Molly Pitcher is a nickname given to a woman said to have fought in the American Battle of Monmouth, generally believed to have been Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley. During the American Revolutionary War she carried pitchers of water to soldiers, thereby earning her nickname.

 

October 13, 1754, Trenton, NJ

January 22, 1832, Carlisle, PA

Nickname: Sergeant Molly

Origins

1938 Talbot-Lago T-150 CSS. Body by Carrosserie Marcel Pourtout, designer Georges Paulin

1937 Talbot Lago T150 SS. Teardrop Coupe bodywork by Figoni & Falaschi

Launched at the 1937 Paris Motor Show, the 13 CV Talbot Minor broadened the range, taking Talbot into four-cylinder territory where the 2323 cc Minor competed with equivalent models from Hotchkiss and Salmson.

 

The Anglo-French STD (Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq) combine collapsed in 1935. The French Talbot company was acquired and reorganised by Venetian-born engineer Antonio Lago (1893–1960) and after that, the "Talbot-Lago" name was used internationally. On the home market the cars still bore the Talbot badge that they had carried since 1922, which was when, in France, the "Talbot-Darracq" name had given way to "Talbot".

 

At the same time, the British interests of Talbot were taken over by the Rootes Group and the parallel use of the Talbot brand in France and Britain ended. Talbot-Lago cars sold in Britain were now to be badged as Darracqs.

Reorganisation under Tony Lago

 

For 1935, the existing range continued in production but from 1936 these were steadily replaced with cars designed by Walter Becchia, featuring transverse leaf sprung independent suspension. These included the 4-cylinder 2323 cc (13CV) Talbot Type T4 "Minor", a surprise introduction at the 1937 Paris Motor Show, and the 6-cylinder 2,696 cc (15CV) Talbot "Cadette-15", along with and the 6-cylinder 2,996 cc or 3,996 cc (17 or 23CV) Talbot "Major" and its long-wheelbase version, the Talbot "Master": these were classified as Touring cars (voitures de tourisme).[1]

 

There was also in the second half of the 1930s a range of Sporting cars (voitures de sport) which started with the Talbot "Baby-15", mechanically the same as the "Cadette-15" but using a shorter slightly lighter chassis. The Sporting Cars range centred on the 6-cylinder 2,996 cc or 3,996 cc (17 or 23CV) Talbot "Baby" and also included the 3,996 cc (23CV) 23 and sporting Lago-Spéciale and Lago-SS models, respectively with two and three carburettors, and corresponding increases in power and performance.[1] The most frequently specified body for the Lago-SS was built by Figoni et Falaschi and featured a particularly eye-catching aerodynamic form.[2]

 

Lago was an excellent engineer who developed the existing six-cylinder engine into a high-performance 4-litre one. The sporting six-cylinder models had a great racing history. The bodies—such as of T150 coupé—were made by excellent coachbuilders such as Figoni et Falaschi or Saoutchik.

Talbot-Lago models 1935–1940

 

Although the proliferation of cars types and model names that followed Lago's acquisition of the business is at first glance bewildering, it actually involved only four standard chassis lengths as follows:

 

Short Châssis (2,950 mm (116.1 in) wheelbase):

 

Minor T4 (4 cylinders, 2323 cc)

Junior 11

Baby-15 (6 cylinders, 2696 cc)

Baby 3 litres (6 cylinders, 2996 cc)

T150 3 litres (6 cylinders, 2996 cc)

Baby 4 litres (6 cylinders, 3996 cc)

Lago Spécial (6 cylinders, 3996 cc with twin or triple carbs)

 

Extra short Châssis (2,650 mm (104.3 in) wheelbase):

 

Lago SS (6 cylinders, 3996 cc with triple carbs)

 

Normal Châssis (3,200 mm (126.0 in) wheelbase):

 

Cadette-15 (6 cylinders, 2696 cc)

Major 3 litres (6 cylinders, 2996 cc)

Major 4 litres (6 cylinders, 3996 cc)

 

Long (7-seater) Châssis (3,450 mm (135.8 in) wheelbase):

 

Master 3 litres (6 cylinders, 2996 cc)

Master 4 litres (6 cylinders, 3996 cc)

 

During the early years of the war the Walter Becchia left Talbot to work for Citroen, but Lago was joined in 1942 by another exceptional engineer, Carlo Machetti, and from then the two of them were working on the twin camshaft 4483 cc six-cylinder unit that would lie at the heart of the 1946 Talbot T26.

