Woke a little before 3am, for no good reason - so I decided to do something useful with the dark. Herewith the result.

Tombstone and plaque marking the grave of Sir George William Ross (1841 - 1914), fifth premier of the Province of Ontario (1899 - 1905). Also buried there is Catherine Boston Ross, his second wife, who died in 1902. Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, Canada. Winter afternoon, 2021. Pentax K1 II.

 

A short description of his life and career may be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_William_Ross

 

From www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ross_george_william_14E.html

 

ROSS, Sir GEORGE WILLIAM, educator and politician; b. 18 Sept. 1841 near Nairn in Middlesex County, Upper Canada, son of James Ross and Ellen McKinnon; m. first 1862 Christina Campbell (d. 1872), and they had three daughters and two sons; m. secondly 17 Nov. 1875 Catherine Boston (d. 1902) in Lobo Township, Ont., and they had a son and three daughters; m. thirdly 8 May 1907 Mildred Margaret Peel in Toronto; d. there 7 March 1914.

 

In 1831 James Ross, a shoemaker in Tain, Scotland, immigrated to Upper Canada with his wife, their four children, and two nieces. He purchased land in Middlesex in what would become East Williams Township. Born in 1841, the third son among eight children, George W. Ross perceived perhaps that his father’s moderate success was unlikely to advantage him and all his siblings. Or, experiencing the struggle of pioneer farming, he may have concluded that he was unsuited for agricultural life. He left in his teens to obtain an education and teach.

 

After acquiring a third-class certificate in 1857, Ross began teaching in the log school where he had been a pupil. Two years later he qualified for a second-class certificate. In 1866 he mounted what he termed a “public ‘crusade’” against the system of local superintendents, who, he argued, were lax in visiting schools and advising teachers. Instead, he advocated a county superintendency. Ross left teaching in 1867, when he bought the Strathroy Age from William Fisher Luxton*. Eking out a living, he sold it in 1868 or 1869 and purchased a partnership in the Seaforth Expositor, which he retained for an even shorter time. In 1868 he was made school superintendent for East Williams, and the next year he entered the Toronto Normal School. After he obtained a first-class provincial certificate in 1871, he was appointed inspector for east Lambton County. Ross also studied law, starting in the early 1870s, and in 1883 he would receive an llb from Albert College in Belleville.

 

From 1876 to 1880 Ross served on the Department of Education’s central committee of examiners. Originally established to certify teachers, it had been assigned administrative and policy duties by Adam Crooks*, Ontario’s first minister of education. Ross chaired its subcommittee on model schools and assumed responsibility for them as provincial inspector and for preparing the model school syllabus. Conservative critics accused the central committee of authorizing textbooks and work-books that its members had written, Ross’s contribution being a book of dictation exercises.

 

Despite its brevity, Ross’s newspaper work had confirmed his interest in politics. He was nominated to run for the House of Commons in 1867, and in the provincial election of 1871 he campaigned in Middlesex West for Alexander Mackenzie*, at the time an mp and the federal Liberals’ unofficial leader. Recruited to contest Middlesex West in the dominion election of 1872, Ross hesitated. He was inclined to the provincial legislature, where he felt he stood the best chance to rise. He also worried about his county inspectorship, since Egerton Ryerson*, Ontario’s chief superintendent of education, had questioned the propriety of his candidacy and had urged Mackenzie to have him resign. Once he was elected, however, any conflict of interest was forgotten.

 

The life of a backbencher held little appeal for Ross, who rarely participated in debate. When he did speak, on the Pacific railway or on tariff policy, he merely reiterated his party’s positions, though he did so with skill. On prohibition he was more creative. In 1873 he served on, and in 1874 chaired, a select committee which favoured prohibition, but he astutely recognized the damage that could be done to any party advocating restrictions that exceeded those required by public sentiment. Although he moved a resolution in 1875 in support of prohibition, in 1877 he opposed a similar motion on the grounds that “steady work” outside parliament would advance the cause more effectively. He therefore defended Richard William Scott’s Canada Temperance Act of 1878, which allowed for local option.

 

Ross sat in the commons for 11 years. His election in 1882 was successfully protested in October 1883. Rather than try to regain his seat, Ross accepted the invitation of Oliver Mowat*, premier of Ontario, to join his cabinet as minister of education. He was elected for Middlesex West at a by-election on 14 Dec. 1883. Mowat’s first choice had been George Monro Grant*, the principal of Queen’s College in Kingston, but Grant had insisted that education be removed from the political realm and Mowat did not want education to revert to the sort of bureaucratic fiefdom that had existed under Ryerson. In Ross, Mowat found a minister who was acceptable to the teaching profession and could carry a marginal riding, and who could administer a department in ways that would extend state authority.

 

Ross’s predecessor, Crooks, had made some progress in wresting control from the department’s bureaucracy, though ill health and the recalcitrance of his deputy, John George Hodgins, impaired his effectiveness. Among Ross’s first initiatives was a new set of internal regulations in April 1884, which diminished Hodgins’s authority by giving the minister responsibility for personnel, purchasing, reports, and correspondence that was not strictly internal. His Public Schools and High Schools acts of 1885 stipulated formal ministerial control and legislative approval for all regulations pertaining to schools and teachers. The talent that would be drawn to the department was remarkable – among the influential educationists recruited were John Millar* and John Seath. Though it included men of different political persuasions and many with difficult personalities, Seath for instance, they accepted ministerial responsibility.

 

Secure within the management of his department, Ross proceeded to create the Liberal alternative to Ryerson’s model. For Ryerson free public schools constituted a total system. Those destined to go on would prepare for university and the professions in the tuition-charging high schools. Ross, on the other hand, argued that an integrated system, from kindergarten (introduced in 1883 with Crooks’s support) to university, provided “the great stairway of learning” necessary for meritocratic rise.

 

Each step, Ross maintained, was worthy of attainment but it should also qualify a student for the next step. Under this system, departmental examinations at all levels took on greater significance as accreditation. Ross applauded the growing desire among students who had no intention of going further to take entrance and leaving exams. As he maintained, “Every certificate granted has a commercial value.” He reported with pride that in 1893 his department had issued nearly 750,000 examination papers for various levels of certification. The objection that uncontrolled certification might produce more teachers, lawyers, or doctors than could be gainfully employed offended him as an élitist response. “I am not prepared to admit that the son of the farmer or mechanic should be restrained in his aspirations,” he retorted.

 

Implementing the “educational ladder” meant overcoming institutional self-interest, especially among the universities. In claiming the state’s authority to qualify students for entry into the universities and the professions, Ross sought to introduce common matriculation requirements, components of which the department recognized for the non-professional or academic certification of teachers. Treating the University of Toronto as the provincial university, in the regulations of 1885 he tied the high-school course of study to the matriculation examinations of that institution. He then persuaded it to accept exams for second- and first-class teaching certificates as the equivalent of junior and senior matriculation. He thus acquired for his department the right to judge through its own examinations, not those set and marked by university officials, whether provincial educational standards were being met.

 

In an earlier move to exert control, in 1884, Ross had entered discussions on university federation. Originally suggested by William Mulock*, vice-chancellor of the University of Toronto, as a way to enhance its claims for greater funding, federation was seen by Ross as a way to diminish the sectarian nature of Ontario’s universities; he made it clear that the state would not support denominational teaching. He therefore translated the proposal into legislation in 1887. Federated denominational institutions, if located in Toronto, could draw upon the provincial university for instruction in arts, while providing training in theology and other subjects judged central to a religious education. The sciences and professional training would be reserved to the University of Toronto. In return, the colleges would not grant degrees in areas other than theology. Wycliffe College accepted federation in 1889, Knox College and Victoria University [see Nathanael Burwash] the next year, but St Michael’s College negotiated special terms and Trinity, Queen’s, and Toronto Baptist College (chartered as McMaster University in 1887 over Ross’s opposition) all refused.

 

Ross’s desire for an integrated system was complicated by provisions for minority education. The separate schools and bilingual education drew sharp criticism from the Conservatives, whose English-only policy was reinforced by Protestant reaction in the late 1880s and 1890s to the Jesuit estates question [see D’Alton McCarthy*; François-Eugène-Alfred Évanturel*]. Ross none the less accepted the constitutional right of Catholic parents to separate schools. His policy, he argued repeatedly, was “to promote efficiency” in the separate system, improve its fiscal base, and make it functionally more like the public system. For this reason he amended legislation in 1886 to facilitate the allocation to the separate schools of taxes paid by Catholic tenants and corporations with Catholic shareholders. Other changes made the school year conform to that of the public system and gave separate-school trustees comparable responsibilities. Maintaining that Catholics were overlooked when municipal councils made appointments, Ross obtained legislation in 1885 which permitted separate-school trustees to appoint a Catholic to the local high-school board. Ross offered only what had been given to public trustees.

 

Critics also ignored public-school practice when they denounced Ross and Mowat for not extending the secret ballot to the election of separate-school trustees. Though permitted since 1885 when requested by public-school electors, the ballot was by no means widely used. As anti-Catholics vented their anger over the lack of democratic electoral practice, pressure built on the church, which reluctantly acquiesced in 1894. Ross’s critics tried to make the case that there had been collusion between Liberals and Catholics, but he had, in fact, adopted a course of moderation. He opposed Catholic demands, such as the appointment of a deputy minister for separate schools, that were not compatible with greater state authority. He insisted too on authorizing the texts to be used in separate schools, making teachers meet the certification standards of the public system, and inspecting the schools.

 

To its list of complaints about minority education, the Protestant opposition added bilingual instruction. French-language schools dominated debate in the legislature in the spring of 1889 and were a central issue in the election of 1890. But Ross refused to end French-language instruction. When he spoke in March 1889 of the requirement for education to “assimilate the people and the languages of other nationalities,” he did not necessarily anticipate a unilingual nationalism. If the use of a foreign tongue was made “a stigma . . . which precludes . . . the full privileges of citizenship,” he reminded Ontarians, then immigrants would find Canada inhospitable. Since the “Anglo-Saxon race” would remain dominant in Canada, he confidently believed, linguistic unity was not essential for a patriotic citizenry. Still, stressing the much-used argument that the language of the state was English, Ross had made the study of English and teaching in English, as much as possible, mandatory in 1885; if taught exclusively, French or (in such areas as Waterloo County) German could breed sectarian and unpatriotic values. Publicly, for political reasons, Ross emphasized that French-speaking parents wanted their children to learn English. It was far more difficult to explain how their equally strong desire to have their children learn to read and write in French could be accommodated in the curriculum. He therefore attributed the slow progress in English through the late 1880s to a lack of bilingual teachers and texts.

 

An inquiry in 1889 took the actual measure of French-language instruction. It discovered readers with Catholic content in the public schools and reported that religious instruction – Catholic in the French-language public schools and both Catholic and Protestant in the German public schools – was being given during regular hours, contrary to regulations. As well, history texts in French public and separate schools were found “written in a spirit unfriendly to the British Empire and to the development of a patriotism embracing the whole Dominion of Canada.” In reaction, Ross reminded trustees and inspectors about the regulations concerning religious instruction and authorized the introduction of the English-French readers used in the Maritimes. A model school to train French-speaking teachers, authorized in 1886, was finally opened in 1890 at Plantagenet, in Prescott County.

 

A second inquiry, in 1893, assured Ross that English teaching and students’ proficiency had improved in both public and separate schools. The controversy over religious instruction and the enforcement of regulations pertaining to it, however, had sparked the shift of 27 schools in Prescott and Russell counties from the public to the separate system. Though Ross no doubt regretted this shift, he could take encouragement in the demands of some Catholic parents for educational improvement, as exemplified by the request of the Ottawa separate-school trustees for an investigation of their schools. The inquiry of 1893 also led to an evaluation of teaching by the religious orders, and strengthened the demands of Catholic parents that teaching brothers and sisters accept the process of certification prescribed for lay teachers.

 

Though Ross resisted church influence, he saw religious instruction as a necessary part of moral education. He quickly learned, however, that sectarianism and theological difference could frustrate the introduction into the classroom of anything aimed at promoting a “common Christianity.” In December 1884 he made religious instruction obligatory in the form of opening and closing prayers and the reading of Scripture. The so-called Ross Bible program, however, proved offensive to many Protestants and Catholics. Seeking accord, Ross accepted suggestions from the Catholic archbishop of Toronto, John Joseph Lynch*, and from a Protestant committee. But other bishops – James Joseph Carbery of Hamilton, James Vincent Cleary* of Kingston, and John Walsh* of London – did not share Lynch’s view. Moreover, the anti-Catholic Toronto Daily Mail [see Christopher William Bunting*] objected even to the consultation with Lynch and denounced the scriptural extracts as mutilations. Although Ross argued that the readings facilitated rather than distorted students’ understanding, concessions had to be made. Critics were privately conciliated, objectionable parts of the readings were revised, the actual Bible was permitted as an alternative, the exemption of Catholic children and teachers was guaranteed, and a compromise with the offended bishops was quietly negotiated by Ross’s cabinet colleague Christopher Finlay Fraser*. Despite this backtracking, Ross remained committed, as he put it in 1887, to making Christianity “the basis of our school system.”

 

Religious instruction was not the only approach to moral education. Ross believed that the most effective means were indirect: students picked up values and influences from their surroundings and from lessons in school. Thus, authorized readers contained selections that would appeal to a child’s “moral and religious nature.” Discipline in school should mirror the family. Regulations therefore obliged teachers to exercise the discipline of a “judicious parent” and, through example, instruction, and authority, “imbue every pupil with respect for those moral obligations which underlie a well formed character.” To promote civic service, in 1885 Ross introduced Arbor Day, on which children planted trees, cleaned up the school grounds, and shaped an environment that symbolized the ideal for society.

 

In 1896 Ross asked his public-school inspectors about the outcome of state education, namely the policies of the Department of Education over 20 years and the compulsory attendance laws of 1871 and 1891. Had the moral standing of teachers and students improved? The consensus was positive, but some questioned whether improvement had penetrated to the true, inner characters of individuals. Though surveillance of both children and teachers was more effective, attendance remained irregular; only 50 per cent of school-age children attended in 1887. Aware perhaps of the limits of moral education, Ross introduced more punitive disciplinary measures. In 1891, for instance, police commissions or school trustees were enabled to appoint truant officers. In his report of 1898 Ross speculated that even more rigorous measures were needed.

 

Much of what Ross accomplished as minister of education had been started by his predecessors. The assertion of ministerial responsibility, the enforcement of school attendance, the attachment of secondary and post-secondary education to the public system, the professional training of teachers, and the preparation of textbooks under departmental supervision completed a generation of school promotion in Ontario. To these major achievements Ross added a number of specific measures that extended departmental and ministerial authority: compelling through order in council in 1884 the admission of women to the University of Toronto [see Sir Daniel Wilson*], supporting kindergartens and developing specialized training for their teachers, introducing temperance education on an optional basis in 1885, encouraging manual training and domestic science, and promoting technical and adult education. But Ross’s most important contribution was administrative. Amendments shortened the legislation covering education and gave him the authority to use departmental regulations to make the educational ladder operate more efficiently as a system of accreditation.

