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The current loadout is 4 short range AAMs, 3 medium range AAMs, 4 guide bombs, 1 ATGM.

THe other two pics show all the moving parts, (excluding the landing gear) moveable leading and traling edge, air brakes, flaps and fully working thrust-vectoring.

Panasonic AG-AC30: An Entry-Level Camcorder That's Rich in Features by Mike Riley

If you own the popular Panasonic AG-AC90 and are eager to upgrade it, or if you’re just looking for a camcorder that gives you great value for money, you won’t go wrong with choosing the Panasonic AG-AC30. This new camcorder might be classified as “entry-level”, but it’s act...

epfilms.tv/panasonic-ag-ac30-entry-level-camcorder-thats-...

Ballston-MU Metrorail Station - Arlington, Virginia by Aaron F. Stone

This is the Ballston-MU Metrorail Station in Arlington, VA on the Orange and Silver Lines.

This station opened on December 1st, 1979 and features heavy Brutalist architecture that the DC Metro is famous for.

Fairy House Side View by @toristevens.art

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Our new fairy house is finally finished and will soon be on its way to its new owner. This house features multi-story fairy house living with many amenities: fish pond, toilet, bath and vanity, fireplace, bed and LOTS of moss :).

We design and create fairy houses, dollhouses, fairy furniture and dollhouse miniatures for all variety of magical beings :). All products are lovingly crafted in our woodland studio using forest bits and fairy dust (which was acquired some time ago)... All items are 1:12 scale, that is 1" = 1'.

Thanks for looking!

GARDEN FEATURES by DEZ H

Taen around 2004 on a Minolta DimargeX compact camera.

Red Rock Canyon State Park - California. USA by Feridun F. Alkaya

Red Rock Canyon State Park features scenic desert cliffs, buttes and spectacular rock formations. The park is located where the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada converge with the El Paso Range. Each tributary canyon is unique, with dramatic shapes and vivid colors.

Historically, the area was once home to the Kawaiisu Indians, who left petroglyphs in the El Paso mountains and other evidence of their inhabitation. The spectacular gash situated at the western edge of the El Paso mountain range was on the Native American trade route for thousands of years. During the early 1870s, the colorful rock formations in the park served as landmarks for 20-mule team freight wagons that stopped for water. About 1850, it was used by the footsore survivors of the famous Death Valley trek including members of the Arcane and Bennett families along with some of the Illinois Jayhawkers. The park now protects significant paleontology sites and the remains of 1890s-era mining operations, and has been the site for a number of movies.

After wet winters, the park's floral displays are stunning. The beauty of the desert, combined with the geologic features make this park a camper's favorite destination. Wildlife you may encounter includes roadrunners, hawks, lizards, mice and squirrels.

www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=631

Lynette - Necklace. Vintage. French inspired. Shabby cottage chic. by Mian

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Shabby Chic. Cottage Charm.

Features a vintage metal flower cap with very fine gold mesh centre, an antique brass filigree flower with sparkling Swaorvski crystal centre, and cream lace flower. Finished with an off centre antique brass leaf charm, to add the perfect whimsical touch.

This piece has the sweetest ensemble of pastel colours. The vintage flower cap is in a very pretty pale blush pink which goes perfectly with the cream lace and antique brass findings. A tiny clear Swarovski crystal round bead dot one side of the chain. Another same crystal hangs daintily at the end of the chain, so that the necklace is pretty both front and back.

The floral pendant measures 17mm by 26mm (or about 5.8” by 1”) and length of chain is 16”. I would happily customise if you need it slightly longer, just drop me a note in “message to seller” before you check out.

Original design © PastelPetals 2009

Male Portrait in Bronze by Egisto Sani

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This head representing a man of regular features has been discovered on 1901, August. It must have come from a statue about 2 m tall.

The forehead of the portrayed man is low; his hair is arranged in a raw of short locks regularly arched from a “pincers” motif at the inner corner of the right eye. This detail is present on the portraits of Augustus, and was adopted, with some variations, by his successors.

Some small locks turned in the direction of the center of the face are reminiscent of representations of Gaius Caesar (20 BCE - 4 CE), the adopted son of Augustus and his intended heir, and other private portraits from the same period.

This hairstyle and the classical features of the portrait suggest its assignment to the years 25 BC – 35 AD during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. It resembles their portraits, but the face is not theirs.

One may suppose that the subject was a member of the local aristocracy whose loyalty to the values of the “Principatus” was equally proclaimed by deliberate imitation of the appearance and coiffure of the men of the imperial family.

Source: Museum information note

Roman bronze portrait

About 25 BC – 35 AD

From Torino

Torino, “Museo di antichità”

'Panther' MBT by The Legonator

Features:

Railgun

Opening roof hatch

Retractable communications mast

360-degree rotating turret

90-degree lifting railgun

Dimensions:

7x3x2.5 studs

Built for the 2012 LMABC.

Detail of the Resurrection Window by Napier and Christian Waller; St Mark's Church of England - Corner Burke and Canterbury Roads, Camberwell by raaen99

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St Mark's Church of England, in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell, features the largest collection of stained glass windows created by the husband and wife artistic team of Christian and Napier Waller outside of the National War Memorial in Canberra. The collection of stained glass at St Mark's dates from the 1930s through to the mid Twentieth Century. These include windows in the sanctuary.

This window is last of four stained glass windows that depict the events just prior to the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Crucifixion itself and the Resurrection of Jesus.

St Mark's Parish was first established in 1912, as ribbon housing estates and developments were established along the Burke Road tramline. In 1914, a church hall, designed by Louis Reginald Williams and Alexander North, was built to be used for all church services and any parish activities on a temporary basis. The temporary accommodation lasted for fourteen years, until St Mark's Church of England was built between 1927 and 1928, to the design specifications of noted local architect Rodney Howard Alsop. Mr. Alsop was a significant and prolific contributor to the Arts and Crafts movement in Australia. St Mark's Church of England is an interesting building as it has been designed in rather imposing Gothic design, and yet it is heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, no doubt as a result of the architect's passion for the design movement. The foundation stone was laid in 1927 and the building opened in July of the following year. During the post Great War era, there was a war memorial movement that influenced architectural design throughout Australia. The movement was at its peak in the 1920s, so a key feature of the planning of St Mark's Church of England was the inclusion of a war memorial within the church building. This was achieved by way of a chapel which was dedicated to the memory of the men of the parish who died during the Great War (1914 - 1918). St Mark's Church of England was completed during the one construction period and the building has never been altered architecturally since. The design of St Mark's includes an elegant broach spire, and use of stucco rendering and minimal ornamentation. There are interesting internal aspects, including the octagonal baptistery and the placing of the square chancel behind the altar.

Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.

Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.

Red Rock Canyon State Park - California. USA by Feridun F. Alkaya

www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=631

Thermal Features, Artists Paintpots Area - Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming by Dan Davis

Pinups - Dogfighting Dame by Dietz Dolls Pinup Artwork

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Today's airbrushed style pinup photo features Shea in her first pinup from her shoot this past weekend with a look at the Army Air Force fighter pilots of World War 2! Fresh from a combat mission sortie in her North American P-51D mustang, she describes how she tangled and took down with a FW-190 over German skies.

Interested in purchasing a print or large size poster of this Army Air Force pinup featuring Shea? You can order one now on the Dietz Dolls Online Store in sizes ranging from 8x10 prints to 24x36 posters! www.dietzdolls.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=9

Model: Shea

Photographer: Britt Dietz

Online Pinup Print and Poster Store: www.dietzdolls.com/catalog

Facebook Fan Page: www.facebook.com/DietzPinupPhotography

A Pair of Non-Figurative Stained Glass Lancet Windows by Ferguson and Urie; the Former Saint George's Presbyterian Church - Chapel Street, St Kilda East by raaen99

Created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Ferguson and Urie in 1880 for the opening of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, this non-figurative stained glass window features design elements typical of their work. It features a latticed "diaper" pattern containing stylised floral designs in yellow. It has a border of coloured squares dispersed with stylised flowers, also a common element of Ferguson and Urie's windows. Each lancet window features two diamond shaped panes, one at the top and one at the bottom of the window, and a central round pane of brightly coloured glass, once again featuring a stylised floral image. A round vent at the top features a Tudor Rose sitting in the middle of an eight pointed star of green and golden yellow.

The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.

The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.

The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.

The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.

Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.

St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.

Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.

The stained glass firm of Ferguson and Urie was established by Scots James Ferguson (1818 – 1894), James Urie (1828 – 1890) and John Lamb Lyon (1836 – 1916). They were the first known makers of stained glass in Australia. Until the early 1860s, window glass in Melbourne had been clear or plain coloured, and nearly all was imported, but new churches and elaborate buildings created a demand for pictorial windows. The three Scotsmen set up Ferguson and Urie in 1862 and the business thrived until 1899, when it ceased operation, with only John Lamb Lyon left alive. Ferguson and Urie was the most successful Nineteenth Century Australian stained glass window making company. Among their earliest works were a Shakespeare window for the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, a memorial window to Prince Albert in Holy Trinity, Kew, and a set of Apostles for the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. Their palatial Gothic Revival office building stood at 283 Collins Street from 1875. Ironically, their last major commission, a window depicting “labour”, was installed in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street in 1893 on the eve of the bank crash. Their windows can be found throughout the older suburbs of Melbourne and across provincial Victoria.

Ten TEN Women's Tan Mid Length Boots Boots (Tan) by Coupon Bachat

Features

Colour: Tan

Outer Material: Genuine Leather

Closure: Zipper

Pattern: Solid

Services

Cash On Delivery available

30 Days Exchange Policy

couponbachat.com/?p=10240

Bowder Stone by Chris

These days mats are provided to lay down and hold hands under the boulder. Whilst, as an example early tourism / entrepeneurism there used to be a charge to hold hands under the stone.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/borrowdale-and-derwent-water/fea...

VALORANT Game Changers Championship 2022 - Features Day by VALORANT Champions Tour Photos

BERLIN, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 11: Melanie "meL" Capone of Cloud9 White poses at the VALORANT Game Changers Championship 2022 Features Day on November 11, 2022 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

Yusuke "neth" Matsuda by VALORANT Champions Tour Photos

BERLIN, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 30: Team Crazy Raccoon's Yusuke "neth" Matsuda poses at the VALORANT Champions Features Day on November 30, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Lance Skundrich/Riot Games)

First Men in the Moon (Columbia, 1964). Lobby Card (11" X 14"). by Morbius19

youtu.be/wO9XjCM6tB8?t=3s Trailer

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

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

Synopsis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TCM review by Jeff Stafford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Producer: Charles H. Schneer

Director: Nathan Juran

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

Cinematography: Wilkie Cooper

Art Direction: John Blezard

Music: Laurie Johnson

Film Editing: Maurice Rootes

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

C-103m.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds by deepskyobject

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds — Ghosteen (Bad Seed, 2019).

04 Oct 2019

ncandtbs.lnk.to/ghosteendigitalWE

Nick Cave — vocals, piano, synth, production, mixing

Warren Ellis — synthesiser, loops, flute, violin, piano, backing vocals, production, mixing

Thomas Wydler — drums

Martyn Casey — bass

Jim Sclavunos — vibraphone, percussion

George Vjestica — guitar

Lance Powell, Andrew Dominik — mixing

Like Skeleton Tree, it features extensive use of analogue synthesiers, sparse piano, and drones; other instrumentation on the album includes several woodwinds, gamelan chimes and orchestral strings. Several critics emphasised , 's infrequent use of Thomas Wydler's drums and Jim Sclavunos' percussion in contrast to the band's previous albums.

Ghosteen's title is a combination of the word "ghost" and the Irish-language suffix "ín" (anglicised as "een"), which translates to English as "little", "small" or "benevolent". Cave took the title from a book about Irish tinkers, in which the author believes his crying child has been possessed by a ghost. The album's front cover art features The Breath of Life, a 2001 painting by the artist Tom duBois. The Observer's Kitty Empire described the artwork as a "kitsch paradise" that signified "a radical change of emotional landscape" for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

The lyrics were written at Cave's home in Brighton, a change from his usual "disciplined" routine of writing lyrics in a private office. The change in environment and routine led to Cave "amassing a stockpile of lines and thoughts, images and ideas" instead of writing songs in a traditional manner. As with the lyrics on Skeleton Tree, Cave abandoned the narrative-based approach he was known for, as he believed it to be "restrictive".

Explaining his new approach to writing, Cave said: "The idea that we live life in a straight line, like a story, seems to me to be increasingly absurd and, more than anything, a kind of intellectual convenience … There is a pure heart, but all around it is chaos." In the first-ever issue of The Red Hand Files, Cave elaborated that he found an authentic "way to write beyond the trauma … that deals with all manner of issues but does not turn its back on the issue of the death of my child". He said new-found method allowed him to write "beyond the personal into a state of wonder. In doing so the colour came back to things with a renewed intensity and the world seemed clear and bright and new.

...

Семья Кейва с 2002 года обитает в Брайтоне, где береговая линия из белых скал растянулась на многие километры (и в 30 км от их дома находится знаменитый мыс Beachy head, о котором пели Veronica Falls), практически напротив, на другом берегу пролива, расположен французский Étretat с такими же нереально красивыми скалами вдоль берега.

После распада The Birthday Party уже в Лондоне, Ник попал на выступление никому неизвестной группы Einstürzende Neubauten в 1983 и под впечатлением от манер их странноватого вокалиста по имени Blixa Bargeld, предложил тому играть вместе — так появились Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Процесс зарождения Einstürzende и остальных можно увидеть в крутейшем фильме — «B-Movie: Lust and Sound in West Berlin 1979-1989»

flic.kr/p/2a9onLH (впечатления о фильме)

Параллельно у него развивался роман с австралийкой Анитой Лэйн (Anita Lane), участницей The Bad Seeds — шрам от удара ножом остался у Ника на память именно после ссоры с Анитой. Выпустив несколько ставших впоследствии культовыми альбомов — From Her to Eternity; The Firstborn Is Dead; Kicking Against the Pricks; Your Funeral... My Trial и Tender Prey; написав роман «И узре ослица Ангела Божия» (And the Ass Saw the Angel) и снявшись в 1987 у Вима Вендерса (Wim Wenders) в культовом фильме «Der Himmel über Berlin» / «Wings of Desire» / «Небо над Берлином», который на самом деле все смотрят из-за фрагмента с Crime and The City Solution / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

youtu.be/VNHY_X-0nyI (Wings of Desire)

Ник покидает Западный Берлин (The Bad Seeds жили и играли там с 1985 по 1989) — несмотря на кажущееся благополучие, в этот период большинство участников группы отчаянно боролись с наркотической и алкогольной зависимостями.

Накануне падения Берлинской стены Ник улетает в São Paulo Brazil, где встречает журналистку Viviane Carneiro, вскоре у них появится сын Luke (1991). Второго сына Jethro также в 1991 ему родила австралийка Beau Lazenby. Далее был бурный роман с PJ Harvey. Позже Ник признавался что с юных лет был влюблён и в Kylie Minogue, в результате чего на свет появится мегахит «Where the Wild Roses Grow» (1995). Летом 1999 Ник встречает в лондонском Victoria and Albert Museum англичанку Susan Clare Hardie-Bick (Susie Bick), девушку с обложки альбома The Damned — Phantasmagoria (1985) и популярную модель Vivienne Westwood — «Я словно опешил, и мне в секунду пришло понимание, что это “она”». В то время Кейв и Бик переживали не лучший период в жизни — у обоих закончились длительные отношения, они были не в лучшем расположении духа и не знали, как строить жизнь дальше. Ради Кейва Susie бросает работу, Ник впервые официально женится и в 2000 у Ника и Сюзи родились близнецы — Артур и Эрл.

