portfolio- it’s not really my thing, I go for an overview of the place in the time available. Looking at the postcards locally it becomes obvious that stunning shots of some of these buildings are hard to come by. Heavily corrected converging verticals were quite obvious – and most likely will be in my own shots. As the owner of tilt and shift lenses I never travel with one – ever! My knees are already creaking from the weight of the bag.

 

1950s publicity brochure of the Rosengart Ariette, designed by Philippe Charbonneaux (1917-1998).

 

The Ariette was well received by the audience but selling rates stayed disappointing, because the car was not competitive by its high price.

Financial problems forced founder Lucien Rosengart to close the doors in 1955.

 

See also: www.club-rosengart.fr/automobiles-rosengart/apres-guerre/...

 

747 cc 4 cylinder engine.

Production Ariette: 1951-1955.

 

Taken from original publicity brochure, found in an interesting article by Tatra87 on curbsideclassic.com.

 

Amsterdam, Aug. 19, 2019.

 

© 2016/2019 curbsideclassic/Tatra87/Sander Toonen Amsterdam | All Rights Reserved

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www.onlineladyastrologer.com/kala-jadu-specialist.php

 

Ss. Quattro Coronati

 

La storia ed i nomi dei cosidetti santi Quattro Coronati sono stati fino a poco tempo fa uno dei punti più oscuri e difficili della cristiana agiografia; ma oggi, dopo gli studj del ch. De Rossi, la luce è fatta, il problema risolto. Gli atti dei santi surriferiti, il cui fondo è storico, ricordano due gruppi di martiri: l' uno, composto di cinque lapicidi e scultori cristiani nelle cave di Pannonia ai tempi di Diocleziano, benchè si debba sostituire al nome di quest' imperatore quello di Galerio; l' altro, di quattro corniculari romani. I primi cinque sultori ebbero nome Claudio, Castorio, Sinforiano, Nicostrato e Simplicio e furono martirizzati nel fiume Sava, perchè si erano rifiutati di scolpire la statua d' Esculapio; pur tuttavia poco prima avevano condotto a termine un simulacro del Sole in quadriga reggente i cavalli. Questa circostanza, come ha dimostrato il De Rossi, accresce il valore della narrazione degli atti, poichè è in perfetta armonia con il senso pratico della morale cristiana, la quale sapeva ben distinguere le opere d' arte che erano considerate come ornamentum simplex da quelle che ad idololatriae causam pertinebant, giusta la distinzione di Tertulliano. Nella seconda parte di quel racconto entrano in scena i quattro soldati romani che furono uccisi in Roma per avere negato di adorare un idolo d' Esculapio; martirio confuso più tardi con quello dei lapidicidi pannoni, ma che difatti é del tutto independente per il luogo dove si svolse e per l' epoca, giacchè accadde anteriormente ai tempi di Diocleziano. Essendo rimasti ignoti i nomi dei suddetti soldati furono poi confusi nei martirologj con altri martiri sepolti in Albano, cioè, Severo, Severino, Carpoforo e Vittorino. La confusione fra i martiri pannonici e i corniculari accadde quando quei primi furono trasferiti in Roma e sepolti in un cimitero della via labicana nel luogo detto ad duas lauros, e poi dei ss. Pietro e Marcellino, nel luogo stesso ove furono sepolti i corniculari. Si accrebbe questa quando i due gruppi furono portati alla vetusta chiesa, che sorge ancora sul Celio, per cura del papa Leone IV (a. 847‑855), dei quali già era stata decretata comune la commemorazione dal papa Milziade.

 

La chiesa fu adunque dedicata ai quattro anonimi corniculari, detti coronati dalla simbolica corona del loro martirio, e che nel secolo VII furono confusi col tzo gruppo dei sunnominati martiri d' Albano. Di questo titolo celimontano si fa menzione fino del tempo di Gregorio Magno i un sinodo romano, tenuto in quei tempi, benchè la chiesa sia anche più antica, risalga cioè al secolo V, in cui fu eretta nella contrada Caput Africae sulle ruine d' un edificio romano.