 

Ontario’s schools had provided Ross in his youth with a way out of country life and limited prospects. As industrialization and urbanization transformed the province, he was satisfied that others too could demonstrate strength of character – for him the prerequisite for success – by meeting the challenges set, evaluated, and certified by the Department of Education. Conservative leader James Pliny Whitney, however, judged that Ross’s concern with accreditation had impaired the ability of elementary schools to provide adequate training for the children of the “poorer classes,” at the same time as departmental parsimony had left the secondary system and the University of Toronto underfunded. Perceiving a weakness in Liberal policy, from 1897 Whitney shifted opposition criticism to these areas, away from minority rights. As well, Ross’s refinement of Ontario’s educational system was receiving mixed assessments at meetings of the Dominion Educational Association and other professional bodies. Within the system his call for more coercive discipline implicitly questioned the effectiveness of the system in forming character among students. Ross responded eloquently, if defensively, reminding critics that the Ontario model had been adopted by other provinces. “I think we have gone about as far as we need to go,” he concluded in 1899. No doubt too he took satisfaction in having his accomplishments acknowledged by honorary degrees from the University of St Andrews in Scotland (1888), Victoria (1892), and the University of Toronto (1894); similar honours would be granted by McMaster (1902) and Queen’s (1903).

 

As minister, Ross had involved himself steadily in the administrative minutiae of his department, and his assertion of authority was often quite abrasive. He could be tenacious and mean-minded once he had embarked on a course of action. His campaign against Hodgins, himself a difficult man to work with, revealed this unpleasant side of Ross’s character. He not only marginalized Hodgins, afraid perhaps of the political repercussions of dismissing him, but also found ways to insult him and in the end Hodgins resigned in 1890. In another instance Ross engaged Professor Eugene Emil Felix Richard Haanel in a nasty and unnecessarily prolonged dispute over the latter’s loss of his position at Victoria when it federated with the University of Toronto. Similarly, Ross’s relations with G. M. Grant and William Mulock, both strong-willed men, were strained as they battled about questions of ministerial authority over universities. Mulock denounced Ross for acting like “a Bismarck or Mentchikoff, but not a representative of the free people of Canada.”

 

With the retirement on 20 Oct. 1899 of Arthur Sturgis Hardy*, premier since 1896, Ross as senior minister became premier and provincial treasurer. He faced a difficult situation. Under Hardy the strength of the Liberals had seriously declined, even though the province was in good shape economically. The extension of Ontario’s northern boundaries, the assertion of provincial rights over crown lands, and the development of resources had produced a revenue base which allowed the government to build a surplus. The opening of northern Ontario promised a revival of the pioneering era that had sustained Liberalism under Mowat. At the same time Ontario’s schools aimed at instilling in the province’s youth the self-discipline, individualism, and civic morality that Liberalism had associated with the farmer and the artisan. But Ontario had changed: it was increasingly urban and the urban population was concentrating in the largest centres. Ross nevertheless moved to focus his government’s attention on the north – “New Ontario” – and on the resource sector.

 

In the first year of his administration Ross commissioned an extensive survey of northern Ontario. It lauded the potential of the northeast’s Great Clay Belt as a new frontier for settlement. The premier subsequently delivered promotional speeches, wrote to British newspapers encouraging immigration, pressed the federal government to direct agricultural immigrants to the north, and set up a bureau of colonization. To attract capital, his government continued to distribute generously rights to exploit resources and offered subsidies for rail construction. Pulpwood-cutting concessions were sold privately, not at public auction as demanded by the Conservatives. Mining properties could be held on terms suited to the financial means and speculative interest of the investor, and in 1900 the government eliminated royalty payments. That it should undertake the construction, in 1903, and later the operation of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway did not necessarily contradict its rejection of public enterprise in other sectors: the line was analogous to government-built colonization roads and drew enthusiastic support in the north and from Toronto business.

 

The stimulation of manufacturing proved more difficult. In 1900 Ross extended the manufacturing condition imposed on pine by the Hardy government to require that spruce pulpwood cut on crown land be processed in Canada. Though several pulp-and-paper companies attempted to establish operations, the recession of 1903 and the American tariff on Canadian pulp, paper, and newsprint contributed to their collapse. Changes to the Mines Act, also in 1900, levied fees on nickel ore that would be remitted if it was refined in Canada. Interested American capitalists appealed for federal disallowance, charging that the province had no authority to regulate trade. Though Liberal Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier agreed, he hesitated for political reasons to disallow the legislation, preferring to have Minister of Justice David Mills* communicate only the grounds upon which it might be set aside. Ross angrily proposed submitting the matter to the courts, but he soon had second thoughts: unlike trees cut on crown land, ore was extracted from private property and the courts could rule against the province. As well, he may have concluded that Attorney General John Morison Gibson*, who was also the solicitor for a syndicate promoting a smelter in Hamilton, had exaggerated the viability of nickel refining in Canada [see Andrew Trew Wood*]. Ross never referred the act to the courts nor did he request the lieutenant governor’s assent.

 

Pride of place in Ross’s industrial ambitions for the north was held by Francis Hector Clergue*’s complex of hydroelectric, railway, chemical, pulp-and-paper, and iron and steel companies at Sault Ste Marie. Having showered the enterprise with bonuses, Ross felt obliged to step in when Clergue failed to pay his workers and creditors in September 1903. Militiamen were sent from Toronto to control demonstrations and on 1 October Ross guaranteed the overdue wages of Clergue’s umbrella company. In March 1904 the government loaned $2 million to a reorganized corporation. Challenged by Conservative leader J. P Whitney, who warned that the province could end up taking it over, Ross rejected the prospect. The government could always sell the property. For Ross, the responsibility of the liberal state was only to create a climate within which individual initiative could thrive.

 

Ross similarly rejected provincial ownership of a utility to generate and transmit hydroelectricity from Niagara Falls. He saw no reason to assume public debt for a service which could be enjoyed only by a small portion of the population. Preferable were franchises that could generate public revenue. Rights at Niagara had initially been assigned in 1892; in 1900 the government signed a second agreement, with an American syndicate. Three years later a third franchise was granted, to the Electrical Development Company, controlled by Toronto entrepreneurs William Mackenzie*, Frederic Nicholls*, and Henry Mill Pellatt*. Despite pressure from manufacturers and municipal reformers, Ross refused to reserve sites for a power plant owned by a municipal co-operative, although legislation in 1903 did allow for a municipal commission to undertake transmission at its own expense. A charge of corporate influence seemed plausible because Ross at the time was president of Manufacturers’ Life Insurance Company, which was interested in the stock of Electrical Development and on whose board Mackenzie and Pellatt also served, and J. M. Gibson was involved in another power company. Ross did nothing to allay suspicions when, in the dying days of his government, he granted the remaining generating sites to Electrical Development. The popular appeal of the public-power movement [see Sir Adam Beck*] clearly baffled Ross, and in subsequent speeches and writings he attempted with little success to grapple with the challenge of a new conception of the state.

 

The mining and hydroelectric questions do not reveal Ross at his best. He may have allowed others, especially Gibson, too much latitude in determining the course of policy. When he could choose his associates and maintain discipline through ministerial authority, as he had done in the Department of Education, he functioned well. But, as the first among equals, he was at a disadvantage; he could not or would not command. Lacking perhaps the political smartness of Mowat or Hardy, he relied too heavily for political initiative on Provincial Secretary James Robert Stratton, who was not much more than a ward-heeler, and Gibson, whose social élitism bred a disdain for the niceties of democratic procedure.

 

In contrast to power, prohibition would have been a liability for any government. Though a long-time temperance man, Ross endeavoured to separate the issue from his electoral campaigns. The decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in November 1901 that the Manitoba prohibition act was constitutional encouraged the cause in Ontario. In February 1902, following Manitoba’s example, Ross introduced legislation which allowed prohibition should it be favoured by a number equal to a majority of those voting in the election of 1898. In a referendum on 4 Dec. 1902, the number of votes fell short. Five days later, in a speech to the Sons of Temperance in Toronto, Ross declined to take further action [see Francis Stephens Spence].

 

The disappointment of prohibitionists would affect the election of 1905, but of immediate significance were charges of electoral scandal. Under Mowat and Hardy a machine, directed by the Ontario Liberal Association, had operated efficiently to get the vote out and maintain the Liberals’ hold on power. During the 1890s the machine began to give way. By relentlessly protesting irregularities, Whitney skilfully made corruption a political issue. To investigate charges in the Elgin West election in 1898, Ross named a commission of inquiry shortly after assuming the premiership. Its discovery that the ballots had been burned seemed to reveal a cover-up. More damaging were the accusations made on 11 March 1903 by Robert Roswell Gamey, the Conservative member for Manitoulin. Following the election of 1902, he charged, a Liberal organizer had approached him to support the government in exchange for money and the control of patronage in his riding; he reputedly received a payment in the outer office of Provincial Secretary Stratton. Although a royal commission struck by Ross cast doubts on Gamey’s evidence and exonerated Stratton, pressure did not let up. In September 1904 a trial concerning charges arising from the by-election of 1903 in Sault Ste Marie revealed that the Liberal victor had been assisted illegally by F. H. Clergue’s Algoma Central Railway. A company steamship had transported 20 men from the Michigan side to vote under the names of dead or absent miners. Aware of plans for the deception, the Conservative candidate had complained to Attorney General Gibson, who took no action.

 

Opinion on Ross’s involvement differed. Reporter Hector Willoughby Charlesworth* judged him “guileless,” unaware of the “unscrupulousness . . . around him,” while John Stephen Willison* believed that Ross, out of desperation, participated in what was going on. Both were probably right. Though no machine politician like Hardy, Ross knew from experience the ends to which organizers at times had to go to secure victory; he did not need to know the details of every constituency fight, only to assure that in the wake of an election controverted returns were managed to contain any damage. But going into the election of January 1905, he had to clean house; he accepted Stratton’s resignation and demoted Gibson. In addition, in November 1904 a new organization, the General Reform Association of Ontario, replaced the OLA, whose general secretary, James Vance, was removed as organizer. These steps, along with the premier’s confession – “We have sinned and repented and are sorry for it” – went unrewarded, as the Conservatives swept to a 40-seat majority.

 

Moral revulsion, prohibition, and the separate schools issue all contributed to the loss, as Ross admitted. The fact was, moreover, that despite a long record of victories the Liberal hold on office, even before Ross’s short term, rested on a popular vote only marginally higher than that of the opposition. In the election of 1902 the party had won a majority with less than half the vote, and a shift in a few ridings in 1898 or 1902 could have produced much different results. Furthermore, although the Ross government claimed credit for the long history of Liberal legislation on industry, its record, beyond its commitment to resource development, was modest. Measures such as bonuses to the sugar-beet industry, the promotion of the dressed-beef trade, and the appointment of a good-roads commissioner and the allocation of a million dollars for highway improvement, though useful programs, likely did not arouse much partisan enthusiasm. With hindsight, Ross would state in Getting into parliament and after (Toronto, 1913) that there had been nothing left to “appeal to the vivid conceptions of Government which attract the masses.” Liberalism had exhausted itself in Ontario.

 

Ross led the opposition through two sessions before he happily accepted a Senate seat on 15 Jan. 1907. Perhaps because some party veterans questioned his executive ability and commitment to “true Reform principles,” the cabinet position Ross desired did not materialize, but other honours did: a knight bachelorhood in 1910 and leadership of the Liberals in the Senate in 1911. Advancing a principled role for the Senate as a trustee of provincial rights and a defender of empire, Ross would lead its obstruction of the Conservative government of Robert Laird Borden* after 1911.

 

As a politician Ross’s strength was his power of oratory. He was widely regarded as one of Canada’s finest speakers, and, although the written versions of many of his addresses lack intellectual substance, his parliamentary debating skill was substantial. Much of his imperialism was the enthusiasm of a sentimental politician delivering an after-dinner speech, and empire was a subject to stir English Canadian audiences, especially in the years following Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee and the South African War. On this emotional level, imperialism provided a vehicle for the patriotic feeling that Ross believed was essential for sound citizenship. To this end, as minister of education, he had compiled Patriotic recitations and Arbor Day exercises (Toronto, 1893) for school use. Later, in 1899, he introduced Empire Day into the schools [see Clementina Trenholme]. In speeches he emphasized the national unity that was possible within imperialism. Just as people of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Gallic ancestry had all contributed to the grand achievements of empire, so too could people of diverse backgrounds realize grand attainments in Canada. There were limits on this diversity, however. In an address in England in 1901, Ross felt free to express concern about the emigration of Doukhobors, Galicians, and Mennonites, people who “have to go through a course of naturalization.” On his return to Ontario, he stated that, instead, “we want . . . people who are of our own kith and kin, men . . . educated in the confident belief in British institutions.”

 

At the practical level, although Ross wished for closer relations within the British empire, he doubted the British commitment to defend Canadian interests, especially in negotiations with the United States. Imperial federation interested Ross as the final step in the devolution of sovereignty, from the British parliament to an imperial parliament of Britain and the dominions, but the prospect of federation of this sort, he claimed, was distant. In the interim, more modest measures would satisfy him, among them the promotion of capital investment and immigration to Canada, and preferential trade. The British prejudice for free trade, he suggested, could be overcome by directing the revenue from preferential tariffs to imperial defence.

 

After 1909 the issue of imperial defence generated deep partisan divisions. Ross strongly supported Laurier’s Naval Service Bill of 1910, which called for the establishment of a small Canadian navy that would contribute to imperial defence in times of emergency. Following Launer’s defeat in 1911, the Liberal-dominated Senate stubbornly opposed the Borden government’s legislative agenda. Bill after bill was rejected or amended; most significant was the Naval Aid Bill. Unable to foresee any emergency that would justify a grant of $35 million to the Royal Navy and angered by Borden’s inaction in establishing a Canadian navy, the Liberals dragged out debate in the commons from 5 Dec. 1912 until May, when the bill passed under closure. The Conservative leader in the Senate, James Alexander Lougheed*, negotiated an agreement with Ross whereby the government would accept an amendment to provide appropriation for a Canadian navy if the Senate would pass the bill. Ross had wanted a stronger commitment to an independent navy, but he privately favoured the bill as a “contribution for the protection that Britain has afforded us for the last 150 years.” As well, he had grown unhappy with Laurier’s naval policy and had talked about leaving the party over reciprocity. Furious that the commons had been gagged, the other Liberal senators and Laurier rejected any compromise. Ross accepted his party’s position and led the Senate opposition in forcing the bill’s return to the commons on 30 May 1913.

