G. S. HAMILTON

ABLE SEAMAN RN. J/26612

H.M. SUBMARINE "C.25"

6TH JULY 1918 AGE 21

 

LOVED IN LIFE EVER REMEMBERED IN DEATH

 

George Sidney Hamilton was born in 1898, the son of George, a shoemakers dressman from Norwich then aged 27 and Jane, a dressmaker from London then aged 22.

George had a sister, Maud, two years older than him and the 1903 census recorded the family living at 6 Nicholas Street in St. Stephens area of Norwich.

George married Elizabeth and they lived at 212 Silver Road, Norwich.

George is buried in grave 46. 504. at Earlham Cemetery, Norwich, Norfolk.

 

George enlister into the Royal Navy and on the day of his death he was serving as an able seaman (AB) aboard one of the RN's 38 C class submarines, C25.

At about noon on 6th. July 1918 C25 was on the surface about 15 miles (24 km) miles east of Orford Ness, Suffolk when the submarines commanding officer, Lt. David Courtenay Bell, aged 23, called Sub. Lt. Ronald M. Cobb to come to the bridge to look at a flight of five sea-planes coming from the west. They paid them little attention thinking they were British planes heading for France. The aircraft were five German sea-planes returning from a daylight raid on Lowestoft in Suffolk and Walmer in Kent. The aircraft held their course until they were clear of the boat when they turned and swooped on the submarine from out of the sun. Small bombs were dropped and bullets were fired at C25 and, as a result, the coxswain PO William G. Borrow (237304), aged 27, was badly wounded and AB George S. Hamilton (J/26612), aged 21, were killed in the conning tower.

As the Sub. Lt. was on his way up to the bridge the order was given to dive so he flooded all main ballast and went full ahead on the main motor. However, they could not shut the lower conning tower hatch as it was jammed by the leg a dead body on the bridge. Try as they might there was no budging the corpse, so at this point Chief Engine Room Artificer C. J. Crawford returned aft where he secured a hacksaw and a large knife. Clearing the men away from the hatchway and without a moment's hesitation set about amputating the dead man's jammed leg at the thigh, thus clearing the hatch. It seems highly likely this body could have been that of George.

The attack had caused several small holes appeared in the thin pressure hull and water started to come in. An order was given to surface and the ballast tanks were blown. At that point the boat had not actually started to dive from the earlier order. Sub Lt. Cobb then ordered ‘Surface Action Stations’.

The Sub. Lt. went up the conning tower and found Lt. Bell, Leading Seaman William Barge (J/124), Signalman Charles Arthur Buttle (J/9244), aged 23, and the Lewis gunner, AB John Marcian Walsh (J/10812), aged 25, all dead. The Lewis gun was missing although three drums of ammunition had been fired. As the firing from the sea-planes was still going on the Sub. Lt. came back below for about 15 minutes and started to repair damage. He then went back on the bridge with two engine room artificers but had to come below again as a further attack was starting. This attack continued for another 5 minutes and then, having waited a further 10 minutes he returned to the bridge. Sub. Lt. Cobb was in an unenviable position. Although the engine room artificers got the surface engine running the steering gear was jammed both from the control room and the bridge steering positions. Both compasses were out of order and there was no sun to steer by and no land in sight. The radio was not working, the Aldis lamp was broken and the grenade rifle was damaged.

At about 12.45 p.m. C25 sighted and identified herself to submarine E51, commanded by Lt. Commander Hugh R. Marrack, by firing Very lights. The wounded coxswain P/O Burrow was transferred to the E51, the commanding officer of E51 came aboard C25 to examine the damage. Signals were made to a depot ship and a tow was established. Despite the efforts to get the Coxswain to proper medical attention he later died of his wounds. Further attacks by the sea-planes were made between 3.18 p.m. and 3.45 p.m. during which time Cobb and his crew remained below decks. Eventually the modified Acheron-class destroyer HMS Lurcher (H65), attached to the 9th. Submarine Flotilla at Harwich, Essex arrived on the scene and opened rapid fire on the aircraft driving them away. Lurcher then took over the tow and towed C25 back to Harwich.

 

Name: HMS C25

Class: C class submarine

Builder: Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria

Laid down: 27th. February 1908

Launched: 10th. March 1909

Commissioned: 28th. May 1909

Fate: Sold for scrap, 5th. December 1921

Complement: 2 officers and 14 ratings

Length: 142 ft. 3 in. (43.4 m)

Beam: 13 ft. 7 in. (4.1 m)

Draught: 11 ft 6 in. (3.5 m)

Displacement - surfaced: 290 tons

Displacement - submerged: 330 tons

Engine: 1 x 16 cylinder Vickers petrol engine

Engine output: 600 hp (477 kW)

Electric motor: 1

Electric motor output: 300 hp (223 kW)

Speed - surfaced: 13 knots (15 mph - 24 km/h)

Speed - submerged: 8 knots (9.2 mph - 15 km/h)

Surface range at 12 knots: 910 nautical miles (1,050 miles - 1,690 km)

Test depth: 100 ft. (30.5 m)

Armament:

2 x 18 in. (450 mm) bow torpedo tubes

1 x Lewis gun

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

The Grumman F8F Bearcat is an American single-engine carrier-based fighter aircraft introduced in late World War II and it was Grumman Aircraft's last piston-engine fighter aircraft.

The Bearcat concept began during a meeting between Battle of Midway veteran F4F Wildcat pilots and Grumman Vice President Jake Swirbul at Pearl Harbor on 23 June 1942. At the meeting, Lieutenant Commander Jimmie Thach emphasized one of the most important requirements in a good fighter plane was "climb rate". Climb performance is strongly related to the power-to-weight ratio and is maximized by wrapping the smallest and lightest possible airframe around the most powerful available engine. Another goal was that the G-58 (Grumman's design designation for the aircraft) should be able to operate from escort carriers, which were then limited to the obsolescent F4F Wildcat as the Grumman F6F Hellcat was too large and heavy. A small, lightweight aircraft would make this possible. After intensively analyzing carrier warfare in the Pacific Theater of Operations for a year and a half, Grumman began development of the G-58 Bearcat in late 1943.

 

In 1943, Grumman was in the process of introducing the F6F Hellcat, powered by the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine which provided 2,000 horsepower (1,500 kW). The R-2800 was the most powerful American engine available at that time, so it would be retained for the G-58. This meant that improved performance would have to come from a lighter airframe. To meet this goal, the Bearcat's fuselage was about 5 feet (1.5 m) shorter than the Hellcat and was cut down vertically behind the cockpit area. This allowed the use of a bubble canopy, the first to be fitted to a US Navy fighter. The vertical stabilizer was the same height as the Hellcat's, but increased aspect ratio, giving it a thinner look. The wingspan was 7 feet (2.1 m) less than the Hellcat's. Structurally the fuselage used flush riveting as well as spot welding, with a heavy gauge 302W aluminum alloy skin suitable for carrier landings. Armor protection was provided for the pilot, engine and oil cooler.

 

The Hellcat used a 13 ft 1 in (3.99 m) three-bladed Hamilton Standard propeller. A slight reduction in size was made by moving to a 12 ft 7 in (3.84 m) Aeroproducts four-bladed propeller. Keeping the prop clear of the deck required a long landing gear, though, which, combined with the shortened fuselage, gave the Bearcat a significant "nose-up" profile on the ground. The hydraulically operated undercarriage used an articulated trunnion which extended the length of the oleo legs when lowered; as the undercarriage retracted the legs were shortened, enabling them to fit into a wheel well which was entirely in the wing. An additional benefit of the inward retracting units was a wide track, which helped counter propeller torque on takeoff and gave the F8F good ground and carrier deck handling.

 

The design team had set the goal that the G-58 should weigh 8,750 pounds (3,970 kg) fully loaded. As development continued it became clear this was impossible to achieve as the structure of the new fighter had to be made strong enough for aircraft carrier landings. Ultimately much of the weight-saving measures included restricting the internal fuel capacity to 160 US gallons (610 l) (later 183 US gallons [690 l]) and limiting the fixed armament to just four .50 cal Browning M2/AN machine guns, two in each wing. The limited range due to the reduced fuel load would mean it would be useful in the interception role but meant that the Hellcat would still be needed for longer range patrols. A later role was defending the fleet against airborne kamikaze attacks. Compared to the Hellcat, the Bearcat was 20% lighter, had a 30% better rate of climb and was 50 mph (80 km/h) faster.

 

Another weight-saving concept the designers came up with was detachable wingtips. The wings were designed to fold at a point about 2⁄3 out along the span, reducing the space taken up on the carrier. Normally, the hinge system would have to be built very strong to transmit loads from the outer portions of the wing to the main spar in the inner section, which adds considerable weight. Instead of building the entire wing to be able to withstand high-g loads, only the inner portion of the wing was able to do this. The outer portions were more lightly constructed, and designed to snap off at the hinge line if the g-force exceeded 7.5 g. In this case the aircraft would still be flyable and could be repaired after returning to the carrier. This saved 230 pounds (100 kg) of weight.

 

The F8F prototypes were ordered in November 1943 and first flew on 21 August 1944, a mere nine months later. The first production aircraft was delivered in February 1945 and the first squadron, Fighter Squadron 19 (VF-19), was operational by 21 May 1945, but World War II was over before the aircraft saw combat service.

 

Postwar, the F8F became a major U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps fighter, equipping 24 fighter squadrons in the Navy and a smaller number in the Marines. Often mentioned as one of the best-handling piston engine fighters ever built, its performance was sufficient to outperform many early jets. However, in United States service the F9F Panther and McDonnell F2H Banshee soon replaced the Bearcat as their performance and other advantages eclipsed piston-engine fighters. Therefore, many Bearcats with low flying hours were put in storage and/or sold to other nations.

 

One of these post-war operators became Uruguay, even though only with few aircraft. In 1942, Uruguay had received Grumman J4F Widgeon, Vought OS2U Kingfisher and Fairchild PT-23A trainers from the US under Lend-Lease, and after the war these were returned. A fundamental modernization of the Uruguayan Navy’s aviation branch started directly after WWII, though. During the years 1949 to 1957, a large supply of American aircraft was delivered. Among these were North American SNJ-4, Grumman Avenger, Martin Mariner and a mixed bunch of 12 old Grumman F6F Hellcats (-3, -5, -5N), delivered in 1952, even though not without trouble: to avoid the appearance of the United States supporting a small South American country, the planes were indirectly sold by a private company, Cobell Industries, and this meant that the planes came without armament to make the deal legal. However, after arriving in Uruguay, the planes were retrofitted with armament and other military hardware, while the pilots received training in the United States.

 

Attrition among the Hellcats was high and several F6Fs were soon lost in accidents. To fill these operational gaps, Uruguay closed a similar private deal, but this time for ten F8F Bearcat airframes, once more without armament and other military equipment. These arrived disassembled in crates in 1959 by ship. Upon re-assembly the former, all-blue USN aircraft were re-armed with 20 mm cannon instead of the original 0.5” (12.7 mm) machine guns, and they received new radio and navigational equipment. An additional oil cooler was mounted, too, visibly protruding from the cowling in front of the windscreen. When the Bearcats became operational in 1960, only six F6F had survived so far, and the Hellcats were soon withdrawn from service and fully replaced by the Bearcats.

 

During the mid-1960s, most of the ANU’s WWII-era planes reached the end of their operational lives and were written off. The Bearcats remained the only dedicated fighter aircraft of the Uruguayan Naval Aviation, and to expand the ANU’s ranks and build a stock of spare airframes to cannibalize, four more F8Us were ordered in late 1960. During this period, more aircraft from U.S. stock arrived and Beechcraft T-34 A, Beechcraft C-45, Grumman S-2A Tracker, Bell TH-13 and Sikorsky CH-34J were incorporated. Some more T-34A/B Mentors were exchanged from the Uruguayan Air Force for SNJ spare parts. During this phase, the Uruguayan Navy aircraft adopted a new high-visibility livery that had been introduced by the U.S. Navy in 1955, consisting of light gull grey over white. It replaced the former common overall dark sea blue paint scheme (sometimes with light grey undersides, as on the F6Fs).

The former tactical codes and large national insignia in four positions on the wings were initially retained, but this later changed into smaller wing roundels and “Armada” lettering replaced the large tactical codes on the fuselage – these were replaced with smaller markings on cowling and fin, now without the typical “A-“ (for Armada = Navy) prefix. The codes superficially resembled USN modex style codes now, but they were still just consecutive numbers as before. Another detail all ANU aircraft retained after their general livery update was the Uruguayan flag on the fin instead of a stylized banner version of the roundels, which were carried by the air force.

 

Towards the late Sixties, Uruguay was caught by political turmoil. In the late 1950s, partly because of a worldwide decrease in demand for Uruguayan agricultural products, Uruguayans suffered from a steep drop in their standard of living, which led to student militancy and labor unrest. An armed group, known as the Tupamaros, emerged in the 1960s, engaging in activities such as bank robbery, kidnapping and assassination, in addition to attempting an overthrow of the government.

President Jorge Pacheco declared a state of emergency in 1968, followed by a further suspension of civil liberties in 1972. In 1973, amid increasing economic and political turmoil, the armed forces, asked by the President Juan María Bordaberry, disbanded Parliament and established a civilian-military regime. The CIA-backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents was called Operation Condor. The Uruguayan Naval Aviation did not get directly involved in the inner tensions and the F8Fs saw only sporadic use during this phase, primarily in “show of force” appearances. They did not fire in anger, though, and served on well into the Seventies, even though maintenance became more and more complicated and expensive. In consequence, more and more machines had to be grounded or even fully retired and cannibalized to keep the small fleet flightworthy.

 

In 1979 nine North American T-28D Fennec and three C-45 were donated by the Argentinian Navy, and in 1980 the ANU’s F8Fs, which were now primarily used as attack aircraft, were retired, after only five of the original fourteen aircraft had been left operational. The Fennecs were used as a light attack platform until 2000.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 28 ft 3 in (8.61 m)

Wingspan: 35 ft 10 in (10.92 m)

Height: 13 ft 10 in (4.22 m)

Wing area: 244 sq ft (22.7 m²)

Aspect ratio: 5.02

Airfoil: root: NACA 23018; tip: NACA 23009

Empty weight: 7,650 lb (3,470 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 13,460 lb (6,105 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Pratt & Whitney R-2800-30W Double Wasp 18-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine,

with 2,250 hp (1,680 kW), driving an Aeroproducts 4-bladed constant-speed propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 455 mph (732 km/h, 395 kn)

Range: 1,105 mi (1,778 km, 960 nmi)

Service ceiling: 40,800 ft (12,400 m)

Rate of climb: 4,465 ft/min (22.68 m/s)

Wing loading: 42 lb/sq ft (210 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.22 hp/lb (0.36 kW/kg)

 

Armament:

4× 20 mm (.79 in) AN/M3 cannon with a total of 820 rounds

1× ventral (1.600 lb /725 kg) plus 2× underwing hardpoints (1.000 lb /454 kg each)

for a total ordnance of 3.600 lb (1.600 kg), including 150 and 200 gal. drop tanks,

4× 5” (127 mm) and/or bombs of up to 1,000 lb (454 kg) caliber

  

The kit and its assembly:

This rather simple what-if project is #2 in my current “Uruguayan What-if Series”. I had a surplus FROG 1:72 F8F in the Stash™ that I had bought in a cheap lot a while ago, but never had – beyond tentatively switching the engine to a Centaurus and painting it in Royal Navy colors – a good plan for it. This changed when I came across the Mistercraft F6F-5, a re-boxed Heller kit that comes with a vast decal set for no less than eight aircraft that also includes the exotic Uruguayan Navy markings from the Fifties. The idea: couldn’t the nimble F8F be a good complement or even a replacement for the ill-fated Uruguayan Hellcats?

 

Therefore, this became a simple “re-badging” of an unmodified Bearcat, just with some minor cosmetic twists. These included cockpit implants like a tub with side consoles (IIRC from a Heller Me 262) and a dashboard (of uncertain origin), some additional antennae (including a scratched IDF loop antenna fairing) on the back as well as a small pitot under the left wing. As a pure fighter I outfitted the Bearcat just with its OOB ventral drop tank (the bombs and HVARs that come with the kit look rather fishy). The propeller was replaced, too, with a (much) better alternative left over from an ArtModel F8F-2, the (by far) best kit of the Bearcat I have come across yet. It was mounted on a plastic rod which perfectly matched the opening/channel in the engine block, spinning free.

 

The FROG F8F is a simple, if not primitive and crude, affair, and fit is only mediocre – especially the wing/fuselage intersection did not fit at all. There are huge trenches around the flaps on the lower wing surfaces, and the landing gear is rather massive – just like anything else about the model. You get raised panel lines, but they are rather fine and there are not too many of them.

After having built the FROG kit I think it’s (even) weaker than the vintage Monogram kit, which is riddled with rivets and panel lines, but leaves overall a better impression. Gotta try the relatively new Hobby Boss 1:72 F8F someday, too – it looks like a compromise between all other kits.

  

Painting and markings:

A secondary factor behind this build was the plan to paint an F8F in the later USN grey-over-white high-viz livery, which some very late USMC AUs carried in real life. Since many aircraft of the Uruguayan Navy adopted this livery style in the late Sixties, too (e. g. the S-2 Trackers), it would look very natural on an ANU Bearcat.

 

The model was molded in dark-blue plastic and applying white was quite challenging. I relied upon a special, highly opaque white acrylic paint (rattle can) as a primer, Light Gull Grey (FS 36440, Humbrol 40) was added with a brush later. A dirty black (Revell 06) anti-glare panel was added in front of the windscreen. As an individual detail the propeller boss was painted red – inspired by a USN F8F I saw in literature with such a marking, and the real ANU Hellcats had their propeller bosses painted red, too.

 

The cockpit interior as well as the inside of the cowling were painted in chromate green (I used Humbrol 150), while the landing gear and its respective wells became, after long consideration, white. Being former USN aircraft, the F8Fs would certainly have had green bays with dark blue landing gear struts and wheel discs upon delivery – but I referred to pictures from the real ANU F6Fs as benchmark, and these had apparently all-white landing gear surfaces, matching their undersides, so I adopted this style for the Bearcat, too.

 

The kit received a light overall washing with black ink and some post-panel shading. As mentioned above, the decals came from a Mistercraft F6F (roundels and fin flash), while an Croco Models aftermarket sheet with decals for south American T-34s provided the basis for the tactical codes. The unit emblems on the cowling were taken from the same sheet, even though the actually belong to a Uruguayan Air Force T-34.

 

After some detail painting (exhaust stubs, oil cooler, position lights) and weathering (exhaust and gun soot with graphite) the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish. Because the Bearcat would have been rather freshly painted, I omitted oil stains around the engine and the oil cooler.

  

Not a complex project, and the FROG Bearcat was a bit of a disappointment – but what could I expect from a mold dating back to 1975? Well, it found a good use – and in the Sixties’ USN high-viz livery the compact F8F looks a bit like a juvenile Douglas AD/A-1 Skyraider?

Bova WA09 HTU of Able coaches,London at Banbury railway station...Mar 7 2015.

This one was tough! I probably will have to do more work on it to be satisfied, or even scratch the whole thing and start over, but I an really having fun doing these age regression pieces! Not being a great artist, it's been a challenge.

 

This is the second photo of my great grandmother that I have done. I think the first one was probably more accurate, but I liked the shot of her so much that I decided to give it a go, anyway. I am not pleased with the face shaping, or the eyes, but I thought the mouth and nose came out well.

 

There are only about three photos of my Great Grandmother that I know of in existence, and I have them. It means a lot to me to be able to transform the old woman into her younger self. The only thing I have to go on is her own face shape and bone structure and the knowledge of what my mother, grandmother, and great aunt looked like. That is how I have been feeling my way through this work. In an attempt to retrieve the family resemblance that is nearly lost in an elderly face, I pretty much have to go with my gut. I sure wish I had just one photo of her when she was younger!

 

I'm going to see if I can do this with my other relatives' photos, and see if the final results look like them. Then I will know I'm on the right track. Since I can do it on my own, even though I don't look as nearly as old as Granny did, I think I'll get more accurate as I go along.

Venus might not be able to check her breasts but you can.

 

Being breast aware

 

Whatever your age, size or shape it’s important to take care of your breasts. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, so it’s important to look after your breasts by being breast aware.

 

Being breast aware is an important part of caring for your body. It means getting to know how your breasts look and feel, so you know what is normal for you. You can then feel more confident about noticing any unusual changes.

  

How do I check my breasts?

 

There’s no right or wrong way to check your breasts. Try to get used to looking at and feeling your breasts regularly. You can do this in the bath or shower, when you use body lotion, or when you get dressed. There’s really no need to change your everyday routine. Just decide what you are comfortable with and what suits you best.

 

Remember to check all parts of your breast, your armpits and up to your collarbone.

  

The breast awareness 5-point code

 

1. Know what is normal for you

2. Know what changes to look and feel for

3. Look and feel

4. Report any changes to your GP without delay

5. Attend routine breast screening if you are aged 50 or over

  

from www.breastcancercare.org.uk/breast-cancer-breast-health/b...

Almost any crochet doll pattern can be adapted to make a move-able head.

 

In this case, this is Laura Tegg's Weebee doll pattern with a move-able head. Simply work the body pattern as instructed to the point just before you increase to make the head. Instead, make a neck stub seven or eight rows long, tapering the last two rows as shown above.

 

Make the head separately beginning at the neck end with an opening that fits snug over the neck stub (same number of stitches as the neck stub before you taper it). Join in a ring so you have an opening at the bottom, then work the head increases as written.

 

Stuff the head firmly, but make a hollow up the center that you can insert the neck stub into. Joint the head to the neck with four strands of craft or carpet thread and a dollmaking needle, as illustrated in the middle row of images.

 

Tie off the carpet thread at the top of the head with a secure double knot. The wig cap or hat will cover this.

 

Finally, take the yarn tail from the beginning and join to the first stitch at the neck opening and pull tight. Bury the yarn end in the head.

Larry was able to locate a stationery store selling Midori's Traveler's Notebook in San Jose and successfully got one. He is kind enough to share this info with us. The store's name is Maido Stationery & Gift which is accepting orders by email.

 

They may have the product in their brick and mortar stores in San Francisco and San Jose, if you are interested to place an order please email to sfmaido@yahoo.com and provide the following information.

 

Item #s and quantity:

Your Full Name:

Shipping Address:

City:

Zip:

Phone #:

Payment Card #:

Exp:

 

The shipping fee is based on the weight and your whereabout by UPS.

We do not take checks. We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and AMEX.

 

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask us any time.

 

Taka, Shuku, and Naomi

NBC Stationery & Gift

845 Market Street

San Francisco, CA 94103

(415) 227-4338

(415) 227-0532

  

And here's the price list and contact information:

 

I don't know the store so I cannot guarantee their service level. If you have any good or bad experience with it, don't hesitate to post here or the flickr Traveler's Notebook group to let everybody know. Thanks again Larry!

 

More on Scription blog: moleskine.vox.com/library/post/how-to-get-your-travelers-...

Reprocessed. I wasn't able to replace the original in Flickr so here is a new version with less blue but perhaps too much yellow...

 

My little girl and a big tree. She is 1/3 of my world!

 

I stuffed this pano up. I shot it hand held. its about 40 images and I set too narrow a DoF and bumped the focus mid shoot without realising. Happy to I still got something out of it.

 

The boy was fast asleep in the car. I would have loved both of them in the pano.

 

The back streets of St Mary's not far from where I grew up. If you know what this tree is, let me know!

Afghan civilians look on as Royal Engineers from 44 (Four Four) HQ and Support Squadron install a General Support Bridge (GSB) near Check Point Oqob in the northern part of Nahr-e Seraj District of Helmand Province.

 

To launch a bridge the Royal Engineers use the Automated Bridge Launching Equipment (ABLE) that is capable of launching bridges up to 44 m in length. The ABLE vehicle is positioned with its rear pointing to the gap to be crossed and a lightweight launch rail extended across the gap. The bridge is then assembled and winched across the gap supported by the rail, with sections added until the gap is crossed. Once the bridge has crossed the gap the ABLE launch rail is recovered. A 32 m bridge can be built by 10 men in about 40 minutes.

 

Task Force Helmand Engineer Group is made up of 35 Engineer Regiment complete and 11 Field Squadron. Throughout HERRICK 15 the TFH Engineer Group have completed a wide range of tasks such as improvement of all level of bases including electrical work, bridging assets, road builds/improvements, a TALISMAN route clearing and proving capability assisting with freedom of movement throughout Helmand, and demolitions.