 

Onorio I la rinnovò dalle fondamenta, ma l' Ugonio propone che il papa Milziade ne sia stato il primo fondatore, e che sorgesse nel luogo ove furono gettati i corpi dei quattro corniculari suddetti. L' edificio originale di Onorio sventuratamente sparve in mezzo ai ripetuti restauri; però le mura medievali della bella chiesa torreggiano oggidì a foggia di quelle d' una rocca, e danno a quella contrada dal Celio un pittoresco aspetto. Leone IV, che ne fu cardinale, la ricostruì, e dei suoi lavori resta ancora l' ambulacro dietro la tribuna e l' epigrafe in marmo in cui sono nominati i santi che egli vi depose.

 

Nell' assedio e presa di Roma per opera del Guiscardo la chiesa cadde incendiata insieme a tutto il quartiere che si estendeva dal Laterano al Colosseo. Dopo quell' incendio, avvenuto circa il 1080, Pasquale II, nel duodecimo anno del suo pontificato, rialzà dalle fondamenta il sacro tempio, che poscia sotto Martino V fu di nuovo restaurato dal card. Alfonso Carillo spagnuolo, dal quale fu posta l' epigrafe seguente che ivi si legge:

HAEC QVAECVMQVE VIDES VETERI PROSTRATA RVINA

OBRVTA VERBENIS HEDERIS DVMISQVE IACEBANT

NON TVLIT HISPANVS CARILLO ALPHONSVS HONORE

CARDINEO FVLGENS, SED OPVS LICET OCCVPAT INGENS

SIC ANIMVS MAGNO REPARATQVE PALATIA SVMPTV

DVM SEDET EXTINCTO MARTINVS SCHISMATE QVINTVS.

 

In quella chiesa furono eletti papi Leone IV e Stefano VI.

 

Nei tempi più vicini ai nostri, Pio IV la riabbellì di nuovo, ed il monastero annesso, ove a lungo aveano dimorato i Camaldolesi, donollo nel 1560 alle povere orfane tolte dal loro monastero dell' isola tiberina: è il più antico dei conservatorj destinati a zitelle orfane di padre e madre.

 

La chiesa è divisa in tre navi sorrette da otto colonne di granito, sopra le quali i muri che si alzano a guisa di logge sono ornate di colonne simili, ma più piccole. Le navi laterali sono a volta, il soffitto di legno fu fatto fare nel 1580 dal card. Enrico, che poi fu re di Portogallo; il pavimento è d' opera cosmatesca. La tribuna di Pasquale II fu più tardi restaurata dal cardinal Millini. Sotto l' altare di s. Sebastiano, per due rampe di scale, si scende ad una cappellina sotterranea, ove si custodivscono le reliquie dei santi titolari e del martire Sebastiano.

 

Nel 1882, scavandosi sotto l' abside della chiesa, gli operai trassero in luce due frammenti di lapide monumentale, opera di san Damaso, nei quali si leggeva il residuo del vocabolo martyrium pASSI, indizio certissimo di elogio storico dei martiri. Questa scoperta fa congetturare al De Rossi che all' epoca di s. Damaso sorgesse già in questo luogo un oratorio in onore di questi santi, ove quel papa pose quell' elogio. Pasquale II nel 1112, come dice la lapide depostavi da quel papa, IVSSIT CAVARE SVB ALTARE QVOD PRIVS COMBVSTVM ET CONFRACTVM FVERAT ET INVENIT DVAS CONCAS VNAM PORPHIRETICAM ET ALIAM EX PROCONESSO IN QVIBVS ERANT RECONDITA SACRA CORPORA.

