Another reminder of the increasing atomisation of social life, the cost of gentrification and the demise of working class solidarity. Pubs can no longer afford the rates while many former customers can no longer afford to drink out. Despite the glow from the setting sun, this derelict pub stood cold and bleak amid the snow, no longer a centre of local community life - just a place for pigeons to find shelter in. (You might just be able to notice two in the top left window and another on the roof).

The Victoria dates from 1881. I understand its fate still hangs in the balance. Hopefully not yet another block of flats for foreign investors.

The sun is just a little ball of fire

Lost in a sky full of clouds

Atomized by the coming night...

Le soleil n'est plus qu'une petite boule de lumière

Dans un ciel rempli de nuages

Atomisé par la nuit qui approche...

Blankenberge, Belgium

Press 'L' to view large on black!

Situated in the very centre of Bordeaux, Aquitaine right on the brink of the river Garonne, a huge basin (at least the size of a football field) has been created with atomised water sprayed with a few minutes intervals. The spray creates a cloud of water and a pool of water app. ½" deep. When the spray stops the water will slowly run out through small holes in the basin and when empty, the spray starts again. Both children and adults seem to enjoy this game, - notice the little girl with the scarf on her head, she had great fun placing her feet on one of the valves, and then letting the spray free again

2.8/90mm Zeiss - Contax G

Voodoo Chile

Now this took a long, long, long time, having to get every individual piece of the World Trade Center and the surrounding city, together with people, cars, boats, even the tiniest pebble!

But I feel it was worth the three-weeks of on/off effort!

Among the most iconic buildings in all of history, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center stood for 28 years as symbols of many things, economic might, human innovation, American pride, and icons of New York. But their short period in existence was brought to an abrupt end on September 11th, 2001, where the two tallest buildings in the city of New York were left seething in peril, and reduced to smouldering rubble within two hours, on a day when evil truly showed its ugliest face, average citizens became heroes, and victims were made of us all.

Considerations for a 'World Trade Center' went back to the end of World War II in 1945, where it was intended to create a single centre for the major shipping companies of New York and the divisional offices of large foreign shipping firms to concentrate their activity to one place. However, the rise of the aviation industry and the decline of the traditional shipping companies in the face of rationalisation following developments such as the Shipping Container over the previous Box n' Crate system made it so that there were barely enough of these firms left to justify such a project. The idea wouldn't resurface again until the early 1960's, where after a decade of production and progress in the American economy, the larger number of firms required greater office space in New York's financial district in Lower Manhattan. Enter director of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, Austin J. Tobin, and newly elected New Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes, who, together, were responsible for the final location of the World Trade Center.

Original plans from 1961 would have placed the World Trade Center on the former dockyards along the East River, what is today the historic South Street Dockyard. Tobin was convinced by Hughes to include the World Trade Center as part of a package deal to improve the services of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, an underground subway line that connected New Jersey to its terminus in Lower Manhattan. Built in 1909, the railroad was in a dire state of disrepair, and passenger numbers had dropped dramatically. Hughes felt that a major stimulus for the railroad's regrowth would be its direct connection to the new World Trade Center project, therefore solving two problems in one and being mutually beneficial to New York and New Jersey. Thus a 16 acre site of old low-rise buildings on the shores of the Hudson known as 'Radio Row' were chosen as the site of the new complex.

Design of the World Trade Center was handed to American-born Japanese architect, Minoru Yamasaki, who envisaged the World Trade Center as not just a simple collection of buildings, but a work of art. Taking design cues from the Piazza san Marco in Venice, he saw the WTC buildings surrounding a large plaza within which would be sculptures, artistic pieces and fountains, crowned by 'The Sphere', a Bronze sculpture stood in the middle of a large fountain at the centre of the Plaza that would depict World Trade and Peace. The commission was given to German sculptor Fritz Koenig, who designed and built it in his workshop in Germany before having it shipped to the WTC in 1971, where, upon its plinth, it would do a full rotation every 24 hours. The pièce de résistance however would be the two 1,360ft tall, 110 storey Twin Towers that would stand at a staggered angle to one another along the site's western side closest to the Hudson and the elevated West Side Highway. Yamasaki's original plan called for the towers to be 80 stories tall, but to meet the Port Authority's requirement for 10,000,000 square feet of office space, the buildings would each have to be 110 stories tall.

Yamasaki's design for the World Trade Center, unveiled to the public on January 18th, 1964, called for a square plan approximately 208ft in dimension on each side. The buildings were designed with narrow office windows 18in wide, which reflected Yamasaki's fear of heights as well as his desire to make building occupants feel secure. Yamasaki's design included building facades sheathed in aluminium-alloy. The result of this aluminium cladding was a translucent effect, with the two towers changing colours with the times of the day from a vibrant silver at midday, to a magnificent orange and pink in the evening or at sunrise.

Another problem the WTC faced were elevators, as with the greater height of the building, more elevators were required to serve it, taking up more floor space. The result was an ingenious new method involving 'Sky-Lobbies', a concept first put into practice on the John Hancock Center in Chicago. The idea was similar to that of trains on the New York Subway, with limited-stop express elevators running the entire length of the towers, whilst local elevators served individual floors or alternate floors. Sky-Lobbies were located on the 44th and 78th floors, and their implementation enabled the elevators to be used efficiently, increasing the amount of usable space on each floor from 62 to 75 percent by reducing the number of elevator shafts. Altogether, the World Trade Center had 95 express and local elevators.

The tower design consisted of a tube-frame, introduced by Fazlur Khan, and was a comparatively new one, done primarily to increase the amount of floor space when compared to the traditional design of evenly spaced steel columns in a stacked-box approach, as was implemented on the Empire State Building. The World Trade Center towers used high-strength, load-bearing perimeter steel columns called Vierendeel trusses that were spaced closely together to form a strong, rigid wall structure, supporting virtually all lateral loads such as wind loads, and sharing the gravity load with the core columns. The perimeter structure containing 59 columns per side was constructed with extensive use of prefabricated modular pieces, each consisting of three columns, three stories tall, connected by spandrel plates. The spandrel plates were welded to the columns to create the modular pieces off-site at fabrication shops, and were shipped to New York by train.

The core of the towers housed the elevator and utility shafts, restrooms, three stairwells, and other support spaces. The core of each tower had a rectangular area 87 by 135ft and contained 47 steel columns running from the bedrock to the top of the tower. The large, column-free space between the perimeter and core was bridged by prefabricated floor trusses. The floors supported their own weight as well as live loads, providing lateral stability to the exterior walls and distributing wind loads among the exterior walls. The floors consisted of 4in thick lightweight concrete slabs laid on a fluted steel deck. This rule was repeated for every floor with the exception of the 107th floor, which were fitted with Hat trusses to support a tall communications antenna. Both towers could have been fitted with antennas, but it was only ever implemented on the North Tower. The truss system consisted of six trusses along the long axis of the core and four along the short axis. This truss system allowed some load redistribution between the perimeter and core columns and supported the transmission tower.

Approval for the WTC was given in 1965, and properties on Radio Row were acquired by the Port Authority the same year. By 1966, Radio Row had been largely demolished and construction began on the World Trade Center towers. Before construction of the towers could begin though, the biggest issue that had to be confronted were the forces of nature, that being the Hudson only a few hundred feet away. Constructing the world's tallest buildings on a muddy marsh could have been likened to a silly man building his house upon the sand, it just couldn't work. As such, an innovative new concrete coffer dam was sunk along the West Side Highway and under the base of what would become the future Twin Towers in an oblong structure known as the Bathtub. Sunk to bedrock, the Bathtub held moisture in the surrounding soil and ground away from where the tower's foundations would be sunk, thus providing engineers with the equivalent of building a conventional skyscraper anywhere else into regular bedrock. With this problem sorted, construction began on the site.

The North Tower rose first between 1967 and 1970, followed closely by the South Tower between 1968 and 1971. The North Tower was topped out on December 23rd, 1970, proclaiming it officially as the tallest building in the world, toppling the Empire State Building from the title after its 37 year reign. The North Tower rose to 1,368ft, whilst the South Tower rose to 1,362ft, and would retain the title until the Sears Tower was topped out in 1973 at a height of 1,450ft. In addition to the Twin Towers, a set of smaller buildings surrounding the plaza were also constructed between 1970 and 1974, these being WTC 4, 5 and 6. WTC 4 and WTC 5 were 9-storeys tall, with WTC 4 being home to the largest Trading Floor in New York, whilst WTC 6 was 8-storeys tall and housed the U.S. Customhouse.

In addition to the WTC, the Hudson Railroad was given major modifications as well in the form of new trains and a refurbished 4-track station underneath the Plaza, accessible via WTC 5. The Hudson Railroad came under the ownership of the Port Authority, and was subsequently renamed the Port Authority Trans Hudson line, or PATH. Beneath the plaza too was an enormous shopping centre that stretched the entire complex and was, at the time, Manhattan's largest indoor shopping mall.

The official opening ceremony of the towers took place on April 4th, 1973, although the structures had yet to be completely finished, with tenants taking up occupancy on the lower, completed floors during the first year before final completion of the towers in 1975. 1975 saw the opening of the Top of the World Observatory, an observation deck located on the roof of the South Tower, which, until recently, held the title as the world's highest outdoor observation deck. This was joined by the opening of the North Tower's restaurant on the 106th and 107th floor, the Windows on the World and the Greatest Bar on Earth, which for years was one of the most exclusive and popular restaurants in the United States.

At first, the World Trade Center was not looked on favourably, with architectural criticism being made against the angular design of the Twin Towers and the 'Superblock' style of the WTC Plaza, with many of the original streets dating back as far as the mid-18th Century being truncated to make space for the site. The towers were also seen as huge 'White Elephants', primarily due to the stagnation of the economic market in the early 1970's which meant that barely any tenants initially moved into the site's 10,000,000 square feet of office space.

However, one person who looked on the towers favourably was Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist who saw the Twin Towers in a similar fashion to two poles, just without a wire strung between them. Seeing them originally in a promotional pamphlet before their construction in the 1960's, he devised a scheme to sneak into the unfinished towers and string a wire between them so he could perform the greatest high-wire act in history. On the night of August 6th, 1974, he and several friends snuck into the towers disguised as construction workers, and spent the night setting up the next morning's act. Using a Bow & Arrow, they fired a line across the 200ft void between the Twin Towers, and after hours of securing and preparation, Petit stepped out onto the wire at around 7am as New Yorkers began their commute to work. Over the course of the next 45 minutes, Petit stunned the city and indeed the world as he balanced on a wire only a couple of inches across, 1,360ft above the ground, sitting and lying down on it, gesturing to the waiting policemen on either tower, and even stopping for a cigarette break. Upon returning to the roof of one of the towers, he was promptly arrested and sentenced to performing for children in Central Park for trespassing, and given a lifetime pass to the observation deck atop the South Tower by the Port Authority. Petit's act has been seen as making these looming towers seem much more human, and the later popularity of these buildings was due largely in part to his incredible feat.

Trouble struck however in 1975 when a fire caused by a faulty telephone switchboard ravaged the 11th floor of the North Tower for several hours, though no permanent damage was caused. But even before the Twin Towers had been finished they were quickly associated with fire, most prominently by the movie, and books it was based off, 'Towering Inferno', which depicted a hi-rise blaze in the fictional Glass Tower in San Francisco. In one of the books the movie was based off of, the Glass Inferno, the Glass Tower was situated adjacent to the World Trade Center, and a Breeches Buoy was suspended between the Glass Tower and the North Tower to rescue people from the disaster. All of these works were inspired by the construction of the World Trade Center, the first in a short spree of tall building construction, but with such a tragic and ironic end.