 

Photographer: Sgt Wes Calder RLC

Image 45153760.jpg from www.defenceimages.mod.uk

 

For latest news visit: www.mod.uk

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Under very simple conditions and a low-cost infrastructure we were able to let the children “travel” to their own colourful dreamland.

 

It wasn’t long before the children were entirely engulfed in the enchanted new world of Hummingbird, an unknown experience for many of them.

These highly underprivileged children live in utmost poverty and lack a lot of stimulus due to the very poor infrastructure available to them in their close community.

 

Today was the beginning of a new development in the Hummingbird Project called Beija-Flor na Comunidade (Hummingbird in the Community), which literally means we are taking Hummingbird to the community instead of the community coming to us. In other words, Hummingbird is spreading its wings!

 

These images are from today's activities, which finished only a few hours ago. Tomorrow we will be in a different locality, in a different community.

 

The programme is part of a new strategy being developed by our youth mentors to get a preliminary feel in connection with their objectives to implant small Hummingbird nuclei in the more distant parts of our community, thus bringing our activities to the poorest kids who have no means of reaching our main centre.

 

The first community to receive some of Hummingbird’s vibrant activities was the Sitio Joaninha, which is a rough hilly area about 6 kilometres away from us, where many of the families who used to work on the rubbish tip live. The tip was closed down a few years ago and the area covered with topsoil so as to recuperate some of the natural vegetation.

 

Most of the shanty homes were constructed during the active years of the tip, when entire families found their livelihoods under the most unhealthy and hazardous working conditions. Since its closure there has been very few alternatives in the way of work and habitation, so very few have been able to move to better conditions. To the contrary; the area has rapidly grown to accommodate even more poverty-stricken families who have no other alternative than to grab a small plot of land and try to survive on what little is available in terms of public amenities in such places.

 

The majority of homes have no running water and depend on the council delivering drinking water by truck each day. Electricity is acquired through a series of illegal connections, which people have hooked-up to the main electricity network through a maze of literally thousands of metres of wiring crossing the landscape in all directions in order to bring power to one’s home.

This is quite common during the rapid growth of favela (shanty) areas and pressures from the inhabitants will eventually cause most councils to come up with a more satisfactory and less risky solution.

 

Many of the children who live here have a long way to walk to reach school, as there is no public transport. The tendency is therefore not to go, especially during the rainy or colder seasons. Very few have the willpower or even the means of getting to Hummingbird to participate in all the good things we have to offer in our Street Migration Prevention Programme, although there are some who do.

 

This is the main reason for us to bring Hummingbird to the kids. If we can manage to finance a more permanent solution we will be able to continue with a variety of activities throughout the entire year and not just during the school holiday season as is this week's proposal.

  

Statue of Sir Adam Beck on University Avenue at Queen Street West. Toronto, Canada. Spring afternoon, 2021. Pentax K1 II.

 

A biography of Sir Adam Beck: www.biographi.ca/en/bio/beck_adam_15E.html

 

BECK, Sir ADAM, manufacturer, horseman, politician, office holder, and philanthropist; b. 20 June 1857 in Baden, Upper Canada, son of Jacob Friedrich Beck and Charlotte Josephine Hespeler; m. 7 Sept. 1898 Lillian Ottaway in Hamilton, Ont., and they had a daughter; d. 15 Aug. 1925 in London, Ont.

 

The Prometheus of Canadian politics during the first quarter of the 20th century, Sir Adam Beck brought the inestimable benefit of cheap electric light and power to the citizens of Ontario through a publicly owned utility, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. He had to fight continuously to build Hydro, as it came to be called, but supported by municipal allies he succeeded in creating one of the largest publicly owned integrated electric systems in the world. Brusque and overbearing, he made many enemies in the process, even amongst his friends, as he rammed his projects forward, frequently over the objections of the governments he notionally served. His ruthless determination to expand Hydro, with little regard to the cost, led eventually to a movement to rein him in. He spent his last years pinned down before three public inquiries as lawyers, accountants, and political adversaries picked over every Hydro expenditure. These public humiliations broke his spirit but failed to diminish his enormous popularity. Adam Beck more than any other public figure in Ontario reshaped the institutional life of the province by making electricity a public utility and legitimizing, through his accomplishments, public ownership as an effective instrument of policy throughout Canada.

 

Beck came from an enterprising immigrant family of builders and makers. In 1829 Frederick and Barbara Beck had emigrated from the Grand Duchy of Baden (Germany) to upstate New York, and then had moved to the Pennsylvania Dutch community of Doon (Kitchener) in Upper Canada, where they settled on a farm and built a sawmill. Their son Jacob, who had stayed behind to work first as a doctor’s apprentice and later in the mills and locomotive works of Schenectady, joined them in 1837. A few miles from his parents, in Preston (Cambridge), he opened a foundry. When fire destroyed it, his friends rallied and he was able to rebuild bigger than before. His first wife, Caroline Logus, whom he married in January 1843, died soon after the birth of a son, Charles. In 1843 Beck had recruited a skilled iron moulder from Buffalo, John Clare (Klarr), to join him; Clare would cement the alliance by marrying his sister in September 1845. With Clare and another partner (Valentine Wahn) running the business, Beck returned to tour his homeland, where he met Charlotte Hespeler, the sister of his Preston neighbour, merchant-manufacturer Jacob Hespeler. When Charlotte came out to Canada, she and Beck were wed, in October 1845; a daughter, Louisa, was born in 1847, followed by two sons, George and William. In a move typical of his venturing spirit, Jacob suggested relocating his company closer to the projected line of the Grand Trunk Railway, but Clare refused. So in 1854 Beck dissolved the partnership and bought 190 acres on the route of the railway ten miles west of Berlin (Kitchener). There he laid out a town-site, which he named Baden, and built a foundry, a grist mill, and a large brick house. Beck’s businesses flourished on the strength of iron orders from the railway, and a brickyard and machine shop were eventually added. It was in this thriving hamlet that Adam Beck was born in 1857.

 

Adam passed a bucolic childhood exploring the edges of the millpond with his brothers, poking about the sooty recesses of the foundry with the workmen, and horseback-riding with his sister. He was sent off to attend William Tassie*’s boarding school in Galt (Cambridge), where he showed no particular distinction; a slow and indifferent student, he preferred riding to reading. His formal education ended at Rockwood Academy, near Guelph. On his return to Baden, his father, who abhorred idleness, set him to work as a groundhog (a moulder’s apprentice) in the foundry. It was said by those who knew Adam that he inherited his enterprising spirit, his determination and visionary ability, and some of his sternness from his father, and a love of public service from his mother. Adam’s career as a moulder came to an end with the failure of his father’s businesses in 1879. At age 63 Jacob Beck, unbowed, started afresh once again, this time as a grain merchant in Detroit. Louisa and the youngest members of the family, Jacob Fritz and Adam, accompanied their parents; one of the older boys, William, stayed in Baden to run the cigar-box manufactory he had started in 1878. Adam returned to work briefly in Toronto as a clerk in a foundry and then as an employee in a cigar factory. With $500 in borrowed money, he joined William and their cousin William Hespeler in a cigar-box factory in Galt in 1881. Hespeler eventually left the partnership, but the two Becks persisted and built a modestly successful business. In 1884, with the inducement of a five-year tax exemption and free water, they moved their works to London, Ont., to be closer to the centre of the province’s cigar-making industry. William left soon afterwards to open a branch in Montreal and for a time Adam worked in partnership with his brother George; from 1 Jan. 1888 Adam was the sole proprietor of William Beck and Company, which later became the Beck Manufacturing Company Limited.

 

Cigar boxes would appear to be a fragile basis on which to build a fortune or a political career. The smoking of cigars, however, was a major rite of male sociability during the Victorian era. Earlier in the century cigars consumed in Canada had originated in Germany and later they came from the United States. The imposition of the National Policy tariff of 25 per cent on rolled cigars but not on tobacco leaf led to the migration of the industry to Canada. London was one of the first major centres where the leaf grown in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin entered the dominion, and it was there and in Montreal [see Samuel Davis*] that the domestic cigar-making business took root. In London the industry would reach its peak around 1912, when 22 companies, employing 1,980 workers, produced more than 20 million cigars. Situated on Albert Street, the Beck factory was essentially a veneer plant. Cedar logs and specialty woods from Spain and Mexico arrived by rail, were stored in the yard for seasoning, and then were peeled into strips to make not only cigar boxes but also cheese boxes and veneer for furniture and pianos. Toiling side by side with his workers (25 in 1889, rising to 125 in 1919), Beck built a thriving business, taking orders, setting up equipment, manhandling logs, and wheeling the finished boxes to customers. (He himself was a non-smoker, an enduring fatherly influence.) Eventually the company supplied all of the main cigar makers with the boxes, labels, and bands in which their products were shipped. Until he was 40, business was Adam Beck’s main preoccupation.

 

In the years after 1897 he emerged much more prominently in public life. He got out more, married, offered himself for public office, and turned the management of his firm over to his brother Jacob. An avid sportsman, he had played baseball as a boy; in London he played tennis and lacrosse and, with a group of bachelors, organized a toboggan club. On the advice of his doctor he took up riding again for relaxation. But nothing with Adam Beck could ever be just a recreation – he quickly became a breeder of racehorses and a competitive jumper. His social life revolved around the London Hunt Club where, in 1897, he became master of the hounds, a post he would hold until 1922. A mutual love of horses and riding brought the muscular Beck and the slim, strikingly beautiful Lillian Ottaway together at a jumping meet; she was 23 years his junior. After a whirlwind courtship they were married in 1898 at Christ’s Church Anglican Cathedral in Hamilton. Lillian, who had been raised in Britain, spoke with a slight English accent, had a lovely soprano voice, rode with gusto, and carried herself regally. Her mother, Marion Elizabeth Stinson*, from a wealthy Hamilton family, had married an English barrister, who died before Lillian was born. At 18 Lillian returned to Canada when her mother married a prominent Hamilton lawyer. After a honeymoon tour of Europe, Beck triumphantly brought his bride to London, Ont., where they promptly acquired the most ostentatious house in the city, Elliston, the estate of Ellis Walton Hyman*, and proceeded to make it even grander, with his and hers stables, under a new name, Headley. From being a sporting, business-possessed bachelor, Beck, with his young wife on his arm, moved effortlessly into the very centre of London society. She sang in the cathedral choir, their house and grounds were the envy of the city, and they made a romantic and devoted couple at dinners and hunt club affairs. Winston Churchill stayed with them on his lecture tour of 1900-1, as did Governor General Lord Minto [Elliot*] and Lady Minto in 1903.

 

As Adam Beck came out into society, he developed an interest in public life. In provincial politics London had long been a Conservative fief – William Ralph Meredith held the seat from 1872 to 1894. The Liberals captured it in a by-election when Meredith was appointed to the bench. At the next general election, in March 1898, Beck entered the lists for the Conservatives, ultimately falling 301 votes short of beating the Liberal Francis Baxter Leys. Although he perhaps should not have expected a better result, having no previous political experience or strong organization, he left the field feeling slightly wounded. Nevertheless, his political energies were channelled into the Victoria Hospital Trust, to which he was appointed by the city in 1901. Here he scandalized supporters with his aggressive approach towards patients’ rights, his attacks on hospital inefficiency, and his hands-on way of managing repairs economically. It is said that Beck, realizing that he was not likely to be reappointed, ran for mayor to outflank his opposition. In any case, he offered himself and was elected in January 1902. Making few promises, preferring instead to be judged by his works, he plunged into the first of what would be three one-year terms. His administration was marked by a vigorous, reforming tone that discomfited the aldermanic coterie. He promoted civic beautification by offering a prize from his own purse for a garden competition. He persuaded the city to take over the operation of the London and Port Stanley Railway when the private operator’s lease expired. He cleaned out the fire department, promoted public health, and became involved in the leadership of the Union of Canadian Municipalities, whose annual convention he brought to London in 1904. Beck thus learned the political craft at the top of local politics, as a mayor without a long apprenticeship. He entered public life as an oppositionist, a critic who used his personal popularity to drive his reluctant colleagues forward and to cleanse the municipal stables. Despite his class position as a manufacturer, in politics he developed the style of a populist champion of the ordinary citizen against the establishment. Although one might have glimpsed intimations of his future in these London years, it would have required an extremely vivid imagination to see in this maverick local politician the system-building Napoleon of provincial politics that history would know as Sir Adam Beck.

 

In the election of May 1902 the leader of the Conservative party, James Pliny Whitney*, encouraged Beck to run again, with the offer of a cabinet post. Although the party as a whole was unsuccessful, the popular Beck beat Francis Leys by 131 votes and thus, for the next two and a half years, he would serve as both mayor and mpp of London. It was in his capacity as mayor of a southwestern Ontario industrial city that he came in contact with a group of activists from his home district of Waterloo County who had become agitated by the hydroelectric power question. Led by the manufacturer Elias Weber Bingeman Snider and the enthusiast Daniel Bechtel Detweiler, the anxious businessmen and municipal politicians of the industrial centres of the Grand River valley had begun to organize themselves to obtain Niagara power that they believed would otherwise go to Toronto and Buffalo. They had met in 1902 to study the situation, and then formed common cause with the politicians of Toronto concerned about private monopoly. At first they hoped the provincial government could be persuaded to undertake the distribution of cheap power to the municipalities. Talks with the Liberal premier, George William Ross*, who refused to take on the inevitable debt, convinced them that if they wanted control over electrical distribution they would have to do the job themselves. Beck went as an observer to the first meeting of this group, the Berlin Convention of February 1903, a gathering of 67 delegates representing all of the main towns and cities in southwestern Ontario; he came away an active convert to municipal intervention. In response to this public pressure, in June the Ross government passed legislation (drafted by Snider) authorizing a commission of investigation to explore the possibilities of cooperative municipal action and a statutory framework within which the municipalities could create a permanent commission to operate a distribution system. Snider was the obvious choice as chair of this Ontario Power Commission, which more frequently went by his name. Beck along with Philip William Ellis, a Toronto jewellery manufacturer and wholesaler, and William Foster Cockshutt, a Brantford farm-implements manufacturer, were chosen by the municipal delegates to serve with Snider as commissioners. Thus, in the fall of 1903, Beck began a crash course on the power question. It was a subject ideally suited to his developing temperament, and he could readily identify with the professed goals: economic electrical light and power, equity between the different manufacturing regions, and the welfare of the common people. The vision of sensible, non-partisan, and public-spirited businessmen and municipal leaders (such as himself) appealed to Beck. He could also subscribe to the implicit attack on monopoly, social privilege, and finance capitalism. This was a moral universe in which he felt right at home.

 

As the Snider commission began working out the details of a municipally owned hydroelectric distribution system in 1904, Beck sensed the weakness of the voluntary, cooperative structure. It lacked the authority to order the power companies to surrender sensitive information vital to the enterprise, and the municipalities could not agree on much for long. Financing a collective municipal enterprise without provincial backing would be fraught with difficulties. The more he studied the question the more he became convinced that the province would have to play a major role, not just facilitate municipal activity. This growing conviction coincided with a major shift in the political landscape. The Liberal party was losing its hold over the electorate. Rooted in rural Ontario, it had trouble coming to grips with issues important to the rapidly growing urban constituencies. The Conservatives had crept to within three seats of upsetting the Liberals in 1902. In January 1905 Whitney’s Conservatives swept to a landslide victory, capturing 69 of the 98 seats. In London, the increasingly popular Adam Beck won with a plurality of 566 votes.

 

The hydroelectric question had not figured prominently in the campaign. The change in government, however, catapulted Beck into a position of some influence provincially. On 8 February he was made a minister without portfolio in the new administration. After the election, Whitney grandly promised that the water-power of Niagara “should be as free as air” and be developed for the public good. “It is the duty of the Government,” Beck insisted in his populist fashion, “to see that development is not hindered by permitting a handful of people to enrich themselves out of these treasures at the expense of the general public.” To that end Whitney cancelled an eleventh-hour water-power concession granted by the Ross government and on 5 July he appointed Beck to head a hydroelectric commission of inquiry. It was empowered to take an inventory of available water-power sites, gather information on existing companies in terms of their capital costs, their operating expenses, and the prices they charged, and recommend an appropriate provincial policy with respect to the generation and distribution of hydroelectricity. Beck continued to be a member of the Snider commission but clearly he had moved on to a broader conception of the power question; he now wielded a much more powerful regulatory and investigative instrument and could act with the authority of the province. Henceforth he would be the undisputed leader of the hydro movement.

 

The Snider commission, which reported first, in March 1906, recommended the construction of a cooperatively owned hydroelectric system linking the major municipal utilities to generating facilities at Niagara under the control of a permanent power commission financed and managed by the subscribing municipalities. In the weeks that followed, the Beck commission, in the first of its five regional reports, and more particularly the activities of Beck himself, superseded the Snider notion of a municipal cooperative. Beck’s initial report, on Niagara and southwest Ontario, prepared the way instead for provincial action by pointing out the excessive rates charged by private power companies, and the inherent difficulties of government regulation. He gave an important speech in Guelph urging direct provincial intervention. He inspired a mass meeting of municipal representatives at Toronto city hall and, on 11 April, a demonstration on the lawn of the legislature demanding that the province empower a commission to generate, transmit, and sell power to the municipalities at the lowest possible cost, and regulate the prices charged by the private providers. Beck also orchestrated a deluge of petitions from the municipal councils. All of this effort was intended to soften up his colleagues in cabinet, most of whom harboured deep suspicions about public ownership in general and Beck’s movement in particular. The strategy worked. The Whitney government hesitantly introduced legislation on 7 May (Act to provide for the transmission of electrical power to municipalities) which, in effect, created a three-member provincial crown corporation (though it was not called that), the Hydro-Electric Power Commission. Operating outside the usual civil service constraints and with extensive powers of expropriation, this body would have full powers to purchase, lease, or build transmission facilities financed by provincial bonds. Local utilities could buy power from the commission only after municipal voters had approved the contract and the enabling financial by-law. Astonishingly, Beck’s extraparliamentary organization cowed even the opposition: the bill passed unanimously in less than a week.

 

In organizational terms Beck had pushed on beyond an unwieldy municipal cooperative to a provincial crown agency. In doing so he had alienated some of his friends, especially in the way he had shoved Snider aside and unilaterally appropriated studies done by the Snider commission for his own investigation. Nonetheless he had created a broad coalition of municipal activists behind his determination to build a publicly owned, provincial system. But there were many possible forms, involving different degrees of state intervention, that the organization might take. The government remained ambivalent, guarded, and internally divided. What eventually emerged as Ontario Hydro, however, was Beck’s creation over the opposition of his cabinet colleagues. On 7 June 1906 Whitney appointed Beck chairman of the new commission, as expected. Needed engineering expertise would come from Cecil Brunswick Smith. And to balance Beck’s populism and rein in his enthusiasms, Whitney also persuaded a reluctant John Strathearn Hendrie of Hamilton to serve, Beck’s peer as a horseman, a man of his wife’s class, and a known supporter of the private power companies, among them the Hamilton Electric Light and Cataract Power Company Limited [see John Patterson*].

 

The private interests, especially the group promoting the only Canadian firm at Niagara, the Electrical Development Company of Ontario Limited from Toronto, having failed in their first attempts to derail Beck, now bent their minds to seeking some reasonable accommodation with the government. There were many in the cabinet, the premier included, who were sympathetic to this point of view. The Electrical Development Company was in a precarious financial position; a collapse would be a costly blot on the province. Whitney insisted that every consideration be given the company in negotiating the contract for power in early 1907 with the winning bidder, the American-based Ontario Power Company, and then with respect to the construction of the transmission line. In each case negotiations failed. The premier did not conceive of his policy as a guerre à outrance against the private interests. He believed in talking tough, but in the end was willing to come to terms. Unlike Beck, Whitney was a practitioner of brokerage politics. Beck, a newly formed ideologue, was not prepared to bargain away what had formed in his mind as a just alternative to private control. It was possible that neither of them knew the truth about themselves, though in time they came to a realization of their honest differences. For his part Beck had to manoeuvre against the wishes of his premier and colleagues in cabinet. From their point of view he could be unpleasant, ruthless, even unprincipled. He would change his mind without notice, withhold information, go back on deals, and alternately retreat in a sulk or play the rude bully.

 

Beck proved a formidable champion. The Toronto market was a key element in his grand scheme. Without access, which the city wanted, he could not deliver cheap electricity to southwestern towns, but Toronto’s system was controlled by the Electrical Development Company. In the resulting contest over a proposed by-law to fund a municipal network powered by Hydro, Beck’s emotional, simplistic rhetoric was a telling factor. He also profited from the ineptitude and arrogance of his corporate opponents in Electrical Development, Frederic Nicholls, Sir Henry Mill Pellatt*, and William Mackenzie, whose financial reputations had already taken a beating from the royal commission on life insurance in 1906. During the winter of 1907-8 by-laws endorsing the contracts with Ontario Hydro were approved by municipal ratepayers with huge majorities in Toronto and elsewhere. Hydro policy also proved extremely popular in the election of June 1908, in which the government increased both its popular vote and its number of seats. Beck now had a dual mandate from the municipal and provincial electorates. When a desperate Mackenzie amalgamated several enterprises into one utility in 1908 and then belatedly attempted to forestall provincial ownership with a counterproposal to build the system and distribute power under government regulation, the offer came too late. The government had gone so far it could not safely turn back; a publicly owned transmission company would have to be created. Mackenzie and his colleagues had played the game badly and when they lost, after having been given every possible consideration, they turned viciously on Beck and the government. Their quixotic campaign to undermine provincial credit in British financial circles, and then to seek disallowance in Ottawa of key Hydro legislation, served only to bring Whitney and Beck closer together and solidify the political foundations of Ontario Hydro.

 

Using electricity generated by the Ontario Power Company, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission became an operating entity in a series of theatrical turning-on ceremonies that began in the fall of 1910 and continued into 1911 as successive towns and cities were wired into the grid. Each of these civic festivals became an opportunity for Beck to recount the triumph of public power over private greed. His hostility towards the private power companies, who were now his competitors, and his shameless self-promotion as the champion of “The People’s Power,” deeply troubled his colleagues. Moreover, his independent conduct raised awkward questions about the precise relationship between the management of Hydro and the government. Before the election of December 1911 Whitney floated a trial balloon, suggesting that the time had come to make Hydro a department of government, under the full control of the cabinet. Beck did not openly attack the proposal, but once he was acclaimed in his own seat and the government was re-elected, his municipal allies, acting through the Ontario Municipal Electric Association, formed in early 1912, launched an aggressive campaign on his behalf; it not only supported Beck as chairman of a quasi-independent commission, but also (in February) brought him a handsome $6,000 salary, without requiring his resignation from the legislature.

 

With this vote of confidence from the people and somewhat more reluctantly from the premier, Beck struggled within a competitive environment to build Hydro through dramatic price cutting and political showmanship. In his campaign to expand consumption Beck became an electrical Messiah: in speeches and publicity he extolled the power of abundant cheap light to brighten the homes of working people; cheap electricity would create more jobs in the factories of the province; hydro would lighten the drudgery of the barn and the household; and electric railways radiating out from the cities into the countryside would create more prosperous, progressive farms even as light and power made brighter, cleaner cities. With his famous travelling exhibits of the latest electrical appliances (popularly called circuses), rural tests, and local Hydro stores (where household appliances were on display), and in parade floats, newspaper and magazine advertisements, and a host of speeches, Beck presented public hydro as an elixir, but he was no snake-oil salesman. He understood the economics of the electric industry better than his competitors or his critics. Along with utilities magnate Samuel Insull of Chicago, Beck realized that the more electricity he could sell, the cheaper it would cost to acquire. It was a difficult lesson to teach. He even had to browbeat some of the more fiscally conservative municipal utilities, most notably the Toronto Hydro-Electric Power Commission, to pass the lower rates on to consumers. In the process he continued to expand his publicly owned system at the expense of his private competitors.

 

In Toronto and across the province, Beck acquired a more ardent following than the government itself. At home he and his family continued to rise in public esteem. London’s municipal electric utility, which received its first hydro from Niagara in 1910, became a model for progressive business promotion and Beck loyalism. Personally Beck maintained an active interest in civic politics. When the water commissioners proposed a treatment facility to take more water from the tainted Thames River, he boldly promised to find enough clean fresh water in artesian wells. The city took him up on this offer, voting $10,000 for the purpose. In 1910 Beck drilled the wells, installed electrical pumps, and brought the project in on time and on budget, or rather, he absorbed the excess costs himself. In two grand gestures Beck brought light and water to the growing city in the same year.