 

Quel papa ridusse la chiesa a proporzioni minori dell' altra distrutta dal Guiscardo. Si vede tuttora l' antica nave destra, adattata ad uso di refettorio dell' annesso monastero, con colonne assai più alte di quelle dell' odierna, e convenienti alle grandiose proporzioni d' alcune colonne superstiti nel secondo dei due grandi atrj della basilica.

 

Nei lavori del cardinal Millino nel 1624, che fece distruggere gli affreschi di Pasquale II, si rinvennero le reliquie depostevi del papa Leone IV, nominate nella lapide di Pasquale II; scoperta alla quale fu presente il celebre Antonio Bosio, che in luogo più profondo ne scoprì altre che Pasquale non avea veduto. Il capo del martire s. Sebastiano fu trovato entro bellissimo vaso d' argento smaltato e distinto da epigrafe votiva d' uno degli antecessori di Leone, Gregorio IV. Leone IV deponendovi quel suo tesoro, lo collocò in una delle cappelle delle reliquie, e vi fece scrivere le parole: † EGO · LEO · FECI †.

 

Molti oratorî e sacri edifizj circondavano quell' insigne monumento cristiano: d' uno di questi, scoperto in Roma nel secolo decimoquinto, ai tempi di Sante Bartoli, troviamo la seguente notizia nel Fea:

 

Nello stradone del Coliseo per andare a s. Giovanni alla mano diritta in un orto disotto ai ss. Quattro fu trovato fra le altre ruine antiche una stufa di bellissima disposizione, quale si conosceva essere dagli antichi cristiani ridotta in forma di chiesa, per alcune vergini sacre che vi erano dipinte, le quali dalle barbarie dei cavatori furono di subito scassate."

 

Da Le chiese di Roma di Mariano Armellini 1891

Raccolta Internet de Le chiese di Bill Thayer

Raccolta Foto de Alvariis

Rione Celio già Campitelli

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

El empleado “bomba de tiempo” podría conducir a clientes insatisfechos, compañeros de trabajo infeliz, litigios costosos, violencia en el trabajo, o en algunos casos, todo lo anterior. Cualquiera sea la forma de una explosión toma, sus efectos pueden ser devastadores. Así que, como de...

 

revistarecursoshumanos.com/2016/09/05/evitar-empleados-bo...

“. . . an optimistic mind-set finds dozens of possible solutions for every problem that the pessimist regards as incurable.” – Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati

 

- 45 Birmingham and Midlands artists and DJs launch Dead Wax Digbeth from Thursday 28th November

- Venue will be home to a collection of 4000 records, operating an ‘all vinyl, all the time’ policy

- Music fans invited to play the venue’s records or bring own vinyl to play at city’s newest music destination

- Craft beers from Beavertown, Laine Brew Co. and local breweries on offer all year round

 

Dead Wax Digbeth

28 Adderley St, Digbeth, Birmingham B9 4ED

www.deadwaxdigbeth.pub | @DeadWaxDigbeth

 

A new Birmingham venue and ‘vinyl bar’ will open its doors to music fans this weekend with a huge four-day launch featuring 45 bands, musicians, artists and DJs from across Birmingham and the Midlands.

 

Dead Wax Digbeth hosts a series of specially curated free events running across its three spaces from Thursday 28 November to Sunday 1 December - including two all-dayers, late-night DJ sets, rare live performances and acoustic sets.

 

Some of Birmingham’s hottest live acts, including Swampmeat Family Band, Brain Food, Violet, RISCAS, The Empty Page and Wax Futures will take to the stages at the 120/230/100-capacity multi-room venue, formerly punk, rock, metal and alternative haunt The Wagon & Horses in the city’s creative quarter of Digbeth.

 

Fully transformed by Brighton’s Laine Pub Co, Dead Wax Digbeth features a renovated and expanded building incorporating live music spaces both upstairs (120 capacity) and outside in the ‘Duck Bath’ yard (230 capacity).