Nevertheless, the Twin Towers did live a charmed life throughout the remainder of the 1970's and 80's, and quickly became New York icons, appearing in movies, adverts, TV Shows, Music Videos and other forms of media. King Kong climbed them in the 1976 adaption of the legendary story, Kurt Russell lands his glider atop the North Tower in the 1981 dystopian future thriller Escape from New York, they were atomised in 1996’s Independence Day, yet, oddly enough, were the only things left standing, as they were in 1998’s Deep Impact, when they were swamped by a giant tidal wave following the impact of an asteroid. They were turned to Swiss Cheese in that eternal cheesefest known as 1998’s Armageddon, crashed into by a giant chunk of rock in another cheesefest trying to pass itself off as a good movie, Meteor, and provided the climactic ending to yet another notable cheesefest, Mazes and Monsters, where Tom Hanks attempts to fling himself from the roof of the South Tower thinking he'd ascend to some questionable plot device known as the 'Great Hall', although I'd like to have seen him get past the suicide fence between the observation deck and the edge of the building!

The WTC was also notable for many extreme events, including two climbs, the first in 1977 by George Willing, who scaled the South Tower, and the second by Dan Goodwin in 1983, who climbed the North Tower. In 1984, aspiring artist Joanna Gilman Hyde painted a 10,000 square foot painting known as the 'Self-Organizing Galaxy' on the roof of 5 World Trade Center, a piece that could only be seen and appreciated from the Twin Towers that loomed over it. The towers were also famous for Base Jumpers, who would manage to somehow sneak their way onto the roof of either building, usually the South Tower, and leap off with a parachute, huddling themselves into a waiting car in Battery Park before they could be arrested and hauled off by the NYPD for trespassing and reckless indulgence.

In 1978, the North Tower was fitted with a 598ft Television Antenna, which quickly became a home for a majority of New York's TV and Radio stations with its unobstructed line of sight to pretty much everywhere in the surrounding Tri-State area. In 1981 and 1987, the WTC was joined by two other buildings. The first was World Trade Center 3, also known as the Vista Hotel, a 22-storey structure built between the Twin Towers and the West Side Highway. The first hotel to open in Lower Manhattan since 1897, the Vista was one of the most luxury hotels in the city, providing guests with a myriad of restaurants, a top-floor Gym with views of the Hudson, direct access to the World Trade Center and later World Financial Center, as well as its proximity to Wall Street and the banks of Lower Manhattan. WTC 3 was the last building of the original proposal to be built, but had been modified from its original 9-storey design to increase capacity. The final addition to the World Trade Center was WTC 7, a 47-storey structure built between 1984 and 1987 to the north of the complex above a ConEd Substation. The tower was largely home to Salomon Brothers, which resulted in the building being affectionately dubbed the Salomon Brothers building.

However, disaster struck on February 26th, 1993, when a truck bomb planted by Islamic extremist, Ramsi Yousif, exploded in the underground parking lot beneath the North Tower. Yousif's intention was to destroy the supporting foundations of the tower so as to cause it to fall onto its twin. Thankfully this didn't occur, but 6 people were killed in the blast and over 1,000 injured, and it proved to the United States that it was now vulnerable to international terrorism. The Twin Towers were reopened in 20 days, but the Vista Hotel, later bought by Marriott, wouldn't reopen until 1994 after extensive renovation and a new front entrance. At the same time, evacuation and safety features in the towers were updated heavily. A major setback of the 1993 attack was the poorly implemented safety measures and evacuation procedures, with many unsure of where to go or what to do as they huddled into the tightly packed, smoke filled stairwells, some eventually being rescued by helicopter from the roof, whilst others had to endure hours in the dark of the powerless towers before they were led down by firefighters.

In 1999, the Plaza of the World Trade Center was rebuilt and repaved after years of wear and tear, and to rectify a common complaint about the wind that would rush across the open space, making it undesirable to be stood right in the centre. The floor was, as mentioned, repaved, benches were added as well as a small garden around the central fountain, and much greater use was made of the Plaza, including market stalls, outdoor rock concerts, charity events and other community events that gave the WTC a greater human feel. Other plans included an upgrade to the PATH station that would be completed by 2003, and a renovation of the Observation Deck for the 2002 Summer Season.

All this however was brought to an abrupt and tragic end on September 11th, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 hijacked by terrorists, was flown deliberately into the North Tower at 8:46am between the 93rd and 99th floors. 17 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, another Boeing 767, was flown into the South Tower between the 78th and 81st floors, with thousands trapped in both towers above the impact zones.

Confusion reigned as the towers burned, with people inside not knowing what had happened a few floors above or below them as the rest of the world watched in horror. In the North Tower, all stairwells through the impact zone had been destroyed, and for the estimated 1,300 people above, every last one of them would die, either through effects of the smoke, fire, the eventual collapse of the tower, or a tragic final option, where an estimated 200 people jumped the half-mile drop to their deaths on the street below, their last few moments immortalised in videos and pictures. The desperation of their situation was relayed through the final phone calls and emails from those trapped above. In the South Tower, although PA systems stated that workers should not evacuate prior to the impact of Flight 175, many had left the building by the time it did, although an estimated 630 remained above the flames after the crash. Unlike the North Tower, one stairwell remained accessible, but only 18 people were able to escape past this point from above. Many sought passage to the roof of either tower hoping for rescue by helicopter, but the doors to the roof were locked. In any case, the NYPD Aviation Units circling the stricken towers would not have been able to rescue people, the sea of antennas on the North Tower roof inhibiting landing, whilst the South Tower's roof was engulfed in smoke from its Twin.

At 9:59am, the unthinkable happened when after burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. Although many reasons for such a catastrophic failure have circulated, and with many conspiracy theorists declaring that the collapse was done by way of controlled demolition, the generally accepted reason is that a mixture of the damage sustained, together with heavy fire and extreme heat, resulted in the floor trusses separating from the core and perimeter walls, resulting in the weight of the floors above no longer being sustained and the tower falling into itself. The top 35 floors of the structure above the crash site toppled towards the East River before crashing downwards into the rest of the building, killing hundreds both inside and outside. The North Tower followed suit at 10:28am, sinking straight downwards into itself, killing hundreds more in the chaos that ensued.

The results of both the crashes and the collapse of the towers was beyond estimation. 2,753 people died at the World Trade Center that day, together with 125 at the Pentagon in Washington, and 265 aboard the four planes hijacked, a total of 2,996. The remainder of the World Trade Center was destroyed or extensively damaged by the collapse of the Twin Towers. The Marriott WTC was split in half by the South Tower before its remains were crushed by the North Tower. WTC 4 was almost completely crushed, and WTC 6 had a hole burrowed into the basement. WTC 7 suffered heavy damage to its southern face, and after burning for hours it collapsed later that day at 5:20pm. The only WTC building to escape largely intact was WTC 5, furthest from the Twin Towers, with books in the Borders bookshop on the ground floor still sat on their shelves. The office floors above however were gutted by fire and damaged beyond repair. Only 18 people were dragged alive from the rubble of the Twin Towers, and after a majority of the bodies had been retrieved from the site, the remaining buildings were levelled in 2002.

A victory though from September 11th is that of the 17,000 people working in the towers at the time of the attacks, the best part of 14,000 were evacuated before they collapsed, thanks to the incredibly bravery of the rescue workers from the FDNY, the Port Authority and the NYPD who valiantly laid down their lives to save others. In total, 343 Firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers including 23 members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), 37 members of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), five members of the New York State Office of Tax Enforcement (OTE), three officers of the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA), one Fire Marshall of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) who have sworn law enforcement powers (and was also among the 343 FDNY members killed), one member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and one member of the United States Secret Service (USSS), were killed, many of whom were in the North Tower, and didn't receive the evacuation order after the collapse of the South Tower due to radio problems.

But it wasn't just members of the emergency services who became heroes, as ordinary people plunged into disaster brought forward their strength and courage to save as many as they could themselves. These included Frank de Martini, from his office on the 88th floor of the North Tower, worked his way up to the impact zone of Flight 11 to rescue people trapped on the floors immediately below. Eventually, he was able to save over 70 people before he tragically lost his life in the collapse of the tower, his last reported location being on the 78th floor helping someone escape an elevator. Another was Rick Rescorla, originally from Hayle in Cornwall and a hero of the Vietnam War, who, aside from predicting both attacks on the World Trade Center, was able to safely evacuate 2,700 employees from the South Tower, motivating them and maintaining their morale by singing old British songs such as 'Men of Harlech', before he too was killed in the collapse of the South Tower, he being last reported on the 10th floor climbing back up to rescue others. But their tales were just some of many instances where humble office workers became true heroes, putting caution aside to save those in desperate need. Even a pair of Guide Dogs became heroes, rescuing their blind owners by leading them down hundreds of flights of stairs to safety.

There were also tales of survival that seemed to defy belief. George Sleigh, a British manager of technical consistency at the American Bureau of Shipping on the 91st floor of the North Tower, was only 25ft below where Flight 11 struck, and would be one of only a handful of people to climb down almost the entire height of the building and survive. Venessa Lawrence, a British artist, had quite literally stepped from an elevator on the 91st floor as Flight 11 struck, the car she had exited tumbling down into the dark void as explosions and fire ravaged the floors above. Stanley Praimnath is quite possibly the luckiest, his office on the 81st floor of the South Tower taking a direct hit by United Airlines Flight 175, the wing of which was lodged in his door on the other side of his office. He would eventually be rescued by Brian Clark from the 84th floor, and the pair would escape the South Tower with minutes to spare. Of course there was also the last survivor to be pulled free from the rubble of the World Trade Center, that being Genelle Guzman-McMillan, who was pinned under smouldering concrete and steel debris for 27 hours before being rescued, the last of 18 people.

For years the World Trade Center sat in a state of limbo, an empty lot of concrete foundations with no clear goal in mind. An opinion poll in 2002 among New Yorkers came to a vote of 82% in favour of rebuilding the Twin Towers as they were. Instead, developers came to the conclusion that the new World Trade Center would consist of several towers, topped by what was formerly known as the Freedom Tower at 1,776ft.

Even with the Twin Towers gone and with no sign of them ever returning, we can still look back upon them warmly, knowing that for 28 years they did grace the skyline of Manhattan and left imprints on the hearts of so many. Although most recognize their image with their destruction, and indeed one must never forget the tragedy that befell the Towers, the City and the World that day, myself and many others prefer to remember their lives before that dreadful day in 2001. I've never drawn a picture of the World Trade Center on fire or collapsing because, as my brother once exceptionally put it, it shows the towers in pain, suffering at the hands of evil people who see nothing but destruction in everything they do, people who can't make things, only break things, and it's up to us as the people who make things to make things right!

Sorry for the lengthy description, but summing up the history of these mighty buildings sadly can't be done in one sentence!

One of very few non-water-filled shots I've taken. Balloon sprayed with water from an atomiser seconds before being popped.

The rubber splits far more unpredictably with these, and it all happens even faster - you can see there's much more motion blur in these ones.

Methinks I need to build myself a higher speed flash.

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Strobist: SB600 on camera right, on 1/64th power. Retouching in Aperture, light colour correction.

Phones are only a step on the way to the largely atomised individual.

A similar take as this one. Water sprayed iwth an atomiser on to the surface of the balloon moments before burst.

You can see on this one that the rubber opposite the burst starts to contract inwards leaving the water where it is, whilst the rubber closer moves with enough force to stretch out the water drops.

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Strobist: SB600 on camera left, on 1/64th power. Retouching in Aperture and Photoshop, colour correction.

There can be few gardening partnerships forged from more dramatic beginnings than that of Janet Wheatcroft and Dawa Sherpa. In 1995 Wheatcroft was crossing the Arun river in Nepal as a member of a plant-hunting and botanising expedition. The river was in full spate, the water roiling, when a landslide upstream sent a torrent of mud and boulders the size of London buses towards the group.