...

Летом 2015 в разгар записи альбома «Skeleton Tree», один из сыновей Ника Кейва (15-и летний Артур) погиб, сорвавшись с обрыва тех самых белых скал в районе Ovingdean Gap, в 5 км от их дома в центре Брайтона — британские издания (The Guardian, BBC и другие) позже писали, что Артур со своим приятелем приняли LSD (решили попробовать в первый раз) и пошли гулять вдоль обрывов.

«Через неделю после смерти Артура я сказал Уоррену: «Знаешь, нужно жить дальше». Я даже не понимал о чём я говорю. Я просто твердил без умолку: «Мы продолжим заниматься тем, чем и всегда». Кейв предполагает, что, возможно, таким образом он избавил себя «от какой-то странной ответственности» в случившемся. Но и ещё потому у него не было другого выбора. «Это не было каким-то проявлением мужественности или что-то типа того. Я просто не знал, что же мне ещё б*дь делать. Я понимал лишь, что должен продолжать работать. Мне кажется, что, в принципе, я осознавал, что если сдамся, то это навсегда».

За две недели до смерти сына Кейв работал над новыми песнями с Уорреном Эллисом, они собирались кое-что переделать и записаться в парижской студии, но произошла катастрофа.

Накануне официального релиза должен был выйти и фильм о создании нового альбома (этот фильм получит название «One More Time with Feeling», 2016). Съёмками занимался режиссёр Эндрю Доминик (Andrew Dominik), который известен по лентам «Killing Them Softly» и «The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford» (для которого Кейв и Эллис написали саундтрек). Пути Эндрю и Кейва по легенде пересеклись «у барыги в 1986 году», на самом деле они были связаны одной из ранних песен Кейва «Deanna», бывшей девушкой Кейва, которая родила ребёнка от Доминика.

Доминик согласился снять фильм, если «мы рассмотрим в нём то, что произошло с Артуром». Кейв: «Мы договорились, что я смогу отредактировать всё, что мне не понравится». Ник был в ужасе, когда увидел фильм впервые. «Я был вне себя от ярости. С эстетической точки зрения я понимал, что это чрезвычайно полноценная и прекрасная работа, но в ней были нюансы, которые показывали, что я из себя представляю, как личность. Мне казалось, что я станцевал на костях своего сына, что я пытаюсь нажиться на этом».

Мнение Кейва изменилось лишь в день выхода фильма. Друзья рассказали ему о реакции публики в интернете и заставили его прочесть некоторые комментарии: «Я был тронут до глубины души. Кажется, фильм подарил возможность людям разобраться в собственном опыте. Фильм показал отсутствие Артура, его тишину и голос. Это сильно изменило меня. Я имею в виду, что Сьюзи, и я были похожи на птиц, увязших в нефтяном пятне. Мы не могли двигаться дальше, а этот фильм освободил нас. Поэтому он так важен для меня, из-за сообщества, которое он породил. Его лечебная сила удивительно подействовала не только на меня и Сьюзи, но и на других людей».

...

С осени 2018 Ник ведёт блог The Red Hand Files

theredhandfiles.com

где общается с поклонниками напрямую — вы можете задать любой вопрос и возможно получите публичный ответ, на текущий момент там 65 заметок, вот например как выглядит начало ответа на вопрос(ы) о расставании с PJ Harvey в 90-х

ISSUE #57 | AUGUST 2019

Why did you give up on your relationship with PJ Harvey in the 90s? I love her music. I think she’s an amazing person and she writes brilliant songs. (Ramon, Sao Paulo, Brazil)

I had a real hard time with your music, my boyfriend was a fan, until The Boatman’s Call. This record really spoke to me. Can you explain? (Tanya, Toronto, Canada)

Dear Ramon and Tanya,

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t give up on PJ Harvey, PJ Harvey gave up on me. There I am, sitting on the floor of my flat in Notting Hill, sun streaming through the window (maybe), feeling good, with a talented and beautiful young singer for a girlfriend, when the phone rings. I pick up the phone and it’s Polly.

— “Hi,” I say

— “I want to break up with you.”

— “Why?!” I ask.

— “It’s just over,” she says.

I was so surprised I almost dropped my syringe.

Последствия драмы с Полли (и избавления наркотической зависимости) нашли выход в записи одного из его лучших альбомов — The Boatman's Call (1997); Ghosteen (2019) целиком посвященный погибшему сыну наиболее близок ему по настроению.

...

Видел Кейва пару раз в Барсе, СПб и однажды в Хельсинки!

Primavera 2011 @ Barcelona

Pulp, Mogwai, Seefeel, Suicide, Mercury Rev, PJ Harvey, Tennis, Low, Dan Melchior Und Das Menace, Prince Rama, Salem, Emeralds, Tannhäuser, No Joy, Nick Cave & Grinderman, Lüger, Belle & Sebastian, Nosoträsh, Simian Mobile Disco, Einstürzende Neubauten, Pere Ubu, The Flaming Lips, Swans, Blank Dogs, Autolux, Echo & The Bunnymen, Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500, Comet Gain, Darkstar, Moon Duo, BMX Bandits, The Black Angels, Aias, Caribou, Battles, Dj Shadow, Explosions In The Sky, Cloud Nothings, Deerhunter, Factory Floor, Glasser, Lindstrøm, Oneohtrix Point Never, The Soft Moon, Interpol, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Las Robertas, Tune-Yards, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Me & The Bees, Warpaint, Shellac

flic.kr/s/aHsjMar5uQ

...

Primavera 2013 @ Barcelona

Blur, My Bloody Valentine, The Knife, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Breeders, Melody'S Echo Chamber, Camera Obscura, Nick Cave, Simian Mobile Disco, Fuck Buttons, Sean Nicholas Savage, Paus, Thee Oh Sees, Fucked Up, Do Make Say Think, Om, Bo Nigen, Godflesh, Glass Candy, Merchandise, Deerhunter, La Bien Querida, Dinosaur Jr., Hot Chip, Dead Can Dance, Toundra, Jessie Ware, Neurosis, Liars, Shellac

flic.kr/s/aHsjYa7vn4

...

Flow 2013 @ Helsinki, Finland

My Bloody Valentine, Kraftwerk, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Julia Holter, Grimes, Beach House, Disclosure, Factory Floor, Goat, Hudson Mohawke, Husky Rescue, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Lau Nau, Circuit des Yeux, Tim Sweeney, Âme, Azealia Banks, Astral Social Club, Bat For Lashes, Austra, Haim, Love Cult

flic.kr/s/aHsjHwhSC7

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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ A2, St Petersburg, Russia, 25.07.2018

одно из крутейших выступлений 2018 года в СПб!

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Ленэкспо 2009 — верните мне мой! как говорится #totalrecall

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ LenExpo, St Petersburg, Russia, 17.07.2009

deep-sky-object.livejournal.com/47269.html

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Red Right Hand @ Ленэкспо, Петербург, 17.07.2009

youtu.be/f2jinB0rtPs

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — The Mercy Seat @ Ленэкспо, Петербург, 17.07.2009

youtu.be/HOqkDryX1ic

...

пара упоминаний в 2019:

Kylie Minogue & Nick Cave — Where The Wild Roses Grow @ Glastonbury 2019

...

VA — Death Is Not The End... A Tribute To Nick Cave (TBTCI, 2019)

theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/death-is-n...

#nickcave #cave #ethereal #melancholic #poetic #existential #spiritual #sombre #philosophical #concept #chamber #ambient #singersongwriter #esoteric #badseeds

Dining with Seara (sea rabbit). Photograph by Dr. Takeshi Yamada. 20120205 018 Cinnamon Toast. Black Tea by DINING WITH SEA RABBITS (PART 03)

takeshiyamada.weebly.com/

The Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus americanus) of Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York – This unique sea-dwelling rabbit, which is actually a close relative of the sea lion, was officially discovered and investigated by Henry Hudson when he first visited this land to colonize the area by order of the Dutch government. It was named New Amsterdam -- today’s New York City. This island was named after he saw the beach covered with strange swimming wild rabbits. The word “Coney Island” means “wild rabbit island” in Dutch (originally Conyne Eylandt, or Konijneneiland in modern Dutch spelling). Sea rabbits were also referred mermaid rabbit, merrabbit, rabbit fish or seal rabbit in the natural history documents in the 17th century. The current conservation status, or risk of extinction, of the sea rabbit is Extinct in the Wild.

This website features two species of sea rabbits, which have been taken care of by Dr. Takeshi Yamada (山田武司) at the Coney Island Sea Rabbit Repopulation Center, which is a part of the Marine biology department of the Coney Island University in Brooklyn, New York. They are – Coney Island Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus americanus) called “Seara” and Coney Island Tiger-striped Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus konjinicus) called “Stripes”.

The photographs and videos featured in this website chronicle adventures of the Coney Island sea rabbits and the world as seen by them. This article also documented efforts of Dr. Takeshi Yamada for bringing back the nearly extinct sea rabbits to Coney Island in the City of New York and beyond. Dr. Yamada produced a series of public lectures, workshops, original public live interactive fine art performances and fine art exhibitions about sea rabbits at a variety of occasions and institutions in the City of New York and beyond. Dr. Yamada is an internationally active educator, book author, wildlife conservationist and high profile artist, who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

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Sea Rabbit

Other Common Names: Coney Island Sea Rabbit, Beach Rabbit, Seal Rabbit, mer-rabbit, merrabbit, Atlantic Sea Rabbit.

Latin Name: Monafluffchus americanus

Origin: Atlantic coast of the United States

Description of the specimen: In the early 17th century’s European fur craze drove the fleet of Dutch ships to the eastern costal area of America. Then Holland was the center of the world just like the Italy was in the previous century. New York City was once called New Amsterdam when Dutch merchants landed and established colonies. Among them, Henry Hudson is probably the most recognized individual in the history of New York City today. “This small island is inhabited by two major creatures which we do not have in our homeland. The one creature is a large arthropod made of three body segments: the frontal segment resembles a horseshoe, the middle segment resembles a spiny crab and its tail resembles a sharp sword. Although they gather beaches here in great numbers, they are not edible due to their extremely offensive odor. Another creature which is abundant here, has the head of wild rabbit. This animal of great swimming ability has frontal legs resemble the webbed feet of a duck. The bottom half of the body resembles that of a seal. This docile rabbit of the sea is easy to catch as it does not fear people. The larger male sea rabbits control harems of 20 to 25 females. The meat of the sea rabbit is very tender and tasty.” This is what Hadson wrote in his personal journal in 1609 about the horseshoe crab and the sea rabbit in today’s Coney Island area of Brooklyn, New York. Sadly, just like the Dodo bird and the Thylacine, the sea rabbit was driven to extinction by the European settlers’ greed. When Dutch merchants and traders arrived here, sea rabbits were one of the first animals they hunted down to bring their furs to homeland to satisfy the fur craze of the time. To increase the shipment volume of furs of sea rabbit and beavers from New Amsterdam, Dutch merchants also started using wampum (beads made of special clam shells) as the first official currency of this country.

At the North Eastern shores of the United States, two species of sea rabbits were commonly found. They are Coney Island Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus americanus) and Coney Island Tiger-striped Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus konjinicus). Sadly, due to their over harvesting in the previous centuries, their conservation status became “Extinct in the Wild” (ET) in the Red List Endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Currently, these sea rabbits are only found at breeding centers at selected zoos and universities such as Coney Island Aquarium and Coney Island University in Brooklyn, New York. The one shown in this photograph was named "Seara" and has been cared by Dr. Takeshi Yamada at Coney Island University.

The sea rabbit is one of the families of the Pinniped order. Pinnipeds (from Latin penna = flat and pes/pedis = foot) are sea-mammals: they are homeothermic (i.e having high and regulated inner temperature), lung-breathing (i.e dependant on atmospheric oxygen) animals having come back to semi aquatic life. As soon as they arrive ashore, females are caught by the nearest adult male. Males can maintain harems of about 20 females on average. Several hours to several days after arriving ashore, pregnant females give birth to eight to ten pups with a dark brown fur. As soon as birth occurs, the mother’s special smell and calls help her pups bond specifically to her. The mother stays ashore with her pup for about one week during which the pup gains weight. During the first week spent with her newborn, the mother becomes receptive. She will be impregnated by the bull, which control the harem. Implantation of the embryo will occur 3 months later, in March-April. During the reproductive period, the best males copulate with several tens females. To do so, males have to stay ashore without feeding in order to keep their territory and their harem. In mid-January, when the last females have been fecundated, males leave at sea to feed. Some of them will come back later in March-April for the moult. The other ones will stay at sea and will come back on Coney Island only in next November. After fecundation, the mother goes at sea for her first meal. At sea, mothers feed on clams, crabs, shrimps, fish (herring, anchovy, Pollock, capelin etc.) and squids. When she is back, the mother recovers her pups at the beach she left them. Suckling occurs after auditive and olfactory recognition had occured. In March-April, the dark brown fur is totally replaced by an adult-like light brownish grey fur during the moult that lasts 1-2 months. This new fur is composed by 2 layers. Externally, the guard fur is composed by flat hairs that recover themselves when wet. By doing so, they make a water-proof barrier for the under fur. The underfur retains air when the seal is dry. Because of isolating properties of the air, the underfur is the insulating system of the fur. In March-April, the fur of adults is partially replaced. First reproduction occurs at 1-yr old in females. Males are physiologically matures at 1 year old but socially matures at +2 years old.

NOTE: The name of Coney Island is commonly thought to be derived from the Dutch Konijn Eylandt or Rabbit Island as apparently the 17th century European settlers noted many rabbits running amuck on the island.

www.takeshiyamada.weebly.com/performances.html

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For any questions, please email contact Takeshi Yamada, Art & Rogue Taxidermy, Museum of World Wonders, official website. www.takeshiyamada.weebly.com/

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www.takeshiyamada.weebly.com

For any questions, please contact Dr. Takeshi Yamada. His email address is posted in the chapter page (the last page or the first page).

(Updated April 7, 2015)

DSC_6454 The Huntress Fountain features a bronze figure of Diana the goddess of hunting shooting an arrow. The fountain was installed in 1906 and made by Countess Feodora Gleichen the first woman member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. The Rose by photographer695

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The Huntress Fountain features a bronze figure of Diana the goddess of hunting shooting an arrow. The fountain was installed in 1906 and made by Countess Feodora Gleichen the first woman member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. The Rose Garden Hyde Park London established by Henry VIII in 1536

Detail of the Andrew Seton Campbell Window by Napier and Christian Waller; St Mark's Church of England - Corner Burke and Canterbury Roads, Camberwell by raaen99

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Andrew Seton Campbell, who is depicted in this south ambulatory window, was a member of the St Mark's Parish. He died on an RAAF mission on the 10th of March 1943. The sun rises to a new dawn, and eternal hills of high vision. The bird depicted symbolises the passing of Andrew's soul.

Christian Waller depicted the young man in a true likeness, which was a controversial thing to do in the 1940s.

Golden Globe Monument At The Swirle Pavilion By Raf Fulcher, St Ann's Wharf, Newcastle Quayside, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, England. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

Swirle Pavilion (1998)

Sculptor: Raf Fulcher

Location: Quayside, Newcastle. Materials: Ashlar, Concrete and Metal.