 

As Ross feared, the defeat provoked demands for Senate reform. When Borden’s proposal to enlarge the Senate with more representation from the west was rejected by the upper house, the prime minister seriously contemplated a plebiscite on an elected senate. In defence, Ross assembled ideas he had advanced on various occasions and published them as The Senate of Canada . . . (Toronto, [1914]). More than partisan rhetoric, it advanced a credible ideological justification. Only by agreement among the original provinces could the Senate be reformed, he argued.

 

In opposing Senate reform and, before that, public ownership, Ross adopted positions which appeared out of sympathy with popular democratic sentiment. In his ideal society, men took individual initiatives and enjoyed the fruits of their efforts. It was, he stated in the Senate in May 1913, “a fact that the most successful men in our professions, and in commercial life, have been raised upon the farm up to a certain age, and with that strong mental and physical push which they possess, because of their environment, they have been able to grapple more successfully with the problems and the difficulties that they encountered.” Such had been his own experience. But by the 20th century an increasingly smaller proportion of the population had been born on the farm, and the values associated with that background had lost much of their political appeal.

 

The naval debate was Ross’s last major campaign. On occasion the rheumatism which had afflicted him since the 1880s kept him away from the Senate, and in the spring of 1913 he carne down with a mild attack of pneumonia. On 24 Jan. 1914 he collapsed suddenly while speaking to the Senate. Rushed back to Toronto, he remained in hospital until his death on 7 March; he was survived by his third wife, two sons, and six daughters.

 

Please,share your thoughts,every kind of advice is useful!

 

Visit my other pages:

www.facebook.com/photonvisual/

www.instagram.com/photonvisual/

http://www.photonvisual.com

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

The Lockheed L300 was originally conceived as a military strategic airlifter that served under the designation C-141 Starlifter with the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), its successor organization the Military Airlift Command (MAC), and finally the Air Mobility Command (AMC) of the United States Air Force (USAF).

 

In the early 1960s, the United States Air Force's Military Air Transport Service (MATS) relied on a substantial number of propeller-driven aircraft for strategic airlift, such as the C-124 Globemaster II and C-133 Cargomaster. As these aircraft were mostly obsolescent designs and the Air Force needed the benefits of jet power, the USAF ordered 48 Boeing C-135 Stratolifters as an interim step. The C-135 was a useful stop-gap, but only had side-loading doors and much of the bulky and oversize equipment employed by the U.S. Army would not fit.

 

In the spring of 1960, the Air Force released Specific Operational Requirement 182, calling for a new aircraft that would be capable of performing both strategic and tactical airlift missions. The strategic role demanded that the aircraft be capable of missions with a radius of at least 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km) with a 60,000 pounds (27,000 kg) load. The tactical role required it to be able to perform low-altitude air drops of supplies, as well as carry and drop combat paratroops. Several companies responded to SOR 182, including Boeing, Lockheed, and General Dynamics.

 

Lockheed responded to the requirement with a unique design: the Lockheed Model 300, the first large jet designed from the start to carry freight. The Model 300 had a swept high-mounted wing with four 21,000 pounds-force (93 kN) thrust TF33 turbofan engines pod-mounted below the wings. An important aspect was the cabin's floor height of only 50 inches (130 cm) above the ground, allowing easy access to the cabin through the rear doors. The two rear side doors were designed to allow the aircraft to drop paratroops (in August 1965 the aircraft performed the first paratroop drop from a jet-powered aircraft). The rear cargo doors could be opened in flight for airborne cargo drops. The high-mounted wings gave internal clearance in the cargo compartment of 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, 9 ft (2.7 m) high and 70 ft (21 m) long. The size enabled the Starlifter to carry, for example, a complete LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile in its container. The aircraft was capable of carrying a maximum of 70,847 pounds (32,136 kg) over short distances, and up to 92,000 pounds (42,000 kg) in the version configured to carry the Minuteman, which lacked other equipment. The aircraft could also carry up to 154 troops, 123 paratroops or 80 litter patients.

 

President John F. Kennedy's first official act after his inauguration was to order the development of the Lockheed 300 on 13 March 1961, with a contract for five aircraft for test and evaluation to be designated the C-141. One unusual aspect of the aircraft was that it was designed to meet both military and civil airworthiness standards, since Lockheed hoped to sell the aircraft, much like the C-130 Hercules, to airlines, too. The prototype C-141A (s/n 61-2775) was manufactured and assembled in record time. The prototype was rolled out of the Lockheed factory at Marietta, Georgia on 22 August 1963 and first flew on 17 December, the 60th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight. The company and the Air Force then started an operational testing program and the delivery of 284 C-141 aircraft.

 

The effort to sell the aircraft on the civilian market included some detail changes like a different yoke and cockpit equipment. Two versions were offered: the original aircraft (designated L300-100 StarLifter), based on the C-141’s hull, and a strongly stretched version, 37 feet (11 m) longer than the L300-100, and marketed as the L300-200 SuperstarLifter. Specialized versions like an aerial firefighting water bomber were proposed, too, and an initial L300-100 prototype made a global sales tour (which was later donated to NASA).

Response from the civil market was rather lukewarm, though, and resulted only in orders from Flying Tiger Line and Slick Airways for four aircraft each. Nevertheless, production of the civil StarLifter was launched in 1966, since the differences to the military aircraft were only minimal and Lockheed considered the financial risks to be acceptable. However, only twelve aircraft were initially ordered when production was greenlighted, but there was the expectation to attract more sales once the aircraft proved itself in daily business.

 

Despite a very good service record, this did not happen. To make matters worse, unexpected legal problems seriously threatened the newly introduced transport aircraft: In the early 1970s, strict noise limits for civil aircraft threatened operations, esp. in the USA. Several American L300 operators approached Lockheed for suitable noise reduction modifications, but the company did not react. However, third parties that had developed aftermarket hush kits for other airliners like the Boeing 707 or the Douglas DC-8 chimed in and saw their opportunity, and in 1975 General Electric began discussions with the major L300 operators with a view to fitting the new and considerably quieter Franco-American CFM56 engine to the transport aircraft. Lockheed still remained reluctant, but eventually came on board in the late 1970s and supported the conversion kit with new nacelles and pylons. This engine kit was unofficially baptized the “StarSilencer” program, which was offered as a retrofit kit and as an option for newly built aircraft, which were designated L300-1100 and -1200, respectively.

 

The kit was well received and all operational private L300s were upgraded with the fuel-efficient 22,000 lb (98.5 kN) CFM56-2 high-bypass turbofans until 1984, preventing a premature legal end of operations in wide parts of the world. The benefits of the upgrade were remarkable: The new engines were markedly quieter than the original Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-7 turbofans, and fuel efficiency was improved by 20%, resulting in a higher range. The CFM56s also offered 10% more thrust than the TF33-P-7s’ 20,250 lbf (90.1 kN each) output, and this extra thrust improved the aircraft’s take-off performance, too.

The USAF did not adopt the “StarSilencer” upgrade and rather focused on the fuselage extension program that converted all existing C-141As into C-141Bs from 1979 onwards, so that the aircraft’s payload potential could be better exploited. However, the new CFM56 engines made the L300 more attractive to civil operators, and, beyond the upgrade program for existing airframes, a second wave of orders was placed for both the L300-1100 and -1200: until 1981, when civil L300 production was stopped, eighteen more aircraft had been ordered, primarily for operators in North America and Canada, bringing total production to 40 machines, plus the initial demonstrator prototype.

 

One of these late buyers outside of the American continent was Air Greenland. Founded in 1960 as Grønlandsfly, the airline started its first services with Catalina water planes and within the decade expanded to include DHC-3 Otters as well as Sikorsky S-61 helicopters, some of which remain in active service. Grønlandsfly also picked up a Danish government contract to fly reconnaissance missions regarding the sea ice around Greenland.

During the 1970s, Grønlandsfly upgraded its airliner fleet, and mining in the Uummannaq Fjord opened new business opportunities beyond passenger services. To enter the bulk cargo business for mining companies with routes to Canada, North America and Europe as well as civil freight flights for the U.S. Army in Greenland (e. g. for the USAF’s Sondrestrom and Thule Air Bases), the purchase of a dedicated transport aircraft was considered. This eventually led to the procurement of a single, new L300-1100 StarLifter with CFM56-2 engines in 1980 – at the time, the biggest aircraft operated by Grønlandsfly. Domestic as well as international passenger service flourished, too: By the end of 1979, the number of Grønlandsfly passengers served annually exceeded 60,000 – this was more than the population of Greenland itself! However, the airline’s first true jet airliner, a Boeing 757-200, began operation in May 1998. Before, only propeller-driven aircraft like vintage Douglas DC-4 and DC-6 or the DHC Twin Otter and Dash 7 turboprop aircraft had been the main passenger types. In 1999, the airline already served 282,000 passengers, nearly triple the number at the end of the previous decade.

In 2002 the company rebranded itself, anglicizing its name to Air Greenland and adopting a new logo and livery. The L300-1100 was kept in service and remained, until the introduction of a single Airbus A330 in 2003 (purchased after SAS abandoned its Greenland service and Air Greenland took these over), Air Greenland’s biggest aircraft, with frequent cargo flights for the Maarmorilik zinc and iron mines.

 

StarLifters remained in military duty for over 40 years until the USAF withdrew the last C-141s from service in 2006, after replacing the airlifter with the C-17 Globemaster III. In civil service, however, the L300, despite its small production number, outlasted the C-141. After the military aircraft’s retirement, more than twenty StarLifters were still in private service, most of them operating under harsh climatic conditions and in remote parts of the world.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 4 - 6 (2 pilots, 2 flight engineers, 1 navigator, 1 loadmaster)

Length: 145 ft (44.27 m)

Wingspan: 160 ft 0 in (48.8 m)

Height: 39 ft 3 in (12 m)

Wing area: 3,228 ft² (300 m²)

Empty weight: 136,900 lbs (62,153 kg)

Loaded weight: 323,100 lbs (146,688 kg)

Max Payload, 2.25g: 94,508 lb (42.906 kg)

Max Takeoff Weight, 2.25g: 343,000 lb (155,722 kg)

 

Powerplant:

4× CFM International CFM56-2 high-bypass turbofans, delivering 22,000 lb (98.5 kN) each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 567 mph (493 kn, 912 km/h)

Cruise speed: 495 mph (430 kn, 800 km/h)

Range: 4,320 mi (2,350 nmi, 6,955 km)

Ferry range: 7,245 mi (6,305 nmi, 11,660 km)

Service ceiling: 41,000 ft (12,500 m)

Rate of climb: 2,600 ft/min (13.2 m/s)

Wing loading: 100.1 lb/ft2 (490 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.25

  

The kit and its assembly:

This is another project I had on my agenda for a long time, it was inspired by a picture of the civilian L300 demonstrator and the question what a StarLifter in civil service could look like? Such a type (like the C-130) would only make sense for bulk cargo transport business, and probably only for rather remote locations, so I went up North with my thoughts and initially considered Air Canada or Buffalo Airways as an operator, but then remembered Air Greenland – a very good fit, and the current livery would make the L300 a colorful bird, too.

 

The basis is Roden’s C-141B kit, AFAIK the only affordable IP kit of this aircraft when I had the idea for this build a while ago; A&A Models released in the meantime a C-141A in June 2021, but it is prohibitively expensive, and Anigrand does a C-141A resin kit. The Roden kit is a sound offering. The parts fit well, even though the seams along the long fuselage and the wing roots need attention and PSR, and at the small 1:144 scale the (engraved) surface details are just fine. It’s not a stellar model, but a sturdy representation with surprisingly massive parts, esp. the fuselage: its walls are almost 3mm thick!

 

However, I did not want to build the stretched USAF version. The original civil L300 had the same fuselage as the C-141A, and I found this option to be more plausible for the haul of singular heavy equipment than the stretched version, and the decision to shorten the C-141B also had logistic reasons, because I’d have to store the model somewhere once finished… And, finally, I think that the original, short C-141 is just looking good. ;-)

 

So, I simply “de-plugged” the fuselage. In real life, the C-141B had two extensions: a 160” plug in front and another 120” insert behind its wings. This translated into 2.8 and 2.1 cm long sections on the model that were simply sawed off from the completed fuselage. Thanks to the massive fuselage walls, gluing the parts back together was an easy task, resulting in a very stable connection. The seams were hidden under some PSR, as well as two windows. The C-141B’s fairing for the refueling receptive was also sanded away. The front plug was easily hidden, but the rear plug called for some body sculpting, because the fuselage has a subtle bulge around the cargo door and its ramp – the shapes in front and behind it don’t differ much, though.

 

Another change for a more fictional civil variant: the engines. This was a lucky coincidence, because I had a complete set of four CFM56 turbofan nacelles left over from my shortened Minicraft DC-8 build a while ago, and the StarLifter lent itself to take these different/more modern engines, esp. for the civilian market. The swap was not as easy as expected, though, because the C-141’s nacelles are much different, have longer pylons and their attachment points in the wings were OOB not compatible at all with the CFM56 pods. I eventually filled the attachment slots in the wings and glued the complete CFM56 nacelles with their short DC-8 pylons directly under the wings, blending these areas with PRS. The engines’ position is now markedly different (higher/closer to the wings and further forward), but the engines’ bigger diameter IMHO justifies this change – and it turned out well.

 

The rest of the Roden model was left OOB, I just added a ventral display adapter for the flight scenes.

  

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, I was looking for a “bush pilot” operator of suitable size in the Northern hemisphere, and Greenland Air was chosen because of its exoticism and the airline’s distinctive and simple livery. Does anyone know this rather small airline at all? Potential freight for the US Army as well as for private mining companies with lots of heavy equipment made the StarLifter’s operation plausible.

 

To make the plan work I was lucky that Draw Decal does an 1:144 sheet for the airline‘s (sole) Boeing 757, and its simple post-2002 all-red paint scheme was easily adapted to the StarLifter. The fuselage and the nacelles were painted with brushes in Humbrol 19 (Gloss Red, it comes IMHO close to the rich real-world tone), while the wings and the engine pylons became Humbrol 40 (Glossy Light Gull Grey). For some variety I added a medium grey (Humbrol 126, FS 36270) Corroguard panel to the wings’ upper surface, later framed with OOB decals. The white door markings came from a generic PAS decals sheet. All decals were very thin, esp. the Draw Decals sheet, which had to be handled with much care, but they also dried up perfectly and the white print inks turned out to have very good opacity. Adapting the Boeing 757 decals to the very different C-141 hull was also easier than expected, even though the "Air Greenland" tag on the nose ended up quite far forward and the emblem on the fin lots its uppermost white circle.