Dawa clung to Wheatcroft, exchanging terrified glances. He eventually hauled her to safety. As incredible as it was that he saved my life, she says, it was the realisation that he wasn't going to leave me and would rather go down as well that will always stay with me. Wheatcroft and Dawa stayed in touch and, a few years later, she invited him to visit her and her husband, Andrew, at their home at Craigieburn near Moffat close to the Scottish Borders.

The foothills of the Himalayas have a summer climate very similar to that of south-west Scotland. At Craigieburn a steep sided gorge that cuts through one side of the garden created a microclimate almost identical to that of Dawa's home village of Kharikhola. A brook runs through the gorge; the water flow is reduced to a gentle stream in summer but in winter, or after heavy rainfall, it rushes through the valley, crashing over the boulders that form the sides of the gorge. The atomised water creates the perfect moisture-laden atmosphere in which Himalayan plants thrive.

The gorge became the site for what is now known as Dawa's Sherpa garden. Cleared of sapling trees and undergrowth, the soil was dug over and improved using nothing but what Dawa refers to as his sherpa power his own muscles and tenacity. In just four months it was made ready for planting.

Dawa describes his career as a gardener as his fourth life. He spent time as a camp cook and trail guide, trained as a Buddhist monk and then worked as a sherpa. In this role he summited Everest twice, so the challenges of the gorge at Craigieburn and the persistent attentions of the small yet incredibly irritating biting midges that are a feature of this part of Scotland in summer must have seemed like small beer. And as he points out, growing the vegetables you need to stay alive on the side of a mountain has a far greater urgency than making an ornamental garden.

At the foot of the Sherpa garden, great swaths of Himalayan big blue poppies (Meconopsis) thrive, a sea of electric blue blooms shot through with iridescent silver and violet. There are numerous species and cultivars of Meconopsis in the gorge and elsewhere at Craigieburn, from Meconopsis grandis and Meconopsis sheldonii to George Sherriff Group hybrids. Their desirability is matched by their complex cultivation requirements, but the gorge suits them well. The soil is humus-rich, moist but well drained while the high tree canopy provides dappled shade, a key requirement for Meconopsis and many other Himalayan woodland edge plants.

Dawa claims not to have lost a single specimen from the hundreds of plants that went into the gorge, and not to have read a single gardening book in its making either. This latter claim is subsequently verified and qualified by Wheatcroft when she confides that Dawa has never learnt to read. What is clear, though, is that he has used an intuitive knowledge of the native flora of his home in making the garden.

Stands of Cardiocrinum giganteum (a bulb that produces a forearm-thick stem topped with huge, lily-like flowers) are planted not in deep, leaf-litter enriched peat soil, as the books suggest, but right at the edge of the stream. Farther up the gorge are stands of Arisaema speciosum, a malevolent-looking beast with dark purplish-black, white-veined flowers that look ready to devour any unsuspecting animal that might be passing by.

On a less epic scale are the ground-covering plants that spill over the rocks and weave through the taller plants, but these diminutive gems are no less interesting. There are at least three I've never seen before. Parochetus communis is a spreading clover, found on Himalayan riverbanks; its bright green leaves and intense blue flowers rival the Meconopsis in colour if not in size and profusion.

Growing with it is Primula geranifolia looking every inch a geranium rather than a primula with deeply cut leaves and dusky pink flowers, and Fragaria daltoniana. This rare Nepalese strawberry Wheatcroft believes these are the only plants in the UK arrived at Craigieburn by accident in a shipment from the Himalayas, and have slowly made the garden their home, lighting up dark corners with dark red drupes and leaves so glossy they look as if they have been polished. Mixed in with more widely available ground-covering plants such as Dicentra Langtrees and Epimedium cultivars, the resulting tapestry is so lush that even the few weeds that grow among it take on an exotic air.

It is evident that Dawa's mischievous delight in his convention-bending approach to gardening has spilled into the rest of the garden. Topiary animals stride across the tops of the hedges that frame classic herbaceous borders; prayer flags and the occasional (and tastefully placed) stone Buddha peek out from among shrubs. Wheatcrofts seemingly effortless talent in designing and planting has collided with Dawa's raw intuitive skill to make a memorable and unique horticultural experience.

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/09b82cc6-d633-11e5-829b-8564e7528e54.html

The Saturday Challenge for 16th October is ‘transparent things’. I was spoilt for choice this week, which was actually something of a drawback because no one item stood out from all the rest, and I was late in making a decision and even later in getting round to taking it. But no matter, I finally settled on this perfume atomiser (or is it a plant sprayer for the orchids on the bathroom window sill? Could be either, really!) which you can’t deny is transparent!

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== As always, your comments (and faves, should you be so inclined) are greatly appreciated! ==

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Another photo of the pillars at the south end looking north. It was quite a long walk from the south towards the north and I didn't take many photos worth sharing. It was a pleasant space though, and below is a description of the improvements made.

As part of the project, the depleted tree population has been boosted with five plane trees and three hundred and fifty hackberry trees, a species that is particularly favoured by the municipal parks and gardens service owing to its ability to withstand the rigours of summer in Seville. With its fast growth rate it is tall and leafy within a few years, offering shade to the passer-by. The older trees in the central walkway have been left on the understanding that as they disappear, the space separating the two pairs of columns will become increasingly clear until each pair can be seen from the other. The ground has been paved with a specially-designed flagstone finished with an ochre layer so as to resemble the pre-existing clay. Thanks to their double-rhomboid form, the pieces fit together in a zigzag, thus easily adapting to the gentle topographical undulations. This has made it possible to free the columns of their ditches and bars and to introduce a subtle downwards slope in the surrounding paving, which now brings them into the scheme, uniting them from the level of their bases. Most of this surface is now exclusively for pedestrians, except for the two lateral roads where the circulation of vehicles has been reduced to the minimum. The same paving covers pedestrian and vehicular traffic zones alike, with the latter indicated by concrete markers in the same colour of ochre emerging from the paving as if they were vertical extrusions of a series of modules consisting of six paving stones.

At both ends and in the centre of the walk three fountains have been installed, these constituting spouts set into the ground sending up vertical sprays to the delight of children, or misty clouds of atomised water to cool the atmosphere. Around the fountains, the ochre-coated paving stones are replaced by pieces of anti-slip stoneware. While they are equal in form, size and layout on the ground, they are finished with blue or white enamel, colours that traditionally characterise Seville’s fountains. These enamelled pieces sketch out on the ground large-scale designs that draw attention to the presence of water. That of the central fountain shows two sizeable numbers, 1574 and 2007, referring to the year the Alameda de Hércules came into being and the year envisaged for the finalisation of work for this most recent reconditioning of the walk.

New drinks stalls now join those installed in 2001, toning down their unmistakable presence without contradicting them. They endorse the neo-romantic style of the earlier constructions with a touch of irony, although they are smaller and open out like folding screens defining the areas where the tables and chairs of their terraces are to go. The stalls are protected from the sun by large seven-metre-high pergolas made of vertical concrete supports in the form of a T from which are suspended light aluminium panels painted in white, blue and yellow. Beneath the pergolas and near the drinks stands are benches in yellow-dyed prefabricated concrete. (From publicspace.org)

Simplex Mercedes 28-50 Roi des Belges Tourer (1911) Engine 7200cc S4 SV

Registration Number LE 8940 (London)

MERCEDES SET

www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623671722255...

Emil Jellinek was a wealthy Leipzig-born businessman, and had won the touring car class at the La Turbie hill climb in 1899 at the wheel of one of Gottlied Daimlers cars afterwhich he began selling Daimlers to wealthy enthusiasts on the French Riviera. But the death of Wilhelm Bauer at the wheel of one of these cars in the 1900 running of La Turbie that prompted him to demand something better, with a lower centre of gravity and commissioned the pioneering manufacturer to construct a new car that had to be light, fast, and beautiful, backing his demands with the purchase of 36 such cars in advance at the cost of 550,000 gold marks.

Designed by Daimler's collaborator, Wilhelm Maybach, this 5.9-litre, 35hp model marked the watershed design Advanced features included a pressed-steel chassis, aluminium cylinder block, 'honeycomb' radiator, atomising carburettor, and gate-change gearbox. Maybach's creation debuted at the Nice Speed Week on 25th March 1901. The car was owned by Baron Henri de Rothschild and driven by Wilhelm Werner, but had been entered by Jellinek under the pseudonym 'Mercedes', his daughter's name. (At this time Panhard-Levassor owner the sales rights to Daimler cars in France, hence the need for subterfuge!). Werner outclassed the field and wo days later achieved a maximum speed of 53.5mph along the Promenade des Anglais. Paul Meyan, General Secretary of the Automobile Club de France, declared we have entered the Mercedes era. So successful were the cars that Daimler adopted the name for its passenger cars in 1902.

An entire range of cars of varying capacities and power outputs followed - most notably the Mercedes Simplex - all inspired by that revolutionary original. Within a few years, Mercedes had asserted itself as the foremost make of car in Europe, with various royal households among its customers including George V when on engagements abroad. Then as now the USA was a major poential market and there customers included the likes of William K Vanderbilt and Isaac Guggenheim.

This 1911 car was built shortly after the companies adaption of the three pointed star emblem. this 28/50hp model was delivered in chassis form to Carrosserie Million-Guiet in Levallois-Perret, France, the Mercedes 28/50hp is powered by a 7.2-litre four-cylinder sidevalve engine of fixed 'T'-head configuration, the cylinders being cast in pairs. There is twin-plug ignition, one plug being sited above each inlet valve, the other above the exhaust. This system was originally sparked by a single Bosch magneto but is now supplied with sparks by a Simms magneto (exhaust valve plugs) and a high-tension coil (inlet valve plugs). Lubrication is managed by a Friedmann lubricator, with external oil pipes to all engine bearings and various points on the chassis. Power is transmitted via a scroll clutch to the four-speed gearbox and thence by shaft to the rear axle, there being a separate crown-wheel-and-pinion for each driveshaft. The rear wheel brakes are operated by a hand lever, and there is also a large and powerful transmission brake operated by the brake pedal.

It was first purchased in Paris in 1912 by an English owner. At some time it was drilled to carry a light gun in the first war. A bus body was built by S & A Fuller of Bath when the car was used by a hotel in Buxton. The present 'Roi des Belges' touring body was built by Robinson's of Riverside Road, Norwich completing a restoration in the early 1960s. Shortly before the car was used prominently in the film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, as the car of Robert Morley, playing the part of a wealthy newspaper proprietor, together with Sarah Miles chauffered by the cars owner.

It was on display at Silverstone to promote it being offered in the forthcoming Bonhams sale at the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed were it sold for £ 359,900 incl. auction premiums

Thankyou for a massive 57,862,869 views

Shot 23.04.2017 at the VSCC Formula Vintage Meeting, Silverstone REF 125-191

-1992

"Make your own sweet play perfume. Pour into Sweet Spray and mist on. Three adorable animal friends who spray candy-floral perfume! Each comes with 12 floral and 12 candy scented Perfume Petals girls dissolve in water to create sweet scents to wear. Girls simply pour water into rotocast animal atomizers, add "flowers," fasten flower cap, and squeeze. Sweet Sprays have floppy fabric cars in candy-floral prints that coordinate with the dolls."

Sweet Sprays atomisers were three plastic bunnies with large, floral printed fabric ears. They could be filled with the perfume provided and squeezed to mist out the scent.

Lex Luthor? He’s working with the HDC as well now? What is it these days with this department and having business men working for them? First John now Lex, whose next? That girl who heads up Queen Consolidated? Derek Powers?

“Lex?”

“Good to see you again my friend. I hope Mr. Eiling hasn’t done anything to harm you at all.”

“Of course not. But I’m curious why he’s so interested in Joseph here.”

“We got called in by the local authorities when they saw him atomise a group of people in an instant. He’s a threat that needs to be contained and we’re the only ones with the means to contain and help him.”