The Swirle Pavilion is part of the Newcastle and Gateshead 'Art on the Riverside' Project. Below the globe are inscribed all of the European ports that were regularly visited by shipping from the Tyne. Hamburg, Genoa, Aberdeen, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Malmo, London, Antwerp and Hull.

The Quayside is an area along the banks (quay) of the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne (the north bank) and Gateshead (south bank) in Tyne and Wear, North East England, United Kingdom.

History

The area was once an industrial area and busy commercial dockside serving the area, while the Newcastle side also hosted a regular street market. In recent years the docks became run-down, and the area has since been heavily redeveloped to provide a modern environment for the modern arts, music and culture, as well as new housing developments (e.g. at St Peter's Marina). Along the Newcastle side is an area that houses restaurants, bars and night clubs as well as housing and the Newcastle Law Courts. The NewcastleGateshead initiative now lists the Quayside as a top ten attraction.

The Gateshead side of the river is designated and signposted as Gateshead Quays. It is the site of the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. Also moored on the Gateshead side from 1984 until 2008 was the Tuxedo Princess (replaced for a time by sister ship Tuxedo Royale), a floating nightclub, beneath the Tyne Bridge near the Sage.

The Sage, an arena and conference centre, is under construction between the Sage Gateshead and the Baltic.

One of the Quayside's main features is the pedestrian Gateshead Millennium Bridge, opened in 2001, which spans the river between the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the Newcastle Law Courts. The other bridge which allows direct road and pedestrian links between the two banks is the low level Swing Bridge, built in 1876, and located nearer the two respective city centres. Using the two bridges, the Quayside is the venue for the junior course of the annual Great North Run.

Whey Aye

In July 2019, Newcastle City Council passed plans to erect a giant observation wheel on the quayside at Spiller's Wharf as part of a wider 'Giants on the Quayside' development. Dubbed the "Whey Aye" wheel, at 460 feet (140 m) tall it would be the tallest such structure in Europe upon completion, which was anticipated to take two years.

Buildings

The Customs House, a Grade II listed building built in 1766, altered and refronted in 1833 by Sydney Smirke.

The Malmaison Hotel, a Grade II listed building built in 1900 as a warehouse for the Cooperative Society.

The Newcastle Law Courts, built between 1984 and 1990, designed by Napper Collerton, architects.

Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.

Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.

Roman settlement

The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.

The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.

Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.

Anglo-Saxon development

The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led an army that attacked and pillaged various monasteries in the area, and it is thought that Monkchester was also pillaged at this time. Little more was heard of it until the coming of the Normans.

Norman period

After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, the whole of England was quickly subjected to Norman rule. However, in Northumbria there was great resistance to the Normans, and in 1069 the newly appointed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines and 700 of his men were killed by the local population at Durham. The Northumbrians then marched on York, but William was able to suppress the uprising. That same year, a second uprising occurred when a Danish fleet landed in the Humber. The Northumbrians again attacked York and destroyed the garrison there. William was again able to suppress the uprising, but this time he took revenge. He laid waste to the whole of the Midlands and the land from York to the Tees. In 1080, William Walcher, the Norman bishop of Durham and his followers were brutally murdered at Gateshead. This time Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's half brother, devastated the land between the Tees and the Tweed. This was known as the 'Harrying of the North'. This devastation is reflected in the Domesday Book. The destruction had such an effect that the North remained poor and backward at least until Tudor times and perhaps until the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle suffered in this respect with the rest of the North.

In 1080 William sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots. After his campaign, he moved to Monkchester and began the building of a 'New Castle'. This was of the "motte-and-bailey" type of construction, a wooden tower on top of an earthen mound (motte), surrounded by a moat and wooden stockade (bailey). It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. In 1095 the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, rose up against the king, William Rufus, and Rufus sent an army north to recapture the castle. From then on the castle became crown property and was an important base from which the king could control the northern barons. The Northumbrian earldom was abolished and a Sheriff of Northumberland was appointed to administer the region. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated on the site of the present Anglican cathedral, close by the bailey of the new castle. The church is believed to have been a wooden building on stone footings.

Not a trace of the tower or mound of the motte and bailey castle remains now. Henry II replaced it with a rectangular stone keep, which was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. A stone bailey, in the form of a triangle, replaced the previous wooden one. The great outer gateway to the castle, called 'the Black Gate', was built later, between 1247 and 1250, in the reign of Henry III. There were at that time no town walls and when attacked by the Scots, the townspeople had to crowd into the bailey for safety. It is probable that the new castle acted as a magnet for local merchants because of the safety it provided. This in turn would help to expand trade in the town. At this time wool, skins and lead were being exported, whilst alum, pepper and ginger were being imported from France and Flanders.

Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was England's northern fortress, the centre for assembled armies. The Border war against Scotland lasted intermittently for several centuries – possibly the longest border war ever waged. During the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, David 1st of Scotland and his son were granted Cumbria and Northumberland respectively, so that for a period from 1139 to 1157, Newcastle was effectively in Scottish hands. It is believed that during this period, King David may have built the church of St Andrew and the Benedictine nunnery in Newcastle. However, King Stephen's successor, Henry II was strong enough to take back the Earldom of Northumbria from Malcolm IV.

The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle, in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick. Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town and Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times during the 14th century.

Around 1200, stone-faced, clay-filled jetties were starting to project into the river, an indication that trade was increasing in Newcastle. As the Roman roads continued to deteriorate, sea travel was gaining in importance. By 1275 Newcastle was the sixth largest wool exporting port in England. The principal exports at this time were wool, timber, coal, millstones, dairy produce, fish, salt and hides. Much of the developing trade was with the Baltic countries and Germany. Most of the Newcastle merchants were situated near the river, below the Castle. The earliest known charter was dated 1175 in the reign of Henry II, giving the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor[8] and also allowed the formation of guilds (known as Mysteries). These were cartels formed within different trades, which restricted trade to guild members. There were initially twelve guilds. Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1350 the burgesses received a royal licence to export coal. This licence to export coal was jealously guarded by the Newcastle burgesses, and they tried to prevent any one else on the Tyne from exporting coal except through Newcastle. The burgesses similarly tried to prevent fish from being sold anywhere else on the Tyne except Newcastle. This led to conflicts with Gateshead and South Shields.

In 1265, the town was granted permission to impose a 'Wall Tax' or Murage, to pay for the construction of a fortified wall to enclose the town and protect it from Scottish invaders. The town walls were not completed until early in the 14th century. They were two miles (3 km) long, 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and 25 feet (7.6 m) high. They had six main gates, as well as some smaller gates, and had 17 towers. The land within the walls was divided almost equally by the Lort Burn, which flowed southwards and joined the Tyne to the east of the Castle. The town began to expand north of the Castle and west of the Lort Burn with various markets being set up within the walls.

In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter, creating a County corporate which separated the town, but not the Castle, from the county of Northumberland and recognised it as a "county of itself" with a right to have a sheriff of its own. The burgesses were now allowed to choose six aldermen who, with the mayor would be justices of the peace. The mayor and sheriff were allowed to hold borough courts in the Guildhall.

Religious houses

During the Middle Ages a number of religious houses were established within the walls: the first of these was the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew founded in 1086 near the present-day Nun Street. Both David I of Scotland and Henry I of England were benefactors of the religious house. Nothing of the nunnery remains now.

The friary of Blackfriars, Newcastle (Dominican) was established in 1239. These were also known as the Preaching Friars or Shod Friars, because they wore sandals, as opposed to other orders. The friary was situated in the present-day Friars Street. In 1280 the order was granted royal permission to make a postern in the town walls to communicate with their gardens outside the walls. On 19 June 1334, Edward Balliol, claimant to be King of Scotland, did homage to King Edward III, on behalf of the kingdom of Scotland, in the church of the friary. Much of the original buildings of the friary still exist, mainly because, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friary of Blackfriars was rented out by the corporation to nine of the local trade guilds.

The friary of Whitefriars (Carmelite) was established in 1262. The order was originally housed on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, but in 1307 it took over the buildings of another order, which went out of existence, the Friars of the Sac. The land, which had originally been given by Robert the Bruce, was situated in the present-day Hanover Square, behind the Central station. Nothing of the friary remains now.

The friary of Austinfriars (Augustinian) was established in 1290. The friary was on the site where the Holy Jesus Hospital was built in 1682. The friary was traditionally the lodging place of English kings whenever they visited or passed through Newcastle. In 1503 Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, stayed two days at the friary on her way to join her new husband James IV of Scotland.

The friary of Greyfriars (Franciscans) was established in 1274. The friary was in the present-day area between Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Market Street and High Chare. Nothing of the original buildings remains.

The friary of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarians, was established in 1360. The order devoted a third of its income to buying back captives of the Saracens, during the Crusades. Their house was on the Wall Knoll, in Pandon, to the east of the city, but within the walls. Wall Knoll had previously been occupied by the White Friars until they moved to new premises in 1307.

All of the above religious houses were closed in about 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.

An important street running through Newcastle at the time was Pilgrim Street, running northwards inside the walls and leading to the Pilgrim Gate on the north wall. The street still exists today as arguably Newcastle's main shopping street.

Tudor period

The Scottish border wars continued for much of the 16th century, so that during that time, Newcastle was often threatened with invasion by the Scots, but also remained important as a border stronghold against them.

During the Reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1536, the five Newcastle friaries and the single nunnery were dissolved and the land was sold to the Corporation and to rich merchants. At this time there were fewer than 60 inmates of the religious houses in Newcastle. The convent of Blackfriars was leased to nine craft guilds to be used as their headquarters. This probably explains why it is the only one of the religious houses whose building survives to the present day. The priories at Tynemouth and Durham were also dissolved, thus ending the long-running rivalry between Newcastle and the church for control of trade on the Tyne. A little later, the property of the nunnery of St Bartholomew and of Grey Friars were bought by Robert Anderson, who had the buildings demolished to build his grand Newe House (also known as Anderson Place).

With the gradual decline of the Scottish border wars the town walls were allowed to decline as well as the castle. By 1547, about 10,000 people were living in Newcastle. At the beginning of the 16th century exports of wool from Newcastle were more than twice the value of exports of coal, but during the century coal exports continued to increase.

Under Edward VI, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sponsored an act allowing Newcastle to annexe Gateshead as its suburb. The main reason for this was to allow the Newcastle Hostmen, who controlled the export of Tyne coal, to get their hands on the Gateshead coal mines, previously controlled by the Bishop of Durham. However, when Mary I came to power, Dudley met his downfall and the decision was reversed. The Reformation allowed private access to coal mines previously owned by Tynemouth and Durham priories and as a result coal exports increase dramatically, from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and to 400,000 tons in 1625.

The plague visited Newcastle four times during the 16th century, in 1579 when 2,000 people died, in 1589 when 1700 died, in 1595 and finally in 1597.

In 1600 Elizabeth I granted Newcastle a charter for an exclusive body of electors, the right to elect the mayor and burgesses. The charter also gave the Hostmen exclusive rights to load coal at any point on the Tyne. The Hostmen developed as an exclusive group within the Merchant Adventurers who had been incorporated by a charter in 1547.

Stuart period

In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. There had been several previous outbreaks of the disease over the years, but this was the most serious. It is thought to have arrived from the Netherlands via ships that were trading between the Tyne and that country. It first appeared in the lower part of the town near the docks but gradually spread to all parts of the town. As the disease gained hold the authorities took measures to control it by boarding up any properties that contained infected persons, meaning that whole families were locked up together with the infected family members. Other infected persons were put in huts outside the town walls and left to die. Plague pits were dug next to the town's four churches and outside the town walls to receive the bodies in mass burials. Over the course of the outbreak 5,631 deaths were recorded out of an estimated population of 12,000, a death rate of 47%.

In 1637 Charles I tried to raise money by doubling the 'voluntary' tax on coal in return for allowing the Newcastle Hostmen to regulate production and fix prices. This caused outrage amongst the London importers and the East Anglian shippers. Both groups decided to boycott Tyne coal and as a result forced Charles to reverse his decision in 1638.

In 1640 during the Second Bishops' War, the Scots successfully invaded Newcastle. The occupying army demanded £850 per day from the Corporation to billet the Scottish troops. Trade from the Tyne ground to a halt during the occupation. The Scots left in 1641 after receiving a Parliamentary pardon and a £4,000,000 loan from the town.

In 1642 the English Civil War began. King Charles realised the value of the Tyne coal trade and therefore garrisoned Newcastle. A Royalist was appointed as governor. At that time, Newcastle and King's Lynn were the only important seaports to support the crown. In 1644 Parliament blockaded the Tyne to prevent the king from receiving revenue from the Tyne coal trade. Coal exports fell from 450,000 to 3,000 tons and London suffered a hard winter without fuel. Parliament encouraged the coal trade from the Wear to try to replace that lost from Newcastle but that was not enough to make up for the lost Tyneside tonnage.

In 1644 the Scots crossed the border. Newcastle strengthened its defences in preparation. The Scottish army, with 40,000 troops, besieged Newcastle for three months until the garrison of 1,500 surrendered. During the siege, the Scots bombarded the walls with their artillery, situated in Gateshead and Castle Leazes. The Scottish commander threatened to destroy the steeple of St Nicholas's Church by gunfire if the mayor, Sir John Marley, did not surrender the town. The mayor responded by placing Scottish prisoners that they had captured in the steeple, so saving it from destruction. The town walls were finally breached by a combination of artillery and sapping. In gratitude for this defence, Charles gave Newcastle the motto 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans' to be added to its coat of arms. The Scottish army occupied Northumberland and Durham for two years. The coal taxes had to pay for the Scottish occupation. In 1645 Charles surrendered to the Scots and was imprisoned in Newcastle for nine months. After the Civil War the coal trade on the Tyne soon picked up and exceeded its pre-war levels.

A new Guildhall was completed on the Sandhill next to the river in 1655, replacing an earlier facility damaged by fire in 1639, and became the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council. In 1681 the Hospital of the Holy Jesus was built partly on the site of the Austin Friars. The Guildhall and Holy Jesus Hospital still exist.

Charles II tried to impose a charter on Newcastle to give the king the right to appoint the mayor, sheriff, recorder and town clerk. Charles died before the charter came into effect. In 1685, James II tried to replace Corporation members with named Catholics. However, James' mandate was suspended in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution welcoming William of Orange. In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze equestrian statue in Sandhill and tossed it into the Tyne. The bronze was later used to make bells for All Saints Church.

In 1689 the Lort Burn was covered over. At this time it was an open sewer. The channel followed by the Lort Burn became the present day Dean Street. At that time, the centre of Newcastle was still the Sandhill area, with many merchants living along the Close or on the Side. The path of the main road through Newcastle ran from the single Tyne bridge, through Sandhill to the Side, a narrow street which climbed steeply on the north-east side of the castle hill until it reached the higher ground alongside St Nicholas' Church. As Newcastle developed, the Side became lined with buildings with projecting upper stories, so that the main street through Newcastle was a narrow, congested, steep thoroughfare.

In 1701 the Keelmen's Hospital was built in the Sandgate area of the city, using funds provided by the keelmen. The building still stands today.

Eighteenth century

In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages predated the London Library by half a century.

In 1715, during the Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender, an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Many of the Northumbrian gentry joined the rebels. The citizens prepared for its arrival by arresting Jacobite supporters and accepting 700 extra recruits into the local militia. The gates of the city were closed against the rebels. This proved enough to delay an attack until reinforcements arrived forcing the rebel army to move across to the west coast. The rebels finally surrendered at Preston.