 

However, it was in the field of public health that the Becks made their greatest contribution. Sometime in l907 or 1908 the Becks’ young daughter, Marion Auria, contracted tuberculosis. Her worried parents sought out the best specialists in America and in Europe. Mercifully her case responded to treatment. But the Becks became concerned for those families in their community who lacked the means to provide their children with medical care. Everyone, they believed, ought to have close access to first-class tuberculosis facilities. Accordingly, in 1909 Adam and Lillian Beck organized the London Health Association to provide a sanatorium. From local individuals and organizations they raised $10,000 (led by their own donation of $1,200), the city contributed $5,000, and the province added $4,000. On 5 April 1910 Governor General Lord Grey* opened the Queen Alexandra Sanatorium in the village of Byron, west of the city. For the rest of their lives the Becks remained deeply attached to this sanatorium and made its maintenance and expansion their passion. As president from its inception to his death in 1925 and a sometimes overbearing physical presence on the weekends, Adam Beck personally oversaw all major and even many minor renovations.

 

A society beauty, Lillian Beck also continued to be a fiercely competitive horsewoman. The Beck stables produced a string of outstanding hunter-class horses that won Adam and Lillian international recognition. In 1907 they competed in the Olympia Horse Show in London, England, where Lillian’s horse My Fellow won its class. To remain competitive, the Becks leased an estate in England in 1913 to maintain their equestrian operation at the highest international standards. From that time onward Lillian and Marion lived about half the year in England; Adam paid extended visits when his schedule permitted. In 1914 their prize-winning horses Melrose, Sir Edward, and Sir James were counted among the finest middleweight and heavyweight hunters in the world. The Becks also competed regularly at the National Horse Show in New York City where, in 1915, Lillian was named a judge over chauvinist protests, famously breaking down the barriers of this once exclusively male domain.

 

Adam Beck’s contribution to London had been publicly recognized in an unprecedented dinner given in his honour on 25 Nov. 1913. At this glittering affair, attended by 500 in the Masonic Temple, Anglican bishop David Williams* proclaimed him “incorrupt and incorruptible”; Roman Catholic bishop Michael Francis Fallon* eulogized his vision, character, and charitable works; and the mayor and city council gave him a silver candelabra and tray. While the ladies looked on from the galleries, the head-table guests were served their dinners from a small electric railway. According to the London Free Press, this banquet was “the most remarkable and spontaneous demonstration of affection and regard ever tendered a public man in London.” Visibly moved, Beck spoke briefly of his satisfaction at lightening the load of the poor, the housewife, the farmer, the merchant, and afflicted children, and pledged to carry on the fight to create a renewed citizenship based upon “service, progress and righteousness.” These local honours were crowned the following year when he received a knighthood in the king’s June honours list. He was now Sir Adam, the Power Knight, and Lillian formally became what she had long been in style, Lady Beck. Charging at fences on horseback, or driving the rapidly growing Hydro system forward, Sir Adam Beck was at the height of his power in 1914.

 

Re-elected by a large majority in the general election of 29 June 1914, Beck directed a major structural transformation of Hydro during his next term with fewer constraints than in the past. Whitney, who died in September, was replaced by a less adept premier, William Howard Hearst*. Beck’s nemesis, John Hendrie, resigned from the Hydro-Electric Power Commission to become lieutenant governor. Beck thus had a much freer rein, though Hearst did not include him in his cabinet. Hydro’s head set about expanding his organization with a powerful lobby, the Ontario Municipal Electric Association, zealously behind him. Beck and the regional municipalities fixed upon electric radial railways as a major force for modernization and rural reconstruction. In 1913 the Hydro Electric Railway Act and amendments to the Ontario Railway Act had prepared the way legislatively. A web of light lines that connected farms, towns, and cities and delivered transportation at cost under a public authority had enormous appeal and Beck became its most ardent hot gospeller. He managed to have the abject London and Port Stanley Railway electrified as a glowing prototype. Coincidentally the baseload of the proposed railways would greatly increase electric consumption and drive Hydro to a new stage of development as a fully integrated regional monopoly that provided hydroelectric generation, transmission, and distribution services as well as high-speed transportation. This grandiose vision of electrical modernization had commensurate costs, which Beck somewhat disingenuously managed to minimize.

 

In 1914 Hydro and the municipalities received legislative permission, subject to ratepayer approval, to enter into the inter-city electric railway business. By stages Hydro acquired the legal authority to generate power as well as distribute it through the purchase of a utility (Big Chute) on the Severn River and the construction of regional power stations in 1914-15 at Wasdell Falls, also on the Severn, and Eugenia Falls, near Flesherton. These were sideshows, however; the centrepiece of the proposed integrated system remained Niagara. In 1914 Hydro quietly began planning for a massive hydroelectric station there, but there was precious little water left at Niagara to turn the turbines. A treaty negotiated with the United States in 1908 limited the amount that might be diverted for power purposes; the three existing private companies at Niagara had already acquired, between them, the rights to most of the Canadian quota. Beck had made the development of the hydroelectric system into the central issue on the Ontario political agenda when conflict broke out in Europe in August 1914.

 

The Becks threw themselves wholeheartedly into the war effort. In 1912 the military authorities had cleverly put Adam’s organizing talents and his knowledge of horses together by naming him to a remount committee. At the outset of the war he took charge of acquiring horses for the Canadian army in the territory from Halifax to the Lakehead. In June 1915 he assumed this responsibility for the British army as well, an appointment that brought him an honorary colonelcy. Inevitably, allegations arose that his agency either paid too much for horses or acquired unsuitable remounts, but the claims were not substantiated upon investigation. Together Adam and Lillian Beck also made personal contributions to the war effort, donating all of their champion horses to the cause. General Edwin Alfred Hervey Alderson, for example, rode Sir James, Adam’s most famous horse. Lady Beck, in England for most of the war, working with the Canadian Red Cross Society, devoted herself particularly to ensuring that wounded veterans were welcomed into British country homes for their convalescence. The Queen Alexandra Sanatorium in Ontario was expanded in 1917-18 to accommodate the rehabilitation of wounded returnees. The arrangement worked well, but in the later stages of the war battle-hardened veterans began to complain about the hospital’s stern regimen, much of which was attributed to Sir Adam’s “Germanic” direction. In 1916, for his local and patriotic help, Beck had received an lld from the Western University of London, which he served as a director and later as chancellor.

 

At first the war had relatively little impact on Beck’s plans for Hydro. The municipal elections of January 1917, for example, revolved around the approval of by-laws for Hydro radials and vague authorization for the future generation of power at Niagara. Then the rapidly increasing power demands of wartime industrialization provided the overriding urgency, later in 1917, to overcome opposition to the purchase of one of the power companies at Niagara (Ontario Power) and forge ahead with the construction of a large diversion canal and a world-scale plant at Queenston, which would make much more efficient use of the available water. Shamelessly using the moral purpose of the war, Beck hemmed in his private competitors even more, setting the stage for their eventual acquisition, though the negotiations would be unduly drawn out, litigious, and embittered. However, war, inflation, railway nationalization, and the demands of automotive technology for better roads combined to damp enthusiasm for the radial railway project. Moreover, the problem for the Hydro-Electric Commission now was not finding ways of selling surplus power, but rather keeping up with galloping industrial, commercial, municipal, and domestic demand. When the war ended, Hydro’s transformation into an integrated utility producing as well as transmitting its own power was much closer to realization. Its corresponding administrative growth had been grandly marked by the ornate office building begun on University Avenue in Toronto in 1914 and occupied in 1916. Sir Adam had a good war, but he emerged from it a wounded politician.

 

From the very beginning there had been critics of the Hydro project and Beck’s management of it. Canadian private producers and British investors placed obstacles in the way during the early stages. As Hydro advanced, it attracted new critics: private power advocates from the United States, who viewed the progress of public ownership in Ontario with alarm. In 1912 a New York State committee of investigation, the Ferris committee, issued a sharply critical report. A year later a prominent American hydroelectric expert, Reginald Pelham Bolton, denounced the unorthodox financing of Hydro in An expensive experiment . . . (New York). Between 15 July and 23 Dec. 1916 James Mavor, a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto, published a devastating critique of Hydro’s lack of accountability, dictatorial methods, and tendency to subvert democracy in a series of articles in the Financial Post (Toronto), later reprinted as Niagara in politics . . . (New York, 1925).

 

In the final analysis Beck was his own worst enemy. His authoritarian management style invited criticism. In 1916 the provincial auditor, James Clancy, threw up his hands at Hydro’s accounting practices. Beck embarrassed his premier and government with surprises. He was not one to compromise, even with his friends. A scrapper and sometimes a bully, he intimidated his staff and his municipal allies, and regarded the government and the legislature with disdain. He was more popular and more powerful than the premier, and he acted as if he knew it. Hydro, in his mind, was bigger than any government and he was the personal embodiment of Hydro. Cautious people who wanted to know in advance how much projects would cost were battered into submission and put on his list of enemies; when the bills added up to two or three times the initial estimates, there were always convoluted exculpatory explanations. Dismissing his censors, Beck stormed ahead, fuming with rage at the conspiracies mounted against him and bristling with indignation at the slightest criticism. Even Beck’s defenders tired of his haughty, domineering ways. A frustrated Hearst, when accused by Beck of hindering Hydro’s development in the spring of 1919, rebuked Sir Adam for never taking him into his confidence, for his presumptuous attitude towards parliament, and for saddling others with responsibility for Hydro’s mounting debt. Beck responded by withdrawing his support from the government and by announcing his intention to run independently in the upcoming election.

 

The election of October 1919 came as a devastating blow to Beck and, potentially, to his project. As an independent in London, he was defeated by his sole opponent, Dr Hugh Allan Stevenson, the Labour candidate, who benefited from disaffected Tory votes, some nastiness about Beck’s ethnic background, and a vocal uprising amongst the returned soldiers in the Queen Alexandra Sanatorium. The timing could not have been worse. Beck’s massive Queenston hydroelectric station lay only half completed and the radial railway scheme had stalled; however, Beck’s enormous popularity, which transcended party lines, saved him. The victorious but leaderless United Farmers of Ontario initially sounded him out as a possible premier, but both sides quickly thought better of it. Although Labour strongly supported Hydro, the UFO were much more reserved, especially about Beck’s radial-railway enthusiasms; they preferred improved roads. As chairman of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission, Beck had also been an mpp and, for much of the time, a minister without portfolio. The election broke that political connection with the government in power. The eventual premier, Ernest Charles Drury*, had little choice but to keep Beck on as chairman, but he appointed a tough ex-soldier, Lieutenant-Colonel Dougall Carmichael, to the commission to keep him in line.

 

Over the next four years the new government and the tempestuous Power Knight remained locked in combat. For much of the time William Rothwell Plewman, a reporter for the Toronto Daily Star, acted as unofficial mediator between Hydro and the premier, who was determined that Hydro do the government’s bidding and not the other way around. On 6 July 1920 the government announced a royal commission to reconsider Beck’s radial program in light of the rising costs, disappointing experience in other jurisdictions, and technological change. Beck immediately orchestrated a campaign of resistance. In emergency meetings on the 8th at Toronto city hall and the Hydro building, for instance, the Hydro-Electric Radial Association registered its “strong disapproval” of the commission. Provincial treasurer Peter Smith responded for the government that it would not be stampeded. In July 1921 the commission, chaired by Robert Franklin Sutherland, produced a report that was highly critical of radials and recommended construction of only a much reduced system. Meanwhile, Beck had wasted valuable political capital in an acrimonious takeover of Sir William Mackenzie’s Toronto Power Company Limited and its related electric and radial companies and in fighting the City of Toronto over an eight-track entry corridor for a mammoth radial system. Characteristically, he condemned the Sutherland report in an intemperate pamphlet and urged the municipalities not to let up in their campaign. The adverse report, a hostile provincial government, and defeats for radial by-laws (particularly in Toronto) in the municipal elections of January 1922 effectively put an end to Beck’s radial dream.

 

Drury, concerned at the spiralling costs of the Queenston hydroelectric plant, wanted an inquiry into this project as well. At first Beck agreed. However, when his hand-picked expert, Hugh L. Cooper, questioned the design, recalculated the costs upward, and insisted upon changes in the power canal to enhance capacity, Beck rejected his advice and appointed another consulting engineer. The turbines had begun to turn on the first phase of this huge project on 29 Dec. 1921, but there seemed to be no relation between the estimates Beck presented and the mounting bills; in one year the difference amounted to $20 million. Unable to explain the situation, Colonel Carmichael offered his resignation, which the premier refused. The cost of the undertaking, now much larger, had ballooned from the initial $20 million to $84 million and counting. Drury, who had to guarantee the bonds for the over-budget project and take political responsibility for it, insisted upon a commission of inquiry with a sweeping mandate to examine the overall operations of Hydro, not just Queenston. This commission, appointed in April 1922 and chaired by Liberal lawyer Walter Dymond Gregory, became in effect an adversarial audit of Beck’s management that involved scores of witnesses, produced thousands of pages of testimony, and ran into the middle of 1923.

 

These political setbacks were, in some respects, the least of his problems. On 17 Oct. 1921 his beloved wife had died from complications following surgery for pancreatitis. Sir Adam and Lady Beck had been a deeply devoted couple despite their often long absences from one another. Living in the Alexandra apartments next to the Hydro building, they had only just begun to settle into life together in Toronto society. Moreover, she had been the one mellowing influence in his life. He was devastated by the loss. A widower, he was now also the single parent of a fiercely independent teenager. With the check upon his temper in a Hamilton grave, he became more difficult and erratic in the face of his daughter’s defiance and the ascendancy of those he considered to be his political enemies. These were the years of Beck’s towering, black rages.

 

Beck had run Hydro as a private corporation. Honest and incorruptible personally, he nevertheless paid scant attention to the niceties of accounting. He would routinely spend funds authorized for one purpose on any project he deemed in the interests of Hydro, including local by-law campaigns. For Beck the ends justified the means. Meanwhile, his vision of a provincial, publicly owned hydroelectric monopoly that served the municipal utilities and provided power at the lowest possible cost had been largely realized. In 1923 Hydro served 393 municipalities and distributed 685,000 horsepower using facilities in which over $170 million had been invested. Beck was a magnificent builder. There could be no denying his accomplishments, though, as the hearings of the Gregory commission showed, his management style, planning, political methods, and accountability to the legislature could be questioned.

 

The vexations suffered at the hands of the UFO government eventually drew Beck back to the bosom of the Conservative party in self-defence. In the election of June 1923 he stood as a Conservative in his old London riding. The irony of a civil servant running as a candidate in opposition to the government was not lost on Drury or the Farmers’ Sun (Toronto), but Beck managed to get away with it. This time he won with a plurality of more than 7,000 votes – a wonderful personal vindication. George Howard Ferguson*’s Conservatives swept the province, and Beck returned to cabinet in July as a minister without portfolio. Ferguson brought the Gregory inquiry to an abrupt conclusion and made much of the fact that Sir Adam’s general stewardship of Hydro had been supported in the commission’s voluminous evidence and summary reports. Beck’s probity could be stressed while quietly the government used the critical aspects of Gregory’s reports to bring Hydro more fully within the framework of financial and political accountability.

 

Then, just when it seemed these clouds had passed over, Beck’s personal integrity came under attack from an unexpected source. Hydro secretary E. Clarence Settell absconded with $30,000 in Hydro funds and left a blackmailing letter itemizing Sir Adam’s alleged misdeeds. When he was apprehended in October 1924 heading for the border with his mistress, he added further charges to the indictment. Wounded by Settell’s treachery, and by now a very sick man, Beck had to endure yet another inquiry as judge Colin George Snider conducted an investigation of more than 40 specific allegations having to do with the private use of automobiles, misappropriation of public money, unauthorized expenditures, conflicts of interest in tendering, and irregularities in expense records. Issued in December, Snider’s report condemned Isaac Benson Lucas’s management of Hydro’s legal department and Frederick Arthur Gaby’s conflict of interest in a dredging contract within the engineering department, but it found no evidence of serious wrongdoing by Beck. Save for a few petty mistakes in his expense accounts, the commission exonerated him. Settell went to jail for three years. Although another attempt “to get” Sir Adam, in the words of the Toronto Globe, had failed, the critics continued the battle of the books against Hydro. Beck thundered back with vigorous refutations in pamphlets that put his fighting spirit on full display. Returning to London one night by train, he gestured in some excitement to his travelling companion and long-time ally Edward Victor Buchanan, head of London’s utilities: “Look out there! The lights in the farms. That’s what I’ve been fighting for.”

 

The political struggle and quarrels with his daughter over her determination to marry Strathearn Hay, whom he deemed unsuitable in part because he was related to the Hendrie family, exhausted Beck, whose health and mental outlook deteriorated. It took Howard Ferguson’s intervention to persuade him to attend Marion’s wedding in January 1925. Ordered to rest by his doctors, who had diagnosed his illness as pernicious anaemia, Beck went to South Carolina for a holiday in February, and then he underwent transfusion treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. There he brooded about his beloved Hydro, strategies for the hydroelectric development of the St Lawrence River, and the continuing machinations of the private power interests, and he grumbled that the premier and his colleagues in government were neglecting him. He was a broken man by his own admission.

 

In May, Beck quietly slipped back to his home in London, where he attempted to conduct Hydro business by telephone from his bedroom. He weakened rapidly over the summer and died on 15 Aug. 1925 in his 69th year. Beck’s passing shocked the province; the seriousness of his condition had not been widely understood. The death announcement occasioned a spontaneous outpouring of grief, with eulogies pouring in from every quarter. His obituaries filled pages in the newspapers. “Canada has not produced a greater man than the late Sir Adam Beck,” declared Saturday Night (Toronto) as it enshrined him in the national pantheon along with Sir John A. Macdonald*, Lord Mount Stephen [Stephen], and Sir William Cornelius Van Horne*. Ontario city halls were draped in black, the Hydro shops and offices closed in tribute, and in London business ceased for an hour. Thousands lined the streets for his funeral cortège. The ceremony at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, attended by all the major political figures of the province, was also broadcast over the radio. As his funeral train mournfully passed from London across Beck’s political heartland to Hamilton, where he was to be interred in Greenwood Cemetery under a granite cross beside his wife, farmers and their families paused from their toil and men swept their hats from their heads. The entire Toronto City Council attended his burial. It is a small irony that Beck lies in what he would have considered enemy ground, Hamilton, the last bastion of private power. But for once his wish to be beside his wife overcame his prejudices.

 

Sir Adam Beck’s death marked the end of an unusual period in Ontario politics, one in which the chairman of Hydro had exercised greater power and influence than the premier and commanded a broad-based, populist political following much stronger than any political party. In building Hydro, Beck almost succeeded in creating an institution that was a law unto itself and for a long time it would continue to demonstrate some of the characteristics of independence. He died a wealthy man with an estate valued at more than $627,000, although his manufacturing business had been in decline for some years. His salary from his chairmanship of Hydro over 20 years totalled $197,000. Some of his wealth may have come to him from his wife. After making numerous small bequests to relatives and charities, he left a trust fund of approximately half a million dollars to his daughter and her heirs.

 

Beck’s memory was kept alive by the Ontario Municipal Electric Association, Hydro, and the citizens of London. In 1934 Toronto and the Hydro municipalities raised a splendid monument to him that still commands University Avenue. This brooding statue, by Emanuel Otto Hahn*, and Beck’s grave in Hamilton became sites of regular pilgrimages and wreath-laying ceremonies by the heirs and successors to the OMEA as they struggled to perpetuate the notion of Hydro as a municipal cooperative. Hydro publications regularly stressed the vision and legacy of Beck during the era of growth after World War I; eventually the much enlarged power stations at Queenston were renamed Beck No.1 and Beck No.2 in his honour. In London a new collegiate was named after him and a nearby public school was named after Lady Beck. The Women’s Sanatorium Aid Society of London built a charming chapel, St Luke’s in the Garden, across from the Queen Alexandra Sanatorium in memory of the Becks in 1932. The sanatorium itself became the Beck Memorial Sanatorium in 1948. In print, W. R. Plewman’s vivid 1947 biography captured the greatness of Beck and the tempestuous nature of his personality. Merrill Denison*’s commissioned history of Hydro in 1960 established continuity between the transcendent hero figure at the beginning and the transforming, province-girdling corporation Hydro had become in the postwar era.

 

As the obituaries noted, Hydro itself was Beck’s greatest monument. He worried on his deathbed that political partisanship would overcome it and that Hydro as an independent entity would not survive. But in his absence it continued to flourish, firmly rooted in the towns and cities, along the back concessions, and amongst the merchants, workers, farmers, and homemakers of the province. Hydroelectricity generated and delivered by a crown corporation to municipally owned utilities at the lowest cost had become an Ontario institution that would outlive changing governments and passing ideologies. That had largely been Sir Adam Beck’s doing.

A dramatic false-color image of the solar corona taken during the Skylab 3 mission. An occulting disk was used to block out the sun’s disk in order to be able to better image the corona. I have no idea if it’s ‘correctly’ oriented, but this seems to agree with most of the few occurrences of the image I came across.

 

The image doesn’t seem to be available at any official NASA site. What little I’ve found:

 

“NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) image, the Sun’s corona observed by Skylab. The corona in real color would actually be white; this computer-enhanced image uses false color to augment coronal features. “At Skylab’s orbital altitude, where almost no air was left and where the sky was starkly black, the outer corona was at last clearly seen. In the thousands of coronal portraits made by Skylab, in which the corona was observed more extensively than in all the centuries of humanity’s interest in the Sun, the corona was constantly altering its form, ever adjusting to the shifting magnetic fields from the Sun’s surface that so obviously gave it its distinctive shape. Skylab’s coronagraph observations coupled with x-ray pictures of the inner corona helped establish the origin of the corona’s varied forms and the important connection between coronal holes and high-speed streams in the solar wind.”

 

From/at:

 

space.nss.org/on-the-eve-of-the-great-2017-american-eclip...

Credit: National Space Society (NSS) website

  

And the following two comments/observations associated with the image:

 

“Skylab X-ray image of the Sun's corona.

 

The information doesn't explain the false color. What wavelength? X-ray?”

 

From/at:

 

www.physics.unlv.edu/~jeffery/astro/sun/sun.html

 

Specifically, the image:

 

www.physics.unlv.edu/~jeffery/astro/sun/surface/nasa_sola...

Both above “credit”: UNLV Department of Physics & Astronomy website

 

The above comments, on face value, appear to be downright stupid, UNLESS they're in response to a long-gone posting, possibly at the (sadly, disappointingly, genuinely stupidly) deprecated Marshall Image Exchange (MIX) website. Boy, do I miss it, although it's quite reasonable to expect it to have been posted with jacked up information regarding it, hence the comments. But, it was least posted! All pointless conjecture of course.

 

On a ‘less bad’ note; when I searched for the image at the NASA Image and Video Library website - which is what replaced MIX - using the keywords of Skylab, corona, solar and sun…in various combinations, excellent, diverse, rarely seen/published images come up! OF & FROM SKYLAB!!! Hell, there are probably less than a handful of NASA employees that have even heard of Skylab!

Yet, a search of “AS17-“ i.e., Apollo 17 photos taken during the flight, yields ONE WHOLE page of returns, most of it standard fare, several poorly rendered, especially the iconic “blue marble”. Again - APOLLO 17 - the LAST time humans walked on the moon, the mission exquisitely captured on film by the entire crew! WTF?!?!?! Back to the norm and what I've come to expect.

 

Thanks to the good old Internet Archive website, a survivor from the untimely wreck of the MIX. The generic, 'introduction to solar astronomy' description possibly 'composed' ca. 2009:

 

archive.org/details/MSFC-0201665

 

Wait, one more. Check out the ‘appropriately’ colored occulting disk, and I think, wrong move:

 

uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-sun-in-time

Credit: “THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS” website

 

Okay, this is it, I swear. From “A NEW SUN: The Solar Results From Skylab” NASA SP-402. Accompanied by a very similar image:

 

“The Sun's corona stretches far beyond the denser, inner corona seen in X-rays and ultraviolet light, and beyond the limits of what we normally see in the dark sky of a total solar eclipse. Its farthest reaches are delineated by tapered streamers that stretch into interplanetary space, extending the domain of our nearest star much farther than its visible disk. We see the outer corona briefly at total eclipses of the Sun, where it appears white and delicate against the starry background of a temporarily darkened, daytime sky. Even then, Earth's intervening atmosphere is bright enough to limit our view of the outer corona. At Skylab's orbital altitude, where almost no air was left and where the sky was starkly black, the outer corona was at last clearly seen. For 9 months it was continually observed by a coronagraph that blocked out the solar disk.