“He atomised people?”

I didn’t know that Joseph had killed people before I showed up, suddenly I realize why Mon-El fought this guy and nearly delivered the final blow to him.

“He did Kal. I saw it with my own eyes. I can still hear the screams.”

“He’s a danger Superman. To himself and others. He needs to be contained so we can study him to hopefully cure him.”

“Please. I just want to know my wife and daughter are alright….”

I’m uncertain what to do. Lex is right, Joseph is a danger both to himself and the city. He needs help and I can’t give the help he needs, but at the same time I don’t trust the HDC to help him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they can help him and I’m just embittered from when their agent threatened Ma and Pa to force my co-operation. Perhaps they’ve changed their ways since then. It’s possible since the incident with Mon-El breaking into their facility that there was a management change and everything has changed.

I have no choice. I have to hand him over.

“He has a wife and daughter Lex.”

“I know.”

“Promise me that he’ll see them again once you’ve helped him.”

There’s a long pause as Eiling turns to look at Lex waiting for his response.

“I promise.”

I don’t trust this Colonel Eiling, but after all the help he’s provided me in combatting some of recent problems in Metropolis, I trust Lex to do the right thing. Mon turns to look at me and I nod towards him signalling for him to stand down. We both step aside and the agents walk towards Joseph in their containment suits.

“No please. Superman! Don’t let them take me away!”

“They’re going to help you Joseph I swear. You will see Elizabeth again I promise you that.”

The agents lift him off the ground and carry him into one of their vans. Eiling gives the signal to his men for them to move out and they begin packing themselves back into the vans. As they do so Lex walks up to Mon and I slowly.

“Thank you. We’ll take care of him. I promise.”

“Look after him Lex. He needs your help.”

“I’ll do what I can for him. hopefully we can undo whatever it was that made him this way.”

“Thanks Lex. Glad to see that there are at least some good people in the HDC."

"You've encountered the HDC before?"

"I think the less said about that matter the better Come on Mon. Let’s get out of here.”

With that Mon and I take off in to the air. We follow the vans for a few miles until they head out of Metropolis back towards the airfield. Guess they’re still using that place as their base of operations. You’d almost expect that they’d have changed their location following Mon-El’s infiltration of the facility but I guess not. Probably due to budget cuts or something.

“You trust this Lex Luthor don’t you?”

“He’s a good guy Mon. He’s the one who helped me track down the head of Intergang last month.”

“I thought that was the one called Irons?”

“No he’s the one that was in charge of the HDC when you infiltrated it two years ago.”

"Ah yes. I remember now. Do you think this Lex Luthor can help that poor man?”

“I hope so Mon. I hope so.”

“Sorry about what you saw back there by the way. I lost it for a bit.”

“It’s alright Mon. I understand.”

“It’s just….the screams….they were horrible.”

“I know Mon-El. I heard them too. It’s what helped me find you.”

“You knew?”

“I heard the screams. I didn’t know they were caused by him though. Honestly I’m not sure what I would have done in the situation. Sure he accidentally killed half a dozen people but he didn't do it deliberately, but he clearly couldn't control his powers and there was no way that I could think of for getting him to control them.”

“You’d have done the right thing Clark. It’s what you always do.”

He just called me Clark. He never does that. It’s rather weird to actually hear that name come out of his mouth with out some form of disgust. Very quickly though he picks up on my surprise.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No it’s just…..you called me Clark. You never do that.”

“Is that a problem?”

HMS JUPITER (F60) was a Batch 3 Leander-class frigate of the Royal Navy (RN).

Built by Yarrow Shipbuilders of Scotstoun, she was launched on 4 September 1967 and commissioned on 9 August 1969.

In 1980, Jupiter's modernisation commenced, and included the addition of the Sea Wolf missile system, as well as the removal of her twin 4.5 in gun turret in favour of the Exocet anti-ship missile. The boilers were modified to the Babcock & Wilcox Y160 Steam Atomisation type water-tube boiler. The modernisation was completed in 1983. On 13 June, 1984, as she was leaving the Pool of London after a visit to the capital, she collided with London Bridge causing significant damage to both ship and bridge. The ship's Captain, Commander Colin Hamilton, was later court martialed in Portsmouth on December 4th, 1984.

In September 1986, Jupiter was part of the NATO exercise "Autumn Train '86'" and visited Gibraltar, then spent a continuous four weeks in the Mediterranean, and returned to Gibraltar prior to returning to her (then) home base of Plymouth. Jupiter changed her home port to Portsmouth in 1985. She was a member of the 7th Frigate Squadron.

In 1986, captained by Commander R Bridges, Jupiter deployed to the Persian Gulf - the Armilla Patrol - in partnership with HMS Newcastle and RFA Brambleleaf (A81), and while there, helped in the evacuation of British and Commonwealth nationals from the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen after a bloody campaign to overthrow the government of that country began.

Her last deployment came in late 1991 to early 1992 when she deployed to the South Atlantic.

Jupiter decommissioned in 1992.

She was sold for scrap in 1997 and towed to Alang in India to be beached and broken up.

Simplex Mercedes 28-50 Roi des Belges Tourer (1911) Engine 7200cc S4 SV

Registration Number LE 8940 (London)

MERCEDES SET

www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623671722255...

Emil Jellinek was a wealthy Leipzig-born businessman, and had won the touring car class at the La Turbie hill climb in 1899 at the wheel of one of Gottlied Daimlers cars afterwhich he began selling Daimlers to wealthy enthusiasts on the French Riviera. But the death of Wilhelm Bauer at the wheel of one of these cars in the 1900 running of La Turbie that prompted him todemand something better, with a lower centre of gravity and commissioned the pioneering manufacturer to construct a new car that had to be light, fast, and beautiful, backing his demands with the purchase of 36 such cars in advance at the cost of 550,000 gold marks.

Designed by Daimler's collaborator, Wilhelm Maybach, this 5.9-litre, 35hp model marked the watershed design Advanced features included a pressed-steel chassis, aluminium cylinder block, 'honeycomb' radiator, atomising carburettor, and gate-change gearbox. Maybach's creation debuted at the Nice Speed Week on 25th March 1901. The car was owned by Baron Henri de Rothschild and driven by Wilhelm Werner, but had been entered by Jellinek under the pseudonym 'Mercedes', his daughter's name. (At this time Panhard-Levassor owner the sales rights to Daimler cars in France, hence the need for subterfuge!). Werner outclassed the field and wo days later achieved a maximum speed of 53.5mph along the Promenade des Anglais. Paul Meyan, General Secretary of the Automobile Club de France, declared we have entered the Mercedes era. So successful were the cars that Daimler adopted the name for its passenger cars in 1902.

An entire range of cars of varying capacities and power outputs followed - most notably the Mercedes Simplex - all inspired by that revolutionary original. Within a few years, Mercedes had asserted itself as the foremost make of car in Europe, with various royal households among its customers including George V when on engagements abroad. Then as now the USA was a major poential market and there customers included the likes of William K Vanderbilt and Isaac Guggenheim.

This 1911 car was built shortly after the companies adaption of the three pointed star emblem. this 28/50hp model was delivered in chassis form to Carrosserie Million-Guiet in Levallois-Perret, France, the Mercedes 28/50hp is powered by a 7.2-litre four-cylinder sidevalve engine of fixed 'T'-head configuration, the cylinders being cast in pairs. There is twin-plug ignition, one plug being sited above each inlet valve, the other above the exhaust. This system was originally sparked by a single Bosch magneto but is now supplied with sparks by a Simms magneto (exhaust valve plugs) and a high-tension coil (inlet valve plugs). Lubrication is managed by a Friedmann lubricator, with external oil pipes to all engine bearings and various points on the chassis. Power is transmitted via a scroll clutch to the four-speed gearbox and thence by shaft to the rear axle, there being a separate crown-wheel-and-pinion for each driveshaft. The rear wheel brakes are operated by a hand lever, and there is also a large and powerful transmission brake operated by the brake pedal.

It was first purchased in Paris in 1912 by an English owner. At some time it was drilled to carry a light gun in the first war. A bus body was built by S & A Fuller of Bath when the car was used by a hotel in Buxton. The present 'Roi des Belges' touring body was built by Robinson's of Riverside Road, Norwich completing a restoration in the early 1960s. Shortly before the car was used prominently in the film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, as the car of Robert Morley, playing the part of a wealthy newspaper proprietor, together with Sarah Miles chauffered by the cars owner.

It was on display at Silverstone to promote it being offered in the forthcoming Bonhams sale at the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed were it sold for £ 359,900 incl. auction premiums

Thankyou for a massive 57,862,869 views

Shot 23.04.2017 at the VSCC Formula Vintage Meeting, Silverstone REF 125-190

UN FIN DE SIGLO ESPECTACULAR

Ya Victor Hugo en su prólogo de Hernani manifestaba: “Libertad en el arte, libertad en la sociedad; aquí está el doble objetivo”.

Durante los últimos años del siglo XIX y primeros del XX, Europa entra en un período de expansión económica, científica y política que da como resultado, entre otros, una de las fases más enriquecedoras, eclécticas, creativas y alborotadoras de la historia del arte europeo en general y de la pintura en particular.

Reflejo de una sociedad burguesa y adinerada que todo lo cuestiona e investiga y que se sacude el yugo de un pensamiento único, la pintura sufre una vertiginosa atomización donde se suceden y simultanean numerosas escuelas pictóricas que abarcan multitud de técnicas, temáticas y registros (aparece el desarrollo de las artes gráficas) que explosionan con frenesí buscando nuevos medios de expresión. Sirva de muestra que es el siglo XIX un periodo que se inicia con la recreación del Partenón y acaba con la construcción de la Torre Eiffel.

Son esos tiempos finiseculares que, con epicentro en París, han venido a etiquetarse como “fin de siècle” y “belle époque”. Sí, ciertamente París es a esta época lo que en su momento fue Florencia al Renacimiento o Roma al Barroco.

Pero no hay que engañarse, toda esta eclosión no representó una ruptura radical con el pasado antiguo, de hecho existe en estos tiempos una revalorización de la pintura plana, del arte bizantino, románico y gótico, sino que se nutre de él e incluso se fusiona y transforma en muchas ocasiones en una evolución imparable buscando nuevos sentidos a la belleza y la estética.

Bien mirado, no se trata de una renuncia a la realidad, más bien, es un nuevo enfoque de la misma que la complementa y, de alguna manera, la completa.

Todo este impulso creador se verá reflejado en esos años y en las décadas venideras en un imparable “totum revolutum” de “ismos” que se suceden y yuxtaponen unos a otros y con los que se intenta poner en valor uno u otro sentido de la expresión con nuevos lenguajes artísticos.

En realidad casi todos estos movimientos surgidos al amparo del siglo XIX y proyectados durante las primeras décadas del XX, no son auténticas disciplinas, sino diferentes modos de expresar la belleza y la estética: romanticismo, realismo, prerrafaelismo, impresionismo (pre, neo y post), esteticismo, simbolismo, sintetismo, orientalismo, fauvismo, cubismo, expresionismo, y un largo etcétera.

Como suele decirse, los cambios entre grandes épocas suelen producirse de manera lenta y progresiva. Uno no se acuesta siendo medieval y se levanta humanista, pero ciertamente con el fin del siglo XIX y las primeras décadas del XX se dieron las condiciones ya anticipadas por Victor Hugo en las que “No hay nada más poderoso que una idea a la que le ha llegado su tiempo”.

________________

A SPECTACULAR END OF CENTURY

Already Victor Hugo in his prologue to Hernani stated: "Freedom in art, freedom in society; here is the double objective".

During the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, Europe entered a period of economic, scientific and political expansion that resulted in, among other things, one of the most enriching, eclectic, creative and tumultuous phases of the history of European art in general and of painting in particular.