In 1745, during a second Jacobite rising in favour of the Young Pretender, a Scottish army crossed the border led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared by arresting Jacobite supporters and inducting 800 volunteers into the local militia. The town walls were strengthened, most of the gates were blocked up and some 200 cannon were deployed. 20,000 regulars were billeted on the Town Moor. These preparations were enough to force the rebel army to travel south via the west coast. They were eventually defeated at Culloden in 1746.

Newcastle's actions during the 1715 rising in resisting the rebels and declaring for George I, in contrast to the rest of the region, is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie', applied to people from Tyneside, or more accurately Newcastle. Another theory, however, is that the name 'Geordie' came from the inventor of the Geordie lamp, George Stephenson. It was a type of safety lamp used in mining, but was not invented until 1815. Apparently the term 'German Geordie' was in common use during the 18th century.

The city's first hospital, Newcastle Infirmary opened in 1753; it was funded by public subscription. A lying-in hospital was established in Newcastle in 1760. The city's first public hospital for mentally ill patients, Wardens Close Lunatic Hospital was opened in October 1767.

In 1771 a flood swept away much of the bridge at Newcastle. The bridge had been built in 1250 and repaired after a flood in 1339. The bridge supported various houses and three towers and an old chapel. A blue stone was placed in the middle of the bridge to mark the boundary between Newcastle and the Palatinate of Durham. A temporary wooden bridge had to be built, and this remained in use until 1781, when a new stone bridge was completed. The new bridge consisted of nine arches. In 1801, because of the pressure of traffic, the bridge had to be widened.

A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806. The facilities at the Castle for holding assizes, which had been condemned for their inconvenience and unhealthiness, were replaced when the Moot Hall opened in August 1812.

Victorian period

Present-day Newcastle owes much of its architecture to the work of the builder Richard Grainger, aided by architects John Dobson, Thomas Oliver, John and Benjamin Green and others. In 1834 Grainger won a competition to produce a new plan for central Newcastle. He put this plan into effect using the above architects as well as architects employed in his own office. Grainger and Oliver had already built Leazes Terrace, Leazes Crescent and Leazes Place between 1829 and 1834. Grainger and Dobson had also built the Royal Arcade at the foot of Pilgrim Street between 1830 and 1832. The most ambitious project covered 12 acres 12 acres (49,000 m2) in central Newcastle, on the site of Newe House (also called Anderson Place). Grainger built three new thoroughfares, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Clayton Street with many connecting streets, as well as the Central Exchange and the Grainger Market. John Wardle and George Walker, working in Grainger's office, designed Clayton Street, Grainger Street and most of Grey Street. Dobson designed the Grainger Market and much of the east side of Grey Street. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal at the top of Grey Street, where Grainger placed the column of Grey's Monument as a focus for the whole scheme. Grey Street is considered to be one of the finest streets in the country, with its elegant curve. Unfortunately most of old Eldon Square was demolished in the 1960s in the name of progress. The Royal Arcade met a similar fate.

In 1849 a new bridge was built across the river at Newcastle. This was the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, and slightly up river from the existing bridge. The bridge was designed to carry road and rail traffic across the Tyne Gorge on two decks with rail traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower. The new bridge meant that traffic could pass through Newcastle without having to negotiate the steep, narrow Side, as had been necessary for centuries. The bridge was opened by Queen Victoria, who one year later opened the new Central Station, designed by John Dobson. Trains were now able to cross the river, directly into the centre of Newcastle and carry on up to Scotland. The Army Riding School was also completed in 1849.

In 1854 a large fire started on the Gateshead quayside and an explosion caused it to spread across the river to the Newcastle quayside. A huge conflagration amongst the narrow alleys, or 'chares', destroyed the homes of 800 families as well as many business premises. The narrow alleys that had been destroyed were replaced by streets containing blocks of modern offices.

In 1863 the Town Hall in St Nicholas Square replaced the Guildhall as the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council.

In 1876 the low level bridge was replaced by a new bridge known as the Swing Bridge, so called because the bridge was able to swing horizontally on a central axis and allow ships to pass on either side. This meant that for the first time sizeable ships could pass up-river beyond Newcastle. The bridge was built and paid for by William Armstrong, a local arms manufacturer, who needed to have warships access his Elswick arms factory to fit armaments to them. The Swing Bridge's rotating mechanism is adapted from the cannon mounts developed in Armstrong's arms works. In 1882 the Elswick works began to build ships as well as to arm them. The Barrack Road drill hall was completed in 1890.

Industrialisation

In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle's development as a major city owed most to its central role in the production and export of coal. The phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was first recorded in 1538; it proverbially denotes bringing a particular commodity to a place that has more than enough of it already.

Innovation in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the following:

George Stephenson developed a miner's safety lamp at the same time that Humphry Davy developed a rival design. The lamp made possible the opening up of ever deeper mines to provide the coal that powered the industrial revolution.

George and his son Robert Stephenson were hugely influential figures in the development of the early railways. George developed Blücher, a locomotive working at Killingworth colliery in 1814, whilst Robert was instrumental in the design of Rocket, a revolutionary design that was the forerunner of modern locomotives. Both men were involved in planning and building railway lines, all over this country and abroad.

Joseph Swan demonstrated a working electric light bulb about a year before Thomas Edison did the same in the USA. This led to a dispute as to who had actually invented the light bulb. Eventually the two rivals agreed to form a mutual company between them, the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, known as Ediswan.

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, for marine use and for power generation. He used Turbinia, a small, turbine-powered ship, to demonstrate the speed that a steam turbine could generate. Turbinia literally ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead in 1897.

William Armstrong invented a hydraulic crane that was installed in dockyards up and down the country. He then began to design light, accurate field guns for the British army. These were a vast improvement on the existing guns that were then in use.

The following major industries developed in Newcastle or its surrounding area:

Glassmaking

A small glass industry existed in Newcastle from the mid-15th century. In 1615 restrictions were put on the use of wood for manufacturing glass. It was found that glass could be manufactured using the local coal, and so a glassmaking industry grew up on Tyneside. Huguenot glassmakers came over from France as refugees from persecution and set up glasshouses in the Skinnerburn area of Newcastle. Eventually, glass production moved to the Ouseburn area of Newcastle. In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, arrived in Newcastle from Stourbridge and established glasshouses along the Close, to manufacture high quality flint glass. The glass manufacturers used sand ballast from the boats arriving in the river as the main raw material. The glassware was then exported in collier brigs. The period from 1730 to 1785 was the highpoint of Newcastle glass manufacture, when the local glassmakers produced the 'Newcastle Light Baluster'. The glassmaking industry still exists in the west end of the city with local Artist and Glassmaker Jane Charles carrying on over four hundred years of hot glass blowing in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Locomotive manufacture

In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert established the world's first locomotive factory near Forth Street in Newcastle. Here they built locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as many others. It was here that the famous locomotive Rocket was designed and manufactured in preparation for the Rainhill Trials. Apart from building locomotives for the British market, the Newcastle works also produced locomotives for Europe and America. The Forth Street works continued to build locomotives until 1960.

Shipbuilding

In 1296 a wooden, 135 ft (41 m) long galley was constructed at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of a twenty-ship order from the king. The ship cost £205, and is the earliest record of shipbuilding in Newcastle. However the rise of the Tyne as a shipbuilding area was due to the need for collier brigs for the coal export trade. These wooden sailing ships were usually built locally, establishing local expertise in building ships. As ships changed from wood to steel, and from sail to steam, the local shipbuilding industry changed to build the new ships. Although shipbuilding was carried out up and down both sides of the river, the two main areas for building ships in Newcastle were Elswick, to the west, and Walker, to the east. By 1800 Tyneside was the third largest producer of ships in Britain. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, lack of modernisation and competition from abroad gradually caused the local industry to decline and die.

Armaments

In 1847 William Armstrong established a huge factory in Elswick, west of Newcastle. This was initially used to produce hydraulic cranes but subsequently began also to produce guns for both the army and the navy. After the Swing Bridge was built in 1876 allowing ships to pass up river, warships could have their armaments fitted alongside the Elswick works. Armstrong's company took over its industrial rival, Joseph Whitworth of Manchester in 1897.

Steam turbines

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine and, in 1889, founded his own company C. A. Parsons and Company in Heaton, Newcastle to make steam turbines. Shortly after this, he realised that steam turbines could be used to propel ships and, in 1897, he founded a second company, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. It is there that he designed and manufactured Turbinia. Parsons turbines were initially used in warships but soon came to be used in merchant and passenger vessels, including the liner Mauretania which held the blue riband for the Atlantic crossing until 1929. Parsons' company in Heaton began to make turbo-generators for power stations and supplied power stations all over the world. The Heaton works, reduced in size, remains as part of the Siemens AG industrial giant.

Pottery

In 1762 the Maling pottery was founded in Sunderland by French Huguenots, but transferred to Newcastle in 1817. A factory was built in the Ouseburn area of the city. The factory was rebuilt twice, finally occupying a 14-acre (57,000 m2) site that was claimed to be the biggest pottery in the world and which had its own railway station. The pottery pioneered use of machines in making potteries as opposed to hand production. In the 1890s the company went up-market and employed in-house designers. The period up to the Second World War was the most profitable with a constant stream of new designs being introduced. However, after the war, production gradually declined and the company closed in 1963.

Expansion of the city

Newcastle was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835: the reformed municipal borough included the parishes of Byker, Elswick, Heaton, Jesmond, Newcastle All Saints, Newcastle St Andrew, Newcastle St John, Newcastle St Nicholas, and Westgate. The urban districts of Benwell and Fenham and Walker were added in 1904. In 1935, Newcastle gained Kenton and parts of the parishes of West Brunton, East Denton, Fawdon, Longbenton. The most recent expansion in Newcastle's boundaries took place under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, when Newcastle became a metropolitan borough, also including the urban districts of Gosforth and Newburn, and the parishes of Brunswick, Dinnington, Hazlerigg, North Gosforth and Woolsington from the Castle Ward Rural District, and the village of Westerhope.

Meanwhile Northumberland County Council was formed under the Local Government Act 1888 and benefited from a dedicated meeting place when County Hall was completed in the Castle Garth area of Newcastle in 1910. Following the Local Government Act 1972 County Hall relocated to Morpeth in April 1981.

Twentieth century

In 1925 work began on a new high-level road bridge to span the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. The capacity of the existing High-Level Bridge and Swing Bridge were being strained to the limit, and an additional bridge had been discussed for a long time. The contract was awarded to the Dorman Long Company and the bridge was finally opened by King George V in 1928. The road deck was 84 feet (26 m) above the river and was supported by a 531 feet (162 m) steel arch. The new Tyne Bridge quickly became a symbol for Newcastle and Tyneside, and remains so today.

During the Second World War, Newcastle was largely spared the horrors inflicted upon other British cities bombed during the Blitz. Although the armaments factories and shipyards along the River Tyne were targeted by the Luftwaffe, they largely escaped unscathed. Manors goods yard and railway terminal, to the east of the city centre, and the suburbs of Jesmond and Heaton suffered bombing during 1941. There were 141 deaths and 587 injuries, a relatively small figure compared to the casualties in other industrial centres of Britain.

In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, by act of parliament. A School of Medicine and Surgery had been established in Newcastle in 1834. This eventually developed into a college of medicine attached to Durham University. A college of physical science was also founded and became Armstrong College in 1904. In 1934 the two colleges merged to become King's College, Durham. This remained as part of Durham University until the new university was created in 1963. In 1992 the city gained its second university when Newcastle Polytechnic was granted university status as Northumbria University.

Newcastle City Council moved to the new Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968.

As heavy industries declined in the second half of the 20th century, large sections of the city centre were demolished along with many areas of slum housing. The leading political figure in the city during the 1960s was T. Dan Smith who oversaw a massive building programme of highrise housing estates and authorised the demolition of a quarter of the Georgian Grainger Town to make way for Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Smith's control in Newcastle collapsed when it was exposed that he had used public contracts to advantage himself and his business associates and for a time Newcastle became a byword for civic corruption as depicted in the films Get Carter and Stormy Monday and in the television series Our Friends in the North. However, much of the historic Grainger Town area survived and was, for the most part, fully restored in the late 1990s. Northumberland Street, initially the A1, was gradually closed to traffic from the 1970s and completely pedestrianised by 1998.

In 1978 a new rapid transport system, the Metro, was built, linking the Tyneside area. The system opened in August 1980. A new bridge was built to carry the Metro across the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. This was the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, commonly known as the Metro Bridge. Eventually the Metro system was extended to reach Newcastle Airport in 1991, and in 2002 the Metro system was extended to the nearby city of Sunderland.

As the 20th century progressed, trade on the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides gradually declined, until by the 1980s both sides of the river were looking rather derelict. Shipping company offices had closed along with offices of firms related to shipping. There were also derelict warehouses lining the riverbank. Local government produced a master plan to re-develop the Newcastle quayside and this was begun in the 1990s. New offices, restaurants, bars and residential accommodation were built and the area has changed in the space of a few years into a vibrant area, partially returning the focus of Newcastle to the riverside, where it was in medieval times.

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge, 26 feet (7.9 m) wide and 413 feet (126 m) long, was completed in 2001. The road deck is in the form of a curve and is supported by a steel arch. To allow ships to pass, the whole structure, both arch and road-deck, rotates on huge bearings at either end so that the road deck is lifted. The bridge can be said to open and shut like a human eye. It is an important addition to the re-developed quayside area, providing a vital link between the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides.

Recent developments

Today the city is a vibrant centre for office and retail employment, but just a short distance away there are impoverished inner-city housing estates, in areas originally built to provide affordable housing for employees of the shipyards and other heavy industries that lined the River Tyne. In the 2010s Newcastle City Council began implementing plans to regenerate these depressed areas, such as those along the Ouseburn Valley.

DSC_6453 The Huntress Fountain features a bronze figure of Diana the goddess of hunting shooting an arrow. The fountain was installed in 1906 and made by Countess Feodora Gleichen the first woman member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. The Rose by photographer695

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The Making of Harry Potter by Dave Catchpole

Warner Bros Studio Tour London: The Making of Harry Potter

Warner Bros Studio, Aerodrome Way, Leavesden, Watford, Herts, WD25 7LS

A great day out for every fan of the boy wizard.

The Making of Harry Potter studio tour, covering 150,000 square foot, on two soundstages opened on the 31st March 2012, with stars galore at the red carpet launch at the Leavesden Studios where all eight movies were produced.

The home for many film productions, including several James Bond features, before a relatively new production company arrived there to make a film about a young boy who on his 11th birthday discovers he is a wizard.

Over the next ten years, the cast and crew of over 4,000 in total used more and more of the studios as the popularity of the books and films grew. The three young stars lived, grew up, went to school and turned into adults there on those stages.

Your tour begins in the foyer, with a flying Ford Anglia hanging from the ceiling and the walls adorned with huge photos of the cast, along with a few props.

Passing by the set of the cupboard under the stairs, you enter a room with a number of vertical TV screens showing Potter movie posters from around the world, followed by a short video sequence showing the rise of Harry’s popularity, the production teams discovery of the stories and the enormous worldwide success of the books and films.

Moving into the cinema, a short film introduced by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, talking about their experiences growing up on a film set for ten years, with clips from all eight films. The film ends with them standing in front of the main doors to the Great Hall and they walk in through the doors and invite you to follow them.

The screen at this point slowly rises to reveal the actual main doors to the Great Hall, surrounded with stone statues and carvings. What a wizard way to start the tour.