 

The cockpit, which comes with no interior, was painted in black, while the landing gear wells and struts were painted in a very light grey (Humbrol 196, RAL 7035) with white rims.

 

Panel lines were emphasized with a little black ink, and the cockpit glazing turned out to be a bit foggy - which became only apparent after I added the red around it. In order to hide this flaw I just laid out the window panels with Tamiya "Smoke".

 

Finally the model finally received an overall coat of gloss acrylic varnish from a rattle can.

  

A colorful result, even though the bright red C-141 looks unusual, if not odd. The different engines work well; with the shorter fuselage, the new, wider nacelles change the StarLifter’s look considerably. It looks more modern (at least to me), like a juiced-up Bae 146 or a C-17 on a diet?

 

Did you know that there are many useful tools available to all Potted SL players - new and old alike? Here are some of the important links below!

 

How To Play Potted:

pottedinsl.com/how-to-play/

 

Potted Frequently Asked Questions:

pottedinsl.com/faq/

 

Potted Support :

pottedinsl.com/support/

 

Helpful Watering Tools:

pottedinsl.com/hand-watering-star-level-calculator/

pottedinsl.com/watering-can-calculator/

 

Third Party Community Markets & Auction Houses:

pottedinsl.com/community-markets/

 

Third Party Community Events Listing:

pottedinsl.com/community-events/

 

Potted Official Blog For All Your News & Updates:

pottedinsl.com/blogroll/

 

Potted Patreon:

pottedinsl.com/patreon/

 

Potted Flickr Page & Group:

www.flickr.com/photos/196221434@N06

www.flickr.com/groups/14816989@N20/

 

Potted Facebook Page:

www.facebook.com/PottedSL

New Islington, Manchester.

Useful for zipping around cratered planetoids, nothing stops MR-MOON.

113/120 - Useful - 120 Pictures in 2020

38/100 - Close to Home COVID-19 Quarantine - 100x: The 2020 Edition

 

It's our 59th day in self-quarantine. Staying at home except for walks with our dog and weekly trips to the supermarket. Almost 80 days since my last haircut and it's been looking a bit shaggy. Hair salons and barber shops are still closed. So I ordered one of these hair clippers from Amazon and checked out a few do-it-yourself haircut videos on YouTube. Thought about it for a few days and decided today was the day. Figured the worst case situation is that my hair would look short and crappy instead of long and shaggy. Just in case, I had a hat ready to go. To my surprise, it was relatively easy and my hair looks half-way presentable. Not that there's anyplace I can go where I need to look presentable!

 

I have several Realist (5 perforation) and European (7 perforation) stereo cameras who's image sizes are not included in other film size comparisons I have seen. For that and getting a true feel for the differences in image sizes I made the following scale drawing. I hope you find it useful as well. I have tried to include all of the common (at not so common) frame sizes for both 35mm and 120/220 film. Note that the frame size for 120/220 varies a bit depending on the camera so take all of these sizes as nominal, and not absolute.

Awakening from the dream of conceptual thinking follows a certain route and process. The Zen Circle of Enlightenment is a useful way of understanding this. This post does not cover the practices that help this evolve. It simply shows the route and process of what happens for freedom from the conceptual world to be directly experienced and lived. Click here to download this graphic: Zen Circle of Enlightenment

 

Zero Degrees – The Beginning

 

We begin in this map at zero degrees. We are completely attached to our thoughts. We see the world and ourself completely through thoughts, concepts and beliefs. We don’t yet realize that these are just abstractions of reality and not reality itself. We believe this conceptual world IS reality. We believe our thoughts ARE reality. In spiritual terms we might say we are living completely in a dream or illusion.

 

90 Degrees – The First Step Toward Freedom

 

When we begin a spiritual practice, we move to 90 degrees on this map. We start learning new concepts, spiritual concepts. We leave some of our old concepts and beliefs behind and pick up new ones. If we read and study The Heart Sutra, for instance, we might now say that Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form, where at zero degrees we were believing that Form is Form and Emptiness is Emptiness.

 

We can get very excited about our new discoveries. They feel very liberating. We find new friends who are also practicing these new ways of thinking and experiencing. We find new teachers who lead us deeper into these new ideas and beliefs. It’s a very exciting time. But it can also be a little frustrating. We’ve got all these new and exciting concepts and beliefs, but somehow we’re still not awake. Somehow we still experience suffering in our lives. We may even tell ourselves that we are free and awake because we’ve had some amazing experiences, but deep inside we know this is not true. Deep inside, we still experience an incompleteness.

 

That’s because, even though these are new and exciting thoughts and beliefs, they are still only thoughts and beliefs. Reality is completely beyond all thoughts and beliefs, even spiritual ones. Given the powerful conditioning we’ve all undergone, it may be hard to accept this. But eventually, through frustration and continued suffering if nothing else, we break through. We break through the barrier of thought.

 

180 Degrees – The First Glimpse of Freedom

 

In Zen koan practice, we call this The First Gate. The purpose of our koan practice is to introduce this impossible impasse, barrier or gate that the mind of thought cannot get through. No matter how hard we try, none of our usual mental strategies work. The only way through is without the mind. Finally, in that great breakthrough, body and mind drop away. Because this is beyond the mind, there is nothing we can say about it. None of our mental labels can describe what this is. In Zen, we call this Emptiness. It is completely beyond all words and thoughts. It is not nothing. It is not everything. It is not inside. It is not outside. It is not duality. It is not nonduality. It is not self. It is not other. It is not existing, nor is it not existing. There is absolutely nothing we can say about this.

 

Now we have come face to face with reality, but we don’t yet know what this is. All our words, concepts, beliefs, knowledge and previous experiences cannot touch this. All the spiritual knowledge and experiences we accumulated at 90 degrees cannot touch this at all. We are completely emptied out and all there is is reality itself.

 

Quite often people become a little unsettled and resistant to this complete freedom at first. They may quickly resort to thoughts in an attempt to exert at least a little imagined control. That’s unfortunate, but it’s the nature of the conditioned mind. The longer we stay in this freedom from thought, the more wonderful we realize it is. Here we are directly experiencing life, reality, without any thoughts getting in the way. The longer we stay here, the more we realize that this is the very source of the peace, love, contentment, freedom, creativity and wisdom we have been seeking. This is it. This is our True Self, even if there is not a thing we can say about it.

 

Because this freedom from thought is so liberating, we can also become attached to this stage and not move on and embody it in the world for the benefit of all beings. Eventually most of us do want to do this. We realize we are not separate from any being, unconditional love is our very nature, and so we move on.

 

270 Degrees – Embodying Freedom

 

At 270 Degrees, we’re free to use language, concepts, and thoughts without any attachment to them. They’re just language, concepts and thoughts. They have no reality or validity beyond that. When they’re useful, beneficial and appropriate, we use them. Otherwise we remain silent. Great creativity flows through some of us in this stage. But we’re not attached to it. It doesn’t even feel like we’re doing anything. It’s simply happening by itself. It’s simply life happening.

 

Some us find ourselves as spiritual teachers here. We feel called to help others discover this great freedom and liberation from suffering. Although people may become attached to our words, we never are. And we do our best to encourage them to see all our words as merely pointers to something beyond words and thoughts. It is never the words we are pointing towards. It is always the freedom beyond words and thoughts.

 

Although we’ve learned to use words and concepts again to communicate, the underlying emptiness and freedom remains. In the Zen tradition teachers often say things that sound like nonsense to the conditioned mind in an effort to help serious students break free of the prison of their conditioned thoughts. That’s the purpose of Zen koans. When we’re free of the conceptual dream world, what appeared as nonsense is completely understood as pointing directly at reality. It’s often a time of great hilarity, without any thoughts about why it’s so funny.

 

Here we’re free to use words, thoughts and actions in any way they are truly beneficial without having the slightest attachment to them. It’s like being a bucket without a bottom. Whatever pours in immediately leaves without a trace. In this way, we live in freedom. In the Christian bible, it’s called living in the world but not of it.

 

360 Degrees – Returning Home As Freedom

 

At 360 degrees on this circle, we have returned home. We live fully in the world, but without any attachment or resistance to any of it. We live in complete freedom. Now we can say that “mountains are mountains” without any attachment or belief in these words. The difference between saying “mountains are mountains” at zero degrees with attachment and belief and saying “mountains are mountains” at 360 degrees with complete freedom is profound. From the outside, it may appear that these are the same, but they are not at all. No longer imprisoned by our thoughts, no longer imprisoned by a sense of separation, we are free to be fully in the world and act in the highest benefit for all beings.

 

That doesn’t mean our journey has ended. In one sense it has just begun. But it’s no longer a personal self with needs and goals taking this journey. The journey is happening by itself. In every moment it is unfolding fresh, new and alive. Whatever arises in each moment is the journey. And each moment is fully complete in and of itself. There is no longer a desire to get something or get somewhere. The fullness of life is revealed in every moment. What more could be asked for? This is returning home.

 

n-lightenment.com/zen-circle-enlightenment/

on Ravelry here

There are plenty of unexceptional pictures of ambulances and this is another but this subject, like many others, sees regular changes and the common-place of today becomes something of the past. This small part of a growing document created by many people might one day be a useful reference.

 

South Central Ambulance Service Ford Mondeo Diesel Estate HV14AXO/ST798 was in Hazelholt Drive, Havant.

 

200_2_P1010993

Name: Trix-E

Species: Mechanoid

Homewrold: Gigathon 7

Height: 5'6"

Weight: 387lbs

Exposed studs on model: 13

823 Pieces

Version: Final

 

Trix-E is a mechanoid (living robot being) from the Gigathonian cluster of planets. She has a cheerful and mildly sporty personality and is able to make friends easily. She enjoys aerobic activity and shopping for stylish armor mods and enhancements. Her career is in the (not-so)glamorous world of retail selling a variety of goods that robotic citizens need for their every day lives. She has a sister named Mag-E who is a weapons fanatic that she shares an apartment with. They get along well for the most part but can come to a squabble over conflict of interests, fashion, or hobbies.

 

On her back are a pair of omni-direction twin jetpacks. They are her most expensive upgrade that she had been saving credits for years to buy. They allow her to fly and hover short distances, making her the envy of her peers and eligible for certain athletic groups such as high tier aero gymnastics and hyper lacross. The second modification she purchased were the twin plasma blasters she wears on her wrists. A valuable self defense weapon for young lady bots like her, but she mostly wears them for looks.

 

Beneath her armor lies the many advanced mechanisms and circuits that compose a citizen of the Gigathonian cluster. Some of the intricate moving parts are fragile, yet easily replaced if damaged. Her bodies construction would equate to Earth technology about a century or two from the present. Her anatomy vaguely resembles that of a human, with some organs mirroring our own albeit in a much more cybernetic way with the visible part of her core showing in the base of her neck. Her equivalent of a blood stream would be her oil and coolant systems. She uses liquid cooling throughout her body with passive radiators in key locations like the back of her head, upper arms, and inner thighs. The harder she’s working the more heat flows from these vents. Like other similar mechanoids, she must undergo regular maintenance in order to retain peak functionality, similar to hygiene in humans. Gigathonians are able to detach limbs and open body panels to a certain degree with only mild discomfort. This helps when doing repairs or upgrades.

 

Her lower arms have compartments that the hands can retract into from which she can deploy an assortment of items, almost comical in scale from simple tools to weapons. The repulsor nodes on her shoulders are useful for deflecting lifes many jostles and bumps and aide her in mobility. Her shoulders contain maintenance panels filled with useful information and widgets. Her feet also contain repulsor nodules on the bottoms and backs of the heels to assist in maneuverability.

 

flagged safe© All rights reserved

ODC - umbrella

  

always useful in the rain

It's still useful to the occasional cat.

Love the pieces I styled her in, I find sometimes the most random pieces are the most useful. Literally one of my fav Bratz mini bags ever, I believe its Feelin’ Pretty Yamins?

I was invited to spend two days at Europe’s most comprehensive IoT Event. This leading forum focused on case studies that show today’s Industry and Enterprises leveraging IoT technologies to transform their business through creating value and efficiencies.

 

The Internet of things (stylised Internet of Things or IoT) is the internetworking of physical devices, vehicles (also referred to as "connected devices" and "smart devices"), buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data.

 

"Things," in the IoT sense, can refer to a wide variety of devices such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, electric clams in coastal waters,[16] automobiles with built-in sensors, DNA analysis devices for environmental/food/pathogen monitoring or field operation devices that assist firefighters in search and rescue operations.[18] Legal scholars suggest to look at "Things" as an "inextricable mixture of hardware, software, data and service". These devices collect useful data with the help of various existing technologies and then autonomously flow the data between other devices. Current market examples include home automation (also known as smart home devices) such as the control and automation of lighting, heating (like smart thermostat), ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) systems, and appliances such as washer/dryers, robotic vacuums, air purifiers, ovens or refrigerators/freezers that use Wi-Fi for remote monitoring.

The Ever Useful container ship travels under the Golden Gate Bridge on a foggy day in San Francisco, California.

Want a photography critique and a free lesson learned each day? Check out www.photography-critique.com. Learn something useful in under a minute!

 

_MG_8692-1r -day 3

Useful put-to-together for a wrist ______. Basically, I've used it for trying multiple things, but I like having the bayonet as some sort of "laser."

 

The U-Clip gives it a way to click on to the minifigure's hand, the spike gives it some cool "round/middle" piece, and the part that you use on top is up to you! Be creative. :)

Probably to get some much needed motive power east, this manifest gives the appearance of having seven units powering up front.

 

Alas not, only the first three are doing anything useful, the other four are just freeloaders. Still, no complaining here, looks are everything.

 

The train is seen approaching King Hill, Idaho, alongside the rather scenic Snake River. I kinda fell on this place, thanks to my 'getting off the Interstate wherever possible' policy.

 

Sometimes, falling is good.

 

8927 EMD SD70AH

6529 GE AC4400CW

8112 GE ES44AH

8906 EMD SD70AH

4139 EMD SD70M

6363 GE AC4400CW

9814 ex Chicago N.Western GE C44-9W

 

7 September 2018

 

We've had a few fairly strong earthquakes recently which I think have woken Seiji and I up to the fact that there's a very real possibility that the great "Tokai Earthquake" might happen while we're living in Tokyo. We decided to make up an emergency kit which we could use should we have to get out of our apartment and not be able to return, or that would be useful if we were without water or power for a few days (we have more water stored in the apartment too).

 

It's not entirely finished, there's still room in the bag which I think I might fill with some more dried food and maybe some light t-shirts or something like that. Oh and not pictured are the two bars of chocolate which would just melt if we left them out the fridge at the moment!

 

Here's hoping we never have to use it!