A reflection of a bourgeois and wealthy society that questions and investigates everything and shakes off the yoke of a single thought, painting suffers a dizzying atomisation where numerous pictorial schools succeed each other and simultaneously cover a multitude of techniques, themes and registers (the development of the graphic arts appears) that explode with frenzy in search of new means of expression. It is a sign that the 19th century is a period that begins with the recreation of the Parthenon and ends with the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

These are the finisecular times that, with their epicentre in Paris, have come to be labelled as "fin de siècle" and "belle époque". Yes, certainly Paris is to this time what Florence was to the Renaissance or Rome to the Baroque.

But we must not deceive ourselves, all this emergence did not represent a radical break with the ancient past, in fact there is in these times a revaluation of the flat painting, of the Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic art, but it is nourished by it and even merged and transformed in many occasions in an unstoppable evolution looking for new meanings to the beauty and the aesthetics.

On the contrary, it is a new approach to reality that complements it and, in some way, completes it.

All this creative impulse will be reflected in those years and in the coming decades in an unstoppable "totum revolutum" of "isms" that follow and juxtapose one another and with which we try to put in value one or another sense of expression with new artistic languages.

In reality, almost all these movements that emerged in the 19th century and were projected during the first decades of the 20th century are not authentic disciplines, but rather different ways of expressing beauty and aesthetics: romanticism, realism, pre-Raphaelism, impressionism (pre, neo and post), aestheticism, symbolism, synthetism, orientalism, fauvism, cubism, expressionism, and a long etcetera.

As is often said, changes between great periods tend to occur slowly and progressively. One does not go to bed a medieval person and rise a humanist, but certainly with the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th the conditions already anticipated by Victor Hugo occurred in which "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come".

Chassis n° J2-2969

Bonhams : The Autumn Sale 2020

Estimated : € 60.000 - 70.000

Sold for € 56.350

Autoworld

www.autoworld.be

Brussels - Belgium

September 2020

"There is every reason to suppose that the new MG Midget will be a great success. The latest car ... is a direct and logical development from experience gained by the firm in competition work of all kinds, yet its appeal is not based solely on performance, tremendous though that is for the engine size and the price of the complete car. Comfort has been studied so carefully that it is remarkably pleasant car to ride in..." – Autocar on the J2 Midget, 5th August 1932.

General Manager of Oxford-based Morris Garages, Cecil Kimber brought sports car motoring within the financial reach of the man in the street with a succession of affordable MGs. These were, naturally enough, based on existing Morris models, arguably the most famous and certainly the most influential being the Midget, which first appeared at the 1928 London Motor Show. The first – 'M' type - Midget was based on modified Morris Minor running gear and used the latter's 847cc single-overhead-camshaft four-cylinder engine, though it was its delightful two-seater body that set the little MG apart from its humbler progenitor. Manufactured by Carbodies of Coventry, it was narrow, light in weight and adorned with a most attractive boat tail.

Derived from the 'M' type and introduced for the 1933 model year, the two-seater J2 established the classic MG look which would characterise the Abingdon marque's sports cars into the 1950s. With its deeply cutaway doors, fold-flat windscreen and fixed cycle-type mudguards, it revealed its race-bred pedigree in every line and set the British sports car fashion for many years. This new Midget was given the factory designation 'J2' and it was announced simultaneously that a new supercharged J3 super-sports model and a racing J4 would quickly follow. The Midget's 847cc, overhead-camshaft, Wolseley-derived engine was coupled to a four-speed gearbox and housed in a simple chassis frame featuring half-elliptic springing all round and cable-operated 8"-diameter brakes. Thus equipped, the lightweight J2 possessed exemplary handling and steering by the standards of the day and was good for 65mph. Today the model is one of the most sought after of pre-war MG sports cars.

One of only 2,083 J2 Midgets produced, chassis number 'J2 2969' was exported from the UK to the Netherlands in 1968 and during the 1990s belonged to the Automusa Collection in Bergeijk (NL). The previous owner bought the MG as a project in 1999 and completely restored it as a hobby project together with an engineer friend of his. The car incorporates a new ash body frame, made by a craftsman in the Netherlands who supplies timber frames for all classic MG models, while the interior has been completely re-trimmed in beautiful green leather, matching the British Racing Green paintwork. The impressive dashboard has been augmented with extra instruments: a clock, oil and water temperature gauges, and a boost gauge for the supercharger, plus a fuel pump to atomise petrol in the inlet manifold for smooth starting.

This MG J2 Compressor has additional and desirable Brooklands aero screens; stone-guards for the headlights; and quick-release filler caps for the radiator and fuel tank, all emphasising the model's competition pedigree. Other noteworthy features include original Lucas taillights and numberplate light; direction indicators built into the original lighting; and the original and completely intact central lubrication system with grease nipples on the firewall. Weather equipment (side windows and hood) is with the car and in original condition. The engine has been overhauled with a Phoenix crankshaft and con-rods and is fed by a Volumex supercharger, so this car's performance should exceed comfortably that of the smaller-engined (746cc) blown J3 model. Its restoration only completed in 2018, this lovely MG J2 is offered with Netherlands registration papers.

On one of its final ever airshows, preserved Avro Vulcan XH558 soars over my house as it approaches the Dartmouth Regatta. On September 26th, this final airworthy Vulcan Bomber will make its last aerial appearance at the Yorkshire Airshow, after which it shall be retired to the quiet life of a museum after 55 years and over 8,000 hours of flying.

To we Brits, the Avro Vulcan, much like Concorde, represents a myriad of feelings both of praise and disdain. An engineering marvel from the 1950's, and a symbol of global annihalation, the Vulcan is one of those aircraft with a love/hate relationship, but today among crowds resounds true British innovation and technological might in a time of darkness.

It hadn't been 10 years since the end of World War II when such an aircraft had been concieved, and the world had been plunged into yet another war, only this one much more sinister and much greater in scale. The Cold War of 1947 was not a battle of tanks and men, but of words and spies, and the new threat of global destruction through nuclear strikes and bombings. The true destructive power of the Atom Bomb had been demonstrated by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people and causing widespread devastation. Very soon the nuclear bomb had become the ultimate accessory of warfare, and although the B-29's that delivered the original deadly payload against Japan were capable aircraft, the advent of larger bombs and the coming of the jet age meant that a new breed of aircraft had to be constructed to deliver these instruments of armageddon. As such, the capitalist powers of NATO and the Soviet led powers of the Warsaw Pact devised a slew of jet powered monstrosities to carry out this world-ending task. The United States developed the B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress, the Soviet Union built the Tupolev Tu-16 Badger and Tu-95 Bear, whilst we here in Britain created a trio of V-Bombers, the Handley Page Victor, the Vickers Valiant, and the crown prince of destruction, the Avro Vulcan.

Planning of the aircraft itself goes back to 1946 with the proposal of the British Atomic Weapon Programme and Nuclear Deterrent policies, which not only gave the go-ahead to the development of better nuclear weapons, but also aircraft on which to carry them. As such, in January 1947, the Ministry of Supply distributed Specification B.35/46 to UK aviation companies to satisfy Air Staff Operational Requirement OR.229 for "a medium range bomber landplane capable of carrying one 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) bomb to a target 1,500 nautical miles (1,700 mi; 2,800 km) from a base which may be anywhere in the world." The aircraft would have to have a cruising speed upward of 500 knots and a cruising altitude of between 35,000 and 50,000ft. Whilst Handley Page and Vickers set off to create their own designs, Avro technical director Roy Chadwick and chief designer Stuard Davies led the project under designation Avro 698.

The desire was to create an aircraft that could fill the specified payload capabilities, but at the same time be faster than other contemporary bombers. Investigations into German swept-wing aircraft such as the prototype Horten Ho 229 helped design what would later be known as the Delta Wing, intended to bring the aircraft as close as possible to that mysterious entity known as the Sound Barrier. Whilst other bombers such as the B-52 and Badger were comparitavely slow and lumbering, requiring fighter escorts to carry out their mission, the future Vulcan's design was to make the aircraft as fast as possible so as to outrun contemporary interceptors of the era. Prototypes began with 1949's Avro 707, a proof-of-concept aircraft to show that the Delta Wing concept worked in practice, of which 5 examples were built. These craft were essentially ⅓-scale versions of what was designated under Avro as the 698.

Upon successful testing of the 707, the 698 went into prototypical production, and a contract was made with Rolls Royce and Bristol to design engines, which came in the form of the Bristol BE.10 Olympus, later to be known as the Rolls Royce Olympus. Designed back in 1947, the Olympus was originally designed for Bristol's own version of the Vulcan, but after the contrat was handed to Avro, the production continued. Several engines were considered, starting with the Rolls Royce Avon engine, and later the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire ASSa.6, both being tested on prototype Vulcan VX770, which would later become a testbed aircraft for the Rolls Royce Conway engines fitted to later Vickers VC10 Jet Airliners. Olympus engines however were preferred for the much greater amounts of thrust, with early examples providing 10,000lbf, although this would later rise to 20,000lbf on the production Vulcans. Four of these engines were fitted to the aircraft, giving an overall thrust of 80,000lbf, pushing the aircraft to just short of the Sound Barrier at Mach 0.96, or 645mph.

In terms of armament, the Vulcan was not intended to be able to defend itself in air-to-air combat, using its aforementioned speed to evade pursuers and anti-aircraft fire. As such, the aircraft's main weaponry was its payload, which could include 21 x 1,000lb conventional air-raid bombs, or one of any of the contemporary nuclear gravity bombs, including the pioneer British nuclear weapon, the Blue Danube bomb, and the later Red Beard and Yellow Sun designs.

With all developments completed, the aircraft was christened the name Vulcan, the ancient Roman God of Fire, by far the most terrifying name you could put on a nuclear bomber. Don't get me wrong, B-52 and B-47 sound very military and technical, and NATO codewords for Soviet aircraft such as Badger and Bear sound quite fearsome, but Vulcan and its connotations to the God of Fire truly does make this aircraft sound like the bringer of an inferno! The first prototype made its first flight on August 30th, 1952, fitted with the original Rolls Royce Avon engines, this being followed by a selection of other test flights throughout 1953 using differing engines and additional improvements such as extra fuel tanks in the wing. Two prototypes, VX770 and VX777 were tested between 1952 and 1956, being outshopped in RAF gloss white paint. The first production Vulcan left the ground in February 1955, whilst the second production model dazzled crowds at the 1955 Farnborough Airshow with a spectacular barrel roll, for which the pilot, Roland Falk, was disciplined by the Civil Aviation Authority for performing such a move!

Proposals were made to sell these aircraft abroad, but no offers sadly materialised, many Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, choosing instead to buy the later F-111C Starfighters of the USA. September 1956 saw the first Avro Vulcan officially handed over to the RAF, this aircraft being Vulcan B.1 XA897. As part of a goodwill tour, the aircraft flew around the world to the colonies of the British Empire, but ended in tragedy when the aircraft crash landed in bad weather at London Heathrow at the end of the tour on October 1st, 1956. 230 Squadron, Operational Conversion Unit, were the first to recieve the Vulcan, later deployed with 83 Squadron in May 1957. In all, 134 of these aircraft were built in two variants, the original B.1, and the latterly improved B.2, which debuted in 1954 with improved electronic countermeasures and the much more powerful Rolls Royce Olympus engines. Proposals were made for a myriad of other variations, including a Missile Carrier and a Delta Winged Jet Airliner. None of these ever went to the prototype stage, although much of the design behind the Vulcan was used to develop the world's first and only supersonic passenger airline, the Bae/Aerospatiale Concorde, in yet another situation where innovations in the world of Military Supremacy have resulted in Civilian Progress.