 

The main bar area (100 capacity) will present a craft beer offering from Beavertown and Laine Brew Co. alongside guest draft lines from local breweries including Dig Brew Co, plus a Dead Wax Pizza menu with fresh carnivore, vegetarian and vegan choices overseen by city food tastemaker Anthony Duffy.

 

Music fans and vinyl lovers will be encouraged to choose and play albums and singles from the bar’s large 4000 record collection as well as enjoy vinyl-only sets from a diverse line-up of DJs in a bright and vibrant setting in the heart of Digbeth designed and created by local artists.

 

A mural, curated by in-demand street artist Gent48 featuring influential Birmingham bands, musicians and DJs including Big Bear Records, Birmingham Promoters, Catapult Club, Chicks Dig Jerks, ColdRice, Die Das Der, Distorted Tapes, Iron Man Records, Punch Records, This Is Tmrw, and Sweat amongst others will complete the visual identity for this latest addition to the city’s live music landscape.

 

The launch comes as good news in light of a number of concerns around Birmingham’s music and pub mainstays with city-centre venues including The Flapper, Scruffy Murphy’s and the Eagle and Tun all under threat from closure due to redevelopment.

 

Leading city live music bookers Birmingham Promoters, KILLER WAVE, Sonic Gun, and DIE DAS DER have all leant their industry expertise and support to the new venture, managed by former Sunflower Lounge boss and recording artist Ben Drummond.

 

Speaking ahead of the opening, Drummond said, “Its an incredibly challenging time for venues and bars in the city and across the UK so we’re doubly thrilled to be bringing Dead Wax Digbeth to life this week with a team that has worked very hard to create a very special offering. We’re hugely grateful to all of the local creatives who’ve helped us put together a full and exciting launch weekend programme and we look forward to contributing to the city’s cultural fabric, live music offering and UK touring map over the coming months and years.”

 

20 DJs from a number of well-known city music brands will take part in the opening weekend, including Cherry Bomb, Distorted Tapes, Kaleidoscope, Night Owl, Sweat Club, and Takin’ Care of Business, whilst the live billing boasts 25 live acts drawn from Birmingham and the Midlands’ flourishing indie, psych, art-rock, acoustic, rhythm and blues, heavy, punk, soul, math and pop scenes.

 

All media enquiries to Iron Man Records Patron and committed supporter of the cause:

 

Lyle Bignon

lyle.bignon@btinternet.com

+44 (0)97925 818231

 

Dead Wax Digbeth launch weekend listings

 

Dead Wax Digbeth Opening Night Party

1700 - 0300 Thursday 28 November 2019

Free

 

Main venue performances (1800 onwards) from:

 

Swampmeat Family Band

The Good Water

 

Main bar vinyl DJ sets (1800 onwards) from:

 

Richard March (Bentley Rhythm Ace, Pop Will Eat Itself) & Daniel Finnemore - DJ set

Cheese Dip (Sweat Club)

Joel Webster (Killer Wave, PNKSLM Recordings)

 

Duck Bath outdoor stage DJ sets (1800 onwards) from:

 

Cherry Bomb (Elizabeth Ilsley & Jonny Murphy)

Carlton Wainwright (Takin' Care Of Business)

 

Killer Wave present Dead Wax Digbeth launch Friday

 

1800 - 0300 Friday 29 November 2019

Free

 

Main venue performances (1800 onwards) from:

 

Cherry Pickles

Witch Fever

Brain Food

The Devil & Saint Joseph

Elephant Peel

 

Main bar vinyl DJ sets (1800 onwards) from:

 

Selextorhood

'T-Bird' Thomas Jones (Takin’ Care Of Business)

Mazzy Maryam Snape (The Night Owl)

 

Duck Bath outdoor stage DJ sets (1800 onwards) from:

 

Dizcoh

Sonic Gun

 

Saturday Dead Wax Digbeth Launch Alldayer

1200 - 0300 Saturday 30 November 2019

Free

 

Main venue performances (1700 onwards) from

 