 

High on the priorities of Skylab's coronagraph observations were fundamental questions of coronal physics that had long remained unanswered: What are the real shapes of the coronal streamers seen flattened against the sky at times of eclipse? How does the corona change, and in what time scales? Does it respond to the violent changes on the Sun below? How are the inner and outer corona associated with what we feel at the orbit of Earth in the solar wind?

 

In the thousands of coronal portraits made by Skylab in which the corona was observed more extensively than in all the centuries of man's interest in the Sun, were the expected answers, in clear, continuous pictures of remarkable detail. There were changes of days, weeks, and months. The corona was constantly altering its form, ever adjusting to the shifting forces of the magnetic fields from the surface of the Sun that so obviously gave it its distinctive shape. Like the rest of the Sun, and the rest of the universe, it was never still. Skylab's coronagraph observations coupled with X-ray pictures of the inner corona helped establish the origin of the corona's varied forms and the important connection between coronal holes and high-speed streams in the solar wind.”

 

At:

 

history.nasa.gov/SP-402/contents.htm

I'd love to be able to say this had been mine or my dad's drivers hat from our days working top link turns from Doncaster in the 1980s but unfortunately it's not, my dad was a teacher and I've never driven a train 😔.

 

As a boy growing up in the 1970s/80s I was always fascinated with how smart the majority of railway staff were, Obviously drivers were the most highly regarded by us spotters back then, and I always wanted a drivers hat. This example was picked up, very cheaply, from a stall at a Barrow Hill Roundhouse open day in the early 2000s and now belongs to my son. I do still put it on from time to time though! Well you can dream can't you? 👍

Flickr has been a real pain again this morning, but finally I have been able to post another four photos and a video from the Bar U Ranch visit on 27 September 2020.

 

"Bar U cattle literally fed the world. The ranch fed workers building the first transcontinental railway and waves of immigrants flooding to a new land.

 

It fed Canada’s first Indian reservations, the first patrols of Northwest Mounted Police, our nation through the Great Depression and our soldiers through two World Wars. Bar U Percherons, “the work horses that powered North America,” built our cities and roads and pulled our trolleys and fire wagons, from New York City to Victoria, British Columbia.

 

One of the first, most successful, most enduring large scale cattle ranching operations in Canada, the Bar U in its hay day ranged 30,000 head of cattle on 160,000 acres of grassland, and was world renowned for its stock of 1,000 purebred Percherons.

 

Located deep in the southern Alberta foothills, on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the Bar U, from 1882 to 1950, was a force to be reckoned with. While other large Alberta ranches succeeded for a time only to go out of business, especially after the killer winters of 1886 and 1906, the Mighty Bar U persevered to eventually become a kingpin in a business empire that included a variety of ranches and farming enterprises, as well as meat packing plants and flour mills."

 

www.friendsofthebaru.com/bar_u_legacy.htm

 

On 27 September 2020, it was a beautiful, sunny fall day. Three days earlier, I had done a fairly similar drive, but extremely strong winds had forced me to cut short my drive and hasten back home.

 

There was a reason I really wanted to get down south again on 27 September. At the Bar U Ranch, it was time for the Stoney Nakoda camp to be dismantled for the season. This was going to include a ceremony in the afternoon, giving a final blessing before the tipi was taken down, carefully packed up and loaded on to a waiting horse. It was so interesting to witness each stage of this event. The Stoney Nakoda have had a longtime connection with the Bar U Ranch.

 

"The Stoney Nakoda were absolutely essential to keeping foothills ranches going. In the early part to the 20th century Stoney families would come down and camp at various family ranches and work right alongside the ranch families.” From an article in OkotoksToday, on Jun 29, 2020, describing the setting up of the tipi, and giving other interesting information.

 

www.okotokstoday.ca/wheels-west/bar-u-ranch-exhibit-pays-...

 

It took me longer to get down south this time, as I took a wrong turn at one of the overpasses that are part of the new massive Ring Road around the city. Just a confusing mess. Eventually, I found myself on a familiar road and headed off in such beautiful scenery. On the way home after my Ranch visit, I decided to take a completely different route home, in order to avoid that overpass intersection. It worked well and, as a bonus, I found a few 'new' barns to photograph.

 

While at the Ranch, I took a number of video clips of the various stages of the tipi ceremony. I will gradually add a few of them, partly because I have always loved the sound of the drums.

 

The ceremony began with smudging the inside and outside of the tipi. Some of the members entered the tipi and sat in a circle to begin the smudging.

 

"Although Indigenous nations have their own culturally specific smudging traditions, they typically share certain teachings. For example, all smudging ceremonies require some sort of vessel to carry the medicinal herbs, such as a special container, shell, smudge stick or ball. Burned in small amounts, the herbs contained in the vessel produce smoke that is said to have healing powers and carry the prayers of the people to the Creator. The smoke is wafted over the face and body of the person being smudged, either by a feather (ideally an eagle feather) or by hand. The person guides the smoke towards their body with their hands, inhaling as it comes their way."

 

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/smudging

 

After the smudging of the tipi itself, the women removed and bundled up the covering. The poles were then removed. The empty tipi ring on the ground was also smudged. The bundled up covering was lifted on to the back of a waiting horse and taken away. Afterwards, a pleasant wagon ride (carefully socially distanced) led us through the woodland surrounding the empty camp area.

 

I have always remembered how my father had respected First Nations people. A drawing he did many, many years ago, when I was either a child or a teenager, included a First Nations man in full feather headdress. After my parents and my brother had died, my amazing friends in England sorted through all their belongings and shipped them off to me here in Canada. I kind of hoped that this drawing could just be amongst all the papers, etc. It was! Couldn't believe my eyes.

 

Like on my visit last year, I enjoyed a chat with Lewis Martin Pederson. He showed me a beautiful leather book cover and an engraved(?) leather picture he has been making for a family member. Such an interesting, multi-talented man!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

After the success of the Soviet Union’s first carrier ship, the Moskva Class (Projekt 1123, also called „Кондор“/„Kondor“) cruisers in the mid 1960s, the country became more ambitious. This resulted in Project 1153 Orel (Russian: Орёл, Eagle), a planned 1970s-era Soviet program to give the Soviet Navy a true blue water aviation capability. Project Orel would have resulted in a program very similar to the aircraft carriers available to the U.S. Navy. The ship would have been about 75-80,000 tons displacement, with a nuclear power plant and carried about 70 aircraft launched via steam catapults – the first Soviet aircraft carrier that would be able to deploy fixed-wing aircraft.

Beyond this core capability, the Orel carrier was designed with a large offensive capability with the ship mounts including 24 vertical launch tubes for anti-ship cruise missiles. In the USSR it was actually classified as the "large cruiser with aircraft armament".

 

Anyway, the carrier needed appropriate aircraft, and in order to develop a the aircraft major design bureaus were asked to submit ideas and proposals in 1959. OKB Yakovlev and MiG responded. While Yakovlev concentrated on the Yak-36 VTOL design that could also be deployed aboard of smaller ships without catapult and arrester equipment, Mikoyan-Gurevich looked at navalized variants of existing or projected aircraft.

 

While land-based fighters went through a remarkable performance improvement during the 60ies, OKB MiG considered a robust aircraft with proven systems and – foremost – two engines to be the best start for the Soviet Union’s first naval fighter. “Learning by doing”, the gathered experience would then be used in a dedicated new design that would be ready in the mid 70ies when Project 1153 was ready for service, too.

 

Internally designated “I-SK” or “SK-01” (Samolyot Korabelniy = carrier-borne aircraft), the naval fighter was based on the MiG-19 (NATO: Farmer), which had been in production in the USSR since 1954.

Faster and more modern types like the MiG-21 were rejected for a naval conversion because of their poor take-off performance, uncertain aerodynamics in the naval environment and lack of ruggedness. The MiG-19 also offered the benefit of relatively compact dimensions, as well as a structure that would carry the desired two engines.

 

Several innovations had to be addresses:

- A new wing for improved low speed handling

- Improvement of the landing gear and internal structures for carrier operations

- Development of a wing folding mechanism

- Integration of arrester hook and catapult launch devices into the structure

- Protection of structure, engine and equipment from the aggressive naval environment

- Improvement of the pilot’s field of view for carrier landings

- Improved avionics, esp. for navigation

 

Work on the SK-01 started in 1960, and by 1962 a heavily redesigned MiG-19 was ready as a mock-up for inspection and further approval. The “new” aircraft shared the outlines with the land-based MiG-19, but the nose section was completely new and shared a certain similarity to the experimental “Aircraft SN”, a MiG-17 derivative with side air intakes and a solid nose that carried a. Unlike the latter, the cockpit had been moved forward, which offered, together with an enlarged canopy and a short nose, an excellent field of view for the pilot.

On the SK-01 the air intakes with short splitter plates were re-located to the fuselage flanks underneath the cockpit. In order to avoid gun smoke ingestion problems (and the lack of space in the nose for any equipment except for a small SRD-3 Grad gun ranging radar, coupled with an ASP-5N computing gun-sight), the SK-01’s internal armament, a pair of NR-30 cannon, was placed in the wing roots.

 

The wing itself was another major modification, it featured a reduced sweep of only 33° at ¼ chord angle (compared to the MiG-19’s original 55°). Four wing hardpoints, outside of the landing gear wells, could carry a modest ordnance payload, including rocket and gun pods, unguided missiles, iron bombs and up to four Vympel K-13 AAMs.

Outside of these pylons, the wings featured a folding mechanism that allowed the wing span to be reduced from 10 m to 6.5 m for stowage. The fin remained unchanged, but the stabilizers had a reduced sweep, too.

 

The single ventral fin of the MiG-19 gave way to a fairing for a massive, semi-retractable arrester hook, flanked by a pair of smaller fins. The landing gear was beefed up, too, with a stronger suspension. Catapult launch from deck was to be realized through expandable cables that were attached onto massive hooks under the fuselage.

 

The SK-01 received a “thumbs up” in March 1962 and three prototypes, powered by special Sorokin R3M-28 engines, derivatives of the MiG-19's RB-9 that were adapted to the naval environment, were created and tested until 1965, when the type – now designated MiG-SK – went through State Acceptance Trials, including simulated landing tests on an “unsinkalble carrier” dummy, a modified part of the runway at Air Base at the Western coast of the Caspian Sea. Not only flight tests were conducted at Kaspiysk, but also different layouts for landing cables were tested and optimized as well. Furthermore, on a special platform at the coast, an experimental steam catapult went through trials, even though no aircraft starts were made from it – but weights hauled out into the sea.

 

Anyway, the flight tests and the landing performance on the simulated carrier deck were successful, and while the MiG-SK (the machine differed from the MiG-19 so much that it was not recognized as an official MiG-19 variant) was not an outstanding combat aircraft, rather a technology carrier with field use capabilities.

The MiG-SK’s performance was good enough to earn OKB MiG an initial production run of 20 aircraft, primarily intended for training and development units, since the whole infrastructure and procedures for naval aviation from a carrier had to be developed from scratch. These machines were built at slow pace until 1968 and trials were carried out in the vicinity of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

 

The MiG-SK successfully remained hidden from the public, since the Soviet Navy did not want to give away its plans for a CTOL carrier. Spy flights of balloons and aircraft recognized the MiG-SK, but the type was mistaken as MiG-17 fighters. Consequently, no NATO codename was ever allocated.

 

Alas, the future of the Soviet, carrier-borne fixed wing aircraft was not bright: Laid down in in 1970, the Kiev-class aircraft carriers (also known as Project 1143 or as the Krechyet (Gyrfalcon) class) were the first class of fixed-wing aircraft carriers to be built in the Soviet Union, and they entered service, together with the Yak-38 (Forger) VTOL fighter, in 1973. This weapon system already offered a combat performance similar to the MiG-SK, and the VTOL concept rendered the need for catapult launch and deck landing capability obsolete.

 

OKB MiG still tried to lobby for a CTOL aircraft (in the meantime, the swing-wing MiG-23 was on the drawing board, as well as a projected, navalized multi-purpose derivative, the MiG-23K), but to no avail.

Furthermore, carrier Project 1153 was cancelled in October 1978 as being too expensive, and a program for a smaller ship called Project 11435, more V/STOL-aircraft-oriented, was developed instead; in its initial stage, a version of 65,000 tons and 52 aircraft was proposed, but eventually an even smaller ship was built in the form of the Kuznetsov-class aircraft carriers in 1985, outfitted with a 12-degree ski-jump bow flight deck instead of using complex aircraft catapults. This CTOL carrier was finally equipped with navalized Su-33, MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft – and the MiG-SK paved the early way to these shipboard fighters, especially the MiG-29K.

 

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 13.28 m (43 ft 6 in)

Wingspan: 10.39 m (34 ft)

Height: 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in)

Wing area: 22.6 m² (242.5 ft²)

Empty weight: 5.172 kg (11,392 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 7,560 kg (16,632 lb)

 

Powerplant:

2× Sorokin R3M-28 turbojets afterburning turbojets, rated at 33.8 kN (7,605 lbf) each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,145 km/h (618 knots, 711 mph) at 3,000 m (10,000 ft)

Range: 2,060 km (1,111 nmi, 1,280 mi) with drop tanks

Service ceiling: 17,500 m (57,400 ft)

Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,425 ft/min)

Wing loading: 302.4 kg/m² (61.6 lb/ft²)

Thrust/weight: 0.86

 

Armament:

2x 30 mm NR-30 cannons in the wing roots with 75 RPG

4x underwing pylons, with a maximum load of 1.000 kg (2.205 lb)

  

The kit and its assembly:

This kitbash creation was spawned by thoughts concerning the Soviet Naval Aviation and its lack of CTOL aircraft carriers until the 1980ies and kicked-off by a CG rendition of a navalized MiG-17 from fellow member SPINNERS at whatifmodelers.com, posted a couple of months ago. I liked this idea, and at first I wanted to convert a MiG-17 with a solid nose as a dedicated carrier aircraft. But the more I thought about it and did historic research, the less probable this concept appeared to me: the MiG-17 was simply too old to match Soviet plans for a carrier ship, at least with the real world as reference.

 

A plausible alternative was the MiG-19, esp. with its twin-engine layout, even though the highly swept wings and the associated high start and landing speeds would be rather inappropriate for a shipborne fighter. Anyway, a MiG-21 was even less suitable, and I eventually took the Farmer as conversion basis, since it would also fit into the historic time frame between the late 60ies and the mid-70ies.

 

In this case, the basis is a Plastyk MiG-19 kit, one of the many Eastern European re-incarnations of the vintage KP kit. This cheap re-issue became a positive surprise, because any former raised panel and rivet details have disappeared and were replaced with sound, recessed engravings. The kit is still a bit clumsy, the walls are very thick (esp. the canopy – maybe 2mm!), but IMHO it’s a considerable improvement with acceptable fit, even though there are some sink holes and some nasty surprises (in my case, for instance, the stabilizer fins would not match with the rear fuselage at all, and you basically need putty everywhere).

 

Not much from the Plastyk kit was taken over, though: only the fuselage’s rear two-thirds were used, some landing gear parts as well as fin and the horizontal stabilizers. The latter were heavily modified and reduced in sweep in order to match new wings from a Hobby Boss MiG-15 (the parts were cut into three pieces each and then set back together again).

 

Furthermore, the complete front section from a Novo Supermarine Attacker was transplanted, because its short nose and the high cockpit are perfect parts for a carrier aircraft. The Attacker’s front end, including the air intakes, fits almost perfectly onto the round MiG-19 forward fuselage, only little body work was necessary. A complete cockpit tub and a new seat were implanted, as well as a front landing gear well and walls inside of the (otherwise empty) air intakes. The jet exhausts were drilled open, too, and afterburner dummies added. Simple jobs.

 

On the other side, the wings were trickier than expected. The MiG-19 kit comes with voluminous and massive wing root fairings, probably aerodynamic bodies for some area-ruling. I decided to keep them, but this caused some unexpected troubles…

The MiG-15 wings’ position, considerably further back due to the reduced sweep angle, was deduced from the relative MiG-19’s landing gear position. A lot of sculpting and body work followed, and after the wings were finally in place I recognized that the aforementioned, thick wing root fairings had reduced the wing sweep – basically not a bad thing, but with the inconvenient side effect that the original wing MiG-15 fences were not parallel to the fuselage anymore, looking rather awkward! What to do? Grrrr…. I could not leave it that way, so I scraped them away and replaced with them with four scratched substitutes (from styrene profiles), moving the outer pair towards the wing folding mechanism.

 

Under the wings, four new pylons were added (two from an IAI Kfir, two from a Su-22) and the ordnance gathered from the scrap box – bombs and rocket pods formerly belonged to a Kangnam/Revell Yak-38.

The landing gear was raised by ~2mm for a higher stance on the ground. The original, thick central fin was reduced in length, so that it could become a plausible attachment point for an arrester hook (also from the spares box), and a pair of splayed stabilizer fins was added as a compensation. Finally, some of the OOB air scoops were placed all round the hull and some pitots, antennae and a gun camera fairing added.

  

Painting and markings:

This whif was to look naval at first sight, so I referred to the early Yak-38 VTOL aircraft and their rather minimalistic paint scheme in an overall dull blue. The green underside, seen on many service aircraft, was AFAIK a (later) protective coating – an obsolete detail for a CTOL aircraft.

 

Hence, all upper surfaces and the fuselage were painted in a uniform “Field Blue” (Tamiya XF-50). It’s a bit dark, but I have used this unique, petrol blue tone many moons ago on a real world Kangnam Forger where it looks pretty good, and in this case the surface was furthermore shaded with Humbrol 96 and 126 after a black in wash.

For some contrast I painted the undersides of the wings and stabilizers as well as a fuselage section between the wings in a pale grey (Humbrol 167), seen on one of the Yak-38 prototypes. Not very obvious, but at least the aircraft did not end up in a boring, uniform color.

 

The interior was painted in blue-gray (PRU Blue, shaded with Humbrol 87) while the landing gear wells became Aluminum (Humbrol 56). The wheel discs became bright green, just in order to keep in style and as a colorful contrast, and some di-electric panels and covers became very light grey or bright green. For some color contrast, the anti-flutter weight tips on the stabilizers as well as the pylons’ front ends were painted bright red.

 

The markings/decals reflect the early Soviet Navy style, with simple Red Stars, large yellow tactical codes and some high contrast warning stencils, taken from the remains of a Yak-38 sheet (American Revell re-release of the Kangnam kit).

Finally, after some soot stains with graphite around the gun muzzles and the air bleed doors, the kit was sealed with a coat of semi-matt acrylic varnish and some matt accents (anti-glare panel, radomes).

  

A simple idea that turned out to be more complex than expected, due to the wing fence troubles. But I am happy that the Attacker nose could be so easily transplanted, it changes the MiG-19’s look considerably, as well as the wings with (much) less sweep angle.

The aircraft looks familiar, but you only recognize at second glance that it is more than just a MiG-19 with a solid nose. The thing looks pretty retro, reminds me a bit of the Supermarine Scimitar (dunno?), and IMHO it appears more Chinese than Soviet (maybe because the layout reminds a lot of the Q-5 fighter bomber)? It could even, with appropriate markings, be a Luft ’46 design?

.........and I haven't been able to write about it. We have known for a couple weeks, since the biopsy results came back. He is only six. We still have lots of things to do together.

 

Zooie has a second surgery scheduled for this Wednesday to remove a wider margin of tissue from the area where the tumor was. He has some stones in his bladder and a thickening of part of his bladder wall also. If all goes well with the first part of the surgery, my vet will enter the bladder, remove the stones, and biopsy the thickened area. There is no known metastasis following chest and abdominal radiographs and an abdominal/chest ultrasound.

 

All this is not completely real yet. I've spent hours and hours researching. The prognosis is unclear right now. I've studied the statistics. I'm generally on the wrong side of stats anyway so I try not to give them too much credence.

 