Walking through into the Great Hall we are told that we were now walking on the actual stone floor used in the films and seeing the actual tables where the actors ate their feasts. Dummies down each side of the hall wear the actual costumes used in the films. At the far end of the hall is the teachers’ table area, with more amazing costumes worn by Professors Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall, Moody, Trelawney and Flitwick, as well as Hagrid and Filch too.

Leaving the Great Hall you enter the first of two vast sound stages. This includes sets for the Gryffindor Common Room and Dormitory, Dumbledore’s Office, Potions Classroom, Hagrid’s Hut, Burrow’s Kitchen and parts of the Ministry of Magic, also Umbridge’s gaudy pink, feline office. Each filled to the brim with props and costumes.

Props can be seen everywhere, with a massive cage in the centre, chock-a-block with goblets, chandeliers, wands and armour. A huge glass case contains the wands of 24 of the major characters – less than 1 percent of the total number of wands made for the films. The ornate doors to a Gringott’s vault and to the Chamber of Secrets are seen after passing a wall dedicated to the paintings produced to decorate the walls of Hogwarts.

Below the giant swinging pendulum of the Hogwarts castle clock there are several huge touch screens containing an interactive Marauders Map.

There are sections of the soundstage dedicated to various movie-making crafts. The hair and makeup section, costumes section, animal department, graphic design and production.

The final section in this first soundstage is dedicated to the Special Effects department with three huge video screens showing all the tricks and techniques, including greenscreen footage and CGI. Props attached to their motion rigs, include the Gringott’s Vault Cart and Mad-Eye Moody’s Recumbent Broomstick.

In separate room you can have a go on a broomstick or drive the Ford Anglia yourself, using the greenscreen technology.

The Backlot about half way round the tour is an open air section between the two soundstages where refreshments are available, including Butterbeer the popular wizarding beverage.

Also featured on the backlot are the Knight Bus, another Ford Anglia, Hagrid’s motorbike/sidecar, the Riddle family tombstone, a section of the rickety wooden Hogwarts Bridge, Potter’s burnt out cottage from Godric’s Hollow and Number 4 Privet Drive.

Entering the second soundstage you pass some of the giant chess pieces from the first movie. A number of video screens here progressively show what it was like to work in the creature shop, cleverly leading you from one screen to the next, past models of Fawkes, a snapping Monster Book of Monsters and a giant animatronic head of Hagrid. The next room has the life size (i.e., ENORMOUS!) model of Aragog the spider and one of three animatronic Buckbeak models.

Walking around the corner (WOW) you are transported into another world entirely. The dark lighting and cobbled street can only mean one thing – you have entered Diagon Alley. The shops using the original sets have been rebuilt– Flourish & Blotts, Eeylops Owl Emporium, Potage’s Cauldron Shop and of course Ollivander’s Wand Shop, each and every one them is crammed full of detail. At the other end of the street is Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, with the bright orange shopfront standing out from the crowd of blackness and featuring a moving model of one of the red-haired twins doffing his hat.

At the end of Diagon Alley you move onto the Art and Design department with walls covered with architectural drawings and detailed plans, accurate down to the millimetre, for many of the props and sets already seen. A draftsman’s table serves as a projection screen for another video about the work of the art department.

Moving on, up the ascending path are walls full of concept paintings and artwork, also intricate cardboard models of Hogsmead and the Hogwarts.

You are only looking at a model of the model though, as entering the next room, there, spread over at least 15 square metres is the most amazing, complex and elaborate model built to a 1:24 scale. It has a bigger footprint than the average house.

The last part of the tour is a fitting tribute to the crew and cast of the most popular film franchise of all time. A much tidier recreation of the interior of Ollivander’s Wand shop, with over 4,000 wand boxes lining its shelves – one for every single person who worked on the films.

Exit through the Gift Shop.

412 9463 Köln 15th August 2025 by Clive Smith

Köln Hauptbahnhof features a distinctive roof structure added in 2000 and designed by Busmann and Harberer, incorporating tree-like supports for a delicate lattice roof. This compliments the main station single arched roof.

The train is ICE517 the 07.30 Hamburg Altona - München formed of an ICE4 set running an hour late. Sad to say that DB is in a sorry state and I never thought I'd hear myself say that it is worse than the UK but it is. The punctuality is appalling with only 62% of trains 'on time' i.e. 6 minutes late or less. Many of the delays are quite long and this train terminated short at Mannheim. While I was over there the CEO of DB was fired by the government after eight years in the job. I can't see it getting any better anytime soon.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ln_Hauptbahnhof

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_4

1:72 SdKfz. 234/6 Leichter Funkmess-/Flak-Kommandowagen 'Medusa'; vehicle '327' of an unidentified unit (probably a Panzer-Fla-Zug of the Pz.Div. 45, 'Panzer Division Clausewitz'); Braunschweig region, early 1946 (What-if/modified Hasegawa kit) by Dizzyfugu

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+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

Armored wheeled vehicles were developed early in Germany, since they were not subject to the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty. The Sd.Kfz. 234 (Sonderkraftfahrzeug 234, or Special Purpose Vehicle 234) belonged to the ARK series (the type designation of the chassis) and was the successor to the earlier, eight-wheeled Sd.Kfz. 231/232/233 family. The Sd.Kfz. 234 incorporated several innovative features, including a monocoque chassis with eight wheels, and an air-cooled Tatra 103 diesel engine for use in North Africa. The latter gave the vehicle an extraordinary range of more than 600 miles (1.000 km). The vehicle had eight-wheel steering and drive and was able to quickly change direction thanks to a second, rear-facing, driver's seat. Chassis were built by Büssing-NAG in Leipzig-Wahren, while armoured bodies were provided by Deutsche Edelstahlwerke of Krefeld and turrets by Daimler Benz in Berlin-Marienfelde and Schichau of Elbing, with engines from Ringhoffer-Tatra-Werke AG of Nesseldorf.

The first and possibly best known version to reach frontline service was the Sd.Kfz. 234/2 ‘Puma’. It had a horseshoe-shaped turret armed with a 5cm L/60 gun, which was originally intended for the VK 1602 Leopard light tank. Even though it was a reconnaissance vehicle, the armament made it possible to take on lighter armored vehicles, and it was produced from late 1943 to mid-1944. This variant was replaced in production by the second version, the Sd.Kfz. 234/1, which had a simpler open turret (Hängelafette 38) armed only with a light 2 cm KwK 38 gun; it was manufactured from mid-1944 to early 1945.
The SdKfz 234/3, produced simultaneously with the 234/1, served as a support for the reconnaissance vehicles with more firepower. It had an open-topped superstructure, in which a short-barreled 7.5cm K51 L/24 gun was installed. This gun was intended primarily for use against soft targets, but when using a hollow charge shell, the penetration power exceeded that of the 5cm L/60 gun. This variant was produced from mid-1944 to the end of 1944, before switching production to the 234/4 and other variants. The Sd.Kfz. 234/4 replaced the L/24 gun with the 7.5cm L/46 PaK 40. This was yet another attempt to increase the mobility of this anti-tank gun; however, with this weapon the 234 chassis had been stretched to its limits, and it only carried limited ammunition (twelve rounds) due to lack of storage space. This variant was manufactured from the end of 1944 on in limited numbers.

Another interesting use of the chassis was the Sd.Kfz 234/6. When, towards late 1945, the Einheitschassis for the German combat tanks (the ‘E’; series) reached the front lines, several heavily armed anti-aircraft turrets had been developed, including the 30mm Kugelblitz, based on the outdated Panzer IV, the ‘Coelian’ turret with a twin 37mm cannon (mounted on the Panzer V Panther hull), but also twin 55 and even 88mm cannons on the new E-50, E-75 and E-100 chassis'. With alle these new vehicles and weapons, firepower was considerably increased, but the tank crews still had to rely on traditional visual tracking and aiming of targets. One potential solution for this flaw, in which the German Heeresleitung was highly interested from the start, was the use of the Luftwaffe’s radar technology for early target identification and as an aiming aid in poor weather conditions or at night. The German Luftwaffe first introduced an airborne interception radar in 1942, but these systems were still bulky and relied upon large bipolar antenna arrays. Esp. the latter were not suitable for any use in a ground vehicle, lest to say in a tank that could also carry weapons and ammunition as an independent mobile weapon system.

A potential solution at least for the mobility issue appeared in late 1944 with the development of the FuG 240 ‘Berlin’, a new airborne interception radar. It was the first German radar to be based on the cavity magnetron, which eliminated the need for the large multiple dipole-based antenna arrays seen on earlier radars, thereby greatly increasing the performance of the night fighters which carried the system. The FuG 240 was introduced by Telefunken in April 1945, primarily in Junkers Ju 88G-6 night-fighters, behind a streamlined plywood radome in the aircrafts’ nose. This so greatly reduced drag compared to the late-model Lichtensteins and Neptun radars that the fighters regained their pre-radar speeds, making them much more effective esp. against heavy and high-flying Allied bombers. The FuG 240 was effective against bomber-sized targets at distances of up to 9 kilometers, or down to 0.5 kilometer, which, as a side benefit, eliminated the need for a second, short-range radar system.

Right before the FuG 240's roll-out with the Luftwaffe the Heer insisted on a ground-based derivative for its anti-aircraft units. The Luftwaffe reacted very reluctantly, but heavy political pressure from Berlin convinced the RLM to share the new technology. Consequently, Telefunken was ushered to adapt the radar system to armored ground vehicles in February 1945.
It soon became clear that the FuG 240 had several drawbacks and was not perfectly suited for this task. Ground clutter and the natural horizon greatly limited the system's range, even though its 9 km range made high-altitude surveillance possible. Furthermore, the whole system, together with its power supply and the dirigible dish antenna, took up a lot of space. Its integration into an autonomous, tank-based anti-aircraft vehicle was still out of reach. The solution eventually came as a technical and tactical compromise: armed anti-aircraft tanks were to be grouped together in so-called Panzer-Fla-Züge, with an additional radar surveillance and guidance unit, so that the radar could guide the tank crews towards incoming targets, which would still rely on individual visual targeting.

The first of these dedicated guidance vehicles became the ‘Funkmess-/Flak-Kommandowagen Sd.KfZ 234/6’, which retained its secondary reconnaissance role. Together with Telefunken, Daimler Benz developed a new turret with a maximum armor of 30mm and a commander's cupola that would hold most of the radar equipment. This was christened ’Medusa’, after the monster from Greek mythology with snake hair and a petrifying sight, and during the system’s development phase, the radar's name was adopted for the whole vehicle, even though it never was official.
The turret held a crew of two, while the Sd. Kfz 234 chassis remained basically unchanged. Despite the cramped turret and the extra equipment, the Sd.Kfz. 234/6 was not heavier than its earlier brethren, because it remained unarmed, just a manually-operated FlaMG on the turret roof was available for self-defense. A heavier armament was not deemed necessary since the vehicle would either stay close to the heavily armed tanks it typically accompanied, or it would undertake lone reconnaissance missions where it would rely on its high speed and mobility. The vehicle's crew consisted of four: a driver in the front seat, a commander and a radar operator in the turret and a radio operator/second driver in the hull behind the turret, facing rearwards.

The Medusa antenna array was installed at the turret's front. The dish antenna, hidden under a hard vinyl cover, had a diameter of 70cm (27 1/2 inches), and it was directly adapted from the airborne FuG 240. Power output was 15kW, with a search angle of +80/− 5° and a frequency range: 3,250–3,330MHz (~10 cm). Range was, like the airborne variant, 0.5–9.0 kilometer. Power came from a separate generator directly attached to the vehicle’s Tatra diesel engine, hidden under an armored fairing on the bonnet that partly obscured the rear driver's field of view.
Beyond the radar system, the vehicle was furthermore equipped with a visual coincidence range finder, installed right through the turret. The system worked as follows: Light from the target entered the range finder through two windows located at either end of the instrument. At either side, the incident beam was reflected to the center of the optical bar by a pentaprism, and this optical bar was ideally made from a material with a low coefficient of thermal expansion so that optical path lengths would not change significantly with temperature. The reflected beam first passed through an objective lens and was then merged with the beam of the opposing side with an ocular prism sub-assembly to form two images of the target which were viewed by the observer through the eyepiece. Since either beam entered the instrument at a slightly different angle the resulting image, if unaltered, would appear blurry. Therefore, in one arm of the instrument, a compensator was integrated which could be adjusted by the operator to tilt the beam until the two images matched. At this point, the images were said to be in coincidence. The degree of rotation of the compensator determined the range to the target by simple triangulation, allowing the calculation of the distance to the observed object.

The optical bar had a span of 230 cm (90.75 in) and went right through the turret, just above the radar device installation. For the most effective range it even protruded from the turret on both sides like pylons, an arrangement that quickly earned the vehicle several nicknames like ‘Hirsch’, ‘Zwoender’ (a young stag with just two antlers) or ‘Ameise’ (ant). Fixed target reading with the rangefinder was effective on targets from 2,700 to 14,500 yards. Aerial courses could be recorded at all levels of flight and at a slant range between 4,000 and 12,000 yards - enough for visual identification beyond the group's effective gun ranges and perfectly suitable for long range observation.

The first Sd.Kfz. 234/6s reached, together with the first new FlaK tanks, the front units in summer 1945. Operating independently, they were primarily allocated to the defense of important production sites and of the city of Berlin, and they supported tank divisions through visual reconnaissance and general early warning duties. In due course they were supported and partly replaced by the bigger and more capable ‘Basilisk’ system, which had, due to the sheer bulk of the equipment, to be mounted on a tank chassis (initially on the Panzer V ‘Panther’ as the Sd.Kfz. 282/1 and from early 1946 onwards on the basis of the new Einheitspanzer E-50 hull as the Sd.Kfz. 282)

Operationally, the Sd. Kfz 234/6 was surprisingly successful, even though the radar remained capricious, its performance very limited and the unarmored equipment at the turret’s front was easily damaged in combat, even by light firearms. But the Sd.Kfz 234/6 offered, when the vehicle was placed in a location with a relatively free field of view (e. g. on a wide forest clearance or in an open field), a sufficient early warning performance against incoming bombers at medium to high altitudes, esp. when the general direction of incoming aircraft was already known.
The radar system even allowed a quick alert against low-flying aircraft, esp. when operating from higher ground. The radar information reduced the anti-aircraft tank/gun crews' reaction time considerably and allowed them to be prepared for incoming targets at the right altitude, direction and time. Hit probability was appreciably improved since quick passes of aircraft could be pre-determined.

Until the end of hostilities, probably fifty Sd.Kfz 234/6 were built new or converted from existing 8x8 chassis. Beyond this, the relatively light ‘Medusa’ device was furthermore mounted on outdated tracked armored vehicles like the Panzer III and IV, of which another forty vehicles were produced as Funkmess-/Flak-Kommandowagen III and IV.