Sample image taken with a Tamron 20-40mm f2.8 Di III VXD. If you find my reviews and samples useful, please treat me to a coffee at www.paypal.me/cameralabs

 

These samples and comparisons are part of my Tamron 20-40mm f2.8 Di III VXD review at:

 

www.cameralabs.com/tamron-20-40mm-f2-8-di-iii-review/

 

Feel free to download the original image for evaluation on your own computer or printer, but please don't use it on another website or publication without permission from www.cameralabs.com/

Useful electric/diesel pairing EU07 121 (12) and SM42 3104 is upon one of the slacker sections with ageing infrastructure at Dulowa with a heavy bogie tank train west at 09.45

Location is the Krakow-Katowice main line before Trzebinia and Operator is ZPNTMiU Tabor of Debica.

14th October 2016

I have read that pennies can be useful in making wishes. Toss a penny into some water, such as a bird bath and make a wish as it hits the water.

 

It took many shots before I was able to get the splash in my shot. It's not the clearest, but when I looked at the photo carefully, I think my wish may come true – if you look closely at the splash, you can see the genie and he is smiling.

 

For the 2020 Weekly Alphabet Challenge and my POTD.

www.malegroomingacademy.com/

Sample image taken with a Canon PowerShot G1X Mark III. If you find my reviews and samples useful, please treat me to a coffee at www.paypal.me/cameralabs

 

These samples and comparisons are part of my Canon PowerShot G1X Mark III review at:

 

www.cameralabs.com/canon-powershot-g1x-mark-iii-review/

 

Feel free to download the original image for evaluation on your own computer or printer, but please don't use it on another website or publication without permission from www.cameralabs.com/

 

once known as Jews Ear, now PC deems it to be Jelly Ear.

 

Jews Ear is a rubbery ear-like fungus that is also known as Judas's ear fungus, or as the jelly ear fungus. This fungus is conspicuously ear shaped, ranging from purple to dark brown or black in colour with a rubbery texture, and most often found on dead elder trees but also on elm and beech trees. It was said that Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, hanged himself on an elder tree, which is the origin of the name.

 

This intriguing name stuck, as the taxonomic name Auricularia means ear and the epithet "auricula-judae" means "the ear of Judas."

 

It is pale brown in colour, and really does resemble a human ear in size, shape and texture. Generally it is about 6 cm across. When young it is gelatinous and pliant, but as it gets older it goes black and hard. The spores are white and it grows singly or in groups on old wood. There are no poisonous species that it would be confused with.

 

It is one of the few fungi that has the ability to withstand freezing temperatures. This is a useful attribute, since it develops new growths in January, which is normally the coldest month of the year in Britain. It can actually freeze solid, and when thawed out shows no ill effects. It can be found all year long. It is found throughout Europe, Asia, the United States and Australia.

 

This species is used often in Asian cooking because although it lacks a strong taste, it absorbs the flavours of other foods and provides delicate texture in Chinese and Japanese dishes.

 

*****Don't try any of the following text;

 

Besides its culinary value, Auricularia also has significant medicinal properties and has been used for used for thousands of years for the treatment of various things in traditional herbal remedies, especially in China. Chinese believe them good for infections of the lungs because they remove irritations an smooth it surface. They also recommend them for haemorrhoids and as cleansing agents for both stomach and intestines. It was used to treat such widely varying conditions as hemoptysis (spitting up blood), angina (cardiac pain), diarrhoea, and warding against gastrointestinal upset. According to the Doctrine of Signatures, a theory popular in Europe in the 1800's, plants and fungi resembling certain parts of the body could be used to treat ailment of that part of the body. Since the fungus resembles the folds of the throat, Auricularia boiled in beer, milk, or vinegar was used to treat throat ailments. Because its gelatinous consistency could bind eye medicine, it was also often used as a salve to treat eye ailments.

 

"Modern" medicine has yielded other secrets from Auricularia. It has been shown to block blood clotting by obstructing the platelets. There have actually been cases of internal bleeding from particularly sensitive people who accidentally ate too much sweet and sour soup combined with stir-fry containing this fungus. There is some evidence that ingesting Auricularia regularly in small doses can be therapeutic in preventing strokes and heart attacks.

 

Other therapeutic uses of Auricularia from modern medicine include lowering blood cholesterol and triglycerides. There is even some evidence it can play a role in treating diabetes They have also been found to have antitumour, cardiovascular, antiviral, antibacterial and antiparasitic effects.

The Luxury of being yourself

 

We have selected pictures on our website, but can always add more depending on the requests we do get and the current trend in the world of luxury fine art:

wsimages.com/

 

We do once in a while have discounted luxury fine art, please do keep checking:

www.wsimages.com/clearance/

 

Fine Art Photography Prints & Luxury Wall Art:

www.wsimages.com/fineart/

 

We do come up with merchandises over the years, but at the moment we have sold out and will bring them back depending on the demands of our past customers and those we do take on daily across the globe.

 

Follow us on Instagram!

www.wsimages.com/fineart/

 

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/william.stone.989/

 

500px:

500px.com/p/wsimages?view=photos

 

Twitter:

twitter.com/William19073051

 

LinkedIn:

www.linkedin.com/in/william-stone-6bab1a213/

 

Pinterest:

www.pinterest.co.uk/wsimages_com/

 

We tend to celebrate light in our pictures. Understanding how light interacts with the camera is paramount to the work we do. The temperature, intensity and source of light can wield different photography effect on the same subject or scene; add ISO, aperture and speed, the camera, the lens type, focal length and filters…the combination is varied ad multi-layered and if you know how to use them all, you will come to appreciate that all lights are useful, even those surrounded by a lot of darkness.

 

We are guided by three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, our longing to capture in print, that which is beautiful, the constant search for the one picture, and constant barrage of new equipment and style of photography. These passions, like great winds, have blown us across the globe in search of the one and we do understand the one we do look for might be this picture right here for someone else out there.

 

“A concise poem about our work as stated elow

 

A place without being

a thought without thinking

creatively, two dimensions

suspended animation

possibly a perfect imitation

of what was then to see.

 

A frozen memory in synthetic colour

or black and white instead,

fantasy dreams in magazines

become imbedded inside my head.

 

Artistic views

surrealistic hues,

a photographer’s instinctive eye:

for he does as he pleases

up to that point he releases,

then develops a visual high.

- M R Abrahams

 

Some of the gear we use at William Stone Fine Art are listed here:

www.wsimages.com/about/

 

Some of our latest work & more!

www.wsimages.com/newaddition/

 

Embedded galleries within a gallery on various aspects of Photography:

www.wsimages.com/fineart/

 

There are other aspects closely related to photography that we do embark on:

www.wsimages.com/blog/

 

All prints though us is put through a rigorous set of quality control standards long before we ever ship it to your front door. We only create gallery-quality images, and you'll receive your print in perfect condition with a lifetime guarantee.

 

All images on Flickr have been specifically published in a lower grade quality to amber our copyright being infringed. We have 4096x pixel full sized quality on all our photos and any of them could be ordered in high grade museum quality grade and a discount applied if the voucher WS-100 is used. Please contact us:

www.wsimages.com/contact/

 

We do plan future trips and do catalogue our past ones, if you believe there is a beautiful place we have missed, and we are sure there must be many, please do let us know and we will investigate.

www.wsimages.com/news/

 

In our galleries you will find some amazing fine art photography for sale as limited edition and open edition, gallery quality prints. Only the finest materials and archival methods are used to produce these stunning photographic works of art.

 

We want to thank you for your interest in our work and thanks for visiting our work on Flickr, we do appreciate you and the contributions you make in furthering our interest in photography and on social media in general, we are mostly out in the field or at an event making people feel luxurious about themselves.

   

New Orleans from the Mississippi.

 

Some geography of New Orleans. The location and geography of New Orleans is unique in America. Most of the city is well below sea level, except for the French Quarter which was built on a natural levee of the river in the 1700s. As the city has expanded special levees, pumps and flood gates have been erected around the city. When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 the storm itself did damage to New Orleans but the major devastation came from the levees failing and water flooding at least 80% of the city area. It is useful to remember that 50% of New Orleans city is water and not land! Its location on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, near the delta bayous and swamps was the raison d’être for the city. It was to control all navigation and commercial activity on the river and to provide a safe harbour as close as possible to the Gulf of Mexico. Because of its strategic location it has always been the prize for invaders during wars. The city has a tropical climate and the regions north of the city along the banks of the Mississippi were and are major sugar plantation areas, not cotton plantation areas. You have to travel upstate in Louisiana to find the cotton growing areas. This tropical climate along one of the world’s major water courses meant until recently that the area was plagued with Yellow Fever, malaria and other deadly illnesses. To the north and east of the city is Lake Pontchartrain, a huge body of water; in fact the city is bordered by water on three sides. By road the mouth of the Mississippi is over 100 miles away but this is because the river follows a circuitous route to the mouth of its delta. The city metropolitan area has a population of 1.1 million, exactly the same as the population of Adelaide. Although the population fell after Hurricane Katrina the population is now 90% of what is was before the hurricane. There is little evidence of flood damage in the areas that we will see as tourists. The French Quarter was not flooded because the founding French settlers sensibly chose a high site for their city.

 

Some early history of New Orleans. The city was founded in 1718 by the French Mississippi Company, a major trader in furs bought from the Indians up river. They got the local Indians, the Chitimacha to cede land to them. The Company named the city after the Duke of Orleans who was the Regent of France at that time. After the French Wars between the Indians, British, French and Spanish in America from 1756-63 the French ceded New Orleans to the Spanish. The Spanish held New Orleans from 1763 to 1801 when Napoleon defeated the Spanish and New Orleans and its territories to the west were returned to France. As Napoleon needed more funds to continue his Napoleonic Wars with Britain and others he soon (in 1803) sold New Orleans and all territories west of the Mississippi to President Jefferson for the small sum of $15 million. West Florida, New Orleans and the west comprised over 800,000 square miles! The Louisiana Purchase covered - Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nth & Sth Dakota, Oklahoma & parts of Texas and Wyoming.

 

When the French settled New Orleans they built a trading port city of wooden buildings on the high ground along the banks of the Mississippi. The streets were named after the royal houses of France and Catholic saints, hence Bourbon Street after the Dukes of Bourbon, not the whisky. Local pine was the timber used for building the houses, often on brick pylons to raise the houses above any possible flood threat. The compact town was destroyed by two major fires during the Spanish ownership of Louisiana in 1788 and again in 1794. The city was rebuilt in brick, with wrought iron balconies in the Spanish style usually with central courtyards. So most of what we see today in the French Quarter or Vieux Carré is actually of Spanish design and from the era of Spanish building in the late 1790s. So the French Quarter is really the Spanish Quarter and the Spanish buildings include the three major public buildings of this era- the Cathedral of St. Louis, and the adjoining Cabildo and Presbytere. The first St. Louis Cathedral was built in 1781; the second in 1725; and the third in 1789. That third structure in Spanish style was almost totally rebuilt in 1850 in the style of the previous cathedral.

 

The Strategic Importance of New Orleans. Not long after the Americans bought New Orleans a major war broke out between England and her former American colonies. War raged from 1812-14 when the British, amongst other achievements, sailed up the Potomac River in Washington and burnt down the White House and attacked the national capital. As the port that controlled the Mississippi and the river system that went up to the British colonies in Canada the British wanted to retake New Orleans. A young American officer, Andrew Jackson (later President Andrew Jackson) led the American forces in a battle with the British. The battle of New Orleans (remember the hit song about it in 1959?) took place in January 1815. It was the final battle of the War of 1812 and despite bad odds Andrew Jackson and the Americans prevailed and won the battle. Hence the main square in New Orleans is Jackson Square with a fine statue of the later President on horseback is in the centre of the square. And again during the Civil War both the Confederates and Unionists wanted to control New Orleans. During the Antebellum period New Orleans had been a major port for the slave trade and the major slave auction centre of the American South. Louisiana declared their secession from the Union in January 1861 and the Confederates bolstered their occupation of the area. It was the link to the South’s cotton plantations up the Mississippi River Valley and its link across the Mississippi to the wealthy states of Texas, Arkansas and some secessionist counties of Missouri. The first shots were fired at Fort Sumter in April 1861. New Orleans was blockaded by the North in May 1861 showing what an important prize the city was to the Union. After two short battles in April 1862 the Union forces occupied New Orleans and split the Confederacy into two parts as it then controlled the Mississippi River too.

 

The Creole Culture of New Orleans. Creole culture in Louisiana is still strong. Creoles are primarily the people descended from the early French and Spanish settlers mixed with later German immigrants and African slaves. Creoles were originally white Europeans but the term later included mixed race people. When the Haitian Revolution led by slaves erupted in 1804 many French residents fled from Haiti to New Orleans with their African slaves. They reinforced the French culture of New Orleans and established their three tiered society of white Creoles, mixed race Creoles and black slaves. The mixed race Creoles were mainly fee black people and added to the free black population of New Orleans. French speakers dominated in New Orleans until 1830. But as late as 1900, 25% of residents spoke French and 75% could understand it. (250,000 Louisianans still speak French at home today.) Half the schools in New Orleans taught in French until the Civil War. In 1862 the Union occupier of the city General Butler abolished French instruction and enforced English teaching. The War made New Orleans an American city. But the Creoles did not disappear. They continued to dominate society for some time. The Creole planters along the Mississippi lived on their plantations during the hot malaria filled summers but moved to their French Quarter town houses for the cool winters. (It was the reverse in Charleston where the planters lived in Charleston in the hot summers and spent winters on their plantations.) The New Orleans winter was the time for balls and parties and the celebrations around Lent and the Mardi Gras activities, which still persist as a reminder of the French heritage of the city. The white French Creoles also often took black slave women as mistresses but unlike the white Americans they tended to give freedom to the children born from these unions. Thus New Orleans ended up with the largest number of free blacks of any Southern city in the Antebellum days. Mixed race Creoles had their own society balls and functions. Many had property and were quite wealthy in their own rights because of grants from their white Creole fathers. But their access to political and legal rights disappeared during the Jim Crow era as white Americans applied their white-black caste system on all parts of America including Louisiana. Free persons of colour were discriminated against by the Jim Crow regulations and segregation in New Orleans too. Change came with of the Civil Rights era.

 

This video brought to you by The Hijab Store provides informative tips on storing hijabs rather than hanging them here and there. Visit thehijabstore.com/ for more tips and information.

Fujifilm X-H1 / Lightroom CC

  

Fuji X Secrets Workshops & Blog

  

Read the X-Pert Corner blog.