Please pray for my boy....

~~~~Art will never be able to exist without nature.~~~~ (Pierre Bonnard)

 

For Photoshop Contest #235

www.flickr.com/groups/photoshopcontest/discuss/7215762259...

 

Original Photo~ Sammydavisdog~

www.flickr.com/photos/25559122@N06/4070404104/

 

Cat~ Falcon1961~

www.flickr.com/photos/falcon1961/3498350781/

 

Books~ CG Textures~

www.cgtextures.com/

 

#58~Photo Manipulations Project~

www.flickr.com/groups/365pmp/pool/

Able to soar almost endlessly, like a long-winged glider.

 

-----------------------------------

 

Nikon D7100. Nikkor 80-400mm @ 400mm. 1/8000th @ wide open. ISO 800 EV = 0.0

With only one DB Schenker 92 left able to work on the third rail a class 92 hauling anything on this line in daylight is now very unusual. Here GBRfs class 92 number 92044 is seen working 6M92 hauling a new rake of Freightliner waggons from Dollands Moor to Wembley on 23 June 2016.

 

According to Chris Warman wagons being hauled included MWA 81 70 5891 039-6, 7058910385, MWA 81 70 5891 030-5, MWA 81 70 5891 023-0, MWA 81 70 5891 042-0, 7058910214, 7058910404 and MWA 81 70 5891 028-9, 7058910140, 7058910065 and MWA 81 70 5891 010-7.

 

According to Realtime Trains the route and timings were;

Dollands Moor (GBRf)..........1212.........1217.............5L

Saltwood Junction...............1215.........1222............7L

Ashford International .........1230........1235............5L

Maidstone East [MDE] 1......1255........1258 1/4......3L

Otford Junction[XOT]..........1311 1/2....1319 3/4......8L

Swanley [SAY] 1....................1322 1/2..1332 3/4...10L

St Mary Cray Junction.........1327.........1337 1/2....10L

Bickley Junction[XLY].........1328.........1339 1/4.....11L

Shortlands Junction............1336 1/2..1347..........10L

Bellingham [BGM]................1343.........1351 1/2.......8L

Nunhead [NHD] 1..................1353 1/2..1359............5L

Crofton Road Junction.......1357.........1402............5L

Denmark Hill [DMK] 1...........1358.........1402 1/2......4L

Voltaire Road Junction.......1402 1/2..1406............3L

Latchmere Junction............1422 1/2..1421 3/4.....RT

Kensington Olympia ...........1430 1/2..1429.............1E

North Pole Junction.............1434.........1433.............1E

Mitre Bridge Junction.........1436.........1436...........RT

Willesden West Ldn Jn.......1438.........1437 1/2.....RT

Wembley Eur Frt Ops Ctr...1513..........1449.........24E

 

On 17 August 2024, my daughter had a free day and was able to join me for a full day of driving and visiting three different farms. This weekend, it was Alberta Open Farms Day, which means that owners can register to take part in the event, opening their farms to the public. You can see how smoky/hazy the day was when you look into the distance.

 

One of the farms, the first one we had decided to visit, was east of Calgary. One of the others was south (just SE) and the last one was SW of the city. This meant lots of fast, highway driving to save on time, stopping only several times to take a few quick photos.

 

I had seen Mangalitsa pigs before, each year that I took part in the Christmas Bird Count covering the Cochrane Wildlife Reserve. They were being raised by Steven Tannas. Both my daughter and I love pigs, so Eh Farms sounded a great place to visit yesterday.

 

"Eh Farms is a local, family-owned Alberta pig farm specializing in Red Mangalitsa Pigs. Our Mangalitsas are sustainably raised for 2 years in their natural environment eating an all plant-based ration, grass-pastured, and a fodder enhanced diet through the winter months.

 

Manga’s are known for their free-range, foraging, and natural diet – one of the reasons why the pork and lard produced from these pigs is so healthy to add to our own diets! These local pigs forage around our Alberta farm, eating a natural diet filled with vegetables, fruits, and grains, in addition to the nutrients they find on the ground. Because the pigs spend most of their time in the pasture snacking, they get nice and plump, a key part in what makes their meat so tasty!

 

The other pig breeds produced and sold to traditional grocery stores and markets are often grown quickly and contain very little fat, resulting in a less juicy cut. Not our Manga’s! Our hairy pigs are known for their mouthwatering flavour and unbelievable taste!

 

Mangalitsa meat has pure white fat! But not the bad type of fat you think of when you hear the word ‘bacon’, the good kind – monosaturated fat!

 

Monosaturated fats are a healthy fat that is necessary to have in our diets. Mangalitsa pork contains a pure and beneficial fat that is rich." From the EH Farms website.

 

This farm has a nice red barn and another attractive structure (shed, storage?). A large, white dog that was resting, caught our attention, too.

 

A beautiful Red-tailed Hawk was perched on the fence where the pigs were foraging. Because of the wildfire smoke and haze, I almost missed seeing it. Such gorgeous feathers.

 

From this farm, it was a long drive south, eventually arriving at the second farm on our list. This was Tierra Flores Florals and Botanicals, near High River. More info on this farm when I add photos taken there.

 

After enjoying our time there, we drove W to our final stopping place, Hartell Homestead, where they raise amazing Highland Cattle. We were lucky because several of the animals were close to the fence. Oh, those young ones - so adorable! Another day, I will have to post a video of them.

 

We had made three great choices for the day and would be happy to visit all three maybe next year. A most enjoyable day, and so happy to have shared it all with my daughter.

brion tomb, san vito d'altivole cemetery, italy, 1969-1978 (largely completed by 1972 as far as I can tell)

architect: carlo scarpa (1906-1978)

 

a year ago I was able to revisit a number of scarpa's key works, but rather than feeling lucky it left me deeply frustrated: even after all these years I understood so little. project by project, building by building, my knowledge of scarpa receded. every door I opened led me further into the dark. these brief notes are, as always, my own attempt to gain or regain a foothold.

 

how do we begin to talk about the brion tomb? the published texts on this late work are like a competition in academic obfuscation; scarpa's pervasive use of symbols has even the finest historian talking about occultism. the architect himself was ironic to the point of hardly saying anything at all, although he admitted that this was - uniquely - a project he was happy to revisit. and revisit he did: carlo scarpa was buried, standing up, in a hidden corner of the cemetery following his fatal fall down a flight of stairs in japan in 1978.

 

but this is less about where the architect went. we should heed the lessons learnt from his monument to the partisan women and from the querini stampalia, projects that reveal scarpa's sensitivity to the position he puts you in.

 

you already know the place and you know the way there, whether you have been to the small town of san vito d'altivole or not. that narrow asphalt road from the village down to the walled cemetery following a line of tall cypresses, fields to the side. the cemetery with its sad pomposity and polished marble, telling us so little of those dead and those mourning except perhaps their social fears. along the back of the square enclosure, you'll recognise the line up of family graves, sad little temples, always under lock and chain.

 

the neatness and predictability of death in provincial italy is broken only once. a single, ancient-looking grave stands out in its ruinous and overgrown state. as you approach it, you realise the grave is open, and not only that - at the far end is another opening, two large circles in black steel and coloured glass intersect to form a set of eyes or glasses. come and see, they beckon. come and see for yourself:

 

enter. through. the. grave.

 

notice how you don't need to be familiar with symbolism, mythology or modern architecture to understand that you are facing a through-the-looking glass moment; that on the other side, meaning will somehow be heightened and twisted.

 

scarpa's manipulation of common building parts - we experienced it in querini stampalia when entering the palace through a window and in the monument to partisan women when left on a pedestal, looking down at the statue - these reversals of use and meaning tell us of a profoundly original architect whose approach was closer to what we might find in literature than among his colleagues, right here with just a touch of the gothic novel.

 

it was ruskin who insisted that we should read a building the way we read a book, and scarpa took care that his works merit the attention. you only need to look at his use of symbols, so confusing in a late-modern work of architecture. the intersecting circles, known as the vesica piscis, form one of the more open-ended symbols, in the scientific community simply signifying a lens which is clearly one of the meanings employed by scarpa. in early christian and byzantine art, the almond shape at the centre was used to frame christ, although in scarpa's use, its emptiness is telling.

 

it had become something of a personal signature for scarpa in the same way aalto used the wave (aalto meaning wave in finnish), but he only fully unfolded its symbolic potential here in the brion tomb. the duality of the circles is obvious, they express complementary opposites. as you move through scarpa's spaces, these are shown to be many: the husband and wife buried here as in the masculine and the feminine, but also the private and the communal expressed in ritual and reflection, and not least in nature and the built delineating each other. you may continue the list, but of course the circles first of all signify the interdependence of life and death itself, just as the whole turns out to be a meditation on death; a thinking man's reconciliation with death.

 

more recently, the vesica piscis has been understood as a representation of the female genitalia. this would be frivolous were it not for the way scarpa's own drawings of the cemetery swarm with naked women. I have yet to come across any actual naked women there, but fertility is a theme throughout, and the oddly laconic idea that you enter the cemetery through the birth canal seems to fit with scarpa's particular sense of irony. perhaps it is related to novelistic irony in that you simply cannot know where the author stands.

 

where scarpa appears willfully ambiguous, it is an invitation. here, standing at the entrance to the brion tomb, you realise that scarpa's work began way back where the mood was set: at the first of the tall cypresses as you left the village. and then, more painfully, that you have always been on the way to the cemetery, that we always are.

 

but there is a glimpse of a garden through the intersecting circles. you enter; the game continues.

 

the scarpa set.

The roses in the People's Garden

Plan

Rosarium History - Classification

Floribunda - new color range - Casting

Tree roses - new plantings - Pests - Winter Care

Rambling Roses - fertilizing, finishes

Shrub Roses - Rose Renner - Sponsorship - variety name

The history of roses in the People's Garden

The People's Garden, located between the Imperial Palace and the ring road is famous for its beautiful roses:

1000 standard roses

4000 Floribunda,

300 rambling roses,

(Also called Rose Park) 200 shrub roses.

Noteworthy is the diversity: there are about 400 varieties, including very old plants:

1859 - Rubens

1913 - Pearl of the Vienna Woods

1919 - Jean C.N. Forestier

The above amounts are from the Federal Gardens. My own count has brought other results:

730 tree roses

2300 Floribunda

132 rambling roses

100 shrub roses

That's about 3300 roses in total. Approx. 270 species I was able to verify. Approx. 50 rose bushes were not labeled. Some varieties come very often, others only once or twice.

Molineux 1994

Rubens 1859

Medialis 1993

Swan lake 1968

Once flourished here Lilac and Rhododendron bushes

1823 People's Garden was opened with the Temple of Theseus. Then made ​​multiple extensions.

The part of today's "Rosarium" along the Ring Road was built in 1862. (Picture fence 1874)

What is so obvious to today's Vienna, was not always so: most of the beds in the People's Garden originally were planted with lilac and rhododendron.

Only after the second World War II it was converted to the present generous rose jewelry.

Since then grow along the ring side creepers, high stem and floribunda roses. On the side of Heroes Square, with the outputs, shrub roses were placed, among which there are also some wild roses.

1889 emerged the Grillparzer Monument.

(All the pictures you can see by clicking the link at the end of the side!)

Rhododendrons, output Sisi Avenue, 1930

Classifications of roses

(Wild roses have 7 sheets - prize roses 5 sheets)

English Rose

Florybunda

Hybrid Tea Rose

Rambling Rose

At the Roses in the People´s Garden are hanging labels (if they do not fall victim to vandals or for souvenirs) with the year indication of breeding, the name of breeding and botanical description:

Hybrid Tea Rose (TB): 1 master, 1 flower;

Florybunda (Flb): 1 strain, many flowers;

English Rose (Engl): mixture of old and modern varieties Tb and Flb.

Called Schlingrose, also climbing rose

Florybunda: 1 strain, many flowers (Donauprinzessin)

Shrub Roses - Floribunda - Tree roses - Climbing Roses

Even as a child, we hear the tale of Sleeping Beauty, but roses have no thorns, but spines. Thorns are fused directly to the root and can not be easily removed as spines (upper wooden containers called).

All roses belong to the bush family (in contrast to perennials that "disappear" in the winter). Nevertheless, there is the term Shrub Rose: It's a chronological classification of roses that were on the market before 1867. They are very often planted as a soloist in a garden, which them has brought the name "Rose Park".

Hybrid Tea Rose: 1 master, 1 flower (rose Gaujard )

Other classifications are:

(High) standard roses: roses are not grafted near the ground, but at a certain strain level. With that, the rose gardener sets the height of the crown.

Floribunda roses : the compact and low bushy roses are ideal for group planting on beds

Crambling roses: They have neither roots nor can they stick up squirm. Their only auxiliary tool are their spines with which they are entangled in their ascent into each other

English Rose: mixture of old varieties, hybrid tea and Florybunda (Tradescanth)

4000 Floribunda

Floribunda roses are hardy, grow compact, knee-high and bushy, are durable and sturdy

There are few smelling varieties

Polyantha classification: a tribe, many small flowers; Florybunda: a tribe, many big blossoms

New concept of color: from red to light yellow

The thousands Floribunda opposite of Grillparzer Monument shimmer (still) in many colors. From historical records, however, is indicated that there was originally a different color scheme for the Floribunda than today: At the entrance of the Burgtheater side the roses were dark and were up to Grillparzer monument ever brighter - there they were then already white.

This color range they want again, somewhat modified, resume with new plantings: No white roses in front of the monument, but bright yellow, so that Grillparzer monument can better stand out. It has already begun, there was heavy frost damage during the winter 2011/12.

Colorful roses

2011: white and pink roses

2012: after winter damage new plantings in shades of yellow .

Because the domestic rose production is not large enough, the new, yellow roses were ordered in Germany (Castor).

Goldelse, candlelight, Hanseatic city of Rostock.

Watering

Waterinr of the Floribunda in the morning at 11 clock

What roses do not like at all, and what attracts pests really magically, the foliage is wet. Therefore, the Floribunda roses are in the People's Garde poured in the morning at 11 clock, so that the leaves can dry thoroughly.

Ground sprinklers pouring only the root crown, can not be used because the associated hoses should be buried in the earth, and that in turn collide with the Erdanhäufung (amassing of earth) that is made for winter protection. Choosing the right time to do it, it requires a lot of sense. Is it too early, so still too warm, the bed roses begin to drive again, but this young shoots freeze later, inevitably, because they are too thin.

1000 Tree roses

Most standard roses are found in the rose garden.

During the renovation of the Temple of Theseus the asphalt was renewed in 2011, which was partially only a few centimeters thick, and so was the danger that trucks with heavy transports break into. Due to this construction site the entire flower bed in front had to be replaced.

Now the high-stem Rose Maria Theresia is a nice contrast to the white temple, at her feet sits the self-cleaning floribunda aspirin. Self-cleaning means that withered flowers fall off and rarely maintenance care is needed.

Pink 'Maria Theresa' and white 'aspirin' before the temple of Theseus

Standard tree rose Maria Theresa

Floribunda aspirin

The concept of the (high) standard roses refers to a special type of rose decoration. Suitable varieties of roses are not grafted near the ground, but at a certain height of the trunk. With that the rose gardener sets the height of the crown fixed (60 cm, 90 cm, 140 cm)

Plantings - Pests - Winter Care

Normally about 50 roses in the People's Garden annually have to be replaced because of winter damages and senility. Till a high standard rose goes on sale, it is at least 4 years old. With replantings the soil to 50 cm depth is completely replaced (2/3 basic soil, 1/3 compost and some peat ).

Roses have enemies, such as aphids. Against them the Pirimor is used, against the Buchsbaumzünsler (Box Tree Moth, Cydalima perspectalis) Calypso (yet - a resistance is expected).

In popular garden roses are sprayed with poison, not only when needed, but also as a precaution, since mildew and fire rose (both are types of fungi) also overwinter.

Therefore it is also removed as far as possible with the standard roses before packing in winter the foliage.

Pest Control with Poison

The "Winter Package " first is made with paper bags, jute bags, then it will be pulled (eg cocoa or coffee sacks - the commercially available yard goods has not proven).

They are stored in the vault of the gardener deposit in the Burggarten (below the Palm House). There namely also run the heating pipes. Put above them, the bags after the winter can be properly dried.

Are during the winter the mice nesting into the packaged roses, has this consequences for the crows want to approach the small rodents and are getting the packaging tatty. It alreay has happened that 500 standard roses had to be re-wrapped.

"Winter Package" with paper and jute bags

300 ambling roses

The Schlingrosen (Climbing Roses) sit "as a framing" behind the standard roses.

Schlingrose pearl from the Vienna Woods

Schlingrose Danube

Schlingrose tenor

Although climbing roses are the fastest growing roses, they get along with very little garden space.

They have no rootlets as the evergreen ivy, nor can they wind up like a honeysuckle. Their only auxiliary tool are their spines with which they are entangled in their ascent mesh.

Climbing roses can reach stature heights of 2 to 3 meters.

4 x/year fertilizing

4 times a year, the soil is fertilized. From August, but no more, because everything then still new drives would freeze to death in winter. Well-rotted horse manure as fertilizer was used (straw mixed with horse manure, 4 years old). It smelled terrible, but only for 2 days.

Since the City of Vienna may only invest more plant compost heap (the EU Directive prohibits animal compost heap on public property), this type of fertilization is no longer possible to the chagrin of gardeners, and roses.

In the people garden in addition is foliar fertilizer used (it is sprayed directly on the leaves and absorbed about this from the plant).

Finishes in the Augarten

Old rose varieties are no longer commercially available. Maybe because they are more sensitive, vulnerable. Thus, the bud of Dr. F. Debat already not open anymore, if it has rained twice.

 

Roses need to be replaced in the People's Garden, this is sometimes done through an exchange with the Augarten Palace or the nursery, where the finishes are made. Previously there were roses in Hirschstetten and the Danube Park, but the City of Vienna has abandoned its local rose population (not to say destroyed), no exchange with these institutions is possible anymore.

Was formerly in breeding the trend to large flowers, one tends to smell roses again today. Most varieties show their resplendent, lush flowers only once, early in the rose-year, but modern varieties are more often blooming.

200 shrub roses

Some shrub roses bloom in the rose garden next to the Grillparzer Monument

Most of the shrub or park roses can be found along the fence to Heroes' Square. These types are so old, and there are now so many variations that even a species of rose connoisseurs assignment is no longer possible in many cases.

The showy, white, instensiv fragrant wild rose with its large umbels near des Triton Fountain is called Snow White.

Shrub roses are actually "Old Garden Roses" or "old roses", what a time

classification of roses is that were on the market before 1867.

Shrub roses are also called park roses because they are often planted as a soloist in a park/garden.

They grow shrubby, reaching heights up to 2 meters and usually bloom only 1 x per year.

The Renner- Rose

The most famous bush rose sits at the exit to Ballhausplatz before the presidential office.

It is named after the former Austrian President Dr. Karl Renner

When you enter, coming from the Ballhausplatz, the Viennese folk garden of particular note is a large rose bush, which is in full bloom in June.

Before that, there is a panel that indicates that the rose is named after Karl Renner, founder of the First and Second Republic. The history of the rose is a bit of an adventure. President Dr. Karl Renner was born on 14 in December 1870 in the Czech village of Untertannowitz as the last of 18 children of a poor family.

Renner output rose at Ballhausplatz

He grew up there in a small house, in the garden, a rose bush was planted.

In summer 1999, the then Director of the Austrian Federal Gardens, Peter Fischer Colbrie was noted that Karl Renner's birthplace in Untertannowitz - Dolni Dunajovice today - and probably would be demolished and the old rosebush as well fall victim to the demolition.

High haste was needed, as has already been started with the removal of the house.

Misleading inscription " reconstruction"?

The Federal Gardens director immediately went to a Rose Experts on the way to Dolni Dunajovice and discovered "as only bright spot in this dismal property the at the back entrance of the house situated, large and healthy, then already more than 80 year old rose bush".

After consultation with the local authorities Peter Fischer Colbrie received approval, to let the magnificent rose bush dig-out and transport to Vienna.

Renner Rose is almost 100 years old

A place had been found in the Viennese People´s Garden, diagonal vis-à-vis the office where the president Renner one resided. On the same day, the 17th August 1999 the rosebush was there planted and in the following spring it sprouted already with flowers.

In June 2000, by the then Minister of Agriculture Molterer and by the then Mayor Zilk was a plaque unveiled that describes the origin of the rose in a few words. Meanwhile, the "Renner-Rose" is far more than a hundred years old and is enjoying good health.

Memorial Dr. Karl Renner : The Registrar in the bird cage

Georg Markus , Courier , 2012

Sponsorships

For around 300 euros, it is possible to assume a Rose sponsorship for 5 years. A tree-sponsorship costs 300 euros for 1 year. Currently, there are about 60 plates. Behind this beautiful and tragic memories.

If you are interested in sponsoring people garden, please contact:

Master gardener Michaela Rathbauer, Castle Garden, People's Garden

M: 0664/819 83 27 volksgarten@bundesgaerten.at

Varieties

Abraham Darby

1985

English Rose

Alec 's Red

1970

Hybrid Tea Rose

Anni Däneke

1974

Hybrid Tea Rose

aspirin

Florybunda

floribunda

Bella Rosa

1982

Florybunda

floribunda

Candlelight

Dagmar Kreizer

Danube

1913

Schlingrose

Donauprinzessin

Doris Thystermann

1975

Hybrid Tea Rose

Dr. Waldheim

1975

Hybrid Tea Rose

Duftwolke

1963

Eiffel Tower

1963

English Garden

Hybrid Tea Rose

Gloria Dei

1945

Hybrid Tea Rose

Goldelse

gold crown

1960

Hybrid Tea Rose

Goldstar

1966

deglutition

Greeting to Heidelberg

1959

Schlingrose

Hanseatic City of Rostock

Harlequin

1985

Schlingrose

Jean C.N. Forestier

1919

Hybrid Tea Rose

John F. Kennedy

1965

Hybrid Tea Rose

Landora

1970

Las Vegas

1956

Hybrid Tea Rose

Mainzer Fastnacht

1964

Hybrid Tea Rose

Maria Theresa

medial

Moulineux

1994

English Rose

national pride

1970

Hybrid Tea Rose

Nicole

1985

Florybunda

Olympia 84

1984

Hybrid Tea Rose

Pearl of the Vienna Woods

1913

Schlingrose

Piccadilly

1960

Hybrid Tea Rose

Rio Grande

1973

Hybrid Tea Rose

Rose Gaujard

1957

Hybrid Tea Rose

Rubens

1859

English Rose

Rumba

snowflake

1991

Florybunda

snow white

shrub Rose

Swan

1968

Schlingrose

Sharifa Asma

1989

English Rose

city ​​of Vienna

1963

Florybunda

Tenor

Schlingrose

The Queen Elizabeth Rose

1954

Florybunda

Tradescanth

1993

English Rose

Trumpeter

1980

Florybunda

floribunda

Virgo

1947

Hybrid Tea Rose

Winchester Cathedral

1988

English Rose

Source: Federal leadership Gardens 2012

Historic Gardens of Austria, Vienna, Volume 3 , Eva Berger, Bohlau Verlag, 2004 (Library Vienna)

Index Volksgartenstraße

www.viennatouristguide.at/Altstadt/Volksgarten/volksgarte...

Hereford in Herefordshire

 

Hereford means the ford used by the army. The Saxons arrived in this part of England in the 7th century and a settlement grew up at the ford. Saxon Hereford also had a mint and a weekly market. Hereford was able to resist a Danish attack in 914. About 1050 a castle was built in Hereford. However the town was burned by the Welsh in 1055.

 

After the Norman conquest many Frenchmen came to settle in Hereford. The town grew northwards and the market was moved to a new position north of the old town. In Medieval Hereford the main industry making wool. The wool was woven then it was fulled. That means the wool was cleaned and thickened by being pounded in a mixture of clay and water. The wool was pounded by wooden hammers worked by watermills. The Normans set about rebuilding Hereford cathedral.

 

Bishop Thomas Cantilupe died in 1282. He was buried in Hereford and in 1320 he was canonised (declared a saint). Soon people reported miracles at his shrine and many pilgrims visited the town to see it adding to the prosperity of the town.

 

In 1642 came civil war between king and parliament. Hereford strongly supported the king. Nevertheless in September 1642 a parliamentary force took Hereford but they withdrew in December. A small royalist army then held the town but they fled in April 1643 when a superior parliamentary force came. However Hereford soon changed hands again when the parliamentarians left and a royalist army arrived.

 

A parliamentary army laid siege to the town in July 1645 but they were unable to take Hereford. They withdrew in September. However by then the king was losing the war. In December the parliamentarians took Hereford by trickery. Some of their soldiers dressed as laborers and took shovels and picks. They went to Bysters Gate. When it was opened they took control and let in more parliamentary soldiers. Hereford was soon taken.

 

In the 18th century Hereford remained a quiet market town. In 1757 it had a population of 5,592. There was little manufacturing industry although it was known for glove making. However in the 1720's Daniel Defoe visited Hereford but he was not impressed, he called it 'mean built and very dirty!'.

 

At the end of the 18th century all the gates around Hereford were demolished as they restricted traffic. Wye Bridge Gate and Friars Gate went in 1782. St Owens Gate went in 1786, Eign Gate followed in 1787, Bysters Gate and Widemarsh Gate were demolished in 1798.

 

Information gained from www.localhistories.org/hereford.html

 

View On Black

  

Took a ride after the photo class tonight and was able to catch this before the fog socked it in.

I've joined an AiME campaign (LOTR D&D) and wanted to be able to display my character's equipment. My character is recycled from LOM over on the MOC-pages.

  

"Hello! I am Tharnan Bronstriep. Would you care to examine my wares? Swords, axes, knives and more! Ribbons, cloth, and jewels galore! Come and see what I have, for you, in-store!

What's that? You say you're not interested in purchasing anything?

Great Mahal! What else would you want from me? Who I am?-you want to know who I am? Alright, sit down and I'll tell ya. Then you can examine my wares.

My father was a man, my mother was a dwarf, but I am okay with that now.

It started out nearly three score years ago, when my father, Markein, ventured throughout the lands. His heart set on traveling the known world, he eventually came to the settlement of the dwarves in the Iron Hills. There he fell in love with the beautiful, elegant, dwarvish craftsmanship. He went on as an apprentice and was a fast learner.

 

After nearly two years had gone by, he began showing up late for work and losing himself in daydreams. The master smith questioned him and found the truth.

‘I am in love' Markein answered.

‘That I know well,' replied the master smith.

'But how could you know? I had thought it a secret!'

‘Ever since you first arrived, you have spoken loudly of your love for crafting elegant masterpieces in both metal and mineral. How could I not know?'

‘Nay, this is a different love. This love, Master, belongs to your daughter.'

 

The wedding came not long after, and after nine months I too came along. I was raised to be a master of smithing, master of arms, and a master of finances.In my sixteenth year, my father grew homesick. It had been nigh on one score since he last saw his home in the Breeland, and he wished to return. We left that very year. In the city of Combe, my father became a great smith. I was his assistant in all things, though my favorite part of the job was the selling. I would bargain and negotiate with the vendors of raw materials for the lowest price, and do the same with our customers - only for the highest price.

 

Over time, I began to grow bored of this city. I longed for my own birth country of the Iron Hills, and at twenty-three years of age I packed up, kissed my mother goodbye, and left town. Into Wilderland I ventured, a land full of wonder and fear. I studied and practiced the dwarven arts deeply in the halls of the Iron hills, but in the summer of of 2924 I felt a calling back to the road, to travel. I thought of the smithing that I loved, of the bargaining and sales, and I decided to set forth as a merchant, a peddler, a traveling craftsman. Though I knew that traveling in these dark times would be dangerous, I was determined to bring quality dwarven and Daleic goods to all peoples (all good, free peoples that is) throughout Middle-earth."

 

The Easter Parade terminated outside my apartment block but as my windows face away from Bolton Street I was afraid that I might not be able to get any usable photographs of the parade but things did work out too bad even though members of the public did frequently block my view of the event.

 

Since Ireland joined the United Nations in 1955, the Army has been deployed on many peacekeeping missions. The first of these took place in 1958, when a small number of observers were sent to Lebanon. A total of 86 Irish soldiers have died in the service of the United Nations since 1960

 