Specifications:

Crew: Four (commander, radar operator, driver, radio operator/2nd driver)

Weight: 11,500 kg (25,330 lb)

Length: 6.02 m (19 ft 9 in)

Width: 2.36 m (7 ft 9 in)

Height: 2.84 meters (9 ft 4 in) w/o AA machine gun

Suspension: Wheeled (Tires: 270–20, bulletproof), with leaf springs

Track width: 1.95 m (6 ft 4 1/2 in)

Wading depth: 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in)

Trench crossing capability: 2m (6 ft 6 1/2 in)

Ground clearance: 350 mm (13 3/4 in)

Climbing capability: 30°

Fuel capacity: 360 l

Fuel consumption: 40 l/100 km on roads, 60 l/100 km off-road

Armor:

9-30 mm (.35-1.18 in)

Performance:

Maximum road speed: 80 km/h (49 mph)

Operational range: 950 km (590 mi)

Power/weight: 19 PS/t

Engine:

Air-cooled 14,825 cc (905³ in) Tatra 103 V12 diesel engine,

with 157 kW (220 hp) output at 2.200 RPM

Transmission:

Büssing-NAG "GS" with 3 forward and reverse gears, eight-wheel drive

Armament:

1× anti aircraft 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 42 with 2.800 rounds

The kit and its assembly:

This whiffy and almost Ma.K-looking vehicle was inspired by the late WWII anti-aircraft tanks that never made it into hardware. I wondered how the gap between the simple visual aiming and the next logical step to surveillance and tracking radars could have been achieved, and the German airborne radars were a suitable place to start.

The idea of a dedicated vehicle was a logical step, since it would take many more years to develop a system that would be compact enough to be carried together with effective armament in just a single vehicle. It would take until the Sixties that such stand-alone systems like the Soviet ZSU-23-4 (1965) or the AMX-13 DCA (1969) would be produced.

I chose the light Sd.Kfz. 234 as basis because I do not think that a full armored tank would be devoted to a limited radar operation role, and instead of relying on heavy armor I deemed a light but fast vehicle (just like many other later AA tanks) to be the more plausible solution.

Basically, this is an OOB Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 234/3, the “Stummel” with the short 7.5cm gun and an open hull. The latter was closed with 1mm styrene sheet and a mount for a turret added.

The turret itself is based on an Italeri Matilda Mk. II turret, but with a highly modified front that holds a resin ‘Cyrano’ radar (actually for an 1:72 Mirage F.1C) on a movable axis, an added rear extension and the antler fairings for the visual coincidence range finder. As a side note, similar systems were to be integrated into German late WWII combat tanks (e. g. in the Schmalturm), too, so this is another plausible piece of technology.

A German tank commander figure (from a vintage ESCI kit) populates the open hatch of the commander's cupola, the AA machine gun with its mount is an addition from the scrap box.

On the hull, the only modification is the additional generator fairing above the engine, for a slightly modified silhouette.

Painting and markings:

The turret looks weird enough, so I wanted a simple, yet typically late-WWII-German camouflage. I settled upon a geometric variation of the Hinterhalt three-tone scheme, primarily with dark yellow and olive green fields and stripe and a few red brown additions - inspired by a real late war Panther tank.

The basic color is RAL 7028 (modern variant, though), applied from the rattle can on the semi-finished hull and turret as a primer. On top of that, the shapes were added with acrylic dark grey-green (RAL 7009, Revell 67) and red brown (Humbrol 180) with a brush. The less bright colors were chosen on purpose for a low contrast finish, and the edgy shapes add a slightly SF-ish look.

A black ink wash and some dry-brushing along the many edges were used to weather the model and emphasize details. After decals had been applied, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and some artist pigments were added around the wheels and lower hull in order to simulate dust and dirt. On the lower chassis, some pigments were also cluttered onto small patches of the acrylic varnish, so that the stuff soaks it up, builds volume and becomes solid - the perfect simulation of dry mud crusts.

A whiffy tank kit with a long background story - but the concept offers a lot of material to create a detailed story and description. And while the vehicle is a fantasy creation, it bears a weird plausibility. Should be a nice scenic addition to a (whiffy, too) German E-75 Flak tank (to be built some day)?

(2019) Series 1 #Hairgoals "Wave 1" Yang Q.T. by A Thousand Splendid Dolls

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BOX DATE: 2019

MANUFACTURER: M.G.A.

DOLLS IN LINE: Glamour Queen; Shimone Queen; Yang Q.T.; Her Majesty; Snow Bunny; Bhaddie; S8er Grrl; Miss Jive; Daring Diva; Oops Baby; Splatters; Witchay Babay

BODY TYPE: No date; painted bodysuit & tights

HEAD MOLD: 2018; open mouth; ear slots

SPECIAL FEATURES: Color change

***The doll on the right is wearing 2018 #OOTD Jet Set Q.T.'s outfit.

PERSONAL FUN FACT: The lady on the left is very special indeed, as she was the first L.O.L. Surprise doll I ever "met" in person. Ironically, she was one of the #Hairgoals dolls I was least interested in finding when I was perusing pictures of them online. I did, however, expect that I'd probably wind up with her, based on the popularity of Yang Q.T. As I mentioned on my photo of Pins, I was curious about the L.O.L. Surprise dolls after encountering their advertisements on a Glamper box in the toy section at Wal-Mart. Personally, I think this whole surprise gimmick is SUPER lame and bad marketing. For me, I tend to want dolls that are shelf warmers. The more I see something, the more I think about the doll, and eventually I will crack and buy him/her. But how can I do that when all the dolls are concealed? I didn't even know that these dolls existed...I was only aware of their big sissies the O.M.G. ladies. Again, it was hard to formulate an opinion of those dolls based purely on photos online. When I saw the word "#Hairgoals" on the packaging of the dolls in the clearance section, I was intrigued. I became a sucker for Bratz Babyz when I met the ones with rooted hair. So naturally I was curious and did a google search to see what was up. The more I studied these dolls, the more I felt something for them. They do remind me a great deal of Bratz Babyz, but if the 2015 dolls had smaller counterparts (what with their larger, babyish eyes). So I ended up returning to Wal-Mart with a gift card in tow to swipe a #Hairgoals doll. I ended up finding a "Wave 1" doll by herself in the clearance section, so I got her too (I didn't want two of the same wave, because $9 for a duplicate is ridiculous). I opted to open the "Wave 1" lady first since I was less interested in the dollies from this wave. I saw this doll's face as I peeled back her mask and had to be amused that I ended up with the one I did not want. Of course, I LOVE Yang Q.T....what with her Cruella Deville type styling. And I'm a sucker for African American dolls....I was just hoping for Splatters, but I knew I was gambling. Colleen was not as enchanted by Miss Yang at first, but as soon as she said it aloud, she looked into this doll's eyes and felt sorry she said it. These cuties have SO much personality, despite their super tiny size (which took me aback--I thought they'd be a little larger). Within ten minutes of opening Yang Q.T. and Pins, I was thinking about how much I wanted more of them. It had been a long time since a new doll type won me over so quickly. While these aren't technically related to Bratz, I have to say that they bare enough resemblance to them...which is probably how I became addicted!

Due to the popularity/commonality of Yang Q.T., I accepted early on that I'd probably wind up with a duplicate of her. That's why I wasn't willing to take the chance of buying another brand new #Hairgoals "Wave 1" doll at the store. Knowing my luck, I would have paid top dollar for yet another Yang Q.T. Despite my self made rule to only purchase one doll brand new from a line (to prevent accidentally buying the same doll twice), I knew somehow I'd get my hands on another Yang Q.T. Since my earliest days of browsing L.O.L.s, I devised that purchasing a lot of them on eBay would be clever. That way, I would know exactly who I was buying, even if I wasn't getting a fabulous bargain. My gal on the right came to fruition in just this way. She was part of the "Lotta L.O.L.s Lot" that I purchased in May of 2020. I had been keeping a keen eye out for a desirable L.O.L. lot on eBay and Mercari. I stumbled upon one that contained quite a few dolls (including a few that were on my most wanted list), some playsets, extra clothes, and even a few pets/Lils. This lot had a bit of everything, and all of it was in immaculate condition. Yang Q.T. was the only doppelganger in the lot, but I was fine with the arrangement. She has become an icon to me, what with being the first L.O.L. doll I ever touched. I couldn't shun such a special lady. Plus, I was eager to try out some of my spare clothes on her. Although my doll is dressed in her original ensemble for guide purposes, in real life she wears one of Jet Set Q.T.s dresses for the time being (although she will change I'm sure as I get bored)!

The Big Hoot 2015 – 54. New Street Flyer by Karen Roe

New Street Flyer has been commissioned on behalf of Network Rail to celebrate the exciting launch of the brand-new, iconic New Street Station. This eye-catching owl reflects the stunning, contemporary architecture and design features of this significant, new building – creating an intriguing ‘preview’, before the station opens in September.

Artist: Mik Richardson

Mik Richardson is a Norfolk based artist who has run his own mural design and graffiti tutoring business since leaving the Royal Air Force in 2006. As well as producing over 400 murals to-date, he has also been involved in many of the Wild in Art sculpture trails around the country.

Website: miks-media.co.uk

Sponsor: New Street Station, Network Rail

Auction Price: £9000

The Big Hoot captured the imagination of everyone in Birmingham and beyond, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets with their Big Hoot Trail maps to explore the colourful invasion of individually designed owls. Taking in the city’s 10 districts, tourists and residents alike enjoyed their owl adventure, discovering and celebrating the extraordinary creativity produced by many of Birmingham’s artistic community and over 25,000 young people.

The Big Hoot owls went under the hammer on 15 October 2015 at The Big Hoot auction sponsored by Vodafone and we are thrilled to have smashed our target by raising the incredible sum of £508,035!

The money raised from the auction will support Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity’s £3.65m Star Appeal. This appeal will enable us to create a first of its kind, a Rare Diseases Centre in the UK specifically for children. It will provide co-ordinated care, treatment, support and most importantly hope to children and families living with a rare or undiagnosed condition.

In addition the auction raised £15,000 for G’owl’d by Temper with proceeds going to Edward’s Trust, and £7,800 for Fleet and Free with proceeds going to Birchfield Harriers.

So thank you - we simply couldn’t have done it without you.

Artists have played a major role in The Big Hoot, creating almost 100 owl sculptures. We would like to thank all the artists for their incredible creativity and hard work.

Professional artists from Birmingham, the wider Midlands region and further afield have created extraordinary giant owls that are all unique in style and character and represent the city’s creativity, history and heritage, music, fashion, architecture and attractions.

Birmingham is home to a wealth of artistic and creative individuals and communities and many award-winning and nationally and internationally acclaimed artists. We are delighted with the response from Birmingham’s creative community and are thrilled to work in collaboration with them to transform the streets, squares and parks of the city.

For five months artists have been creating owls in their studios, at home and in The Big Hoot Artists’ Studio at the Custard Factory in Digbeth. Their inspiring and innovative designs have been realised in genres including graffiti, illustration, fine art, graphics, typography, mosaic and new media. They have worked with both community groups and with corporates to realise ideas and create their stunning designs.

The Big Hoot not only provides a high quality and ambitious free public event for families but also supports the creativity of artists and celebrates talent and diversity. The Big Hoot has provided an inspiring relationship between the city and the arts.

The artists have also reached out to communities enabling more people to participate in the arts, to experience working with professional artists and to be inspiring and inspired. From the north to the south of the city residents groups, youth groups and older peoples’ groups have been collaborating with artists to generate ideas, design and create owls for The Big Hoot.

Creativity is everywhere but the opportunity to participate is not. A range of activities have been programmed within Birmingham’s diverse communities and people from the age of 3 – 97 and from wards within the city boundaries have contributed to The Big Hoot and helped make the event extraordinary. Our projects have seen artists working with hundreds of residents and community members including children in looked after care, older peoples’ clubs, young people and residents organisations to design and decorate the owls displayed as part of the 10 week public event.

No Original Features by Taquito.King

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So here it is. The reason for my utter abandonment of the internet the last few weeks.

I've had a massive final project due for my art class at college and this is it. My tutor loves my dolls and I love taking photos of them so it seemed only natural that I use them.

This has been months in planning and sewing (grrr). I made all the outfits with the exception of Rich's ( his jeans were a commission from the amazing mouldsweets and there is actually a shirt to go with them but it wouldn't fit under the jacket so he's got not shirt on, ho-hum). I was so nervous about doing this though and I only just finished making Katsu's dress in time for the photo.

But now it's all finished and over with, thank god and I now have an enormous A2 print of this as my finished piece and in the words of my darling sister: "I can't believe you're actually being marked on your hobby."

Oscar discovering Digital Stroboscopic Motion photography by Ái Đào

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Stroboscopic photography for depicting the changing features of subjects in motion is a technique that was enabled and popularized by one of the "fathers" of high speed photography, Harold "Doc" Edgerton. He applied this technique to numerous situations where a still camera, in a single shot, did not capture enough information about a subject in motion and where a motion picture camera record was unsuitable for being reproduced on the printed page.

Photographers use two types of stroboscopes. The first, and most popualr, is nothing more than a flashing light source. This is the kind that Doc Edgerton popularized. There is also a chaper, simpler, mechanical alternative. This consists of nothing more complicated than a rotating disk with a slot cut into it it. With every rotation of the disc we are able to glimpse the position of the subject at the time the slot passes in front of our eyes.

In either case, a stroboscope allows us to view a subject on a periodic basis.

Photographers have generally used a flashing light, a stroboscopic light source, to illuminate a moving subject in order to track the subject position over time. This is accomplished by setting up an action situation if front of the camera generally firmly attached to a tripod, opening the shutter of the camera while the subject is moving and the stroboscope flashing and after a while closing the shutter and terminating the exposure.

During the time the shutter is open the moving subject is illuminated by several flashes of light. These leave a superimposed sequence of images of the subject and it is often possible to gain much valuable subject motion evaluation information from such a record or to simply connect with and understand the graceful (or not so graceful) flow of motion of a given subject.

When engaged in stroboscopic photography generally one is interested in photographing relatively long duration events (even though one may only be talking about a second or two!) because it is really pointless to to make a stroboscopic record while only recording the subejct in only one, two or three positions over time!

[stroboscopic photo made with Kodak DC260] [stroboscopic photo made with Kodak DC260] For example, to make a record of a golf swing or something similar, we would be looking to make a record over a time period of a second or so. During that time we might want to record our subject in maybe 20 to 100 different positions. This, of course would require a strobe flashing at a frequency of 20 to 100 flashes per second if we kept the shutter open for a second. An exposure time of 1 second is easy to accomplish with a regular camera but many digital cameras have a limited maximum exposure time.

Recently I attached a mechanical, rotating disk type, stroboscope to a Kodak DC260 camera (which has a maximum exposure time of 4 seconds) and used an exposure time of one second to obtain the photograph shown here. The subject was placed against a large, black, velvet background. The lighting level was adjusted so that the results obtained were of an acceptable quality by making a few preliminary tests and judging the quality of the images on the LCD display screen of the camera. Very convenient and effective!

By the way, from this example made over a period of 1 second, the camera recorded about 17 separate images of my amateurish attempt to swing a glof club. From this it can be determined that the mechanical stroboscope's disc was turning at about 17 revolutions per second.

Note that, as with traditional cameras, the background (which should have reproduced very dark since it was black velvet) and those parts of my body that remained essentially in the same position appear significantly overexposed because they reflected light to the same location on the CCD. On the other hand the moving club shaft was exposed in different positions on the CCD with every pass of the stroboscope disc. The moving club, therefore, is exposed only once on any given area on the CCD and reproduces with less exposure than the stationary parts of the scene. One could improve slightly on the tonal range of the image by making the subject wear dark clothing while painting the moving club shaft with a highly reflective or white paint.

If one leaves the shutter for too long the sequential images will start to overlap until a point is reached that they all blend into a uniform "blur" and the specific position of the subject with any given flash discharge can no longer be perceived. If one is interested in motion detail then, in a film-type camera, it is possible to simply put the film in motion while the stroboscopic light flashes (or the mechanical disk rapidly rotates in front of the camera's lens) and the subject performs in front of the camera.