  

Useful (e)books on Fujifilm cameras:

  

The Fujifilm X100F – 101 X-Pert Tips

 

The Fujifilm X-T20 – 125 X-Pert Tips

  

The Fujifilm X-T2 – 120 X-Pert Tips

  

The Fujifilm X-Pro2 – 115 X-Pert Tips

  

The Fujifilm X-T10 – 115 X-Pert Tips

  

The Fujifilm X-T1 – 111 X-Pert Tips 2nd edition

  

The Fujifilm X-E2 – Beyond the Manual

  

Mastering the Fujifilm X-E1 and X-Pro1

  

Save 40% with coupon code XPERT40

  

Die Fujifilm X-T2. 120 Profitipps.

  

Die Fujifilm X-Pro2. 115 Profitipps.

  

Die Fujifilm X-T10. 115 Profitipps.

  

Die Fujifilm X-T1. 111 Profitipps. 2. Auflage

  

Die Fujifilm X-E2. 100 Profitipps

(Calcutta/kolkata, Feb. 1989 - scan of the print of an old slide)

The public writers, with their old typing machines, are they still working out of the post offices and other public buildings in India ? They were very useful to write, for instance, application letters for jobs etc… and this one seems so attentive, captivated by what he is doing – an expression that stroke me often in the government offices etc... The love of a job well done...

 

(Ideal subjects : they allowed me to take the photo, but carried on their business as if I was not there, maybe a very urgent matter : the « scribe » resuming his meticulous work, the customer, also more interested in the letter than by my presence – anecdotally, he later told me that he was a body builder working in one of the first gyms in Kolkata, when the fashion was starting to spread in Europe too – in America of course, it was already well established since many years).

Now amazing Capture One pro 10 is out, and for Sony users the express version is free.

The Capture One 9.4 before it was simply outstanding RAWC, much better than anything from Adobe or Raw Therapy.

 

Unfortunately, the free version of C1 does not handle Canon, Nikon or Olympus RAW, only Sony or DNG(Pentax and Leica).

 

So I guess It is another big reason for many of us to choose Sony over anything else. If you use Sony, you can get a full copy of Capture One pro 10 for just 50 USD.

AS far as I am concerned, this is an incredible deal, great Christmas gift for us from Phase One, the greatest company in Photography ever.

 

I think both Capture One 10 Pro and DXO 11 produce a bit better color than LR CC or LR6 for Sony, Canon,Olympus, or Nikon.

 

I suspect that Adobe programs are optimized for Canon but even for Canon CR2 files, LR6 and CC are not good enough, never produce the amazing amount details that Capture One 10 or DXO 11 does.

 

Seriously C Oen 10 pro for just 50 US is an amazing deal. nothing beats it for that price.

Capture One 10 is a much better more serious program than the LR crapware, and the biggest deal here is not need to deal with the Adobe subscription stuff. Many many Adobe users used the license and repaid it to re-activate it, it is really terribly unstable. I had one time could not use it when I was editing my images on site in a mountain area and they say my account is just trial although I paid it for full CC version.

So after coming back from the mountain, I decided to cancel all Adobe CC crap, and I just got Capture One express 8.32 for Sony free,then later in the same month (last April)I upgraded it to the pro version. I could not be happier.

Now, also DXO is offering me a copy FULL copy of DXO 11 Pro version for just 99 USD. I will get that too.

Honestly, there are still times we need Photoshop but I do have full copy of CS6, so I do not need CC anymore, and I've found life without Adobe CC crap is really much more relaxing and easier.

So in the long run, may Sony E mount be the most expensive system out side of the Leica SL and MFDBs arena?

 

Well it seems like that considering terribly expensive Sony service charge and repair price, and of course their lens prices.

 

As far as lenses are concerned, I can only compare the lenses that have been tested scientifically. Now please keep in mind that these tests were done with the A7R not version 2, but when Nikon introduces their higher resolution camera this will increase the final numbers for Nikon system as well, and Canon already have even higher resolution camera than both Nikon and Sony, but oddly enough DXO and most of others refuse to use the high resolution Canon body for testing their new gen lenses.

Sony 35 2.8, Nikon 35 1.8, Canon 35 2.0 tested with A7R, D810, 5DIII, oddly DXO refuses to test Canon lenses on the 5DS.

Anyway though,the Sony Costs $800, Nikon Costs $600, despite the Sony having less resolving power and a full stop slower than the Nikon. So we see how expensive Sony system actually is already here at the very first comparison below.

www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Nikon-AF-S-NI...

To be fair to Sony, there is also the Loxia 35 mm f2,which I recently sold off for some new macro lens for my Olympus. The Loxia 35 is a fairly good lens but not an amazing lens, not exceptionally sharp, not extremely well corrected either. It has a bit of serious coma issue at f2 and on, though it is still a better lens than the Sony 35 mm f2.8 in the areas of center resolution and longitudinal CA and Vignetting. But the Loxia is worse than the Sony 35 mm f2.8 in some significant areas such as coma, edge/corner sharpness and focus accuracy at infinity.

So in Sony 35 mm Full frame world , there is no value 35 mm prime at all.

Now move on to value 28 mm primes: Sony 28 2.0, Nikon 28 1.8, Canon 28 2.8, they are close enough to say the difference is irrelevant in real life use.

www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-FE-28mm-...

 

So move on to 70-200 mm f4: Of Sony 70-200 f4, Nikon 70-200 f4, Canon 70-200 f4, the Sony again is the most expensive despite the Nikon having more resolving power if we are to trust DXO lens rating. I personally do not trust their lens tests although I trust their sensor tests and I think their sensor test results pretty much mirror my own findings quite often.

But in case of the 70-200 mm f4 lenses, many other sites like SLRgear, lenstip tested and came to the same or identical conclusion to the DXO comparison. I also tested them at my work place with my own copy of DXO analyzer and got the same results.

If I have to pick the winner here, I would pick the Nikon for its obviously better resolution at 200 mm f4 setting. But it is more complicated than just optical quality, since the latest generation body IS of Sony is much more effective than most of in-lens VR or IS I tested.

So, while the Nikon is a bit better lens optically, I doubt that in real life handheld photography we see the better resolving power of the Nikon. The Sony 70-200 mm f4 comes with an excellent tripod collar that would cost 120 US if we buy it separately. Canon and Nikon do not include a tripod collar in their respective 70-200 mm f4 shipping package.

So maybe, is the pricing of the Sony actually reasonable?

www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-FE-70-20...

 

Now move on to 35 mm f1.4 lenses comparison:Sony 35 1.4, Nikon 35 1.4. Interestingly in this test the Sony did a little better in resolution to the Nikon although its 22mm longer and 30 grams heavier than the Nikon and 26mm longer and 50 grams heavier than the Canon, so not so compact for a compact system any more.

What this fact tells us about is if you ask ultimate resolution in any current FF system, regardless of your camera body size, your lens must be big and heavy, thus your system won't be small or cheap or light at all.

 

www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-FE-Carl-...

But in case of this 35 mm f1.4, we have to consider the extremely bad copy to copy sample variation issue of the Sony. The biggest issue of the DXO and the other typical online lens test sites is that they test only one copy supplied by the company.

But there is a great man testing literally 10-100 of copies of each lens and reporting his results most of times.

www.lensrentals.com/blog/2015/10/sony-e-mount-lens-sharpn...

 

Personally, I take Roger's opinion much more seriously than any other lens test site's so-called review. I work at a mall which also sell cameras and I have tested many returned lenses before sending them back to the respective manufactures, we found that the copy to copy variation is much more significant than many people online think, it is sometimes even more pronounced than lens A to lens B difference.

So testing one copy of each lens is not enough, definitely in the case of any super complex modern optics such as this FE 35 mm f1.4.

I know the best copies of it is a fantastic lens, but about 75 percent of times you get a bad one or just an ok kind of one. It is really really deplorable, sad.

But no one so-called review site besides Roger's report it, and I smell something very fishy here.

 

Now move on to 50 mm -55 mm value primes: the Sony 55 1.8 vs the Nikon 50 1.8 vs the

Canon 50 1.8 STM

 

The Sony beats out the Nikon and obviously the Canon because of the limited megapixels, but the interesting thing is when you compare pricing...$1000 for the Sony, $219 for the Nikon. Weight was another thing with the Sony coming in at almost 100 grams heavier than the Nikon and the Canon. In terms of Absolute resolution, the Sony is quite a bit better, though if you care about the money, then the cheap Nikon gets you about 90 percent of the expensive Sony performance at 1/ 5th of the Sony price.

 

www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-FE-Carl-...

 

now finally move on to 90-105 mm macro lens:

The Sony 90 mm macro is reported to be a better lens by likes of DXOmark, but according to Roger Cicala's extensive optics bench testing with many many copies of it, it is not as good as we all once thought it must be because of the DXO result for it below.

www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-FE-90mm-...

But it is obvious if you get a good copy of the Sony FE 90 mm f2.8 G lens, it is sharper than anything else in the market, actually it even beats the over-sized over priced not much useful awkward brand lenses like the Zess Otus 85 mm f1.4 APO or the Zeiss 135 mm f2 APO Sonnar,which I sold as soon as I found it useless in real life application ,especially for travel photography and street work. I loved it for studio work, but for that use I do not need to actually own any lens, just rent it from my boss's studio.

Anyway, my point here is if you get a decent Sony Fe 90 or 55 mm then it even beats the super-heavy ,awkward no compromise in design kind of d-SLR lens that priced about 4 times more than the Sony lenses.

The 90 macro is a cheap lens for what it is, there is no comparison to that lens in that relatively modest range of it.

 

So while I agree that Sony has made some very positive moves in recent years,it has come at a cost in pricing, f/stop and in the compactness to the system.Even then, the Sony lenses are not necessarily the best, especially when you take the fact that the Nikon/Canon Lenses often out resolved the Sony equivalents with faster f/stops for less money into serious consideration. The Canon lenses were at a deficit due to megapixels, and even with the obvious sensor resolution disadvantage, quite a few Canon lenses actually still out-resolve Sony Nikon equivalents, it was,to me,quite amazing.

So, I think if you need the ultimate best for now or the absolute best, most promising tech into foreseeable future, then the Sony system makes real sense here, but if you just need 90 percent of what the A7RM2 can do at the 1/4 of the Sony system price, then Nikon still makes better sense(value).

In my area it is even more glaringly clear, the A7RM2 body alone costs about 378000 yen, the Nikon D810 kit with the AF-S24-120 mm f4 VR costs 321000 yen,the Sony does not seem to be a great value although it may well be the absolute best camera in current camera market.

And most of people just go with the almost 95 percent as good as the absolute best kind of system that costs much less than the absolute best.

I chose the Zeiss Batis 85 over the Zeiss Otus 85 although I knew the Otus would beat the Batis in resolution(at a lab)..........but for me the much more manageable size and the weight saving, and more importantly the better overall practicality/usability of the Batis beat the absolute tripod resolution of the Otus. I think the same logic applies for choosing the right camera system.

Although, IMO, Canon still has the edge in lens line, flash,etc, and as a company most stable and profitable with a lot of key-core patents in this ILC technology, I personally never consider any of current Canon cameras seriously. The 5DS is just simply too overpriced, the 6D is just too long in the tooth, the 5D3 is about to be replaced, so no current Canon cameras make great value.

The 5DS-R costs 2 times more than the D810 and I think it is just too crazy, and that makes it absolutely the worst value camera for me. The 5DS at least a bit cheaper than the A7R2 to really justify its market position since it does not have the IBIS of the Sony, the 4k capability of the Sony, the high ISO performance of the Sony.

In the end, after comparing the prices of the lenses I need for the 3 systems carefully, I kind of realize that it is most logical to just stay with my current Sony system, just because I already have it. I guess I will hold on to my A7, A7M2, A7R for as long as I can, and see if Canon, Fuji or Samsung will answer to the a7R2.

The above logic just works for me, but I think for more budget minded people the Nikon may still hold the value king title with the D750..

The D750 is really attractive for event photography on a tight budget, and it is very very cheap now in the many many areas of the world, especially in my area.The Nikon D750 or D810 based system is at least 30 percent cheaper than the A7M2 or the A7RM2 based system with a few primes and a couple of zooms. But if you are a kind of person always wanting to shoot with a Otus or similar IQ lens and always carefully manually focus it, then Sony would suddenly become a much more logical choice for you.

The FE 55 mm f1.8 is sharper than the Otus 55 mm f1.4 at 1/4 of the Otus weight.

I do not have problem paying the Otus price for a great lens but the weight is.

The Sony FE 90 mm f2.8 G (assuming you get a decent copy) beats the both Otus and Batis in resolution and a few more areas.

I know the greater resolution alone does not make it a better lens than the Otus since Otus beats in the areas of CA, distortion and coma at wide open,etc.

But to me the better resolution of the Sony at 1/3 or the weight of Otus is very attractive.

The Batis 85 mm f1.8 is a great lens, honestly it is a bit different kind of lens than the Otus is with a bit more CA, a bit more distortion,etc, but it has the unique Zeiss look as with the other great Zeiss primes, and it is definitely sharp enough for its obvious intended use.

For landscape type of corner to corner sharpness, it may not be able to match the best primes in that focal range such as the FE90 mm f2.8 G , the Otus 85 mm f1.4 and the Leica 90 mm f3.5 APO, but still it handily beats all zooms and most of primes ever made in that specific focal range.

Many people compare the Batis 85 mm to the Nikon AF-S85 mm f1.8 G just because they both share f1.8 f numbers, but are they really comparable in quality?

Actually, in terms of sheer resolution and optical quality the cheap plastic Nikon may be comparable to the Batis. But it is weaker in a few key areas compared to the Batis.

The Nikon has much worse Lo-CA, much worse weaker flare resistance, a bit more distorted.

But the Nikon is smaller, lighter comes with 62 mm filter thread rather than the big 67 mm one on the Batis, it has a bit lower distortion and seems to have a bit lower amount of light fall off.

So it is actually closer match than we once thought it would be, and I see many many people mostly shooting all AF prefer the Nikon over the Zeiss in this case.

But unfortunately for me, the Batis is a better looking lens for my type of shooting since I am a manual focus kind of person, seldom use AF and having good MF ring is very important to me. So as my old man always said when I was a kid, it is always horses for courses, there is no one absolutely better camera system for all of us.

 

Finally as a side note, many many people guessing a lot of the technology inside the Leica SL seems to be from Panasonic.

I think Leica/Panasonic are testing the waters, with their first FF CSC with modern design more sophisticated UI than that of the Sony A7X.

I wouldn't be surprised, if less than a year from now, Panasonic makes a shot directly at Sony A7 series with a cheaper and more practical version of the Leica SL.

If Canon and Nikon don't come up with competitors in the meantime, Sony-Panasonic will be pushing this market very hard very far so that the old leaders will find themselves 7 laps behind all of a sudden. It may be easy for Canon to come up with something similar since they have all the tech needed to make something similar to the Leica SL, but is Nikon still safe, some how able to manage it to survive?