The Vulcan however never did truly find itself in the combat situation it was designed to confront. As the 1960's and 70's wore on the aircraft's role in the possible future nuclear war never happened, and the aircraft spent much of its time simply doing exercises and strategic reconnaissance patrols over Soviet territory. Before the 1960's had finished the original and fearsome V-Bomber force had largely been disbanded from its nuclear role, with the Valiant being retired in 1965 due to prominent fatigue and inter-crystalline corrosion, and the Victor being converted into aerial refuelling tankers in 1969.

The only time the Vulcan was ever used in anger against an enemy was in the 1982 Falklands War in the audatious operation known as Black Buck. After the Argentine invasion of the British owned Falklands, a task force was sent to reclaim them, and the plan of Opertation Black Buck was to disable the airport at Port Stanley to stop the Argentinian forces from using it as a base for fighter jets. The operation involved a Vulcan flying to the Ascension Islands, then onwards to the Falklands in a non-stop, 6,800 nautical mile air raid. Using squadrons of strategically placed Victor Tankers, the first raid, led by Vulcan XM607, would have 11 Victor tankers refuel one another before the furthest Victor would refuel the Vulcan over the mid-Atlantic. The Vulcan then proceeded to Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands, unleashing its payload of twenty-one 1000lb bombs on the airport before escaping north to a planned rendezvous with a Victor some way off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Although the damage to the runway was not enough to stop use of the airport, it did show the true capabilities of these mighty aircraft, and took the enemy completely by surprise.

This however was not enough to keep the Vulcans alive, and as the 80's dragged on it was clear this tired design mixed with new aircraft and the advent of satellite guided inter-continental ballistic missiles such as Trident had spelled the end for conventional air raids such as those the Vulcan was meant to carry out. After nearly 30 years of devoted service, the Vulcan's were retired in March 1984. Happily though, 18 aircraft have been preserved across the world, of which one example, XH558, remains airworthy for airshows. Sadly though, the high costs of maintaining and engineering such an aircraft, combined with a lack of volunteers and new parts to keep the plane flying means that the 2015 season is to be the aircraft's last ever time in the air.

With the passing of the Vulcan into history though, we can reflect however on its life and times, the fact that such aircraft, instruments of war and destruction, have become such symbols of joy and British engineering. Built during a time when we all thought we'd wake up and be atomised, today the fear of nuclear destruction has passed, the Cold War has passed, and now we can see the Vulcan for what it really is, a marvel of 1950's British engineering, concieved in a time when trains still ran on coal and hot water!

Quick still life shot for today.

Three variations on a theme for a weird AI laboratory, experimenting on people. The massive AI wall/cliff/thingy uses advanced ECG technology to "read" the minds of the hu-mons. It is able to learn, test theories and observe human behaviour. The red-clad hu-mons are stuck in stasis, sometimes for years, while the AI uses them to grow and discards them when it's finished. The victims are fed with atomised proteins and minerals the AI disperses in the air they breathe.

I wanted a religious feeling, like a huge temple or similar, a place where technology had replaced the gods.

This would be predicated on having hundred of those gorgeous black 1x2 ingot pieces to fill the entire wall. I've started collecting them but as they're expensive it will be a longer term project :-)

The man apears to be confused from what I can tell. He’s as surprised to see his hands glowing as I am so it’s clear he’s triggered this accidentally. Clearly he’s intending to attack me but that doesn’t stop him from letting out a large blast of energy. I’m fortunate, with the added abilities given to me by this planets sun I’m able to simply place my arm in front of my face and shield myself from the blast. The local populace that had gathered to watch me confront this bizarre specimen are less fortunate. Even with my arm covering my face I see them being atomised by the energy blasts. The sight of watching all those innocents being killed in less than five seconds is haunting. The quick silencing of their screams is just the nail in the coffin.

Why must the innocent always suffer because of men who cannot control their tools. Jor-El couldn’t control the device that he claimed would save Krypton, instead he ended up destroying it. Now this monster with these powers that I suspect are due to the suit he’s wearing has killed the innocent spectators. I can’t forgive Jor-El for what he did to Krpyton, nor can I punish him for what he did to Krpyton. But I won’t standby and let this monster get away with what he’s just done. He’s going to pay.

I charge at him and deliver a punch directly to his chest sending him flying back into the wall of the building behind him. The impact with the wall leaves him dazed and confused. I take the moment to approach him slowly. I want him to experience at least the tiniest bit of fear he made those poor victims experience in the few seconds of pain he made them experience. As I approach I can tell he’s afraid, a mask covers up his face but I notice his hands desperately reaching for anything they can grab to defend him. He manages to grab hold of a few pieces of debris caused by him being smashed into the building but I quickly destroy it with my heat vision before he can use them. You’re going to pay you for what you’ve done basaro.

He attempts to release another blast of energy but I grab hold of him and smash him against the all again.

“Please stop I didn’t mean to….”

“Quiet basaro. Your kind don’t have the right to speak.”

With that I rip off the front and back plates of his suit before throwing him into the streets. In theory I’ve rendered him defenceless without his suit to generate his energy blasts but I can’t help but notice that both his fists are still glowing bright red. If it’s not the suit that allowing him to generate all this energy than what is?

“Please I didn’t mean to harm anyone!”

He’s pleading for his life, claiming innocence. They always claim false innocence when they feel threatened but nothing will come from it. I saw him atomise those poor people with my own eyes. Now he has to pay for what he’s done. It’s the only way to stop the problem from arising once again. I begin to ignite my heat vision as Kal calls it and he notices it as demonstrated when his begging intensifies.

“Please no! I need to make sure my wife and daughter are safe!”

I pause upon hearing those words. A monster like this has a family? How can that be?

“Please! I just want to know that they’re safe!”

As horrible an act as he did to those poor people, I won’t take away a poor child’s father. His desperation clearly signals that these abilities he has are relatively recently despite my previous suspicions of it being nothing more than an act. I can’t be the same type of monster that he is. I don’t want to leave children without parents. I lost my father during the war with Apokolips, I won’t let this man’s daughter lose him because of things beyond his control. I begin to release the energy I was absorbing to use for my heat vision but before the colour in my eyes can subside I see a blue blur come to a halt between myself and the masked man.

“Stand down Mon-El.”

I guess Kal-El saved the power plant.

Inside each one is a handy perfume atomiser.

IMG_3997_wm

Somewhat heavier and more robust than the smaller Tokarev Atomiser, the Stechkin was used extensively in the Battle for the Moon and was beloved by Soviet lunar-soldiers.

(Much better! It's very study and fits really nicely in the hand, both improvements on the last one.)

A Mining Union frame comes under attack from two Orbitals.

Green/Blue - a long-legged BES frame with flechette rifle. Shoulder quick-change rails here mount a pair of grenade launchers.

Pink - slaved MATA Orbital mod with extended boosters and multiple orientation thrusters. Note the doubled sensor array needed for navigating the complexities of the TRAPPIST ring systems. The top-mounted high-yield laser is used to atomise ring hazards but will do just fine versus the BES.

Lime/grey - a piloted Orbital GILA worker frame. Commonly used for mining, here modified with a short range maneuvering pack. By default, unarmed and without hardpoints, though this frame has found twin plasma cutters.

There can be few gardening partnerships forged from more dramatic beginnings than that of Janet Wheatcroft and Dawa Sherpa. In 1995 Wheatcroft was crossing the Arun river in Nepal as a member of a plant-hunting and botanising expedition. The river was in full spate, the water roiling, when a landslide upstream sent a torrent of mud and boulders the size of London buses towards the group.

Dawa clung to Wheatcroft, exchanging terrified glances. He eventually hauled her to safety. As incredible as it was that he saved my life, she says, it was the realisation that he wasn't going to leave me and would rather go down as well that will always stay with me. Wheatcroft and Dawa stayed in touch and, a few years later, she invited him to visit her and her husband, Andrew, at their home at Craigieburn near Moffat close to the Scottish Borders.

The foothills of the Himalayas have a summer climate very similar to that of south-west Scotland. At Craigieburn a steep sided gorge that cuts through one side of the garden created a microclimate almost identical to that of Dawa's home village of Kharikhola. A brook runs through the gorge; the water flow is reduced to a gentle stream in summer but in winter, or after heavy rainfall, it rushes through the valley, crashing over the boulders that form the sides of the gorge. The atomised water creates the perfect moisture-laden atmosphere in which Himalayan plants thrive.

The gorge became the site for what is now known as Dawa's Sherpa garden. Cleared of sapling trees and undergrowth, the soil was dug over and improved using nothing but what Dawa refers to as his sherpa power his own muscles and tenacity. In just four months it was made ready for planting.

Dawa describes his career as a gardener as his fourth life. He spent time as a camp cook and trail guide, trained as a Buddhist monk and then worked as a sherpa. In this role he summited Everest twice, so the challenges of the gorge at Craigieburn and the persistent attentions of the small yet incredibly irritating biting midges that are a feature of this part of Scotland in summer must have seemed like small beer. And as he points out, growing the vegetables you need to stay alive on the side of a mountain has a far greater urgency than making an ornamental garden.

At the foot of the Sherpa garden, great swaths of Himalayan big blue poppies (Meconopsis) thrive, a sea of electric blue blooms shot through with iridescent silver and violet. There are numerous species and cultivars of Meconopsis in the gorge and elsewhere at Craigieburn, from Meconopsis grandis and Meconopsis sheldonii to George Sherriff Group hybrids. Their desirability is matched by their complex cultivation requirements, but the gorge suits them well. The soil is humus-rich, moist but well drained while the high tree canopy provides dappled shade, a key requirement for Meconopsis and many other Himalayan woodland edge plants.

Dawa claims not to have lost a single specimen from the hundreds of plants that went into the gorge, and not to have read a single gardening book in its making either. This latter claim is subsequently verified and qualified by Wheatcroft when she confides that Dawa has never learnt to read. What is clear, though, is that he has used an intuitive knowledge of the native flora of his home in making the garden.

Stands of Cardiocrinum giganteum (a bulb that produces a forearm-thick stem topped with huge, lily-like flowers) are planted not in deep, leaf-litter enriched peat soil, as the books suggest, but right at the edge of the stream. Farther up the gorge are stands of Arisaema speciosum, a malevolent-looking beast with dark purplish-black, white-veined flowers that look ready to devour any unsuspecting animal that might be passing by.

On a less epic scale are the ground-covering plants that spill over the rocks and weave through the taller plants, but these diminutive gems are no less interesting. There are at least three I've never seen before. Parochetus communis is a spreading clover, found on Himalayan riverbanks; its bright green leaves and intense blue flowers rival the Meconopsis in colour if not in size and profusion.

Growing with it is Primula geranifolia looking every inch a geranium rather than a primula with deeply cut leaves and dusky pink flowers, and Fragaria daltoniana. This rare Nepalese strawberry Wheatcroft believes these are the only plants in the UK arrived at Craigieburn by accident in a shipment from the Himalayas, and have slowly made the garden their home, lighting up dark corners with dark red drupes and leaves so glossy they look as if they have been polished. Mixed in with more widely available ground-covering plants such as Dicentra Langtrees and Epimedium cultivars, the resulting tapestry is so lush that even the few weeds that grow among it take on an exotic air.

It is evident that Dawa's mischievous delight in his convention-bending approach to gardening has spilled into the rest of the garden. Topiary animals stride across the tops of the hedges that frame classic herbaceous borders; prayer flags and the occasional (and tastefully placed) stone Buddha peek out from among shrubs. Wheatcrofts seemingly effortless talent in designing and planting has collided with Dawa's raw intuitive skill to make a memorable and unique horticultural experience.

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/09b82cc6-d633-11e5-829b-8564e7528e54.html

HMS JUPITER (F60) was a Batch 3 Leander-class frigate of the Royal Navy (RN).

Built by Yarrow Shipbuilders of Scotstoun, she was launched on 4 September 1967 and commissioned on 9 August 1969.