Using a standard 35mm camera the film is simply advanced one frame at a time, with the lens covered, into the take-up chamber without exposing it. Then, setting the camera's shutter to "B" and locking it open during the rewinding process causes the moving film to record the subject's image to ultimatley appear displaced "timewise" in the final record. It appears as a sequential set of images showing the progression of motion of the subject over time.

In the digital realm generally there is no possibility for moving the image receptor material as there is in the film realm. The sensor in the digital camera is fixed in place and so while standard, superimposed stroboscopic records can be obtained much the same as with film cameras, the visualization of a subject over time by introducing motion of the sensor is not possible.

However, there is a method to deal with this problem if one is willing to give up a certain amount of resolution in the digital records captured by the camera. The approach is to put the image in motion in such a manner that it traverses the field of view of the camera during the time that the shutter remains open.

This can be accomplished several ways. One unorthodox way is to secure a black background large enough to cover the field seen by the camera's sensor and then to put the subject on a cart and pull them across the field of view of the camera while the subject is illuminated by the flashing strobe light. This is not a very practical way to do things but can be done and has been done by enterprising photographers.

A more practical way to do solve the problem is to realize that the image can be moved across the focal plane by rotating the camera. The subject can remain in approximately the same general location performing some action and the camera is aimed in such a manner that their image appears at one side of the camera's filed of view. Then, after the shutter has been opened, the camera is slowly turned in such a manner that the subject's image moves to the other side of the viewfinder before the exposure is terminated.

Clearly then with each flash of light from the stroboscope the subject's image gets recorded on a different location of the the camera's sensor and the motion of the subject can be relatively easily tracked over a significant time period.

A major drawback of this technique is that the field of view of the camera (over time) is now very wide and the flash, stands and studio equipment may reflect some of the light from the stroboscope along with the light from the subject and these times will appear to "bleed through" the subject's image.

To deal with this difficulty I would suggest that the camera be simply surrounded by a curtain of black velvet set up in such a manner that there is a small open slot located between the camera, rotating on a tripod, and the subject. This way the camera will be prevented from seeing and recording anything but that which is available to it through the gap or slot in the curtain. This provides a "ghost" free final record although superimposition of certain parts of the moving subject is still a possibility. This often just adds to the fluidity of the final motion record.

Since one is limited in the size of the camera's sensor the total number of images that one can clearly record depends on how small one is prepared to allow the subject to be within the frame of the camera. The smaller the image size one can tolerate the larger the time over which one can "track" the subject or the number separate images of the subject that can be placed from one side of the frame to the other.

The stroboscope that was used for the photographs shown in this article was a self-built piece of equipment. It had the capability of flashing up to 10 times a second. For image capture the camera that was used was a Nikon CoolPix 990, with the set camera on manual, the lens set to the widest aperture, the exposure time set to 4 seconds and it was rotated by hand

Audio Features Mapping and Algorithmic Composition Experiments by François Quévillon

Experimentations with Sean Wood and Louis Commère of the Neurocomputational and Intelligent Signal Processing (NECOTIS) research group during an interdiciplinairy art, science and technologies research residency in 2015. The residency program is a collaboration between the Sporobole art center and Université de Sherbrooke.

The granular sampling system analyses and maps audio features such as the amplitude, balance, pitch, spectrum, frequencies, harmonics and percussiveness of sounds. Using a random walker algorithm, it generates endless compositions based on the relationships between the sound samples transposed in reconfigurable point clouds.

www.francois-quevillon.com/html/en/node/303

Expérimentations avec Sean Wood et Louis Commère du groupe NECOTIS (Neurosciences Computationnelles et Traitement Intelligent des Signaux ) dans le cadre d'une résidence de recherche en arts, sciences et technologies. Le programme de résidence est une collaboration entre le centre en art actuel Sporobole et l’Université de Sherbrooke.

Le système d'échantillonnage granulaire procède à l'analyse de caractéristiques sonores et à leur visualisation dans un espace à multiples dimensions. Le logiciel examine des paramètres tels que l'amplitude, l'équilibre, la hauteur, le spectre, les fréquences, les harmoniques, les passages à zéro et l'aspect percussif du son. En utilisant un algorithme de marche aléatoire (random walker), il génère ensuite des pièces infinies selon les relations entre les échantillons sonores transposés dans un nuage de points dont la structure est reconfigurable.

www.francois-quevillon.com/html/node/302

The Stone and Bronze Fountains in the Italian Gardens - the Forest Glade Gardens; Mount Macedon Road, Mount Macedon by raaen99

The Italian Gardens features a number of very elegant and impressive Italian fountains. Classical in design, one here is stone, whilst the other one is bronze, which has developed a beautiful greenish blue patina, known as verdigris, from having been exposed to the elements for so many years.

Many English young men were inspired by the treasures of Italy after having completed the Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century. They brought their ideas back with them and used them to create their own Italian inspired gardens in England. The same could be said here at the Forest Glade Gardens in Mount Macedon.

The Forest Glade Gardens are well established European inspired landscaped gardens of six hectares that are to be found on the Mount Macedon Road in the hill station town of Mount Macedon.

The Forest Glade Gardens are just shy of one hundred years old. The gardens were originally two adjoining properties that comprised orchards and lush grazing paddocks. In 1941 local family the Newtons purchased and extended the property and set about creating one of Mount Macedon's most stunning gardens.

In 1971 the Forest Glade Gardens were acquired by Melbourne property developer Mr. Cyril Stokes who together with his partner Trevor Neil Bell, developed the gardens even further. Cyril was a great collector of European antiques, and his love of European antiquity is reflected in the gardens, particularly in the many classical marble and bronze statues dotted about the grounds.

Unfortunately the Forest Glade Gardens were partly destroyed by the tragic Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983. However, after many years of hard labour put in by Cyril and Trevor, The Forest Glade Gardens were reborn from the ashes. The gardens are built on a sloping block and consist of a range of terraces all of which offer wonderful vistas. A garden designed to give pleasure all year round, the Forest Glad Gardens contain several heritage listed trees and are made up of smaller themed gardens including; the Italian Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Daffodil Meadow, the Peony Walk, Hydrangea Hill, the Topiary Gardens, the Bluebell Meadow, the Fern Gully and the Laburnum Arch.

In 2011 the property was gifted to a registered charity - The Stokes Collection Limited - with the intention of keeping the Forest Glade Gardens maintained and open to the public.

I spent a delightful Saturday with the Famous Flickr Five+ Group in Mount Macedon, where I have never been before. Now I have, I would very much like to go back to such a picturesque place again.

The Mount Macedon township is located east of the Mount Macedon summit, which is approximately 60 km north-west of Melbourne.

The name of Mount Macedon is apparently derived from Philip II, who ruled Macedon between 359 and 336BC. The mountain was named by Thomas Mitchell, the New South Wales Surveyor General.

Settled in the 1850s by gold miners and timber cutters, the railway arrived at the Mount Macedon township in 1861, providing a vital connection to Melbourne, and sealing the town's future as a 'hill station' resort for wealthy Melburnians escaping the summer heat in the 1870s. With the land deforested, large blocks were sold and beautiful and extensive gardens were planted around the newly built homes. The rich soil and good rainfall also made the area suitable for large orchards and plant nurseries who could send fruit and flowers back to Melbourne. Newspaper owner, David Syme, built a house, "Rosenheim" in 1869. It was acquired in 1886 for Victorian Governors to use as a country retreat, making Mount Macedon an attractive destination for the well heeled of Melbourne society. A primary school was built in Mount Macedon in 1874, and as the decades progressed, hotels, guest houses, shops, a Presbyterian Church and Church of England were built. In 1983, Mount Macedon was devastated by the Ash Wednesday Bush Fires. A large portion of the town was raised, and a number of lives were lost. However, like a phoenix from the ashes, Mount Macedon has risen and rebuilt. Today it is still a popular holiday destination, particularly during spring time when the well established gardens flourish with flowers and in autumn when the exotic trees explode in a riot of reds and yellows.

Mohamed Sheikh Hassan (center) at the Afrique Service Center in South Seattle. by KUOW 94.9 Public Radio

Photo by Liz Jones.

Red Rock Canyon State Park by Matthew Dillon

Panasonic ES-RW30 - Afeitadora en seco o húmedo, funciona con batería by Maquinilla de pelo

Panas afeitar es rw30 s húmeda

Features

Afeitadora con cabezal de 2 hojas

Hojas nano pulidas de 30°

Velocidad motor 8.800 rpm

Color plata

maquinilladepelo.com/tienda/barba/panasonic-barba/panason...

Water Features 4 by Richard

Various water features at the Orange County Arboretum

2017 Calendar Cover by Jacki

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Features a clearing storm in Death Valley

Bad Daddy 63 Cadillac by Drop Shop

Features a removable body and adjustable height suspension.

Gore Park, Hamilton, Ont. 11 October 1906. by Local History & Archives Hamilton Public Library

Postcard features individuals standing around the fountain in Gore Park In downtown Hamilton.

The postcard is addressed to Miss Lillian Bull, Hawthorne Lodge, Brampton, Ont. The transcription reads: "This is to welcome you on your return. Hope this finds you as well as I left you or rather, better and well with no little cold." The verso has a 1 cent green Canadian stamp. The return stamp is dated October 11, 1906, 9 AM, Hamilton. The postcard corners are slightly bent.

W.G. MacFarlance, Publisher, Toronto

Postcard Collection HPL_PC_s18_58r_32022206615573

Cite Hamilton Public Library, Local History & Archives

FM11 Shots AFCWimbledon by SEGA Europe

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Set Piece Creation for Ajax

1:700 H.M.S. “Ludgar” (Pennant I 07), Royal Navy Trebuchet-class monitor, Mediterranean Fleet/Force H; North Africa, early 1942 (What-if/modified Hobby Boss kit) by Dizzyfugu

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

A monitor is a class of relatively small warship that is lightly armoured, often provided with disproportionately large guns, and originally designed for coastal warfare. The term "monitor" grew to include breastwork monitors, the largest class of riverine warcraft known as river monitors and was sometimes used as a generic term for any turreted ship. In the early 20th century, the term "monitor" included shallow-draft armoured shore bombardment vessels, particularly those of the Royal Navy: the Lord Clive-class monitors carried guns that fired the heaviest shells ever used at sea and saw action against German targets during World War I.

Two small Royal Navy monitors from the First World War, Erebus and Terror survived to fight in the Second World War. When the requirement for shore support and strong shallow-water coastal defence returned, new monitors and variants such as coastal defence ships were built. Allied monitors saw service in the Mediterranean in support of the British Eighth Army's desert and Italian campaigns, and they were part of the offshore bombardment for the Invasion of Normandy in 1944.

During the First World War, the Royal Navy developed several classes of ships which were designed to give close support to troops ashore through the use of naval bombardment. The size of the various monitor classes of the Royal Navy and their armaments varied greatly. The Marshal Ney class was the United Kingdom's first attempt at a monitor carrying 15 in (381 mm) guns, two of these ships were eventually built and showed a disappointing performance. The Admiralty immediately began the design of a replacement class, which incorporated lessons learned from all of the previous monitor classes commissioned during the war. Some of the main modifications were an increase in the power supply to guarantee a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) and a change to the angles and lines of the hull to improve steering. Another significant change was to raise the top of the anti-torpedo bulge above the waterline and reduce its width; both changes would improve the stability and maneuverability of the ship at sea. The new design would later be named the Erebus-class, the first ship being launched in June 1916. Two ships were built and took part in WWI, but the Admiralty was not fully convinced with these ships, which also had shown major operational flaws, and requested in early 1918 three ship from another monitor class with higher firepower and better performance at sea, which led to the Trebuchet-class – even though it came too late to take part in any hostilities.

The class’ ships were to be the name-giving HMS Trebuchet, HMS Mangonel and HMS Ludgar. The latter would be the first and eventually become the class' only ship, because Trebuchet and Mangonel were quickly cancelled. HMS Ludgar was named after the famous, probably largest trebuchet ever made, also known as “Warwolf”, which had been created in Scotland by order of King Edward I of England, during the siege of Stirling Castle, as part of the Scottish Wars of Independence. Still seeing a need for this specialized ship for local conflicts in the British Empire around the world, Ludgar was proceeded with and laid down at Harland and Wolff's shipyard in Govan on 12 October 1918.

Due to the lack of wartime pressure, though, Ludgar took three years to complete and was launched on 19 June 1920. The new design was a thorough re-modelling of the earlier Royal Navy Monitors, even though most basic features and the general layout were retained - with all its benefits and flaws. Overall the ship was slightly larger than its direct predecessors, the Erebus-class monitors. Ludgar had a crew of 224, 9,090 long tons (9,185 t) loaded displacement, was 436 ft (133.1 m) long, 97 ft (29.6 m) wide with a draught of just 11 ft 8 in (3.6 m, less than a destroyer) for operations close to the coastline. Power was provided by four Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers, which would generate a combined 6,000 ihp (4,500 kW) that were produced by triple-expansion steam engines with two shafts. The monitor had an operational range of 2,480 nmi (4,590 km; 2,850 mi) at a speed of 12 knots.

HMS Ludgar’s deck armor would range from 1 in (25 mm) on the forecastle, through 2 in (51 mm) on the upper deck and 4 in (102 mm) over the magazine and belt. Unlike former British monitors, the Trebuchet Class featured two main turrets, which were each armed with two 15 in guns, what considerably improved the ship’s rate of fire. With the main 15 in guns being originally intended for use on a battleship, the armor for the turrets was substantially thicker than elsewhere in the design; with 13 in (330 mm) on the front, 11 in (279 mm) on the other sides and 5 in (127 mm) on the roof. The main guns' barbettes would be protected by 8 in (203 mm) of armor. Learning from the earlier experience with Ney, the turrets were adjusted to increase elevation to 30 degrees, which would add greater firing range. The 15 in guns had a muzzle velocity of 2,450 feet per second (750 m/s) – 2,640 feet per second (800 m/s), with supercharge. Maximum firing range was 33,550 yards (30,680 m) with a Mk XVIIB or Mk XXII streamlined shell @30° – 37,870 yards (34,630 m) @ 30°, with supercharges.

Just like on former British monitor ship designs, the turrets had to be raised high above the deck to allow the small draught, what raised the ship’s center of gravity and required a relatively wide hull to ensure stability.
The tall conning tower was protected by 6 in (152 mm) of armor on the sides and 2.5 in (64 mm) on the roof. The former monitors retrofitted anti-torpedo bulges were integrated into the Trebuchet-class’ hull, extending the deck’s width and giving the ship a more efficient shape, even though the short and wide hull still did not support a good performance at sea. The outer air-filled compartments under the waterline were 13 ft (4 m) wide with a 9 ft (2.7 m) wide outer section and an inner compartment 4 ft (1.2 m) wide containing an array of protective, air-filled steel tubes which would take the blast from an eventual broadside torpedo hit.

Ludgar conducted sea trials on 1 September 1921, during which the ship was faster than her predecessors at 16.5 knots (30 km/h; 19 mph) compared to 13 knots (24.3 km/h; 15.1 mph) for the Erebus-class monitors. However, like her ancestors, the wide and shallow hull of Ludgar made the ride rather unstable, and under practical conditions the ship’s top speed rarely exceeded 14 knots, making Ludgar only marginally faster than older monitor ships. The inherent flaws of the ship class’ design could not easily be overcome. However, Ludgar was officially commissioned on 2 September.