I know many Japanese Mega camera dealers that think in a matter of a several years Nikon won't be around in this market.

If they are correct, I wonder if the new Tokyo Nikon camera museum was actually built by Nikon as their own camera indoor cemetery?

 

UPdate : now, Canon has just announced its new sensor development policy. Canon seems to have built a new sensor plant in Mie prefecture of Japan. It seems like Canon is going on new 65nm process rule and all upcoming Canon sensors will be produced at there.

I think the 1DX2 and the 80D sensors are processed at the new plant.

Sony is still leading the CMOS imaging industry, but giants like Samsung are in close pursuit. Also big players like Panasonic are forming joint ventures with the likes of TowerJazz to offer 12-inch wafer fabrication with state-of-the-art quantum efficiency and dark current performance at 65 nano meters, and additional 45nm digital technology, and added available capacity of approximately 800,000 8-inch wafers per year in three manufacturing plants in Japan, according to TowerJazz.

 

The stakes are huge. The CMOS image sensor market will reached the historic $10 billion milestone in 2015, according to Yale, and with new applications popping up in automotive, medical and surveillance, while smartphones begin adopting high-definition front facing cameras, the industry is likely to hit the $16 billion mark by 2020. So nobody is just sleeping and Sony has to consolidate its position ASAP, or probably Sony will lose it again just like its short-lived TV business.

 

UPDATE2:Another serious issue all the camera makers will have to face but I did not really realize before is that all ILC cameras are big to most of NORMAL non-photographer people, and they are very intimidating to most of NORMAL people(I mean regardless of mount type or sensor type).

I never realized it before but while walking around down town Fukuoka with one of my long time friends here forced me to understand it. A friend of mine told me that he thinks all interchangeable lens cameras are huge and intimidating to most of average people regardless of sensor size or format, it's just simply annoying!

I guess a big lens scares or annoys people more than a big body......I never saw it his way but I got his point and I decided to carry my tiny Canon G5X when I just walk around the city area with other people. If I am alone shooting something, then I usually carry my big camera, and I think it does not matter it's a m43, a FF, an APS-C, it is all big to most of NORMAL people, anyway.

Then why not just go all the way up to FF or MFDB, or at least APS-C?

 

So maybe the one really doomed is not Nikon F or Pentax K or Sony A but m43?

Nikon and Pentax have historically had very enthusiastic and even fanatic core shooters and they are usually too old to adapt themselves fast to new EVF based gear even if they understand it is the more logical thing for them as they are aged. So D-SLRs may survive as antique cameras, but m43 or Nikon One?

 

UPDATE3: Nikon has just announced a new sensor fab development with Toshiba and it seems like their new sensor design uses very similar AF tech to the DP AF of the Canon EOS M5 sensor without losing almost no amount of light getting into the sensor.

 

Canon also patented a few new curved sensor designs with Toshiba. Toshiba seems to work as a special sensor designer for many companies rather than producing it themselves now.

 

And it found out that the Sony's old curved sensor patent is no longer effective, and it was originally a Toshiba patent.

So if Sony really lost the patent to Toshiba , then Sony would have a big problem since Sony would not be able to use the curved sensor tech for their FF camera lines that helps them to design smaller and sharper lenses for the FE system.

 

UPDATE4: Now, I've just confirmed that Nikon DL series actual shipment date would be next January 17th as planned in last Nikon conference at Nikon D5600 launch. But it may delay even further to next CP+ show in Yokohama Japan(in Feb 2017).

 

So it is already promised to be a failed product line before the actual launch. I think Nikon is really stupid, I mean I don't think phones or mirrorless killing Nikon but itself, it obtuse marketing killing it.

 

#113 for 120 in 2020: Useful

 

IDBX1056

AKA: NoVVember 2013 panic build. AKA: Blacktron Scavenger.

 

-

 

High-Res

 

BrickShelf

 

-

 

The Eastern Sector of the Blacktron power has fallen on harsh times. As a result, the Scavenger project was born, these craft are constructed completely from scavenged functional scrap and the remains of raided vessels. They're not very reliably but sometimes when you strap a cruiser-engine to an escape pod you get really fast little fighters... that can only go in a straight line. But still! It's something!

 

-

 

So... yeah. It's been a while...

 

Besides from suffering of sometimes extreme workloads, when I moved I kind of panicked and didn't really pack any useful bricks... I didn't even pack a single straight clip of any cheese! I brought some travis bricks but what good are those if you have nothing to attach 'em to?!

 

Anyway, after missing my annual Halloween build (which I've kept up with since 2009 I think? Or maybe 2010?) and feeling absolutely miserable about it, I decided that I need to build something, ANYTHING for NoVVember. I could NOT let this one slip by me as well. Even if it meant I had to steal a figgie's gun.

 

So in short: I have no bricks, no lighting, and no time. But damn I can still pull off shit like this if I really need to. HAH!

sale is not useful food

If you find my reviews and samples useful, please treat me to a coffee at www.paypal.me/cameralabs

 

Sample image taken with a Panasonic Lumix GX800 / GX850. These samples and comparisons are part of my Lumix GX800 / GX850 review at:

 

www.cameralabs.com/panasonic-lumix-gx800-gx850-review/

 

Feel free to download the original image for evaluation on your own computer or printer, but please don't use it on another website or publication without permission from www.cameralabs.com/

It started out as a trip to the B&Q Superstore in Crewe to get some path weedkiller. Somehow between aisles 1 and 50 something we found a foam sponge (badly needed), the weedkiller (very badly needed), a wash basket (useful but hardly essential as we already have three), a rubber push on shower head for washing our dog in the sink (better than putting her on the bidet) and some solar powered dragonfly outside lights (not needed at all but could be useful in a power outage). Somehow this little excursion and expedition around the superstore left my daughter demanding more. Let's get an ice-cream at Snugburys she suggested. Not knowing where Snugburys is and having no idea why we suddenly needed an ice-cream I agreed to follow the satnav once she had googled the postcode. It showed we only had 7 miles to go, passing through Crewe's grotty takeaway land and out into Cheshire's green and pleasant countryside. But turning into the entrance to Snugburys I thought, "What the.....?" It was packed and we had to park in the overflow car park in front of the farmyard. Snugburys is a farm ice-cream shop. It's website says they have had well over 200,000 visitors but I suspect that statistic may well be out of date. I estimated there were some 70-80 cars there and a queue across the farmyard to get in the shop........to buy an ice-cream!!!! People, like us, drive miles just to come and buy an ice-cream. They sell nothing else.

 

I chose two scoops. Damson and Sloe Gin, and Tropical Twist (Mango). It was huge and fantastic value at £ 2.90. No wonder the queue is out the front of the farmyard.

 

What would you have?

  

Original Vanilla

 

Vanilla is the most popular flavour in the world. Here at Snugburys it's a best seller - velvety and rich this vanilla is made from fresh vanilla bean extract grown on the island of Madagascar

  

Clotted Cream Vanilla

 

Having spent some of her childhood in Devon, Cheryl believes there is nothing to beat an ice cream with Clotted Cream, so here it is, Devon comes to Cheshire! This sumptuously smooth vanilla - made with fresh clotted cream. Perfect - with British Strawberries or fresh fruit.

  

Death by Chocolate

 

This ice cream is supreme. A fantastic rich Chocolate ice cream with a dark, deep chocolate ripple - then add drops of wonderful dark chocolate. "I think I need to come up for air!" This ice cream is fantastic - this ice cream is Snugburys.

  

Driving Me Cherries

 

A truly divine combination! Rich chocolate ice cream loaded with whole Italian Amarene cherries! With the help of our Facebook fans we named this delicious new addition to the Snugburys family - Driving me Cherries!

  

Polar Granola

   

Introducing Polar Granola, which was created in celebration of our 2011 Straw Polar Bear! This plain ice cream is laced with a raspberry ripple puree, granola pieces and rocks of white chocolate.

  

Fan-nutty-tastic

 

A great friend has been requesting this flavour for years! Delicious hazelnut ice cream laced with a rich chocolate sauce and real hazelnut pieces! We're sorry it took so long, but it is safe to say. . we've cracked it!!

  

Strawberries and Pimms

   

Created for the 2012 Queens Diamond Jubilee, this divine ice cream is laced with a smooth Pimms sorbet and a tangy British Strawberry ripple. It was such a big hit over the Jubilee weekend we decided it was a keeper!

  

Toffee Crumble

 

Caramelised bread crumbs with a homemade toffee sauce.

  

Banana Caramel

 

If you love bananas this one is for you! Rich banana ice cream with a homemade caramel sauce, scrummy!

  

Dutch Chocolate

 

Wicked! Dream on Chocolate lovers - this is dark and bitter chocolate added to sweet creamy ice cream. Loads of our customers team this with honeycomb on a cone.

  

Chocolate Brownie

 

This one is special! Snugburys homemade chocolate brownie with dark malted chocolate ice cream.

  

White Mountain

 

For all you white chocolate lovers out there -this is IT! A white chocolate ice cream loaded with tons of white chocolate pieces. I can't write any more about it, I'll have to go and get one!

  

Mint Choc Chip

 

Fresh, cool mint ice cream speckled with dark chocolate chips. We sorted through lots of chocolate chips to find the right ones, dark chocolate with a high cocoa content. They are so good its amazing they ever reach the ice cream!

  

Turkish Delight

 

Full of eastern promise? Well it tastes like it. This ice cream was a customer's suggestion and we love it. A rose water flavoured ice cream with a rich chocolate swirl.

  

Tropical Twist

 

A combination of refreshing mango sorbet and plain ice cream - this flavour really sums up summer for us!

  

Cappuccino Coffee

 

A difficult one this one! Was it to strong or not strong enough? We made batch after batch and believe we have recently perfected it; a full-bodied coffee ice cream with dark chocolate chips! The smell alone is sensational!

  

Mint Oreo Blitz

 

Double white mint ice cream, lashings of dark chocolate sauce and for the finale - bursting with Oreos.

  

Cherry Blizzard

 

A delicious white chocolate ice cream with a cherry ripple and chocolate cookie pieces. Sounds easy, but wait this was a development of our Cherry ice cream, which was SO loaded with cherries it was impossible to scoop. So we got our heads together (this is always the fun bit) and decided white chocolate ice cream (really creamy and smooth) would compliment the tart cherry ripple and then just to top it off some chocolate cookie pieces (I think we were in black forest land)!

  

Real Strawberry

 

We have fiddled with this recipe more than any other. We wanted a fresh strawberry taste - Chris was on a mission. Seven years after tweaking and readjusting this is it! We think this is one of the most difficult flavours to get right.

  

Raspberry Ripple

 

My favourite! Cool plain ice cream swirled with raspberry coulis. If you are a raspberry fan this one is for you.

  

Raspberry Pavola

 

A tricky ice cream to make (all those pips) however it is worth the effort! This wonderful raspberry ice cream (jam packed with fruit) then has a raspberry coulis ripple - then just to go overboard we have loaded in the meringues. There you have it - it's a Wow.

  

Damson and Sloe Gin

 

Last year it was a fantastic year for damsons. The trees on the farm were really heavy with fruit. We all set to making jam but really what we wanted to do make some great damson ice cream. We made pure damson ice cream which I must admit was very nice and tasted a bit like black cherry ice cream. However the breakthrough came when one of us suggested making sloe gin ice cream and making a damson ripple. Note the "one of us". We are all claiming this creation! It is superb!!!

  

Rum and Raisin

 

We are nearly drunk on the fumes when making our Rum and Raisin! The raisins are soaked in the rum overnight to make sure they are really plump then they are added to the rum ice cream, don't drink and drive.

  

Ginger and Honey

 

What a great combination of flavours! Acacia honey - not an overpowering honey flavour (as with oilseed rape honey) but a subtle honey flavour with quality pieces of ginger in every mouthful. Fabulous - on a cone or in a brandy snap-basket.

  

Amaretto

 

A big hit with the Tony Christie fans - when Amarillo was in the charts this dedadent ice cream just danced out the doors. A really flavoursome little number.

  

English Toffee

 

Wanting to create that melting, creamy toffee taste. We made English toffee ice cream. Chris, Ann and I spent a couple of wet winter afternoons tasting, mixing and cooking up the Big Toffee Taste. Great job this!

  

Honeycomb

 

Is this the most popular flavour with chunks? It is here! Rocks of honeycomb thrown into honeycomb ice cream, some melt in the ice cream and some stay as huge golden nuggets. Bliss!

  

Pecan and Fudge

 

When we decided to make this ice cream we couldn't find fudge pieces which we loved. Ok. ones were easy to find, but ok isn't good enough! So we had handmade fudge pieces made for us. These are loaded into a rich pecan ice cream - this ice cream is a must.

  

Yum Yum

 

There was no other name for this ice cream. A vanilla swirled with a special homemade liquid toffee, stuffed full of pecan nuts, chocolate chunks, biscuit bits and toffee pieces. Yum Yum!

  

Maple and Walnut

 

For the sophisticated pallet this one! Wonderful maple syrup and natural brown sugar run through with walnuts. Sweet walnuts not bitter ones - we looked hard to find sweet ones.

  

Tropical Coconut

 

Forget paradise island (actually its horrid here today and paradise island sounds quite nice). tropical coconut ice cream loaded onto a cone with Dutch chocolate, I only have to shut my eyes and I'm there!

  

Christmas Pudding

 

The inspiration for our Christmas Pudding ice cream came from the big tradition we have in our house for homemade Christmas Pudding. There is always a great discussion about the ingredients, length of time for maturing, whose recipe we will use this year, and so on. It all starts with the stout (Guinness) and the Brandy! Into this pungent mix we soak lots of brazil nuts, pecan nuts, currants, sultanas, walnuts, prunes, raisins, (freshly squeezed and zested) oranges and lemons, cherries, candied peel and spices. It's the ice cream version of our homemade Christmas pud!

  

Diabetic Vanilla and Raspberry Ripple

 

Find out more about our delicious Diabetic ice cream - here

  

Lemon Sorbet

 

Freshly squeezed and zested lemons. This sorbet is fresh!

  

Raspberry Sorbet

 

Just like a perfect summers afternoon, a fresh bowl of raspberries made into a glorious sorbet

  

Mango Sorbet

 

Beat the winter blues - get a bowl of mango sorbet, take a spoon, eat, shut your eyes and dream of a fabulous beach, palm trees and a turquoise sea, no check in no flight no delays - just pure bliss.