In 1980, Jupiter's modernisation commenced, and included the addition of the Sea Wolf missile system, as well as the removal of her twin 4.5 in gun turret in favour of the Exocet anti-ship missile. The boilers were modified to the Babcock & Wilcox Y160 Steam Atomisation type water-tube boiler. The modernisation was completed in 1983. On 13 June, 1984, as she was leaving the Pool of London after a visit to the capital, she collided with London Bridge causing significant damage to both ship and bridge. The ship's Captain, Commander Colin Hamilton, was later court martialed in Portsmouth on December 4th, 1984.

In September 1986, Jupiter was part of the NATO exercise "Autumn Train '86'" and visited Gibraltar, then spent a continuous four weeks in the Mediterranean, and returned to Gibraltar prior to returning to her (then) home base of Plymouth. Jupiter changed her home port to Portsmouth in 1985. She was a member of the 7th Frigate Squadron.

In 1986, captained by Commander R Bridges, Jupiter deployed to the Persian Gulf - the Armilla Patrol - in partnership with HMS Newcastle and RFA Brambleleaf (A81), and while there, helped in the evacuation of British and Commonwealth nationals from the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen after a bloody campaign to overthrow the government of that country began.

Her last deployment came in late 1991 to early 1992 when she deployed to the South Atlantic.

Jupiter decommissioned in 1992.

She was sold for scrap in 1997 and towed to Alang in India to be beached and broken up.

Now there's something you don't see every day. Street sculpture in London near Brick Lane, Spitalfields Market

Inside each purse is an atomiser

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UN FIN DE SIGLO ESPECTACULAR

Ya Victor Hugo en su prólogo de Hernani manifestaba: “Libertad en el arte, libertad en la sociedad; aquí está el doble objetivo”.

Durante los últimos años del siglo XIX y primeros del XX, Europa entra en un período de expansión económica, científica y política que da como resultado, entre otros, una de las fases más enriquecedoras, eclécticas, creativas y alborotadoras de la historia del arte europeo en general y de la pintura en particular.

Reflejo de una sociedad burguesa y adinerada que todo lo cuestiona e investiga y que se sacude el yugo de un pensamiento único, la pintura sufre una vertiginosa atomización donde se suceden y simultanean numerosas escuelas pictóricas que abarcan multitud de técnicas, temáticas y registros (aparece el desarrollo de las artes gráficas) que explosionan con frenesí buscando nuevos medios de expresión. Sirva de muestra que es el siglo XIX un periodo que se inicia con la recreación del Partenón y acaba con la construcción de la Torre Eiffel.

Son esos tiempos finiseculares que, con epicentro en París, han venido a etiquetarse como “fin de siècle” y “belle époque”. Sí, ciertamente París es a esta época lo que en su momento fue Florencia al Renacimiento o Roma al Barroco.

Pero no hay que engañarse, toda esta eclosión no representó una ruptura radical con el pasado antiguo, de hecho existe en estos tiempos una revalorización de la pintura plana, del arte bizantino, románico y gótico, sino que se nutre de él e incluso se fusiona y transforma en muchas ocasiones en una evolución imparable buscando nuevos sentidos a la belleza y la estética.

Bien mirado, no se trata de una renuncia a la realidad, más bien, es un nuevo enfoque de la misma que la complementa y, de alguna manera, la completa.

Todo este impulso creador se verá reflejado en esos años y en las décadas venideras en un imparable “totum revolutum” de “ismos” que se suceden y yuxtaponen unos a otros y con los que se intenta poner en valor uno u otro sentido de la expresión con nuevos lenguajes artísticos.

En realidad casi todos estos movimientos surgidos al amparo del siglo XIX y proyectados durante las primeras décadas del XX, no son auténticas disciplinas, sino diferentes modos de expresar la belleza y la estética: romanticismo, realismo, prerrafaelismo, impresionismo (pre, neo y post), esteticismo, simbolismo, sintetismo, orientalismo, fauvismo, cubismo, expresionismo, y un largo etcétera.

Como suele decirse, los cambios entre grandes épocas suelen producirse de manera lenta y progresiva. Uno no se acuesta siendo medieval y se levanta humanista, pero ciertamente con el fin del siglo XIX y las primeras décadas del XX se dieron las condiciones ya anticipadas por Victor Hugo en las que “No hay nada más poderoso que una idea a la que le ha llegado su tiempo”.

________________

A SPECTACULAR END OF CENTURY

Already Victor Hugo in his prologue to Hernani stated: "Freedom in art, freedom in society; here is the double objective".

During the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, Europe entered a period of economic, scientific and political expansion that resulted in, among other things, one of the most enriching, eclectic, creative and tumultuous phases of the history of European art in general and of painting in particular.

A reflection of a bourgeois and wealthy society that questions and investigates everything and shakes off the yoke of a single thought, painting suffers a dizzying atomisation where numerous pictorial schools succeed each other and simultaneously cover a multitude of techniques, themes and registers (the development of the graphic arts appears) that explode with frenzy in search of new means of expression. It is a sign that the 19th century is a period that begins with the recreation of the Parthenon and ends with the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

These are the finisecular times that, with their epicentre in Paris, have come to be labelled as "fin de siècle" and "belle époque". Yes, certainly Paris is to this time what Florence was to the Renaissance or Rome to the Baroque.

But we must not deceive ourselves, all this emergence did not represent a radical break with the ancient past, in fact there is in these times a revaluation of the flat painting, of the Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic art, but it is nourished by it and even merged and transformed in many occasions in an unstoppable evolution looking for new meanings to the beauty and the aesthetics.

On the contrary, it is a new approach to reality that complements it and, in some way, completes it.

All this creative impulse will be reflected in those years and in the coming decades in an unstoppable "totum revolutum" of "isms" that follow and juxtapose one another and with which we try to put in value one or another sense of expression with new artistic languages.

In reality, almost all these movements that emerged in the 19th century and were projected during the first decades of the 20th century are not authentic disciplines, but rather different ways of expressing beauty and aesthetics: romanticism, realism, pre-Raphaelism, impressionism (pre, neo and post), aestheticism, symbolism, synthetism, orientalism, fauvism, cubism, expressionism, and a long etcetera.

As is often said, changes between great periods tend to occur slowly and progressively. One does not go to bed a medieval person and rise a humanist, but certainly with the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th the conditions already anticipated by Victor Hugo occurred in which "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come".

Each purse contains an atomiser

IMG_1194wm

Chassis n° J2-2969

Bonhams : The Autumn Sale 2020

Estimated : € 60.000 - 70.000

Sold for € 56.350

Autoworld

www.autoworld.be

Brussels - Belgium

September 2020

"There is every reason to suppose that the new MG Midget will be a great success. The latest car ... is a direct and logical development from experience gained by the firm in competition work of all kinds, yet its appeal is not based solely on performance, tremendous though that is for the engine size and the price of the complete car. Comfort has been studied so carefully that it is remarkably pleasant car to ride in..." – Autocar on the J2 Midget, 5th August 1932.

General Manager of Oxford-based Morris Garages, Cecil Kimber brought sports car motoring within the financial reach of the man in the street with a succession of affordable MGs. These were, naturally enough, based on existing Morris models, arguably the most famous and certainly the most influential being the Midget, which first appeared at the 1928 London Motor Show. The first – 'M' type - Midget was based on modified Morris Minor running gear and used the latter's 847cc single-overhead-camshaft four-cylinder engine, though it was its delightful two-seater body that set the little MG apart from its humbler progenitor. Manufactured by Carbodies of Coventry, it was narrow, light in weight and adorned with a most attractive boat tail.

Derived from the 'M' type and introduced for the 1933 model year, the two-seater J2 established the classic MG look which would characterise the Abingdon marque's sports cars into the 1950s. With its deeply cutaway doors, fold-flat windscreen and fixed cycle-type mudguards, it revealed its race-bred pedigree in every line and set the British sports car fashion for many years. This new Midget was given the factory designation 'J2' and it was announced simultaneously that a new supercharged J3 super-sports model and a racing J4 would quickly follow. The Midget's 847cc, overhead-camshaft, Wolseley-derived engine was coupled to a four-speed gearbox and housed in a simple chassis frame featuring half-elliptic springing all round and cable-operated 8"-diameter brakes. Thus equipped, the lightweight J2 possessed exemplary handling and steering by the standards of the day and was good for 65mph. Today the model is one of the most sought after of pre-war MG sports cars.

One of only 2,083 J2 Midgets produced, chassis number 'J2 2969' was exported from the UK to the Netherlands in 1968 and during the 1990s belonged to the Automusa Collection in Bergeijk (NL). The previous owner bought the MG as a project in 1999 and completely restored it as a hobby project together with an engineer friend of his. The car incorporates a new ash body frame, made by a craftsman in the Netherlands who supplies timber frames for all classic MG models, while the interior has been completely re-trimmed in beautiful green leather, matching the British Racing Green paintwork. The impressive dashboard has been augmented with extra instruments: a clock, oil and water temperature gauges, and a boost gauge for the supercharger, plus a fuel pump to atomise petrol in the inlet manifold for smooth starting.

This MG J2 Compressor has additional and desirable Brooklands aero screens; stone-guards for the headlights; and quick-release filler caps for the radiator and fuel tank, all emphasising the model's competition pedigree. Other noteworthy features include original Lucas taillights and numberplate light; direction indicators built into the original lighting; and the original and completely intact central lubrication system with grease nipples on the firewall. Weather equipment (side windows and hood) is with the car and in original condition. The engine has been overhauled with a Phoenix crankshaft and con-rods and is fed by a Volumex supercharger, so this car's performance should exceed comfortably that of the smaller-engined (746cc) blown J3 model. Its restoration only completed in 2018, this lovely MG J2 is offered with Netherlands registration papers.

Chassis n° J2-2969

Bonhams : The Autumn Sale 2020

Estimated : € 60.000 - 70.000

Sold for € 56.350

Autoworld

www.autoworld.be

Brussels - Belgium

September 2020

"There is every reason to suppose that the new MG Midget will be a great success. The latest car ... is a direct and logical development from experience gained by the firm in competition work of all kinds, yet its appeal is not based solely on performance, tremendous though that is for the engine size and the price of the complete car. Comfort has been studied so carefully that it is remarkably pleasant car to ride in..." – Autocar on the J2 Midget, 5th August 1932.

General Manager of Oxford-based Morris Garages, Cecil Kimber brought sports car motoring within the financial reach of the man in the street with a succession of affordable MGs. These were, naturally enough, based on existing Morris models, arguably the most famous and certainly the most influential being the Midget, which first appeared at the 1928 London Motor Show. The first – 'M' type - Midget was based on modified Morris Minor running gear and used the latter's 847cc single-overhead-camshaft four-cylinder engine, though it was its delightful two-seater body that set the little MG apart from its humbler progenitor. Manufactured by Carbodies of Coventry, it was narrow, light in weight and adorned with a most attractive boat tail.

Derived from the 'M' type and introduced for the 1933 model year, the two-seater J2 established the classic MG look which would characterise the Abingdon marque's sports cars into the 1950s. With its deeply cutaway doors, fold-flat windscreen and fixed cycle-type mudguards, it revealed its race-bred pedigree in every line and set the British sports car fashion for many years. This new Midget was given the factory designation 'J2' and it was announced simultaneously that a new supercharged J3 super-sports model and a racing J4 would quickly follow. The Midget's 847cc, overhead-camshaft, Wolseley-derived engine was coupled to a four-speed gearbox and housed in a simple chassis frame featuring half-elliptic springing all round and cable-operated 8"-diameter brakes. Thus equipped, the lightweight J2 possessed exemplary handling and steering by the standards of the day and was good for 65mph. Today the model is one of the most sought after of pre-war MG sports cars.