Violet

RISCAS (DJ set)

George Pannell

Alex Ohm

Faux Palms

Boat To Row

Cheap Thrills (DJ set)

 

Duck Bath outdoor stage DJ (1300 onwards) and live performances (1400 onwards) from

 

Paid in Full (DJ Wayne Lango)

Issy Holmes

Louise Woodley

Jen North

Paper Buoys (acoustic set)

Alex Lleo

Midge

Esther Turner

 

Vinyl-only DJ sets in main bar (1200 onwards) from:

 

Weird Wax

Kaleidoscope

I Dig Your Wig (Dan Finnemore)

Randy Billings (The International Submarine Club)

 

DIE DAS DER present a Dead Wax Digbeth launch event

1500-2200 Sunday 1 December 2019

Free

 

Main venue performances (1500 onwards) from:

 

The Empty Page

WAX FUTURES

Exotic Pets

Modern Literature

SUE

Liars at the Witch Trial

 

Main bar DJ sets (1500 onwards) from:

 

Distorted Tapes

Ollie/NC

 

Birmingham Promoters

 

Birmingham Promoters are an independent live music, events and gigs promotions company based in Digbeth, Birmingham. They have hosted a diverse array of artists including Ed Sheeran, Ben Howard, Jake Bugg, Editors, Bastille, Peace, GZA (Wu-Tang Clan), Skepta, Tinie Tempa, Royal Blood, Gabrielle Aplin, Tom Odell, The Staves, Nick Mulvey, The Fall, Metronomy, Sam Fender and much more.

 

KILLER WAVE

 

Killer Wave has been putting on gigs and parties for seven years, pushing their brand of garage rock and psychedelia on stereos and promoting local, UK and worldwide live acts such as Black Lips, Shame, Sunflower Bean, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard to local favourites Black Mekon, Swampmeat, Mighty Young etc, working closely with PNKSLM records pushing parties all over the world.

 

DIE DAS DER

 

DIE DAS DER is a community of like-minded musicians, artists, bloggers, photographers, film-makers and journalists. They curate and organise events and aim to highlight Birmingham's thriving underground music scene; assisting acts with exposure and encouraging mutual promotion, resource sharing and networking.

 

Laine Pub Co

 

Founded 23 years ago, with a single pub in Brighton, Laine Pub Co has grown to become one of the most innovative pub companies in the UK. With over 60 pubs in Brighton, London and Birmingham including some of the most creative experiential pub offerings in the industry, ranging from retro gaming to escape rooms, virtual reality, circus acts and immersive theatre, Laine is now at the forefront of the UK’s leisure sector. Taking its inspiration from the vibrant pub and beer scene in the city of Brighton and Hove, Laine Brew Co creates beer imbued with flavour, experimentation and good times. Its beers are unpasteurised and uncompromising, meaning more flavour and more love. With a focus on consistent, sessionable beers, 2x3 supported with market-leading design and POS, Laine creates highly individual and authentic craft beer which is accessible to all.

Lego Series 11 scarecrow and series 9 chicken suit guy

I'm trying to get my dolly act together ><;

 

I've noticed this problem since I got her, but I did think it was stringing. I do my best to see if I can fix a problem before informing a company about it.

 

I had time to take both Lumis out and finally compare. The Lumi on the right is the Limited Vampire Lumi, the one that came in the special box, certificate, etc.

 

The one on the left is the extra body wrapped in that towel and I just put the extra head on it. The quality of the left doll is far better than the right.

 

I compared the elbow joint, even the stringing. I don't know what the problem is. I should not need to put wire in the doll's arms to get this to work.

 

Note also the left elbow doesn't even sit right. And the knees/legs are far worse to position. I don't know Lati mechanisms to fix the problem is if it's a mold issue.

 

SO, I'm asking latidoll if I can return that body with my whole Ruki doll for a replacement. I have never asked for anything from lati before, what do you all think?

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

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