As of 1 December 2015, 493 Defence Force personnel are serving in 12 different missions throughout the world including Lebanon (UNIFIL), Syria (UNDOF), Middle East (UNTSO), Kosovo (KFOR), German-led Battle Group 2016 and other observer and staff appointments to UN, EU, OSCE and PfP posts. The largest deployments include:

Lebanon (UNIFIL) 51 Infantry Group, Syria (UNDOF) 50 Infantry Group.

 

The Army has historically purchased and used weapons and equipment from other western countries, mainly from European nations. Ireland has a very limited arms industry and rarely produces its own armaments.

 

From its establishment the Army used the British-made Lee–Enfield .303 rifle, which would be the mainstay for many decades. In the 1960s some modernisation came with the introduction of the Belgian-made FN FAL 7.62 mm assault rifle. Since 1989 the service rifle for the Army is the Austrian-made Steyr AUG 5.56 mm assault rifle (used by all branches of the Defence Forces).

 

Other weapons in use by the Army include the USP 9mm pistol, FN MAG machine gun, M2 Browning machine gun, Accuracy International Arctic Warfare sniper rifles, AT4 SRAAW, FGM-148 Javelin Anti-tank guided missile, L118 105mm Howitzer, RBS 70 Surface to Air Missile system.

 

The Army has purchased 80 Swiss made Mowag Piranha Armoured personnel carriers which have become the Army's primary vehicle in the Mechanised infantry role. These are equipped with 12.7 mm HMGs, or the Oto Melara 30 mm Autocannon. The army also has 27 RG Outrider light tactical armoured vehicles. The Army has no tanks, but does have a variant of the FV101 Scorpion light armoured reconnaissance vehicle, with a 76.2 mm main gun.

These two are able to come and go from MoMo and Lulu's room. All they need to do is ask. Quite often, one or two opts to spend the night in the room. Zinnia loves her boyfriend and chooses to spend the night cuddling with MoMo. Lulu freely joins them on the pillow. Yep, three cats on the pillow. And, when Vidalia joins them, there's four cats on the pillow. Oh, sometimes Lulu opts to sleep in the cat condo, but Lulu wants to bee near Vidalia whenever possible.

 

I am truly blessed.

 

[SOOC, f/1.8, ISO 100, shutter speed 1/2000]

I was able to dress one night in December 2023 and this blue dress caught my eye to try on again. I love the cut of the dress and the way the ribbons are cut out of the top and sleeves. If you look closely you can see the nipples of my breast plate causing some dipples in the bodice of the dress. My blue lipstick matches the dress color.....

Able Sailor Wallis on Patrol at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. Sunday May 18 2025.

The Path to Freedom and Love and their Significance in World. Theodora’s Prophetic Revelation

Between these two poles lies the balancing factor that unites the two — unites the will that rays towards the head with the thoughts which, as they flow into deeds wrought with love, are, so to say, felt with the heart. This means of union is the life of feeling, which is able to direct itself towards the will as well as towards the thoughts. In our ordinary consciousness we live in an element by means of which we grasp, on the one side, what comes to expression in our will-permeated thought with its predisposition to freedom, while on the other side, we try to ensure that what passes over into our deeds is filled more and more with thoughts. And what forms the bridge connecting both has since ancient times been called Wisdom. (Diagram XI.)n his fairy-tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, Goethe has given indications of these ancient traditions in the figures of the Golden King, the Silver King, and the Brazen King. We have already shown from other points of view how these three elements must come to life again, but in an entirely different form — these three elements to which ancient instinctive knowledge pointed and which can come to life again only if man acquires the knowledge yielded by Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition.From: The Bridge Between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man The Path to Freedom and Love and their Significance in World Events

December 19, 1920.... in english from Rudolf Steiner comments about Goethe's Work

Through the way in which Goethe lets gold flow through this fairy tale, he shows how he looks back into the time in which wisdom — for which gold also stands, hence, “The Golden King of Wisdom” — was exposed to such persecutions as those described. Now, he sought to show past, present and future. Goethe saw instinctively into the future of eastern European civilization. He could see how unjustifiable is the way in which the problem of sin and death worked there. If we wished to designate, not quite inappropriately perhaps, the nationality of the man who is then led to the Temple and the Beautiful Lily, who appears at first as without vigor as if crippled, then, from what we have had to say recently about the culture of the East and of Russia, you will not consider it unreasonable to deem this man to be a Russian. In so doing, you will almost certainly follow the line of Goethe's instinct. The secret of European evolution in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch lies concealed within this fairy tale, just as truly as Goethe was able to conceal it in his Faust, especially in the second part, as we know from his own statement. It is clearly to be seen in Goethe — we have already shown it in various respects; later it can be shown in others — that he begins to regard the world and to feel himself in it, in accord with the fundamental demand of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.From: Inner Impulses of Evolution ...VI Ancient Cultural Impulses Spiritualized in Goethe. The Cosmic Knowledge of the Knights Templar

As he lay desperately ill, he had a momentous experience, passing through a kind of Initiation. To begin with, he was not actually conscious of it but it worked in his soul as a kind of poetic inspiration and the process by which it flowed into his various creations was most remarkable. It flashes up in his poem entitled “The Mysteries,” which his closest friends have considered to be one of his most profound creations. And indeed this fragment is so profound that Goethe was never able to recapture the power to formulate its conclusion. The culture of the day was incapable of giving external form to the depths of life pulsating in this poem. It must be regarded as issuing from one of the deepest founts of Goethe's soul and is a book with seven seals for all his commentators. Then, however, the Initiation took increasing effect in him and finally, as he grew more conscious of it, he was able to produce that remarkable prose-poem known as “The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”; — one of the most profound writings in all literature. Those who are able to interpret it rightly know a great deal of the Rosicrucian wisdom.

We often find that persons who have not gone far enough into the matter will ask how a man such as Goethe can on the one hand bear within him certain secrets of the human soul, and on the other hand be so often torn by passion, as he is found to be by those who read his life-story in a rather superficial way. In fact, there was in Goethe something that can be called, in a crude sense, a double nature. To a superficial view the two sides can hardly be brought into harmony. On the one hand there is the great, high-minded soul who could bring forth certain portions of the second part of Faust, and gave expression to many deep secrets of human nature in the Fairy-Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; and one would like to forget everything one knows from biographies of Goethe and pay homage only to the soul who was capable of such achievements. On the other side, there appears in Goethe, tormenting him and often causing him pangs of conscience, his other nature, “human, all-too-human”, in many respects. In earlier times the two natures of man were not so widely separate in their development; they could not diverge in this way. A person with a biography comparable with Goethe's could not rise to such heights as are revealed in certain passages of the second part of Faust or in the Fairy-Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, and at the same time be so divided in his soul. That was not possible in earlier times. It has become possible only in later days, because there now exists in human nature something we have already spoken of — the part of the soul that has become unconscious, and the part of the organism that has died. The part that has remained alive can be so elevated and purified that the impulse which leads on to the Fairy-Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; can be nurtured there, while the other part may remain exposed to the attacks of the outer world. And because the forces described are able to make their abode there, circumstances may arise in which there is very little agreement with the higher ego of the person. It should be understood that the soul living in Goethe had once belonged to an Egyptian Initiate, and had then lived in Greece as a sculptor and a disciple of philosophy; then, between this Greek incarnation and the one as Goethe, there comes an incarnation (probably only one) which I have not yet been able to find. If we keep this in mind, we can see how a soul who in former incarnations could rule the entire man can be led downwards, and then has to relinquish a part of the total human nature, which then lies open to the influence of evil forces.

That is what is mysterious and so hard to understand in a nature such as Goethe's; but by the same token it brings to light many hidden aspects of the human soul in modern times. Everything brought about by the duality of human nature lays hold, in the first place, of the Intellectual Soul, and the Intellectual Soul divides into those “two souls”, whereof one can sink fairly deeply into matter and the other can rise into the spiritual.

The middle of the nineteenth century was a much more incisive point in man's spiritual history than people can realise today. The period before it is represented in Schiller and Goethe; it is followed by something quite different, which can understand the preceding period very little. What we now call the social question, in the widest sense — a sense that humanity has not yet grasped, but should grasp and must grasp later on — was born only in the second half of the nineteenth century. And we can understand this fact only if we ask: why, in such significant and representative considerations as those attempted by Schiller in his “Aesthetic Letters” and represented pictorially by Goethe in his “Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” do we find no trace of the peculiar way of thinking we are impelled to develop today about the structure of society — although Goethe in his “Tale” is evidently hinting at political forms?

If we approach the “Aesthetic Letters” and the “Tale” with inner understanding, we can feel the presence in them of a powerful spirituality which humanity has since lost. Anyone reading the “Aesthetic Letters” should feel: in the very way of writing an element of soul and spirit is at work which is not present in even the most outstanding figures today; and it would be stupid to think that anyone could now write something like Goethe's fairy tale. Since the middle of the nineteenth century this spirituality has not been here. It does not speak directly to present-day men and can really speak only through the medium of Spiritual Science, which extends our range of vision and can also enter into earlier conditions in man's history. It would really be best if people would acknowledge that without spiritual knowledge they cannot understand Schiller and Goethe. Every scene in “Faust” can prove this to you.

Looking back before the nineteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, we can observe a significant impulse. It was the impulse working in Schiller when he wrote his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man; this was the time, too, when Goethe was stirred by his dealings with Schiller. They led Goethe to express the impulse which lay behind Schiller's “Aesthetic Letters” in his own tale, “The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” You can read about the connection between Schiller's “Aesthetic Letters” and Goethe's fairy-tale in my recent small book on Goethe.

Goethe has not left the source uncertain from whose depths he has drawn his inspiration. In another tale, The New Paris, he gives in a veiled manner the history of his own inner enlightenment. Many will remain incredulous if we say that, in this dream, Goethe represents himself just at the boundary between the third and fourth sub-race of our fifth root-race. For him, the myth of Paris and Helen is a symbolic representation of this boundary. And as he — in a dream — conjures up before his eyes in a new form the myth of Paris, he feels he is casting a searching glance into the development of humanity. What such an insight into the past means to the inner eye, he tells us in the Prophecies of Bakis, which are also full of occult references:The past likewise will Bakis reveal to thee; for even the past oft lies, oh blind world, like a riddle before thee. Who knows the past knows also the future: both are joined in To-day in one complete whole.

Hence Goethe was stirred to write his “Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” in which not only three but about twenty powers of the soul are described, not in concepts, but in pictorial forms, open to various interpretations. They are headed by the Golden King, who represents (not symbolises) wisdom, the Silver King who represents beautiful appearance, the Bronze King, who represents power, and Love who crowns them all. Everything else, too, indicates soul-forces;The three worlds are here represented as two regions separated from one another by a river. The river itself stands for the astral plane. On this side of it is the physical world, on the other side the spiritual (Devachan), where dwells the beautiful lily, the symbol of man's higher nature. In her kingdom, man must strive if he would unite his lower with his higher nature. In the abyss — that is, in the physical world — dwells the serpent which symbolizes the self of man. Here too is a temple of initiation, where reign four kings, one golden, one silver, one bronze, and a fourth of an irregular mixture of the three metals. Goethe, who was an alchemist, has clothed in alchemic terminology what he had to impart of his mystic experiences. The three kings represent the three higher forces of man: Wisdom (Gold), Beauty (Silver), and Strength (Bronze). As long as man lives in his lower nature, these three forces are in him disordered and chaotic. This period in the evolution of man is represented by the mixed king. But when man has so purified himself that the three forces work together in perfect harmony, and he can freely use them, then the way into the realm of the spiritual lies open before him. The still unpurified man is represented by a youth who, without having attained inner purity, would unite himself with the beautiful lily. Through this union he becomes paralyzed.Goethe here wished to point out the danger to which a man exposes himself who would force an entrance into the super-sensible region before he has severed himself from his lower self. Only when love has permeated the whole man, only when the lower nature has been sacrificed, can the initiation into the higher truths and powers begin. This sacrifice is expressed by the serpent yielding of its own accord, and forming a bridge of its body across the river — that is to say, the astral plane — between the two kingdoms, of the senses and of the spirit. At first man must accept the higher truths in the form in which they have been given to him in the imagery of the various religions. This form is personified as the man with the lamp. This lamp has the peculiarity of only giving light where there is already light, meaning that the religious truths presuppose a receptive, believing disposition. Their light shines where the light of faith is present. This lamp, however, has yet another quality, “of turning all stones into gold, all wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and of destroying all metals,” meaning the power of faith which changes the inner nature of the individual. There are about twenty characters in this allegory, all symbolical of certain forces in man's nature and, during the course of the action, the purifying of man is described, as he rises to the heights where, in his union with his higher self, he can be initiated into the secrets of existence. This state is symbolized by the Temple, formerly hidden in the abyss, being brought to the surface, and rising above the river — the astral plane. Every passage, every sentence in the allegory is significant. The more deeply one studies the tale, the more comprehensible and clear the whole becomes, and he who set forth the esoteric quintessence of this tale at the same time has given us the substance of the Anthroposophical outlook on life.Goethe, in his Legend of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, has treated the forces of the human soul as three members, or forces; Power, Appearance, and Knowledge or Wisdom — or, as the Bronze King, the Silver King and the Golden King. Many remarkable things are spoken of in this legend, regarding the governing relationships which are being prepared for the present and which will live into the future. We can point out that what Goethe symbolizes by the Bronze king, the force of Power, is that which spreads over the world through the English-speaking peoples. This is necessary because the culture of the Consciousness Soul coincides with the special qualities of the British and American peoples.From: Social and Anti-Social Forces in the Human Being A lecture by Rudolf Steiner Bern, December 12, 1918

GA 186

you can read this in a article...by Rudolf Steiner

 

Sur la voie de la connaissance, il faudrait en connaître beaucoup pour rayonner sur toutes les raisons universelles, bien collées au sol de leurs pensées vers* la terre à terre,atterré par la lumière verte vient lire les lignes courbes des chemins de vie. L'effort d'attendre un moment que le train passe et espérer un rayon vert.

*vers de terre qui laissent les rayons du soleil purifier notre terre ou vers luisant qui éclairent la nuit dans la forêt des pensées inutiles qui serpentent au fond de l'esprit; le rayon vert c'est le dernier , l'orange du couchant rassemble les signes dans un faisceau d'idées qui éclaire les serpents entre les fenêtres du tramway vert,comme un autre signe d'un lien avec le savoir, le serpent devient un pont au moment exact deux trams se croisent un rayon se forme, le serpent devient droit pour laisser passer la lumière qui l'éclaire...

model: Stephanie

"when the last teardrop falls" by blaque

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Diptych #10: When the last teardrop falls

 

Diptych collaboration with Zmedia.

 

Top pic: mine

Bottom pic: Zmedia

 

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It's getting hard to wake up these days. It's getting colder. This week, the alarm of my cellphone was not able to wake me up on time. It did alarm though ...

 

So today i went to search for a good alarm clock. It took me an hour to do that, shucks such a waste of time. Anyway, i'm happy with the clock. I hope it wakes me up on time tomorrow!

 

HGGT!

One of the reasons that I was able to shoot so many different film stocks this year is that I was able to purchase a lot of (sometimes long) expired film off of a couple retired photographers. This has mostly been a great boon for me; I got the film cheaply, much of it is no longer available on the market and I got to meet and learn from some lovely elderly gentlemen.

The film itself has been almost as good as new in most cases as it had been stored in the freezer, but this time my luck had at least partly run out. To be fair, I knew long before I loaded the film into the camera that it hadn't been stored as well as the other rolls I'd shot. I still had hope, however, due to the good experience I had made thus far and I couldn't resist trying out 400 speed slide film in the dark forest. So I shot it as normal and didn't think much more about it.

When I finally got the slides back from the lab they looked fine over the light box, but after scanning some issues became clear. There was a heavy fog over the images compared to my other slide film shots and the colours were tinted towards blue. I've done my best to recover some of the images in the digital darkroom, of which my favourites are shown below. Knowing the character of the expired film now, I have been thinking of ways to use it to its strengths in a project of sorts. No plans yet, but I'll keep working on it...

 

Film: Kodak Ektachrome 400

Camera: Konica Autoreflex T3 with 57 mm f1.4 lens.

Developed by Fujifilm Switzerland.

Digitised with an Epson V850 using Silverfast.

I was recently able to help build a massive Batcave for a series of stop-motion promos for the LEGO Batman Movie where international celebrities sneak into Batman's lair.

 

Drawing inspiration from the movie, the team and I created a Batcave worthy of the Dark Knight, complete with costume rack, vehicle platforms, and massive Batdoors.

 

Only one of the promos is in English, but if you're a fan of Spanish rap, the Brazilian Mario Lopez, or German YouTubers the other ones are pretty fun too.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

1. The spiritual entity Qalb

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Adam

 

In the Urdu language the fleshy meat, (the heart) is known as dil, and in Arabic it is called fawad. The spiritual entity that is next to the heart is the Qalb and according to a Prophetic statement the heart and the Qalb are two separate entities.

 

Our solar system is the physical human sphere. There are other realms and spheres, for example the realm of the angels, the realm of the throne of God, the realm of the soul, the realm of the secrets, the realm of unification and the realm of the essence of God. These spheres and life forms inhabiting these spheres have existed before the eruption of the ball of fire, our Sun, which created our solar system. Ordinary angels were created alongside the creation of the souls when God commanded "Be" but the Archangels and the spiritual entities (which are placed inside the human body at birth) have existed in these realms before the formation of our solar system.

 

Many planets in our solar system were inhabited but subsequently these life forms became extinct. The remaining planets and their inhabitants are awaiting their destruction. The Archangels and the spiritual entities (of the human body) were created seventy thousand years before the command "Be."

 

Of these spiritual entities God placed the Qalb in the realm of love. It is with this that a human being is able to become connected with God. The Qalb acts like a telephone operator between God and the human being. A human being receives guidance and inspiration through it. Whereas the worship and the meditation done by the spiritual entities themselves can reach the highest realm, the Throne of God, with the aid of the Qalb. The Qalb itself, however cannot travel beyond the realm of the angels, as its place of origin is the Khuld, the lowest heaven in the realm of the angels.

 

The Qalb’s meditation is from within and its vibrating rosary is within the human skeleton (the heartbeat). People that failed to achieve this meditation of the Qalb in this lifetime will be regretful, even though they may be in paradise. As God has stated regarding those who will go to paradise, that do they, the inhabitants of paradise think that they will be equal to those who are elevated (reached higher realms by practicing the spiritual disciplines and becoming illuminated). As those that have achieved the meditation of the Qalb, they will enjoy its pleasures even in paradise when their Qalb will be vibrating with the Name of God.

After death physical worship ceases to exist and the people whose Qalb and spiritual entities are not strengthened and illuminated with the light of God are afflicted and distressed in their graves and their spiritual entities waste away. Whereas the illuminated and strengthened spiritual entities will go to the realm where the righteous will wait before the final judgement.

After the day of judgement a second body will be given, the illuminated spiritual entities along with the human soul will enter that body. The people that taught their spiritual entities, meditation, whereby the entities chanted the Name of God Allah in this life time will find that the spiritual entities will continue with this meditation even in the hereafter. Such people will continue to be elevated and exalted in the hereafter.

  

Those that were “blind of heart” (not illuminated) in this life time will be in darkness in that realm also, as this world was the place of action and effort. Those in the latter category will become quiescent.

Besides the Christians and the Jews the Hindu faith also holds a belief in these spiritual entities. The Hindu faith refers to them as Shaktian and the Muslims know them as Lata’if.

The Qalb is two inches, to the left of the heart. This spiritual entity is yellow in colour. When it is illuminated in a person, that person sees the colour yellow in their eyes. Not only this but there are many practitioners of alternative medicine who use the colours of these spiritual entities to heal people.

Most people regard their heart’s word, “inner feeling” to be truthful. If the hearts of people were indeed truthful, then why are all the people of the heart not united?

The Qalb of an ordinary person is in the sleeping or unconscious state and it does not possess any appreciation or awareness. Due to the dominance of the spirit of the self, the ego, and the Khannas, or due to the individual’s own simple- mindedness the heart can make judgements in error. Placing trust in a sleeping Qalb is foolish.

Only when the Name of God Allah, does vibrate in the heart does an appreciation of right and wrong and wisdom follow. At this stage the Qalb is known as the awakened Qalb. Thereafter due to the increase in the meditation by the Qalb, of the Name of God Allah, it is then known as the God-seeking Qalb. At this stage the heart is capable of preventing the person from doing wrong but it is still incapable of making a right or just decision. Thereafter and only when the Light and the rays of the Grace of God (theophany) start to descend upon that heart, is it known as the purified and illuminated Qalb that stands in the presence of God (witnessing Qalb).

 

A Prophetic statement:

“The mercy of God descends upon a broken heart and an afflicted grave.”

 

Thereafter when the heart reaches this stage then one must accept whatever it dictates, quietly without question because due to the rays of the Light and the Grace of God the spirit of the self, (ego) becomes completely illuminated, purified and at peace. God is then closer to that individual than that person’s jugular vein.

God then says, “I become his tongue with which he speaks and I become his hands with which he holds.”

   

2. The Human Soul

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Abraham

 

This is on the right side of the chest. This is awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it. Once it becomes illuminated, a vibration similar to the heartbeat is felt on the right side of the chest. Then the Name of God, Ya Allah is matched with the vibrating pulse. The meditation of the soul is done in this way. At this point, there are now two spiritual entities meditating inside the human body, this is an advancement in rank and status and is better than the Qalb. The soul is a light red in colour and when it is awakened, it is able to travel to the realm of the souls (the station of the Archangel Gabriel). Anger and rage are attached to it that burn and turn into majesty.

  

3. The spiritual entity Sirri

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Moses

 

This spiritual entity is to the left of the centre of the chest. This is also awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it with the Name of God, Ya Hayy, Ya Qayyum. Its colour is white and in the dream state or by spiritual separation from the physical body “transcendental meditation” it can journey to the realm of the secrets. Now there are three spiritual entities meditating within a person and its status is higher than the other two.

   

4. The spiritual entity Khaffi

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Jesus

 

This is to the right of the centre of the chest. It too is taught the Name of God Ya Wahid by meditation. It is green in colour and it can reach the realm of unification. Due to the meditation of four entities one's status is further increased.

 

5. The spiritual entity Akhfa

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Mohammed

 

This is situated at the centre of the chest. It is awakened by meditating on the Name of God, Ya Ahad. It is purple in colour and it too, is connected to that veil in the realm of unification behind which is the throne of God.

 

The hidden spiritual knowledge relating to these five spiritual entities was granted to the Prophets, one by one and half of the knowledge of every spiritual entity was granted from the Prophets to the Saints of their time. In this way there became ten parts of this knowledge. The Saints in turn passed this knowledge on to the spiritually favoured (Godly) who then had the benefit of the sacred knowledge.

 

The apparent knowledge of the seen is connected to the physical body, the spoken word, the human realm and the spirit of the self, this is for the ordinary mortals. This knowledge is contained in a book that has thirty parts. Spiritual knowledge was also given to the Prophets by revelation brought by Gabriel and for this reason it is known as the spiritual Holy Scripture.

 

Many of the verses of the Qur’an would sometimes be abolished, since the Prophet Mohammed would sometimes mention matters relating to this “hidden spiritual knowledge” before ordinary people, which was only meant for the special and Godly. Later this knowledge passed on spiritually from the chest of one Saint to another, and now it has become widespread by its publication in books.

  

6. The spiritual entity Anna

 

This spiritual entity is inside the head and is colourless. It is by the meditation on the Name of God Ya Hu that this spiritual entity reaches its pinnacle. It is this spiritual entity that when it becomes illuminated and powerful it can stand in the Presence of God, face to face, and communicate with God unobstructed. Only the extreme lovers of God reach this realm and station. Besides this there are a few and extremely exalted people who are granted additional spiritual entities, for example the spiritual entity Tifl-e-Nuri or a spiritual entity of the Godhead, Jussa-e-Tofiq-e-Ilahi, the spiritual status of such people is beyond understanding.

 

With the spiritual entity, Anna, God is seen in the dream state.

 

With the spiritual entity of the Godhead, God is seen in the “physical meditating state” when the spiritual entity itself leaves the human body and transcends to the essence of God.

 

Those possessing the spiritual entity, the Tifl-e-Nuri, see God whilst they are fully conscious.

 

It is these people who are the majesty and power of God in the world. They can either occupy the people by prescribing worship and austerities or by their spiritual grace send a person straight to the realm of God’s love. In their sight, concerning dispensing spiritual grace the believers and the non-believers, the dead and the living are all the same. Just as a thief became a Saint, in an instant, by the passing glimpse of the Saint Sheikh Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani, similarly, Abu-Bakr Havari and Manga the thief, became instant Saints by the passing glimpses of such Saints.

 