Upon entering service Ludgar was immediately deployed to the eastern Mediterranean as part of the 1st Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet to mediate conflicts between Greece and the crumbling Ottoman Empire. While in the Ottoman capital Constantinople, Ludgar and the other British warships took on White émigrés fleeing the Communist Red Army.
The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty cut the battleship strength of the Royal Navy from forty ships to fifteen. The remaining active battleships were divided between the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets and conducted joint operations annually. Ludgar remained with the Mediterranean through 1926. On 4 October 1927, the ship was placed in reserve to effect a major refit, in which new rangefinders and searchlights were installed and the ship's original secondary armament, eight 4 inch naval guns against enemy destroyers and torpedo boats, was replaced be anti-aircraft guns of the same caliber.
On 15 May 1929 the refit was finished, and the ship was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet. The squadron also consisted of Royal Sovereign, her sisters Resolution and Revenge, and Queen Elizabeth, and based in Malta. The only changes made during the Thirties were augmentations to Ludgar’s anti-aircraft batteries.

Fleet exercises in 1934 were carried out in the Bay of Biscay, followed by a fleet regatta in Navarino Bay off Greece. In 1935, the ship returned to Britain for the Jubilee Fleet Review for King George V. In August 1935, Ludgar was transferred to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet, where she served as a training vessel until 2 June 1937, when she was again placed in reserve for a major overhaul. This lasted until 18 February 1938, after which she returned to the 2nd Battle Squadron.

In early 1939, the Admiralty considered plans to send Ludgar to Asia to counter Japanese expansionism. They reasoned that the then established "Singapore strategy", which called for a fleet to be formed in Britain to be dispatched to confront a Japanese attack was inherently risky due to the long delay. They argued that a dedicated battle fleet would allow for faster reaction. The plan was abandoned, however. In the last weeks of August 1939, the Royal Navy began to concentrate in wartime bases as tensions with Germany rose.
At the outset of war in September 1939, Ludgar was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet but remained at Plymouth for a short refit. In May 1940, painted in an overall light grey livery, she moved to the Mediterranean Fleet. There she was based in Alexandria, together with the battleships Warspite, Malaya, and Valiant, under the command of Admiral Andrew Cunningham.

In mid-August 1940, while steaming in the Red Sea, Royal Sovereign was attacked by the Italian submarine Galileo Ferraris and lightly damaged. Later that month, she returned to Alexandria for repairs and she received false white wakes at front and stern to simulate speed and confuse enemies. At the same time the conning tower was painted in a very light grey to make it less conspicuous when the ship was lurking behind the horizon. These were combined with periodic maintenance and the stay at dock lasted until November 1940.
Ludgar then moved to North Africa where she supported Operation Compass, the British assault against the Italian Tenth Army in Libya. The monitor shelled Italian positions at Maktila in Egypt on the night of 8 December, as part of the Battle of Sidi Barrani, before coming under the command of Captain Hector Waller's Inshore Squadron off Libya on 13 December. During the successful advance by the Western Desert Force Terror bombarded Italian land forces and fortifications, amongst others the fortified port of Bardia in eastern Libya on 16 December. After the Bardia bombardment concern was raised about the condition of the 15 in gun barrels which had been fitted, having been previously used, in 1939. The barrels were inspected by Vice Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham and the order was given for Ludgar to reduce the amount of cordite used when firing the main guns, in an attempt to extend the weapons' useful life. In a further attempt to conserve the monitor's main guns, her duties were changed to concentrate on providing anti-aircraft cover for the rest of the squadron and to ferry supplies from Alexandria. The ship also served as a water carrier for the advancing British and Commonwealth army.

Along with the flotilla leader Stuart, the gunboat Gnat and the destroyers Vampire and Voyager, Ludgar supported the assault on Tobruk on 21 January 1941 by the 6th Australian Division with the port being secured on 22nd. By this point the monitor's main gun barrels had each fired over 600 rounds of ammunition and the rifling had been worn away. While the main guns could still be fired, the shots would rarely land accurately and frequently exploded in mid-air. Ludgar was now relegated solely to the role of a mobile anti-aircraft platform and her light anti-aircraft armament was supplemented by two triple two-pounder anti-aircraft guns, mounted in armored turrets in front of the bridge and on a small platform at stern. To make room for the latter the original locations of the ship's lifeboats was moved from stern to the main deck behind the funnel, and a large crane was added there to put them afloat. The crane was also able to deploy a light reconnaissance float plane - and for a short period in early 1941 Ludgar carried a Fairey Seafox biplane, despite having neither catapult nor hangar. However, since the aircraft was exposed to the elements all the time and quite vulnerable, it soon disappeared.
At this phase the ship started sporting an unofficial additional camouflage which consisted of irregular small patches in sand, brown and khaki over her basic grey livery, apparently applied in situ with whatever suitable paint the crew could get their hands on, probably both British Army and even captured Italian paints. The objective was to better hide the ship against the African coastline when supporting land troops.

In March 1941, Ludgar was involved in Operation Lustre, the Allied reinforcement of Greece. The turn of fortune against the Allies in April required the evacuation of most of these forces, Operation Demon. On 21 April Ludgar was in Nafplio and accounted for the evacuation of 301 people, including 160 nurses. Following this, the ship became involved with the Tobruk Ferry Service, and made 11 runs to the besieged city of Tobruk before engine problems forced her withdrawal in July. Ludgar sailed again to Alexandria for repairs, which lasted from September 1941 to March 1942.

Ludgar – now re-fitted with new main gun barrels and two more Oerlikon AA machine cannon to the original complement of eight – was then assigned to Force H in the Mediterranean. Operation Torch saw British and American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria under the British First Army. Force H was reinforced to cover these landings and Ludgar provided heavy artillery support for the land-based ground troops. The end of the campaign in North Africa saw an interdiction effort on a vast scale, the aim was to cut Tunisia completely off from Axis support. It succeeded and 250,000 men surrendered to the 18th Army Group; a number equal to those who surrendered at Stalingrad. Force H again provided heavy cover for this operation.

Two further sets of landings were covered by Force H against interference from the Italian fleet. Operation Husky in July 1943 saw the invasion and conquest of Sicily, and Operation Avalanche saw an attack on the Italian mainland at Salerno. Following the Allied landings on Italy itself, the Italian government surrendered. The Italian fleet mostly escaped German capture and much of it formed the Italian Co-Belligerent Navy. With the surrender of the Italian fleet, the need for heavy units in the Mediterranean disappeared. The battleships and aircraft carriers of Force H dispersed to the Home and Eastern Fleets and the command was disbanded. Naval operations in the Mediterranean from now on would be conducted by lighter units, and Ludgar was commanded back to Great Britain, where she was put into reserve at Devonport, enhancing the station’s anti-aircraft defense.
At Devonport Ludgar was repainted in a dark grey-green Admiralty scheme and on 2 June 1944 she left Devonport again, joining Bombardment Force D of the Eastern Task Force of the Normandy invasion fleet off Plymouth two days later. At 0500 on 6 June 1944 Ludgar was the first ship to open fire, bombarding the German battery at Villerville from a position 26,000 yards offshore, to support landings by the British 3rd Division on Sword Beach. She continued bombardment duties on 7 June, but after firing over 300 shells she had to rearm and crossed the Channel to Portsmouth. She returned to Normandy on 9 June to support American forces at Utah Beach and then, on 11 June, she took up position off Gold Beach to support the British 69th Infantry Brigade near Cristot.

On 12 June she returned to Portsmouth to rearm, but her guns were worn out again, so she was ordered to sail to Rosyth via the Straits of Dover. She evaded German coastal batteries, partly due to effective radar jamming, but hit a mine 28 miles off Harwich early on 13 June. The explosion ripped her bow apart, leaving a gaping leak, and she sank within just a couple of minutes. Only 57 men of Ludgar’s crew survived.

General characteristics:

Displacement: 9,090 long tons (9,185 t)

Length: 436 ft (133.1 m) overall

Beam: 97 ft (29.6 m)

Draught: 11 ft 8 in (3.6 m)

Complement: 224

Propulsion:

4× Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers, generating a combined 6,000 ihp (4,500 kW) via

triple-expansion steam engines with two shafts

Performance:

Top speed: 16.5 knots (30 km/h; 19 mph)

Range: 2,480 nmi (4,590 km; 2,850 mi)

Armament:

2× twin BL 15-inch L42 Mk I naval guns

8 × single QF 4-inch Mk V naval guns

2 × triple two-pounder (40 mm) anti-aircraft guns

10x single Oerlikon 20mm (0.787 in) anti-aircraft machine cannon

The kit and its assembly:

This was another submission for the "Gunships" group build at whatifmodellers.com in late 2021 - and what would such a competition be without a literal "gunship" in the form of a monitor ship? I had wanted to scratch such a vehicle for a while, and the GB was a good motivation to tackle this messy project.

The idea was to build a post-WWI monitor for the Royal Navy. From WWI, several such ships had survived and they were kept in reserve and service into WWII, some even survived this war after extensive use. However, the layout of a typical monitor ship, with low draft, a relatively wide hull and heavy armament for land bombardments, is rather special and finding a suitable basis for this project was not easy - and I also did not want to spend a fortune just in donor parts.

Then I recently came across Hobby Boss 1:700 kit of the USS Arizona (in its 1941 guise, w/o the hull barbettes), and after some comparison with real British monitors I found my starting point - and it was dirty cheap. Righteously, though, because the model is rather primitive, comparable with the simple Matchbox 1:700 waterline ships. There are also some dubious if not cringeworthy solutions. For instance, in order to provide the superstructures with open windows, the seams between the single levels run right through the windows! WTF? These seams can hardly be hidden, it's really an awkward solution. Another freak detail: the portholes on the lower hull protrude like pockmarks, in real life they'd the 1 1/2 ft (50 cm) deep?! Some details like the cranes on the upper deck are also very "robust", it is, in the end, IMHO not a good model. But it was just the starting for me for "something else"...

Modifications started with shortening the hull. Effectively, I cut out more then 3 1/2 in from the body, which is an integral part with side walls and main deck, basically any straight hull section disappeared, leaving only the bow and stern section. My hope was that these could be simple glued together for a new, wide hull - but this did not work without problems, because the rear section turned out to be a bit wider than the front. What to do...? I eventually solved this problem through wedge-shaped cuts inside of the integral railings. With some force, lots of glue and a stiffening structure inside the new hull could be completed.

Next the original turret bases had to disappear. as well as two of the four anchors and their respective chains on the foredeck. I retained as much of the original superstructure as possible, as it looked quite plausible even for a shorter ship, but since the complete hull basis for it had been gone, some adaptations had to be made. The main level was shortened a little and I had to scratch the substruction from styrene sheet, so that it would match with the stepped new hull.

At the same time I had to defined where the main turret(s) would be placed - and I settled for two, because the deck space was sufficient and the ship's size would make them appear plausible. A huge problem were the turret mounts, though - since a monitor has only little draught, the hull is not very deep. Major gun turrets are quite tall things, on battleships only the turret itself with the guns can be normally seen. But on a monitor they stand really tall above the waterline, and their foundation needs a cover. I eventually found a very nice solution in the form of 1:72 jet engine exhausts from Intech F-16s - I has a pair of these featureless parts in the spares box, and with some trimming and the transplantation of the original turtret mounts the result looks really good.

In the meantime the hull-mounted gun barbettes of USS Arizona had to disappear, together with the pockmarks on the hull. A messy affair with several PSR rounds. Furthermore, I added a bottom to the waterline hull, cut from 0.5 mm styrene sheet, and added plaster and lead beads as ballast.

Most of the superstructure, up to the conning tower, were mostly taken OOB. I just gave the ship a more delicate crane and re-arranged the lifeboats, and added two small superstructures to the rear deck as AA-stations, behind the rear tower - the space had been empty, because USS Arizona carried aircraft catapults there.

For the armament I used the OOB main turrets, but only used two of the three barrels (blanking of the opening in the middle). The 4 in guns were taken OOB to their original positions, the lighter 20 mm AA guns were partly placed in the original positions, too, and four of them went to a small platform at stern. For even more firepower I added two small turrets with three two-pounder AA guns, one on the rear deck and another right in front of the bridge.

Painting and markings:

The ship might look odd in its fragmented multi-colored camouflage - but this scheme was inspired by the real HMS Terror, an monitor that operated in early 1941 on the coast of North Africa and carried a similar makeshift camouflage. This consisted of a multitude of sand and brown tones, applied over an overall light grey base. I mimicked this design, initially giving the ship at first a uniform livery in 507b (Humbrol 64), together with an unpainted but weathered wooden deck (Humbrol 187 plus a washing with sepia ink) and horizontal metal surfaces either in a dark grey (507a, Humbrol 106) or covered with a red-brown coat of Corticene (Humbrol 62). As a personal detail I gave the ship false bow and stern waves on the hull in white. Another personal mod is the light grey (507c, Humbrol 147) conning tower - as mentioned in the background, I found that this light grey would be most useful when the ship itself was hidden behind the horizon from view, and only the conning tower would be directly visible in front of a hazy naval background.

On top of the grey hull I added several other paints, including khaki drab (FS 34087 from Modelmaster), red brown (FS 30118, Humbrol 118), khaki drill (Humbrol 72), mid stone (Humbrol 225) and light stone (Humbrol 121).

The model received an overall washing with dark grey and some rust stains with various brown and red shades of simple watercolors. The waterline was created with long and thin black 1.5 mm decal stripes, a very convenient and tidy solution. Finally, all parts were sealed with matt acrylic varnish, and after the final assembly I also added some rigging to the main mast with heated black sprue material.

Phew, this was quite a challenge, the result looks good overall, but I am not happy with the finish. Ships are not my strength and you see the Hobby Boss kit's flaws and weaknesses everywhere. Then add massive bodywork, and thing look even more shaggy (*sigh*). Nevertheless, the model looks like a typical monitor ship, and when I take the rather crappy USS Arizona kit as basis/benchmark, the "new" HMS Ludgar is not a bad achievement. It's surely not a crisp model, but the impression is good and this is what counts most to me.

VALORANT Masters Tokyo 2023 - Features by VALORANT Champions Tour Photos

TOKYO, JAPAN - JUNE 09: Jake "Boaster" Howlett of Fnatic at VALORANT Masters Tokyo Features Day on June 9, 2023 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Lee Aiksoon/Riot Games)

software, not features by Will Lion

Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that...We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software

Steve Jobs | WSJ

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Background CC Image: www.flickr.com/photos/phatcontroller/274082495. This citation appears in the top left of the image.

Transformation 4 by Ken'sKam

5 1

Natural features in the foreground rocks made good leading lines and the color contrast between the foreground rock and the background rocks emphasized the transformation of the desert rocks by the golden hour sunset light.

2011-09-17 Elf Fantasy Fair 2011 Edition Arcen. Twi'lek, Puck by Qsimple, Memories For The Future Photography

Twi'leks (pronounced /'twil?k/) were an omnivorous humanoid species originating from the planet Ryloth. They tended to eat cultivated molds, fungi, and rycrit meat. Their distinctive features included colorful skin, which varied in pigment from individual to individual, and a pair of shapely prehensile tentacles that grew from the base of their skulls. The tentacles, called "brain-tails", "lekku", "tchun-tchin", or "head-tails" were advanced organs used for communication and cognitive functions. Twi'leks possessed a fairly standard humanoid vocal structure and were capable of learning most alien languages; however, they usually preferred their native language of Ryl, which incorporated subtle movement of the lekku. When they wished, they could even communicate in complete secrecy using their versatile brain-tails. Twi'lek females were often used as slaves or dancers because of their beauty.

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