 

And after that, my daughter said, "Why don't we go to Beeston Castle? It's not far!" And so she googled the postcode for Beeston Castle....but then we spotted Peckforton Castle and so we went there instead. In all, our little trip to get some weedkiller lasted more than 60 miles. But the satisfaction of having that ice-cream, lasted far longer

   

youtu.be/wO9XjCM6tB8?t=3s Trailer

Additional Lobby Cards in Set www.flickr.com/photos/morbius19/sets/72157641173484945/

  

1964 was a better year for sci-fi and Columbia's First Men in the Moon (FMM) was the year's big-budget treat. HG Wells' 1899 novel was adapted to a more modern retelling by Nigel Kneal (of Quatermass fame), but is still fairly faithful to the original. Two men (and a woman) travel to the moon in 1899 and encounter a civilization of insect-like beings. FMM also features the animation of Ray Harryhausen. He gives the usual monster (moon cows), but brings the selenites to life.

Synopsis

A modern (1960s) UN moon mission lands, only to discover a little British flag and a paper claiming the moon for Queen Victoria. On earth, they trace the names to an old Arnold Bedford in a nursing home. He tells his story as flashback. He rented a cottage next door to an eccentric inventor. Cavor created Cavorite, a substance which blocks gravity. Bedford sees the money-making potential, so attaches himself to the work. Cavor, however, wants to explore the moon. To that end, he built a sphere. Bedford agrees to go with him, thinking of gold on the moon. Bedford's fiancee, Kate, is pulled aboard at the last minute. Amid some mild antics en route, they arrive on the moon. Cavor and Bedford explore, finding a labyrinth of tunnels and little insect people. They return to the surface, but the sphere (with Kate inside) has been taken by the selenites. They re-enter the tunnels in search, but become separated when a giant "moon cow" caterpillar beast attacks them. The selenite scientists study Cavor and Kate, eventually learning english. The selenites are disassembling the sphere for study. Cavor is given an audience with the Grand Lunar. He tells the Grand Lunar about earth and men. Cavor's description of war alarms the Grand Lunar, who decrees that Cavor must remain on the moon to prevent more defective earthmen make the trip. Meanwhile, Bedford and Kate have reassembled the sphere, but need Cavor to get the shutters to work. Bedford interrupts the Grand Lunar audience, causing a fight. Cavor and Bedford flee to the sphere. Cavor fixes it, but refuses to return to earth. Bedford and Kate return. End flashback. Old Bedford sums up his tale. TV reports that the astronauts on the moon find abandoned underground cities. Quick conjecture is that some virus wiped out the inhabitants. Bedford quips that Cavor did have a bad cold. The End.

 

There is much to like in FMM. Lionel Jeffries almost steals the show with his highly colorful portrayal of Cavor. The matt art, scenery, sets and models are well done. Harryhausen's work doesn't dominate, but enhances the alien-world feel.

 

There is more of Wells' original anti-imperialism message than anything of the Cold War. The portrayed fact that the first moon landing was an international effort shows a bit of optimism.

Nigel Kneal's screenplay tries to maintain much of Wells' original story, but a few concessions had to be made to make a good movie for mid-60s audiences. Rather than modernize the tale, Kneal framed the Victorian story as a flashback within modern bookends. Kneal omitted the frozen atmosphere and fungal plant life, (as modern audiences would not buy that). He kept a simplified version of the selenite civilization, and the moon cows. He also kept Bedford returning and Cavor remaining.

Kneal's script pulls in elements from a couple of Wells' other stories. He repeats the trope of the aliens taking the protagonist's machine underground, which Wells had in The Time Machine. Kneal borrows from Wells' War of the Worlds to have the aliens all killed off by a simple earth germ. In Wells' novel, the selenites are not wiped out. Modern folk knew the moon was lifeless, so a handy plague was needed.

Embedded in Wells' novel, and echoed somewhat in Kneal's screenplay, was stratified, dehumanizing industrial society. A cute counterfoil to that and commentary on unionized culture, was the scene at Cavor's house where the three workers argue about whose job it was to stoke the furnace. The metal worker complained that since he wasn't a stoker (by profession), it therefore wasn't his job. The gardener agreed that he wasn't a stoker either. The butler also agreed that he was a butler, not a stoker, so none of them stoked, but all went out for a pint.

In Wells' War of the Words, imperialist humans get a taste of their own medicine from the über-imperialist Martians. In FFM, imperialist humans go to someone else's planet. In both the novel and the screenplay, the two protagonists embody classic British imperialism. Cavor is the benevolent explorer, missionary and claimer of places. Bedford is the exploiter capitalist, who puts little value on the lives of the "brownies". This condensed duo of earth-ish imperialism plops down amid a greater power. Cavor and Bedford play out the traditional arguments (benevolence vs. conquest) but Bedford's view prevails and he goes about smashing their cities. In Kneal's script, imperialist man manages to completely ruins things -- even if only by accident (Cavor's cold germs). This has several earth history parallels too.

It was fairly common in 19th century sci-fi (e.g. Wells and Verne) to have only men as the protagonists. Post-WWII Hollywood was unable to resist inserting a woman into the character mix. They usually served as simple cheesecake, or love-triangle fodder, or the damel to be rescued. In FFM, Kate is a bit less flagrantly the intruded woman. She is useful to keep up dialogue while Cavor and Bedford are separated. She is a occasionally the damsel, but not obnoxiously so. (Heck, she blasts some selenites with a shotgun). We can be thankful the producers resisted including a cute animal in Disney fashion.

 

Bottom line? FMM is a classic that no one should miss -- even viewers who don't normally go in for sci-fi. The story is thoughtful, the acting good, and the production very good.

While many contemporary science fiction and fantasy films find their inspiration in graphic novels and comic books, H.G. Wells is still the gold standard when it comes to an indisputable master of the genre. More than 62 years after his death, the film industry continues to steal from and rework ideas and storylines from his popular fantasy novels. Most of them have been enormously successful (The War of the Worlds [1953 & 2005], The Time Machine [1960 & 2002], The Invisible Man [1932], Island of Lost Souls [1933]). In fact, one of the first silent films to become an international success was French filmmaker Georges Melies's 1902 adaptation of Wells' First Men in the Moon, released as Le Voyage dans la lune.

  

TCM review by Jeff Stafford

 

In Wells' original 1901 novel, the story, set in the rural village of Kent, focused on an eccentric scientist, Cavor, conducting anti-gravity experiments on a man-made substance called 'Cavorite,' and his neighbor, Mr. Bedford, a struggling, debt-ridden playwright. Enlisting Bedford's help, Cavor eventually succeeds in proving the "gravitational opacity" of cavorite and together the two men depart for the Moon in a glass-lined steel sphere powered by Cavor's invention. After successfully landing on the lunar surface and exploring the terrain, Cavor and Bedford are captured by moon men Selenites and imprisoned. Bedford manages to escape, and believing that Cavor has been killed, he locates their stolen sphere and returns to Earth. Once he is back, Bedford publishes an account of his adventures and learns from a Dutch scientist experimenting with wireless waves that messages are being sent from the moon by Cavor. It appears that Bedford's former neighbor has learned to live and communicate with the Selenites but eventually Cavor's messages become incoherent and then abruptly stop. The story ends with Bedford assuming that the Selenites silenced Cavor because they were afraid of further Earth expeditions to the moon.

Georges Melies's loose 1902 adaptation of Wells' First Men in the Moon condenses the story into a brief running time of barely eleven minutes but in 1919, Gaumont studio attempted a longer feature version, directed by J.L.V. Leigh, which added a female character as the love interest. It is now considered a lost film. No one else attempted to film Wells' story until the early sixties when screenwriter Nigel Kneale, stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, and director Nathan Juran were brought together by producer Charles Schneer.

After securing the rights from Frank Wells, son of the famous author, Schneer approached Columbia Pictures with the project. Despite their initial reluctance, Schneer's previous successes for them - 20 Million Miles to Earth [1957], The 7th Voyage of Sinbad [1958], Jason and the Argonauts [1963] convinced them to finance First Men in the Moon [1964]. Kneale, who had penned The Quatermass Experiment, a highly influential science fiction series on BBC-TV, updated Wells's original story to include a clever framing device set in present times in which a United Nations space mission to the moon discovers evidence of a British expedition in 1899, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Kneale also expanded the role of the female love interest who was first introduced in the 1919 version. Martha Hyer was cast in the latter role with Lionel Jeffries and Edward Judd being tapped to play Cavot and Bedford, respectively.

In the book Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life, the special effects master describes some of the difficulties of filming First Men in the Moon. "Along with numerous other tasks, I was also faced with the design basics for a whole alien civilization. Because the Selenites were to be insect-like, I decided that all doors and apertures were to be hexagonal, a common structure in the insect world. Whether it was scientifically accurate was secondary to the consideration that it should look realistic, be practical and above all spectacular. These basics were relatively straightforward, but when it came to broader aspects of the story that included tunnels, lunar landscapes, lens complexes, oxygen machines and the palace of the Grand Lunar, the budget prevented any of them from being built as full sets, so I designed them as miniatures and incorporated the actors with the aid of traveling mattes. For example, the huge bubbling vats that produced the oxygen were three- or four-foot high miniatures. However, these design headaches were nothing compared to Charles [Schneer] and Columbia Pictures announcing that the film, if possible, should be photographed in widescreen to give it an added attraction."

Filmed in the anamorphic process known as "Dynamation," in which live action and stop-motion animation can be combined via rear-projection and split-screen techniques, First Men in the Moon proved to be more restrictive and cost-prohibitive for Harryhausen on a creative level. As a result, his famous stop-motion work was only highlighted in three key sequences the Selenites in their high tech laboratories, the giant mooncalf and the Grand Lunar.

Most of the live-action cinematography took place at Shepperton Studios where a full-sized section of the moon's surface was constructed on a sound stage for the framing sequence and for the arrival and departure of Cavor's sphere from the lunar surface. NASA served as technical advisors on the film and the blueprints for their own Lunar module aided Harryhausen tremendously in designing the entire U.N. expedition sequence; it would also serve as a dry run for NASA which would stage a real moon walk for the entire world on television on July 20, 1969.

Less successful was the design of the Selenites. Harryhausen said, "I have never been keen on using 'men in suits' as animated creatures, but several scenes called for masses of smaller 'worker' Selenites, which would have taken an eternity to animate. So we had to resort to using children in suits. I designed a suit made into twenty-five moulded latex costumes with reinforced sections. Although they were never really convincing, mainly because the children's arms were not spindly enough to match the animated Selenites, the low-key lighting allowed Jerry [a nickname for director Nathan Juran] to use the suits with reasonable success."

Despite the many technical frustrations he experienced while working on First Men in the Moon, Harryhausen also enjoyed some aspects of it. "Some of my fondest memories during production," he said, "were the surprise visits of several personalities. The first was Frank Wells, son of H.G. Sadly, I only met him briefly, but he showed great enthusiasm for the design and animation, and we talked about his father. Another visit was by one of Hollywood's greatest directors, William Wyler. He was shooting a film on another stage, and although he wasn't there very long, I did manage to talk with him, and he seemed intrigued at what we were doing. Furthermore, when British performer William Rushton was unable to turn up for the part of the writ server, we unexpectedly secured the services of one of the world's top actors. Lionel [Jeffries] persuaded Peter Finch, who happened to be shooting The Pumpkin Eater (1964) on the next stage, to guest in the role. To save time, Lionel wrote out Finch's lines on the back of the summons paper, which he delivered with enormous enjoyment."

 

When First Men in the Moon opened theatrically, it was treated by most critics as a children's film and not as a bona-fide sci-fi thriller in the style of Wells' The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine. Howard Thompson of The New York Times dismissed it, writing, "Only the most indulgent youngsters should derive much stimulation let alone fun from the tedious, heavy-handed science-fiction vehicle that arrived yesterday from England..." The Variety review was more positive and reflected the film's general reception, calling it "an exploiteer's dream. Family audiences should flock to the wickets. It is an astute blend of comedy, occasional thrills and special effects work. Film is a good example of the kind of fare that television cannot hope to match in the foreseeable future."

Moviegoers did not, however, flock to see First Men in the Moon as they had previous Harryhausen ventures such as Jason and the Argonauts and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Part of the problem may have been the film's emphasis on comedy instead of suspense or action-adventure and many reviewers noted that the whimsical tone neutralized any potential excitement. The Hollywood Reporter, in fact, proclaimed it "the first space fantasy comedy." Harryhausen was also working with a different composer this time instead of Bernard Herrmann, who was unavailable. While Laurie Johnson's score is atmospheric and evocative of its setting, it lacked the dynamic range and intensity that Herrmann's music brought to such Harryhausen films as The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) and Mysterious Island (1961), among others.

 

Harryhausen also admits that "...the poster Columbia came up with really didn't help to sell it. It was too childish in its attempts to point out that it was 'in' in the Moon, not 'on.'" Yet people who avoided the movie missed a visual treat, brimming with rich Victorian-era art direction, futuristic set designs reflecting the Selenites's world and unusual special effects. "Personally," Harryhausen stated, "I believe it is one of the most faithful adaptations of Wells' novels, but perhaps the time was not right for such a film, or perhaps the real moon landings were too close. Hopefully, posterity will look upon it with kinder eyes."

 

Producer: Charles H. Schneer

Director: Nathan Juran

Screenplay: Nigel Kneale, Jan Read; H.G. Wells (story)

Cinematography: Wilkie Cooper

Art Direction: John Blezard

Music: Laurie Johnson

Film Editing: Maurice Rootes

Cast: Edward Judd (Arnold Bedford), Martha Hyer (Katherine 'Kate' Callender), Lionel Jeffries (Joseph Cavor), Miles Malleson (Dymchurch Registrar), Norman Bird (Stuart), Gladys Henson (nursing home matron), Hugh McDermott (Richard Challis).

C-103m.

  

Pentacon 4/200 obtained as a "by-catch" turned out to be very useful.

Deep forest Waterfall, Useful for nature background

If you find my reviews and samples useful, please treat me to a coffee at www.paypal.me/cameralabs

 

Sample image taken with a Panasonic Lumix TZ90 / ZS70. These samples and comparisons are part of my Lumix TZ90 / ZS70 review at:

 

www.cameralabs.com/panasonic-lumix-tz90-zs70-review/

 

Feel free to download the original image for evaluation on your own computer or printer, but please don't use it on another website or publication without permission from www.cameralabs.com/

Seen in a 1970-75 Peugeot 304 Cabriolet Épave.

 

I fear this 304 convertible is beyond repair. Maybe only useful as a donor car perhaps...

 

The 304-Series was introduced in Sept. 1969 at the Paris Motor Show, and was styled by Studio Pininfarina. Available were a 4-door saloon, an estate, a 3-door commercial, a coupé and this attractive convertible.

 

1288 cc.

870 kg.

Production 304-Series: 1969-1980.

Production 304 Cabriolet: 3/1970-7/1975.

 

Amsterdam-Noord, Zamenhofstraat, Sept. 23, 2016.

 

© 2016 Sander Toonen, Halfweg / All Rights Reserved