The five major Messengers were given knowledge of the five spiritual entities separately and in order of their appearance, as a result of which spirituality continued to prosper. With whichever spiritual entity you practice meditation you will be connected to the corresponding Messenger and become worthy of receiving spiritual grace (from that Messenger).

 

Whichever spiritual entity receives the rays of the Grace of God (favour), the Sainthood granted to that spiritual entity will be connected to the corresponding Prophet’s spiritual grace.

 

Access to seven realms and gaining elevated spiritual status in the seven heavens is obtained through these spiritual entities.

The functions of the spiritual entities inside the human body

 

Akhfa: Due to the spiritual entity, Akhfa a person is able to speak. In its absence a person may have a normal tongue but will be dumb. The difference between human beings and animals lies in the presence or the absence of these spiritual entities. At birth, if the entity, Akhfa was unable to enter the body for whatever reason, then a Prophet appointed for the rectification of this ailment would be called to treat the condition as a result of which the dumb would start to speak.

 

Sirri: A person is able to see due to the spiritual entity, Sirri. If it does not enter the body the person is blind from birth. An appointed Prophet had the duty to find and place the spiritual entity into the body, as a result of which the blind would start to see again.

Qalb: Without the spiritual entity of the Qalb, in the body, a person is like the animals, unacquainted, far from God, miserable and without purpose. Returning this entity into the body was the task of the Prophets also.

The miracles of the Prophets were also granted to the saints, in the form marvels and mystical wonders as a result of which even the impious and liberal became close to God. When a spiritual entity is returned by any allocated Saint or Prophet, the deaf, dumb and the blind are healed.

Anna: When the spiritual entity, Anna, fails to enter the body, a person is regarded as insane even though the brain may be functioning normally.

Khaffi: In the absence of the spiritual entity, Khafi, a person is deaf, even if the ears are opened wide.

These conditions can be caused by other defects in the body, and can be treated. There is no cure in the case, where the defect is caused by the absence of the associated spiritual entity except where a Prophet or a Saint intervenes and cures the defect.

Nafs, self: As a result of the spiritual entity of the self (ego) a persons mind is occupied with the material world and it is because of the spiritual entity Qalb that a persons direction turns towards God. For more detail visit www.goharshahi.org or visit asipk.com and for videos visit HH rags

1. The spiritual entity Qalb

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Adam

 

In the Urdu language the fleshy meat, (the heart) is known as dil, and in Arabic it is called fawad. The spiritual entity that is next to the heart is the Qalb and according to a Prophetic statement the heart and the Qalb are two separate entities.

 

Our solar system is the physical human sphere. There are other realms and spheres, for example the realm of the angels, the realm of the throne of God, the realm of the soul, the realm of the secrets, the realm of unification and the realm of the essence of God. These spheres and life forms inhabiting these spheres have existed before the eruption of the ball of fire, our Sun, which created our solar system. Ordinary angels were created alongside the creation of the souls when God commanded "Be" but the Archangels and the spiritual entities (which are placed inside the human body at birth) have existed in these realms before the formation of our solar system.

 

Many planets in our solar system were inhabited but subsequently these life forms became extinct. The remaining planets and their inhabitants are awaiting their destruction. The Archangels and the spiritual entities (of the human body) were created seventy thousand years before the command "Be."

 

Of these spiritual entities God placed the Qalb in the realm of love. It is with this that a human being is able to become connected with God. The Qalb acts like a telephone operator between God and the human being. A human being receives guidance and inspiration through it. Whereas the worship and the meditation done by the spiritual entities themselves can reach the highest realm, the Throne of God, with the aid of the Qalb. The Qalb itself, however cannot travel beyond the realm of the angels, as its place of origin is the Khuld, the lowest heaven in the realm of the angels.

 

The Qalb’s meditation is from within and its vibrating rosary is within the human skeleton (the heartbeat). People that failed to achieve this meditation of the Qalb in this lifetime will be regretful, even though they may be in paradise. As God has stated regarding those who will go to paradise, that do they, the inhabitants of paradise think that they will be equal to those who are elevated (reached higher realms by practicing the spiritual disciplines and becoming illuminated). As those that have achieved the meditation of the Qalb, they will enjoy its pleasures even in paradise when their Qalb will be vibrating with the Name of God.

After death physical worship ceases to exist and the people whose Qalb and spiritual entities are not strengthened and illuminated with the light of God are afflicted and distressed in their graves and their spiritual entities waste away. Whereas the illuminated and strengthened spiritual entities will go to the realm where the righteous will wait before the final judgement.

After the day of judgement a second body will be given, the illuminated spiritual entities along with the human soul will enter that body. The people that taught their spiritual entities, meditation, whereby the entities chanted the Name of God Allah in this life time will find that the spiritual entities will continue with this meditation even in the hereafter. Such people will continue to be elevated and exalted in the hereafter.

  

Those that were “blind of heart” (not illuminated) in this life time will be in darkness in that realm also, as this world was the place of action and effort. Those in the latter category will become quiescent.

Besides the Christians and the Jews the Hindu faith also holds a belief in these spiritual entities. The Hindu faith refers to them as Shaktian and the Muslims know them as Lata’if.

The Qalb is two inches, to the left of the heart. This spiritual entity is yellow in colour. When it is illuminated in a person, that person sees the colour yellow in their eyes. Not only this but there are many practitioners of alternative medicine who use the colours of these spiritual entities to heal people.

Most people regard their heart’s word, “inner feeling” to be truthful. If the hearts of people were indeed truthful, then why are all the people of the heart not united?

The Qalb of an ordinary person is in the sleeping or unconscious state and it does not possess any appreciation or awareness. Due to the dominance of the spirit of the self, the ego, and the Khannas, or due to the individual’s own simple- mindedness the heart can make judgements in error. Placing trust in a sleeping Qalb is foolish.

Only when the Name of God Allah, does vibrate in the heart does an appreciation of right and wrong and wisdom follow. At this stage the Qalb is known as the awakened Qalb. Thereafter due to the increase in the meditation by the Qalb, of the Name of God Allah, it is then known as the God-seeking Qalb. At this stage the heart is capable of preventing the person from doing wrong but it is still incapable of making a right or just decision. Thereafter and only when the Light and the rays of the Grace of God (theophany) start to descend upon that heart, is it known as the purified and illuminated Qalb that stands in the presence of God (witnessing Qalb).

 

A Prophetic statement:

“The mercy of God descends upon a broken heart and an afflicted grave.”

 

Thereafter when the heart reaches this stage then one must accept whatever it dictates, quietly without question because due to the rays of the Light and the Grace of God the spirit of the self, (ego) becomes completely illuminated, purified and at peace. God is then closer to that individual than that person’s jugular vein.

God then says, “I become his tongue with which he speaks and I become his hands with which he holds.”

   

2. The Human Soul

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Abraham

 

This is on the right side of the chest. This is awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it. Once it becomes illuminated, a vibration similar to the heartbeat is felt on the right side of the chest. Then the Name of God, Ya Allah is matched with the vibrating pulse. The meditation of the soul is done in this way. At this point, there are now two spiritual entities meditating inside the human body, this is an advancement in rank and status and is better than the Qalb. The soul is a light red in colour and when it is awakened, it is able to travel to the realm of the souls (the station of the Archangel Gabriel). Anger and rage are attached to it that burn and turn into majesty.

  

3. The spiritual entity Sirri

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Moses

 

This spiritual entity is to the left of the centre of the chest. This is also awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it with the Name of God, Ya Hayy, Ya Qayyum. Its colour is white and in the dream state or by spiritual separation from the physical body “transcendental meditation” it can journey to the realm of the secrets. Now there are three spiritual entities meditating within a person and its status is higher than the other two.

   

4. The spiritual entity Khaffi

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Jesus

 

This is to the right of the centre of the chest. It too is taught the Name of God Ya Wahid by meditation. It is green in colour and it can reach the realm of unification. Due to the meditation of four entities one's status is further increased.

 

5. The spiritual entity Akhfa

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Mohammed

 

This is situated at the centre of the chest. It is awakened by meditating on the Name of God, Ya Ahad. It is purple in colour and it too, is connected to that veil in the realm of unification behind which is the throne of God.

 

The hidden spiritual knowledge relating to these five spiritual entities was granted to the Prophets, one by one and half of the knowledge of every spiritual entity was granted from the Prophets to the Saints of their time. In this way there became ten parts of this knowledge. The Saints in turn passed this knowledge on to the spiritually favoured (Godly) who then had the benefit of the sacred knowledge.

 

The apparent knowledge of the seen is connected to the physical body, the spoken word, the human realm and the spirit of the self, this is for the ordinary mortals. This knowledge is contained in a book that has thirty parts. Spiritual knowledge was also given to the Prophets by revelation brought by Gabriel and for this reason it is known as the spiritual Holy Scripture.

 

Many of the verses of the Qur’an would sometimes be abolished, since the Prophet Mohammed would sometimes mention matters relating to this “hidden spiritual knowledge” before ordinary people, which was only meant for the special and Godly. Later this knowledge passed on spiritually from the chest of one Saint to another, and now it has become widespread by its publication in books.

  

6. The spiritual entity Anna

 

This spiritual entity is inside the head and is colourless. It is by the meditation on the Name of God Ya Hu that this spiritual entity reaches its pinnacle. It is this spiritual entity that when it becomes illuminated and powerful it can stand in the Presence of God, face to face, and communicate with God unobstructed. Only the extreme lovers of God reach this realm and station. Besides this there are a few and extremely exalted people who are granted additional spiritual entities, for example the spiritual entity Tifl-e-Nuri or a spiritual entity of the Godhead, Jussa-e-Tofiq-e-Ilahi, the spiritual status of such people is beyond understanding.

 

With the spiritual entity, Anna, God is seen in the dream state.

 

With the spiritual entity of the Godhead, God is seen in the “physical meditating state” when the spiritual entity itself leaves the human body and transcends to the essence of God.

 

Those possessing the spiritual entity, the Tifl-e-Nuri, see God whilst they are fully conscious.

 

It is these people who are the majesty and power of God in the world. They can either occupy the people by prescribing worship and austerities or by their spiritual grace send a person straight to the realm of God’s love. In their sight, concerning dispensing spiritual grace the believers and the non-believers, the dead and the living are all the same. Just as a thief became a Saint, in an instant, by the passing glimpse of the Saint Sheikh Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani, similarly, Abu-Bakr Havari and Manga the thief, became instant Saints by the passing glimpses of such Saints.

 

The five major Messengers were given knowledge of the five spiritual entities separately and in order of their appearance, as a result of which spirituality continued to prosper. With whichever spiritual entity you practice meditation you will be connected to the corresponding Messenger and become worthy of receiving spiritual grace (from that Messenger).

 

Whichever spiritual entity receives the rays of the Grace of God (favour), the Sainthood granted to that spiritual entity will be connected to the corresponding Prophet’s spiritual grace.

 

Access to seven realms and gaining elevated spiritual status in the seven heavens is obtained through these spiritual entities.

The functions of the spiritual entities inside the human body

 

Akhfa: Due to the spiritual entity, Akhfa a person is able to speak. In its absence a person may have a normal tongue but will be dumb. The difference between human beings and animals lies in the presence or the absence of these spiritual entities. At birth, if the entity, Akhfa was unable to enter the body for whatever reason, then a Prophet appointed for the rectification of this ailment would be called to treat the condition as a result of which the dumb would start to speak.

 

Sirri: A person is able to see due to the spiritual entity, Sirri. If it does not enter the body the person is blind from birth. An appointed Prophet had the duty to find and place the spiritual entity into the body, as a result of which the blind would start to see again.

Qalb: Without the spiritual entity of the Qalb, in the body, a person is like the animals, unacquainted, far from God, miserable and without purpose. Returning this entity into the body was the task of the Prophets also.

The miracles of the Prophets were also granted to the saints, in the form marvels and mystical wonders as a result of which even the impious and liberal became close to God. When a spiritual entity is returned by any allocated Saint or Prophet, the deaf, dumb and the blind are healed.

Anna: When the spiritual entity, Anna, fails to enter the body, a person is regarded as insane even though the brain may be functioning normally.

Khaffi: In the absence of the spiritual entity, Khafi, a person is deaf, even if the ears are opened wide.

These conditions can be caused by other defects in the body, and can be treated. There is no cure in the case, where the defect is caused by the absence of the associated spiritual entity except where a Prophet or a Saint intervenes and cures the defect.

Nafs, self: As a result of the spiritual entity of the self (ego) a persons mind is occupied with the material world and it is because of the spiritual entity Qalb that a persons direction turns towards God. For more detail visit www.goharshahi.org or visit asipk.com and for videos visit HH rags

1. The spiritual entity Qalb

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Adam

 

In the Urdu language the fleshy meat, (the heart) is known as dil, and in Arabic it is called fawad. The spiritual entity that is next to the heart is the Qalb and according to a Prophetic statement the heart and the Qalb are two separate entities.

 

Our solar system is the physical human sphere. There are other realms and spheres, for example the realm of the angels, the realm of the throne of God, the realm of the soul, the realm of the secrets, the realm of unification and the realm of the essence of God. These spheres and life forms inhabiting these spheres have existed before the eruption of the ball of fire, our Sun, which created our solar system. Ordinary angels were created alongside the creation of the souls when God commanded "Be" but the Archangels and the spiritual entities (which are placed inside the human body at birth) have existed in these realms before the formation of our solar system.

 

Many planets in our solar system were inhabited but subsequently these life forms became extinct. The remaining planets and their inhabitants are awaiting their destruction. The Archangels and the spiritual entities (of the human body) were created seventy thousand years before the command "Be."

 

Of these spiritual entities God placed the Qalb in the realm of love. It is with this that a human being is able to become connected with God. The Qalb acts like a telephone operator between God and the human being. A human being receives guidance and inspiration through it. Whereas the worship and the meditation done by the spiritual entities themselves can reach the highest realm, the Throne of God, with the aid of the Qalb. The Qalb itself, however cannot travel beyond the realm of the angels, as its place of origin is the Khuld, the lowest heaven in the realm of the angels.

 

The Qalb’s meditation is from within and its vibrating rosary is within the human skeleton (the heartbeat). People that failed to achieve this meditation of the Qalb in this lifetime will be regretful, even though they may be in paradise. As God has stated regarding those who will go to paradise, that do they, the inhabitants of paradise think that they will be equal to those who are elevated (reached higher realms by practicing the spiritual disciplines and becoming illuminated). As those that have achieved the meditation of the Qalb, they will enjoy its pleasures even in paradise when their Qalb will be vibrating with the Name of God.

After death physical worship ceases to exist and the people whose Qalb and spiritual entities are not strengthened and illuminated with the light of God are afflicted and distressed in their graves and their spiritual entities waste away. Whereas the illuminated and strengthened spiritual entities will go to the realm where the righteous will wait before the final judgement.

After the day of judgement a second body will be given, the illuminated spiritual entities along with the human soul will enter that body. The people that taught their spiritual entities, meditation, whereby the entities chanted the Name of God Allah in this life time will find that the spiritual entities will continue with this meditation even in the hereafter. Such people will continue to be elevated and exalted in the hereafter.

  

Those that were “blind of heart” (not illuminated) in this life time will be in darkness in that realm also, as this world was the place of action and effort. Those in the latter category will become quiescent.

Besides the Christians and the Jews the Hindu faith also holds a belief in these spiritual entities. The Hindu faith refers to them as Shaktian and the Muslims know them as Lata’if.

The Qalb is two inches, to the left of the heart. This spiritual entity is yellow in colour. When it is illuminated in a person, that person sees the colour yellow in their eyes. Not only this but there are many practitioners of alternative medicine who use the colours of these spiritual entities to heal people.

Most people regard their heart’s word, “inner feeling” to be truthful. If the hearts of people were indeed truthful, then why are all the people of the heart not united?

The Qalb of an ordinary person is in the sleeping or unconscious state and it does not possess any appreciation or awareness. Due to the dominance of the spirit of the self, the ego, and the Khannas, or due to the individual’s own simple- mindedness the heart can make judgements in error. Placing trust in a sleeping Qalb is foolish.

Only when the Name of God Allah, does vibrate in the heart does an appreciation of right and wrong and wisdom follow. At this stage the Qalb is known as the awakened Qalb. Thereafter due to the increase in the meditation by the Qalb, of the Name of God Allah, it is then known as the God-seeking Qalb. At this stage the heart is capable of preventing the person from doing wrong but it is still incapable of making a right or just decision. Thereafter and only when the Light and the rays of the Grace of God (theophany) start to descend upon that heart, is it known as the purified and illuminated Qalb that stands in the presence of God (witnessing Qalb).

 

A Prophetic statement:

“The mercy of God descends upon a broken heart and an afflicted grave.”

 

Thereafter when the heart reaches this stage then one must accept whatever it dictates, quietly without question because due to the rays of the Light and the Grace of God the spirit of the self, (ego) becomes completely illuminated, purified and at peace. God is then closer to that individual than that person’s jugular vein.

God then says, “I become his tongue with which he speaks and I become his hands with which he holds.”

   

2. The Human Soul

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Abraham

 

This is on the right side of the chest. This is awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it. Once it becomes illuminated, a vibration similar to the heartbeat is felt on the right side of the chest. Then the Name of God, Ya Allah is matched with the vibrating pulse. The meditation of the soul is done in this way. At this point, there are now two spiritual entities meditating inside the human body, this is an advancement in rank and status and is better than the Qalb. The soul is a light red in colour and when it is awakened, it is able to travel to the realm of the souls (the station of the Archangel Gabriel). Anger and rage are attached to it that burn and turn into majesty.

  

3. The spiritual entity Sirri

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Moses

 

This spiritual entity is to the left of the centre of the chest. This is also awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it with the Name of God, Ya Hayy, Ya Qayyum. Its colour is white and in the dream state or by spiritual separation from the physical body “transcendental meditation” it can journey to the realm of the secrets. Now there are three spiritual entities meditating within a person and its status is higher than the other two.

   

4. The spiritual entity Khaffi

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Jesus

 

This is to the right of the centre of the chest. It too is taught the Name of God Ya Wahid by meditation. It is green in colour and it can reach the realm of unification. Due to the meditation of four entities one's status is further increased.

 

5. The spiritual entity Akhfa

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Mohammed

 

This is situated at the centre of the chest. It is awakened by meditating on the Name of God, Ya Ahad. It is purple in colour and it too, is connected to that veil in the realm of unification behind which is the throne of God.

 

The hidden spiritual knowledge relating to these five spiritual entities was granted to the Prophets, one by one and half of the knowledge of every spiritual entity was granted from the Prophets to the Saints of their time. In this way there became ten parts of this knowledge. The Saints in turn passed this knowledge on to the spiritually favoured (Godly) who then had the benefit of the sacred knowledge.

 

The apparent knowledge of the seen is connected to the physical body, the spoken word, the human realm and the spirit of the self, this is for the ordinary mortals. This knowledge is contained in a book that has thirty parts. Spiritual knowledge was also given to the Prophets by revelation brought by Gabriel and for this reason it is known as the spiritual Holy Scripture.

 

Many of the verses of the Qur’an would sometimes be abolished, since the Prophet Mohammed would sometimes mention matters relating to this “hidden spiritual knowledge” before ordinary people, which was only meant for the special and Godly. Later this knowledge passed on spiritually from the chest of one Saint to another, and now it has become widespread by its publication in books.

  

6. The spiritual entity Anna

 

This spiritual entity is inside the head and is colourless. It is by the meditation on the Name of God Ya Hu that this spiritual entity reaches its pinnacle. It is this spiritual entity that when it becomes illuminated and powerful it can stand in the Presence of God, face to face, and communicate with God unobstructed. Only the extreme lovers of God reach this realm and station. Besides this there are a few and extremely exalted people who are granted additional spiritual entities, for example the spiritual entity Tifl-e-Nuri or a spiritual entity of the Godhead, Jussa-e-Tofiq-e-Ilahi, the spiritual status of such people is beyond understanding.

 

With the spiritual entity, Anna, God is seen in the dream state.

 

With the spiritual entity of the Godhead, God is seen in the “physical meditating state” when the spiritual entity itself leaves the human body and transcends to the essence of God.

 

Those possessing the spiritual entity, the Tifl-e-Nuri, see God whilst they are fully conscious.

 

It is these people who are the majesty and power of God in the world. They can either occupy the people by prescribing worship and austerities or by their spiritual grace send a person straight to the realm of God’s love. In their sight, concerning dispensing spiritual grace the believers and the non-believers, the dead and the living are all the same. Just as a thief became a Saint, in an instant, by the passing glimpse of the Saint Sheikh Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani, similarly, Abu-Bakr Havari and Manga the thief, became instant Saints by the passing glimpses of such Saints.

 

The five major Messengers were given knowledge of the five spiritual entities separately and in order of their appearance, as a result of which spirituality continued to prosper. With whichever spiritual entity you practice meditation you will be connected to the corresponding Messenger and become worthy of receiving spiritual grace (from that Messenger).

 

Whichever spiritual entity receives the rays of the Grace of God (favour), the Sainthood granted to that spiritual entity will be connected to the corresponding Prophet’s spiritual grace.

 

Access to seven realms and gaining elevated spiritual status in the seven heavens is obtained through these spiritual entities.

The functions of the spiritual entities inside the human body

 

Akhfa: Due to the spiritual entity, Akhfa a person is able to speak. In its absence a person may have a normal tongue but will be dumb. The difference between human beings and animals lies in the presence or the absence of these spiritual entities. At birth, if the entity, Akhfa was unable to enter the body for whatever reason, then a Prophet appointed for the rectification of this ailment would be called to treat the condition as a result of which the dumb would start to speak.

 

Sirri: A person is able to see due to the spiritual entity, Sirri. If it does not enter the body the person is blind from birth. An appointed Prophet had the duty to find and place the spiritual entity into the body, as a result of which the blind would start to see again.

Qalb: Without the spiritual entity of the Qalb, in the body, a person is like the animals, unacquainted, far from God, miserable and without purpose. Returning this entity into the body was the task of the Prophets also.

The miracles of the Prophets were also granted to the saints, in the form marvels and mystical wonders as a result of which even the impious and liberal became close to God. When a spiritual entity is returned by any allocated Saint or Prophet, the deaf, dumb and the blind are healed.

Anna: When the spiritual entity, Anna, fails to enter the body, a person is regarded as insane even though the brain may be functioning normally.

Khaffi: In the absence of the spiritual entity, Khafi, a person is deaf, even if the ears are opened wide.

These conditions can be caused by other defects in the body, and can be treated. There is no cure in the case, where the defect is caused by the absence of the associated spiritual entity except where a Prophet or a Saint intervenes and cures the defect.

Nafs, self: As a result of the spiritual entity of the self (ego) a persons mind is occupied with the material world and it is because of the spiritual entity Qalb that a persons direction turns towards God. For more detail visit www.goharshahi.org or visit asipk.com and for videos visit HH rags

1. The spiritual entity Qalb

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Adam

 

In the Urdu language the fleshy meat, (the heart) is known as dil, and in Arabic it is called fawad. The spiritual entity that is next to the heart is the Qalb and according to a Prophetic statement the heart and the Qalb are two separate entities.

 

Our solar system is the physical human sphere. There are other realms and spheres, for example the realm of the angels, the realm of the throne of God, the realm of the soul, the realm of the secrets, the realm of unification and the realm of the essence of God. These spheres and life forms inhabiting these spheres have existed before the eruption of the ball of fire, our Sun, which created our solar system. Ordinary angels were created alongside the creation of the souls when God commanded "Be" but the Archangels and the spiritual entities (which are placed inside the human body at birth) have existed in these realms before the formation of our solar system.

 

Many planets in our solar system were inhabited but subsequently these life forms became extinct. The remaining planets and their inhabitants are awaiting their destruction. The Archangels and the spiritual entities (of the human body) were created seventy thousand years before the command "Be."

 

Of these spiritual entities God placed the Qalb in the realm of love. It is with this that a human being is able to become connected with God. The Qalb acts like a telephone operator between God and the human being. A human being receives guidance and inspiration through it. Whereas the worship and the meditation done by the spiritual entities themselves can reach the highest realm, the Throne of God, with the aid of the Qalb. The Qalb itself, however cannot travel beyond the realm of the angels, as its place of origin is the Khuld, the lowest heaven in the realm of the angels.

 

The Qalb’s meditation is from within and its vibrating rosary is within the human skeleton (the heartbeat). People that failed to achieve this meditation of the Qalb in this lifetime will be regretful, even though they may be in paradise. As God has stated regarding those who will go to paradise, that do they, the inhabitants of paradise think that they will be equal to those who are elevated (reached higher realms by practicing the spiritual disciplines and becoming illuminated). As those that have achieved the meditation of the Qalb, they will enjoy its pleasures even in paradise when their Qalb will be vibrating with the Name of God.