One of only 2,083 J2 Midgets produced, chassis number 'J2 2969' was exported from the UK to the Netherlands in 1968 and during the 1990s belonged to the Automusa Collection in Bergeijk (NL). The previous owner bought the MG as a project in 1999 and completely restored it as a hobby project together with an engineer friend of his. The car incorporates a new ash body frame, made by a craftsman in the Netherlands who supplies timber frames for all classic MG models, while the interior has been completely re-trimmed in beautiful green leather, matching the British Racing Green paintwork. The impressive dashboard has been augmented with extra instruments: a clock, oil and water temperature gauges, and a boost gauge for the supercharger, plus a fuel pump to atomise petrol in the inlet manifold for smooth starting.

This MG J2 Compressor has additional and desirable Brooklands aero screens; stone-guards for the headlights; and quick-release filler caps for the radiator and fuel tank, all emphasising the model's competition pedigree. Other noteworthy features include original Lucas taillights and numberplate light; direction indicators built into the original lighting; and the original and completely intact central lubrication system with grease nipples on the firewall. Weather equipment (side windows and hood) is with the car and in original condition. The engine has been overhauled with a Phoenix crankshaft and con-rods and is fed by a Volumex supercharger, so this car's performance should exceed comfortably that of the smaller-engined (746cc) blown J3 model. Its restoration only completed in 2018, this lovely MG J2 is offered with Netherlands registration papers.

Roger Hiorns, Untitled (atomised passenger jet engine).

It's everyone's favourite less atomised than lego plaything, now in airport security person. Am slightly worried by the lack of gender balance on the security team though, might make those all important body searches a bit more difficult.

- Taken on October 28, 2005 - Uploaded by ShoZu

Don’t see photographs as an end result, rather as a source.

— Anouk Kruithof

A quick and dirty video that shows the making of the Atomised installation.

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An installation in a barn on Bathampton meadows, which is under threat of compulsory purchase in order for Bath Council to build a Park & Ride scheme. The council has chosen to go for the easy, short-term and ineffectual option rather than looking at the problem of road traffic more holistically.

The installation is based on a photo of the meadows and shows the colour distribution within a 3D-histogram. The colour space is partitioned into equally divided color cells. Each cell is represented by a sphere with a volume proportional to the frequency of the colour. The placement of the cell within the space is based on its RGB value.

The work represents one possible future for the meadows. The installation was created to help keep the spotlight on the issue in the press and bring another voice to the growing opposition to the destruction of this beautiful piece of countryside.

Dual Clapton coils inside, 24g Kanthal core, 17g Kanthal outer, 0.26Ω (four wraps).

I have two favourite juices ATM: Cuttwood "Unicorn Milk" and Ruthless "Menage A Trios" and today, I managed to clone both very nicely :-) <---smug smile.

1. 306/366 Soup for Two, 2. 307/366 Village Church, South Kyme, 3. 308/366 Sunset [Explored], 4. 309/366 Stow Minster, 5. 310/366 Reflected Clouds, 6. 311/366 Displaying their wing feathers, 7. 312/366 Cow Parsley, 8. 313/366 Perfume Atomiser, 9. 314/366 Spilling Out, 10. 315/366 Portrait, 11. 316/366 Stirring the Christmas Cake, 12. 317/366 More Glasses, 13. 318/366 Cat Dozing, 14. 319/366 Geraniums [Focus stacked], 15. 320/366 Abstract, 16. 321/366 & MM - Keyhole, 17. 322/366 Rose in the Saucer, 18. 324/366 St Leonard's, Kirkstead, 19. 323/366 It's that Rose Again, 20. 325/366 The Last of the Rose, 21. 326/366 Lean on Me! [Explored], 22. 327/366 Spiky Macro, 23. 328/366 Along the Riverbank, 24. 329/366 Stems, 25. 330/366 & 87/120 Pins & Needles Day, 26. 331/366 Tomatoes & Olive Oil, 27. 332/366 Kyme Tower at Sunset, 28. 333/366 In the 'Spot' light, 29. 334/366 & MM - Bathroom, 30. 335/366 Man up a Tree

HMS Jupiter (F60) was a Batch 3 Leander-class frigate of the Royal Navy (RN). She was, like the rest of the class, named after a figure of mythology. Built by Yarrow Shipbuilders of Scotstoun, she was launched on 4 September 1967 and commissioned on 9 August 1969.

In 1980, Jupiter's modernisation commenced, and included the addition of the Sea Wolf missile system, as well as the removal of her twin 4.5 in gun turret in favour of the Exocet anti-ship missile. The boilers were modified to the Babcock & Wilcox Y160 Steam Atomisation type water-tube boiler. The modernisation was completed in 1983. On 13 June, 1984, as she was leaving the Pool of London after a visit to the capital, she collided with London Bridge causing significant damage to both ship and bridge. The ship's Captain, Commander Colin Hamilton, was later court martialed in Portsmouth on December 4th, 1984.

In September 1986, Jupiter was part of the NATO exercise "Autumn Train '86'" and visited Gibraltar, then spent a continuous four weeks in the Mediterranean, and returned to Gibraltar prior to returning to her (then) home base of Plymouth. Jupiter changed her home port to Portsmouth in 1985. She was a member of the 7th Frigate Squadron.

In 1986, captained by Commander R Bridges, Jupiter deployed to the Persian Gulf - the Armilla Patrol - in partnership with HMS Newcastle and RFA Brambleleaf (A81), and while there, helped in the evacuation of British and Commonwealth nationals from the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen after a bloody campaign to overthrow the government of that country began.

Her last deployment came in late 1991 to early 1992 when she deployed to the South Atlantic.

Jupiter decommissioned in 1992.

She was sold for scrap in 1997 and towed to Alang in India to be beached and broken up.

Maiko (apprentice geisha) Masaya of Osaka with a cameo glass perfume atomiser and a bisque figurine. The caption reads (不許復製) 新 粧 政彌 (not an imitation) new adornment of Masaya.

Reading the current Economist, I found this wonderfully evocative passage, drawing me in:

“OBSERVED at a distance, traditional societies hold a great fascination for people who are raised in the secure world of middle-class modernity. There is a keen appetite for memoirs and works of popular anthropology that offer some sense of what it is like to grow up in a setting where loyalty to the extended family, the faith, the tribe is unquestioned; and where people’s self-worth depends on acting out rituals and roles inherited from distant ancestors. When set against the atomised solitude of some forms of contemporary Western existence, life as an Ottoman imam, a tsarist peasant or an African warrior can appear romantic—even, somehow, whole and well-integrated where modern life is all too often fragmented and prolix.

For anyone who has ever felt a tinge of rose-tinted nostalgia for the traditional, Ayaan Hirsi Ali provides a bracing, and on the whole healthy, cold shower. Having experienced traditional society from the inside—in the form of a Muslim Somali family headed by a well-known politician who practised polygamy and left a deeply troubled and dysfunctional progeny—she has no time for sentimentality. As the world’s most famous ex-Muslim (who became a politician in the Netherlands, then a public intellectual in America), she tells people who have grown up in countries shaped by the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution that they don’t know how lucky they are.

Her African upbringing, as she recounts the story, was dark, fearful, full of tedious labour, meaningless rituals and irrational cruelty of which female circumcision was only the most egregious example. People succumbed to terrible diseases because they did not know the elementary facts about hygiene and health. An obsessive concern with the hereafter sapped their will to take practical steps that could have made their lives more bearable.”

— book review of her new book, Nomad

I had a chance to talk with her in the quiet shade of the trees of Aspen….

Regarding 9/11 as a trigger for her fracture of faith: “when I told my mom that there were Muslims in the World Trade towers, she replied ‘if they were in the towers, they were not Muslims.”

In response to a question from Deborah Scranton, the director of The War Tapes who was sitting with us: “For anyone who has spent time in the Muslim world, it is obvious that they believe they are in a holy war with the West.”

Inside each purse is an atomiser

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THE MAYBACH SW-38

Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach can be considered two grandfathers of mechanical transportation, and both the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft and the Maybach Motorenbau had great impact on the early history of the automobile. Wilhlem Maybach worked closely with Gottlieb Daimler during the development of the very first automobile at roughly the same time that Karl Benz was developing his Patentmotorwagen.

Maybach was an incredibly gifted engineer, who among his many inventions could count the honeycomb radiator and the atomising carburetor. Prior to and during World War I, he performed development work on a number of aircraft engines, while perfecting his own large displacement V-12 used to power the dirigibles invented by Count Zeppelin. Maybach's original intention was to remain an engine manufacturer, but he had difficulty finding a market for his technically superior, but always expensive and complex products.

The first Maybach W3 automobile was introduced in 1921, and development over the ensuing years culminated with the fabulous V-12 type DS-7 and DS-8 in the early 1930s. While the absolute pinnacle of engineering at the time, these models were, on the one hand, very large, usually requiring a chauffeur, and incredibly expensive, exclusive and heavy on maintenance on the other with their many cylinders and 8-speed pre-selector vacuum assisted gearboxes. Few had the need for such an over-the-top machine, and even fewer could afford it.

The smaller type SW-38 was introduced in 1936. This was the final model to be released before the war and was available in three versions with straight-six engines of 3.5 litre, 3.8 litre and 4.2 litre capacities. The engineering was a tour-de-force, and the automotive world was stunned by this 6-cylinder car, which was capable of reaching speeds close to 100 mph, a bench-mark velocity during the era. The build quality remained on par with the DS cars, and the exquisite manufacture of even the smallest accessories left absolutely nothing to be desired. Customers were captivated by this new lighter and more agile model. It was a deserved commercial success for the marque and sold well in consideration of its exclusivity. A total of 520 chassis were built between 1936 and 1939, which was a substantial number in Maybach terms. Only around 152 of these fabulous Maybachs are known to exist today, so ownership continues to be very exclusive.

THE MOTOR CAR OFFERED

While the SW-38 was meant to be a new smaller Maybach, "small" is a relative value, and it is only in relation to its gargantuan siblings that the SW-38 can be considered a compact automobile.

According to information printed in the main reference work for the marque, Michael Graff Wolff Metternich's Maybach Register, chassis 2240 was delivered new to TOTAL KG, Förstner & Co. of Berlin, who were manufacturers of fire extinguishers. It is described as having been fitted with a Spezial Four Door Cabriolet body, which it clearly retains to this day. The register states that this coachwork was by Petera & Söhne of Hohenelbe, Sudetengau, a lesser known German coachbuilder, who exhibited at the Berlin Auto Show in 1938, although today it wears plates for Spohn, one of those most associated with the brand, an anomaly of little consequence given that its coachwork is clearly original.

Modest details of its specific features as new are also listed by Metternich, including a split windscreen and Telefunken radio. It is understood also from this source that as new the car was finished in black with a black top and beige leather upholstery. Its Berlin registration was IA 2057 when delivered in 1939.

Mr. Metternich then notes its postwar history to have found the car at the U.S. Air Force base in Frankfurt/Main, where it was assigned to the 'National Supply' and served as a taxi for several years. After this period of service the cabriolet is understood to have been brought to America by a U.S. Army soldier. It would spend time in Gainesville, Florida, then later an owner in Pittsburgh and Keesport, Pennsylvania. Some years ago it would become the property of the famed Imperial Palace Museum Collection in Las Vegas. During its time in that custody the car was comprehensively restored to the condition it can be found today.

It was acquired by the current owner some years ago, to join a prominent American collection of pre-war automobiles where it has continued to be cherished and used sparingly.

Over the course of the last two decades the Maybach name has of course been revived and quite rightly is associated with the pinnacle of quality, even alongside Mercedes-Benz. Today, this majestic Maybach returns to Europe for the first time in nearly half a century. A remarkable statement of its era, it would no doubt be welcomed at Concours events across the continent.

Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais

Bonhams

Sold for € 672.750

Estimated : € 750.000 - 950.000

Parijs - Paris

Frankrijk - France

February 2017