After death physical worship ceases to exist and the people whose Qalb and spiritual entities are not strengthened and illuminated with the light of God are afflicted and distressed in their graves and their spiritual entities waste away. Whereas the illuminated and strengthened spiritual entities will go to the realm where the righteous will wait before the final judgement.

After the day of judgement a second body will be given, the illuminated spiritual entities along with the human soul will enter that body. The people that taught their spiritual entities, meditation, whereby the entities chanted the Name of God Allah in this life time will find that the spiritual entities will continue with this meditation even in the hereafter. Such people will continue to be elevated and exalted in the hereafter.

  

Those that were “blind of heart” (not illuminated) in this life time will be in darkness in that realm also, as this world was the place of action and effort. Those in the latter category will become quiescent.

Besides the Christians and the Jews the Hindu faith also holds a belief in these spiritual entities. The Hindu faith refers to them as Shaktian and the Muslims know them as Lata’if.

The Qalb is two inches, to the left of the heart. This spiritual entity is yellow in colour. When it is illuminated in a person, that person sees the colour yellow in their eyes. Not only this but there are many practitioners of alternative medicine who use the colours of these spiritual entities to heal people.

Most people regard their heart’s word, “inner feeling” to be truthful. If the hearts of people were indeed truthful, then why are all the people of the heart not united?

The Qalb of an ordinary person is in the sleeping or unconscious state and it does not possess any appreciation or awareness. Due to the dominance of the spirit of the self, the ego, and the Khannas, or due to the individual’s own simple- mindedness the heart can make judgements in error. Placing trust in a sleeping Qalb is foolish.

Only when the Name of God Allah, does vibrate in the heart does an appreciation of right and wrong and wisdom follow. At this stage the Qalb is known as the awakened Qalb. Thereafter due to the increase in the meditation by the Qalb, of the Name of God Allah, it is then known as the God-seeking Qalb. At this stage the heart is capable of preventing the person from doing wrong but it is still incapable of making a right or just decision. Thereafter and only when the Light and the rays of the Grace of God (theophany) start to descend upon that heart, is it known as the purified and illuminated Qalb that stands in the presence of God (witnessing Qalb).

 

A Prophetic statement:

“The mercy of God descends upon a broken heart and an afflicted grave.”

 

Thereafter when the heart reaches this stage then one must accept whatever it dictates, quietly without question because due to the rays of the Light and the Grace of God the spirit of the self, (ego) becomes completely illuminated, purified and at peace. God is then closer to that individual than that person’s jugular vein.

God then says, “I become his tongue with which he speaks and I become his hands with which he holds.”

   

2. The Human Soul

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Abraham

 

This is on the right side of the chest. This is awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it. Once it becomes illuminated, a vibration similar to the heartbeat is felt on the right side of the chest. Then the Name of God, Ya Allah is matched with the vibrating pulse. The meditation of the soul is done in this way. At this point, there are now two spiritual entities meditating inside the human body, this is an advancement in rank and status and is better than the Qalb. The soul is a light red in colour and when it is awakened, it is able to travel to the realm of the souls (the station of the Archangel Gabriel). Anger and rage are attached to it that burn and turn into majesty.

  

3. The spiritual entity Sirri

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Moses

 

This spiritual entity is to the left of the centre of the chest. This is also awakened and illuminated by the meditation and one-pointed concentration on it with the Name of God, Ya Hayy, Ya Qayyum. Its colour is white and in the dream state or by spiritual separation from the physical body “transcendental meditation” it can journey to the realm of the secrets. Now there are three spiritual entities meditating within a person and its status is higher than the other two.

   

4. The spiritual entity Khaffi

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Jesus

 

This is to the right of the centre of the chest. It too is taught the Name of God Ya Wahid by meditation. It is green in colour and it can reach the realm of unification. Due to the meditation of four entities one's status is further increased.

 

5. The spiritual entity Akhfa

 

Prophecy and knowledge relating to this was granted to the Prophet Mohammed

 

This is situated at the centre of the chest. It is awakened by meditating on the Name of God, Ya Ahad. It is purple in colour and it too, is connected to that veil in the realm of unification behind which is the throne of God.

 

The hidden spiritual knowledge relating to these five spiritual entities was granted to the Prophets, one by one and half of the knowledge of every spiritual entity was granted from the Prophets to the Saints of their time. In this way there became ten parts of this knowledge. The Saints in turn passed this knowledge on to the spiritually favoured (Godly) who then had the benefit of the sacred knowledge.

 

The apparent knowledge of the seen is connected to the physical body, the spoken word, the human realm and the spirit of the self, this is for the ordinary mortals. This knowledge is contained in a book that has thirty parts. Spiritual knowledge was also given to the Prophets by revelation brought by Gabriel and for this reason it is known as the spiritual Holy Scripture.

 

Many of the verses of the Qur’an would sometimes be abolished, since the Prophet Mohammed would sometimes mention matters relating to this “hidden spiritual knowledge” before ordinary people, which was only meant for the special and Godly. Later this knowledge passed on spiritually from the chest of one Saint to another, and now it has become widespread by its publication in books.

  

6. The spiritual entity Anna

 

This spiritual entity is inside the head and is colourless. It is by the meditation on the Name of God Ya Hu that this spiritual entity reaches its pinnacle. It is this spiritual entity that when it becomes illuminated and powerful it can stand in the Presence of God, face to face, and communicate with God unobstructed. Only the extreme lovers of God reach this realm and station. Besides this there are a few and extremely exalted people who are granted additional spiritual entities, for example the spiritual entity Tifl-e-Nuri or a spiritual entity of the Godhead, Jussa-e-Tofiq-e-Ilahi, the spiritual status of such people is beyond understanding.

 

With the spiritual entity, Anna, God is seen in the dream state.

 

With the spiritual entity of the Godhead, God is seen in the “physical meditating state” when the spiritual entity itself leaves the human body and transcends to the essence of God.

 

Those possessing the spiritual entity, the Tifl-e-Nuri, see God whilst they are fully conscious.

 

It is these people who are the majesty and power of God in the world. They can either occupy the people by prescribing worship and austerities or by their spiritual grace send a person straight to the realm of God’s love. In their sight, concerning dispensing spiritual grace the believers and the non-believers, the dead and the living are all the same. Just as a thief became a Saint, in an instant, by the passing glimpse of the Saint Sheikh Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani, similarly, Abu-Bakr Havari and Manga the thief, became instant Saints by the passing glimpses of such Saints.

 

The five major Messengers were given knowledge of the five spiritual entities separately and in order of their appearance, as a result of which spirituality continued to prosper. With whichever spiritual entity you practice meditation you will be connected to the corresponding Messenger and become worthy of receiving spiritual grace (from that Messenger).

 

Whichever spiritual entity receives the rays of the Grace of God (favour), the Sainthood granted to that spiritual entity will be connected to the corresponding Prophet’s spiritual grace.

 

Access to seven realms and gaining elevated spiritual status in the seven heavens is obtained through these spiritual entities.

The functions of the spiritual entities inside the human body

 

Akhfa: Due to the spiritual entity, Akhfa a person is able to speak. In its absence a person may have a normal tongue but will be dumb. The difference between human beings and animals lies in the presence or the absence of these spiritual entities. At birth, if the entity, Akhfa was unable to enter the body for whatever reason, then a Prophet appointed for the rectification of this ailment would be called to treat the condition as a result of which the dumb would start to speak.

 

Sirri: A person is able to see due to the spiritual entity, Sirri. If it does not enter the body the person is blind from birth. An appointed Prophet had the duty to find and place the spiritual entity into the body, as a result of which the blind would start to see again.

Qalb: Without the spiritual entity of the Qalb, in the body, a person is like the animals, unacquainted, far from God, miserable and without purpose. Returning this entity into the body was the task of the Prophets also.

The miracles of the Prophets were also granted to the saints, in the form marvels and mystical wonders as a result of which even the impious and liberal became close to God. When a spiritual entity is returned by any allocated Saint or Prophet, the deaf, dumb and the blind are healed.

Anna: When the spiritual entity, Anna, fails to enter the body, a person is regarded as insane even though the brain may be functioning normally.

Khaffi: In the absence of the spiritual entity, Khafi, a person is deaf, even if the ears are opened wide.

These conditions can be caused by other defects in the body, and can be treated. There is no cure in the case, where the defect is caused by the absence of the associated spiritual entity except where a Prophet or a Saint intervenes and cures the defect.

Nafs, self: As a result of the spiritual entity of the self (ego) a persons mind is occupied with the material world and it is because of the spiritual entity Qalb that a persons direction turns towards God. For more detail visit www.goharshahi.org or visit asipk.com and for videos visit HH rags

 

It was good to be able to get away for a day. It was to be a comfortably warm day for late May, after a rather cold start. But where to go, a good question, and then the answer came…Long Island City. I had always been intrigued by the construction of Gantry State Park along the shore of the East River. The park centers on the old Long Island Rail Road’s massive float bridge operation that lasted into the late 1970’s. The former rail yards are now all gone, replaced by massive new apartment buildings stretching along the shore. Only elements of the float bridge towers remain, and they are the center point of the park. Also the famous Pepsi Cola sign that was once outside the Long Island City bottling plant, has been preserved and is now on its own structure along the shore. The once gritty East River Rail yards , factories, and warehouses are mostly gone, replaced by huge hi-rise apartment towers, for the Generation X, Millennial generations. The shoreline is now beautiful park land, and a most pleasant place to walk and view Manhattan, just across the river. Yet just a few block away parts of the old working class neighborhood of the original Long Island City remain, perhaps just barely, as the influx of the “new rich” take over and destroy history.

As you go through the photos, particularly of the LIRR Float Bridge operation some photos of my earlier excursion to the location in 1972 are included. The difference is rather dramatic.

 

AF GRAFFITI

St Andrew and St Patrick, Elveden, Suffolk

 

As you approach Elveden, there is Suffolk’s biggest war memorial, to those killed from the three parishes that meet at this point. It is over 30 metres high, and you used to be able to climb up the inside. Someone in the village told me that more people have been killed on the road in Elveden since the end of the War than there are names on the war memorial. I could well believe it. Until about five years ago, the busy traffic of the A11 Norwich to London road hurtled through the village past the church, slowed only to a ridiculously high 50 MPH. If something hits you at that speed, then no way on God's Earth are you going to survive. Now there's a bypass, thank goodness.

 

Many people will know St Andrew and St Patrick as another familiar landmark on the road, but as you are swept along in the stream of traffic you are unlikely to appreciate quite how extraordinary a building it is. For a start, it has two towers. And a cloister. And two naves, effectively. It has undergone three major building programmes in the space of thirty years, any one of which would have sufficed to transform it utterly.

 

If you had seen this church before the 1860s, you would have thought it nothing remarkable. A simple aisle-less, clerestory-less building, typical of, and indistinguishable from, hundreds of other East Anglian flint churches. A journey to nearby Barnham will show you what I mean.

 

The story of the transformation of Elveden church begins in the early 19th century, on the other side of the world. The leader of the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh, controlled a united Punjab that stretched from the Khyber Pass to the borders of Tibet. His capital was at Lahore, but more importantly it included the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The wealth of this vast Kingdom made him a major power-player in early 19th century politics, and he was a particular thorn in the flesh of the British Imperial war machine. At this time, the Punjab had a great artistic and cultural flowering that was hardly matched anywhere in the world.

 

It was not to last. The British forced Ranjit Singh to the negotiating table over the disputed border with Afghanistan, and a year later, in 1839, he was dead. A power vacuum ensued, and his six year old son Duleep Singh became a pawn between rival factions. It was exactly the opportunity that the British had been waiting for, and in February 1846 they poured across the borders in their thousands. Within a month, almost half the child-Prince's Kingdom was in foreign hands. The British installed a governor, and started to harvest the fruits of their new territory's wealth.

 

Over the next three years, the British gradually extended their rule, putting down uprisings and turning local warlords. Given that the Sikh political structures were in disarray, this was achieved at considerable loss to the invaders - thousands of British soldiers were killed. They are hardly remembered today. British losses at the Crimea ten years later were much slighter, but perhaps the invention of photography in the meantime had given people at home a clearer picture of what was happening, and so the Crimea still remains in the British folk memory.

 

For much of the period of the war, Prince Duleep Singh had remained in the seclusion of his fabulous palace in Lahore. However, once the Punjab was secure, he was sent into remote internal exile.

 

The missionaries poured in. Bearing in mind the value that Sikh culture places upon education, perhaps it is no surprise that their influence came to bear on the young Prince, and he became a Christian. The extent to which this was forced upon him is lost to us today.

 

A year later, the Prince sailed for England with his mother. He was admitted to the royal court by Queen Victoria, spending time both at Windsor and, particularly, in Scotland, where he grew up. In the 1860s, the Prince and his mother were significant members of London society, but she died suddenly in 1863. He returned with her ashes to the Punjab, and there he married. His wife, Bamba Muller, was part German, part Ethiopian. As part of the British pacification of India programme, the young couple were granted the lease on a vast, derelict stately home in the depths of the Suffolk countryside. This was Elveden Hall. He would never see India again.

 

With some considerable energy, Duleep Singh set about transforming the fortunes of the moribund estate. Being particularly fond of hunting (as a six year old, he'd had two tutors - one for learning the court language, Persian, and the other for hunting to hawk) he developed the estate for game. The house was rebuilt in 1870.

 

The year before, the Prince had begun to glorify the church so that it was more in keeping with the splendour of his court. This church, dedicated to St Andrew, was what now forms the north aisle of the present church. There are many little details, but the restoration includes two major features; firstly, the remarkable roof, with its extraordinary sprung sprung wallposts set on arches suspended in the window embrasures, and, secondly, the font, which Mortlock tells us is in the Sicilian-Norman style. Supported by eight elegant columns, it is very beautiful, and the angel in particular is one of Suffolk's loveliest. You can see him in an image on the left.

 

Duleep Singh seems to have settled comfortably into the role of an English country gentleman. And then, something extraordinary happened. The Prince, steeped in the proud tradition of his homeland, decided to return to the Punjab to fulfill his destiny as the leader of the Sikh people. He got as far as Aden before the British arrested him, and sent him home. He then set about trying to recruit Russian support for a Sikh uprising, travelling secretly across Europe in the guise of an Irishman, Patrick Casey. In between these times of cloak and dagger espionage, he would return to Elveden to shoot grouse with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. It is a remarkable story.

 

Ultimately, his attempts to save his people from colonial oppression were doomed to failure. He died in Paris in 1893, the British seemingly unshakeable in their control of India. He was buried at Elveden churchyard in a simple grave.

 

The chancel of the 1869 church is now screened off as a chapel, accessible from the chancel of the new church, but set in it is the 1894 memorial window to Maharaja Prince Duleep Singh, the Adoration of the Magi by Kempe & Co.

 

And so, the Lion of the North had come to a humble end. His five children, several named after British royal princes, had left Elveden behind; they all died childless, one of them as recently as 1957. The estate reverted to the Crown, being bought by the brewing family, the Guinnesses.

 

Edward Cecil Guinness, first Earl Iveagh, commemorated bountifully in James Joyce's 1916 Ulysses, took the estate firmly in hand. The English agricultural depression had begun in the 1880s, and it would not be ended until the Second World War drew the greater part of English agriculture back under cultivation. It had hit the Estate hard. But Elveden was transformed, and so was the church.

 

Iveagh appointed William Caroe to build an entirely new church beside the old. It would be of such a scale that the old church of St Andrew would form the south aisle of the new church. The size may have reflected Iveagh's visions of grandeur, but it was also a practical arrangement, to accommodate the greatly enlarged staff of the estate. Attendance at church was compulsory; non-conformists were also expected to go, and the Guinnesses did not employ Catholics.

 

Between 1904 and 1906, the new structure went up. Mortlock recalls that Pevsner thought it 'Art Nouveau Gothic', which sums it up well. Lancet windows in the north side of the old church were moved across to the south side, and a wide open nave built beside it. Curiously, although this is much higher than the old and incorporates a Suffolk-style roof, Caroe resisted the temptation of a clerestory. The new church was rebenched throughout, and the woodwork is of a very high quality. The dates of the restoration can be found on bench ends up in the new chancel, and exploring all the symbolism will detain you for hours. Emblems of the nations of the British Isles also feature in the floor tiles.

 

The new church was dedicated to St Patrick, patron Saint of the Guinnesses' homeland. At this time, of course, Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom, and despite the tensions and troubles of the previous century the Union was probably stronger at the opening of the 20th century than it had ever been. This was to change very rapidly. From the first shots fired at the General Post Office in April 1916, to complete independence in 1922, was just six years. Dublin, a firmly protestant city, in which the Iveaghs commemorated their dead at the Anglican cathedral of St Patrick, became the capital city of a staunchly Catholic nation. The Anglicans, the so-called Protestant Ascendancy, left in their thousands during the 1920s, depopulating the great houses, and leaving hundreds of Anglican parish churches completely bereft of congregations. Apart from a concentration in the wealthy suburbs of south Dublin, there are hardly any Anglicans left in the Republic today. But St Patrick's cathedral maintains its lonely witness to long years of British rule; the Iveagh transept includes the vast war memorial to WWI dead, and all the colours of the Irish regiments - it is said that 99% of the Union flags in the Republic are in the Guinness chapel of St Patrick's cathedral. Dublin, of course, is famous as the biggest city in Europe without a Catholic cathedral. It still has two Anglican ones.

 

Against this background then, we arrived at Elveden. The church is uncomfortably close to the busy road, but the sparkle of flint in the recent rain made it a thing of great beauty. The main entrance is now at the west end of the new church. The surviving 14th century tower now forms the west end of the south aisle, and we will come back to the other tower beyond it in a moment.

 

You step into a wide open space under a high, heavy roof laden with angels. There is a wide aisle off to the south; this is the former nave, and still has something of that quality. The whole space is suffused with gorgeously coloured light from excellent 19th and 20th century windows. These include one by Frank Brangwyn, at the west end of the new nave. Andrew and Patrick look down from a heavenly host on a mother and father entertaining their children and a host of woodland animals by reading them stories. It is quite the loveliest thing in the building.

 

Other windows, mostly in the south aisle, are also lovely. Hugh Easton's commemorative window for the former USAAF base at Elveden is magnificent. Either side are windows to Iveaghs - a gorgeous George killing a dragon, also by Hugh Easton, and a curious 1971 assemblage depicting images from the lives of Edward Guinness's heir and his wife, which also works rather well. The effect of all three windows together is particularly fine when seen from the new nave.

 

Turning ahead of you to the new chancel, there is the mighty alabaster reredos. It cost £1,200 in 1906, about a quarter of a million in today’s money. It reflects the woodwork, in depicting patron Saints and East Anglian monarchs, around a surprisingly simple Supper at Emmaus. This reredos, and the Brangwyn window, reminded me of the work at the Guinness’s other spiritual home, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, which also includes a window by Frank Brangwyn commisioned by them. Everything is of the highest quality. Rarely has the cliché ‘no expense spared’ been as accurate as it is here.

 

Up at the front, a little brass plate reminds us that Edward VII slept through a sermon here in 1908. How different it must have seemed to him from the carefree days with his old friend the Maharajah! Still, it must have been a great occasion, full of Edwardian pomp, and the glitz that only the fabulously rich can provide. Today, the church is still splendid, but the Guinesses are no longer fabulously rich, and attendance at church is no longer compulsory for estate workers; there are far fewer of them anyway. The Church of England is in decline everywhere; and, let us be honest, particularly so in this part of Suffolk, where it seems to have retreated to a state of siege. Today, the congregation of this mighty citadel is as low as half a dozen. The revolutionary disappearance of Anglican congregations in the Iveagh's homeland is now being repeated in a slow, inexorable English way.

 

You wander outside, and there are more curiosities. Set in the wall are two linked hands, presumably a relic from a broken 18th century memorial. They must have been set here when the wall was moved back in the 1950s. In the south chancel wall, the bottom of an egg-cup protrudes from among the flints. This is the trademark of the architect WD Caroe. To the east of the new chancel, Duleep Singh’s gravestone is a very simple one. It is quite different in character to the church behind it. A plaque on the east end of the church remembers the centenary of his death.

 

Continuing around the church, you come to the surprise of a long cloister, connecting the remodelled chancel door of the old church to the new bell tower. It was built in 1922 as a memorial to the wife of the first Earl Iveagh. Caroe was the architect again, and he installed eight bells, dedicated to Mary, Gabriel, Edmund, Andrew, Patrick, Christ, God the Father, and the King. The excellent guidebook recalls that his intention was for the bells to be cast to maintain the hum and tap tones of the renowned ancient Suffolk bells of Lavenham... thus the true bell music of the old type is maintained.

 

This church is magnificent, obviously enough. It has everything going for it, and is a national treasure. And yet, it has hardly any congregation. So, what is to be done?

 

If we continue to think of rural historic churches as nothing more than outstations of the Church of England, it is hard to see how some of them will survive. This church in particular has no future in its present form as a village parish church. New roles must be found, new ways to involve local people and encourage their use. One would have thought that this would be easier here than elsewhere.

 

The other provoking thought was that this building summed up almost two centuries of British imperial adventure, and that we lived in a world that still suffered from the consequences. It is worth remembering where the wealth that rebuilt St Andrew and St Patrick came from.

 

As so often in British imperial history, interference in other peoples’ problems and the imposition of short-term solutions has left massive scars and long-cast shadows. For the Punjab, as in Ireland, there are no simple solutions. Sheer proximity has, after several centuries of cruel and exploitative involvement, finally encouraged the British government to pursue a solution in Ireland that is not entirely based on self-interest. I fear that the Punjab is too far away for the British to care very much now about what they did there then.

Able to handle anything from a grazed knee to a heart attack, the MMED can also be used as a medical transport for patients while maintaining life support and attending to injuries en route.

 

Right hand side view (see notes for details)

I was once able to check out a friend's Konica III and compare it to the Konica III-A I own and have used a little. The III-A adds a brightline finder and the lens opens to f/1.8, but I think the styling of the earlier version III appeals to me a bit more. In either case the 6-element Hexanon (right?) is just as sharp as you would hope.

 

The blurb defending this camera's non-interchangeable lens sounds a little defensive but the logic is quite reasonable. Even owners of Rolleiflexes at twice this price somehow survive with just their one normal lens.

Grosvenor Pl, London

VDL Futura 2 FHD2-129.365

I will probably not be able to get back on today to comment as I'm having a "Retinal scan" done later.

 

Home to England’s highest waterfall, descending a staggering 220 ft, Canonteign Falls is a breathtaking Devon attraction, and a wonderful day out for all the family.

Water rushing over Canonteign falls in Devon

 

Situated within Dartmoor National Park, in the heart of Devon’s Teign Valley, the waterfalls tumble down ancient rock formations to meet the tranquil lakes below, offering some of the most spectacular waterfall and woodland scenery in Devon.

 

The lakes and walks, now very well established, provide a combination of traditional English wetland vegetation along with selected exotic water plants.

 

A haven for wildlife, we are working together with the Devon Wildlife Trust to manage our lakes sustainably. Our Devon Wildlife Trust information boards examine the extraordinary dragonflies and damselflies that have made our lakes in Devon their natural habitat.

 

In the early 1990s the current Lord Exmouth constructed a further four lakes, and here, particularly in spring and early summer, carpets of yellow buttercups and orchids adorn the grassland. Taking the path alongside Lily lake leading to the wetlands and lower lakes, is one of the most fascinating nature walks in Devon, giving you the opportunity to spot kingfishers, bats, butterflies, wildfowl, dragonflies and otter; and the ancient wetland area close to the Elizabethan walled garden provides a habitat for swathes of yellow flag irises.

 

There are seven interconnecting lakes. The main Lily Lake has a central island with beautiful purple flowering rhododendrons in spring time and a provides safe cover for the many Mallard ducks and their ducklings in spring. Clearing of trees has been undertaken at the Falls end of the lake and the visitor can now enjoy a much enhanced view whilst walking around the Lake.

 

The six lower lakes are linked up with grassy walks and bridges. Planting combinations fo dogwood, acers, gunnera and pampas grass provide year round texture and colour.

 

www.canonteignfalls.co.uk/Facilities/the-lakes

After a break in the wonderful Scottish summer yesterday, we were able to spend the day with friends at the Blairdrummond Safari. What a wonderful day it was seeing all the wildlife (even though it's a shame they have to be caged)!

 

As you would imagine, when the weather is this good almost everyone in Scotland is out, so the place was jam packed. Took this shot as we were preparing to leave. Just wanted a simple bokeh shot.

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

Much better on black. Hit "L" to view in lightbox

 

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SHOT DETAILS:

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Camera & lens: Nikon D90 with nikkor 50mm

Exposure:1/2000

Aperture: f/2.5 at 50mm (= 75mm)

ISO:100

RAW processor: Adobe Lightroom 3

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© Wan Mekwi 2011 ~ Do no use without explicit permission

Thanks for stopping by my stream! Your comments, faces and views are always greatly appreciated. :)~

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Day 112 / 365

"Chasing Bee"

 

Bee yourself, bee happy, everything is possible. Aerodynamically a bee shouldn't be able to fly, but it did and all you need is just beelieve.

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Pol-Tadifa-Photography/42366647103...