After World War II

 

After the war, the company continued to be known both for successful high-performance racing cars and for large luxurious passenger cars, with extensive sharing of chassis and engine components between the two. Nevertheless, the period was one of economic stagnation and financial stringency. The company had difficulty finding customers, and its finances were stretched.[3]

 

In 1946, the company began production of a new engine design, based on earlier units but with a new cylinder head featuring a twin overhead camshaft. This engine, designed under the leadership of Carlo Marchetti,[4] was in many respects a new engine. A 4483 cc six-cylinder in-line engine was developed for the Talbot Lago Record (1946–1952) and for the Talbot Grand Sport 26CV (1947–1954). These cars were priced against large luxurious cars from the likes of Delahaye, Delage, Hotchkiss and Salmson. Talbot would remain in the auto-making business for longer than any of these others, and the Talbot name had the further dubious distinction of a resurrection in the early 1980s.[4]

Talbot Lago Record T26

Talbot-Lago T26 "Record" ca. 1948

Main article: Talbot Lago Record

 

The Talbot Lago Record T26 was a large car with a fiscal horsepower of 26 CV and a claimed actual power output of 170 hp, delivered to the rear wheels via a four-speed manual gear box, with the option at extra cost of a Wilson pre-selector gear box, and supporting a claimed top speed of 170 km/h (105 mph). The car was commonly sold as a stylish four-door sedan, but a two-door cabriolet was also offered. There were also coachbuilt specials with bodywork by traditionalist firms such as Graber.[4]

Talbot Lago Grand Sport T26

1950 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport, coachwork by Jacques Saoutchik, Paris

 

The T26 Grand Sport (GS) was first displayed in public in October 1947 as a shortened chassis,[5] and only 12 were made during 1948 which was the models's first full year of production.[6] The car was noted for its speed. The engine which produced 170 hp in the Lago Record was adapted to provide 190 bhp (140 kW) or, later, 195 bhp (145 kW) in the GS, and a top speed of around 200 km/h (124 mph) was claimed, depending on the body that was fitted.[4] The car was built for either racing or luxury and benefited directly from Talbot's successful T26C Grand Prix car. As such it was expensive, rare and helped Louis Rosier with his son to win the LeMans 24 Hour race in 1950. The GS replaced the Lago-Record chassis which was named for its remarkable top speed. The GS was one of the world's most powerful production cars at the time. It had several special features from the T26 Grand Prix cars, such as a 4.5-litre inline-6 aluminum cylinder head, a hollowed camshaft, multiport exhaust system and triple carburetors.[7] Chassis details were similar to the Grand Prix cars, but it was longer and wider. It came it two wheelbase lengths -104 and 110 inches (2,800 mm).

 

Almost all the Talbots sold during the late 1940s came with Talbot bodies, constructed in the manufacturer's extensive workshops. The T26 Grand Sport (GS) was the exception, however, and cars were delivered only as bare chassis, requiring customers to choose bespoke bodywork from a specialist coachbuilder.[6] The GS was a star turn in a dull world and coachbuilders such as Saoutchik, Franay, Oblin, and Figoni et Falaschi competed to trump Talbot's own designers with elaborately elegant bodies.[4]

Talbot Lago Baby

Main article: Talbot Baby

 

The Talbot Lago Baby (1948–1951) marked the return of a pre-war Talbot model name and was the third model presented by the company during the 1940s. The car was commonly sold as a four-door sedan, but a two-door cabriolet was also offered. Its engine comprised only four cylinders, but the twin overhead camshaft with cylinder valves on both sides of the engine block was again featured:[4] at 2690 cc the engine capacity equated to a fiscal horsepower of 15 CV[3] which was enough to attract the punitive levels of car tax applied by the French government to large cars. The power output was initially 110 bhp (82 kW), which in 1949 was increased to 120 bhp (89 kW).[4] Although the postwar Baby sedan closely resembled the more powerful Record on a brief glance, the Baby's 2,950 mm wheelbase was slightly shorter than the 3130 mm wheelbase of the Record, and the overall length was correspondingly 200 mm shorter, reflecting the shortened 4-cylinder engine block.[4] Additionally the cheaper car sat on a simplified suspension set-up. Baby customers could specify as an option a Wilson pre-selector gear box.[4]

 

Talbot Lago manufactured three special made seven-seater presidential cars one for the President of France, one for the President of Tunisia and one for the Royal family in Saudi.

Talbot-Lago T26C

1948 Talbot-Lago T26C

 

The T26C was a single-seater racing car with a box section chassis, an unsupercharged 4.5 litre straight six engine and a four speed Wilson preselector gearbox.[8] Chassis and gearbox were derived from the company's 1930s racing cars and were similar to those used on their post-war road cars.[8]

 

The T26C made its racing debut in the 1948 Monaco Grand Prix, finishing second in the hands of Louis Chiron.[8] Grand Prix victories were achieved the following year with Louis Rosier winning the 1949 Belgian Grand Prix [9] and Louis Chiron winning the 1949 French Grand Prix.[10] A modified two-seat version won the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans driven by Louis Rosier and Jean-Louis Rosier.[8]

New bodies for 1952

 

In 1951, as rumours of the company’s financial difficulties intensified, a new Ponton format body appeared for the Talbot Baby and Record.[4] The wheelbases were carried over from the earlier models. Although in many ways strikingly modern, the new car featured a two piece front windscreen in place of the single flat screen of its predecessor, presumably reflecting the difficulties at the time of combining the strength of a windscreen with curved glass at an acceptable price and quality. The new car’s large rear window was itself replaced by a larger three-piece “panoramic” wrap around back window as part of the car’s first face-lift, which took place in time for the 1952 Paris Motor Show.[3] The engine specification of the four-cylinder unit was unchanged as was the claimed performance even though the new body was some 100 kg heavier than the old. A new development with the Ponton-bodied cars body was the availability of the larger six-cylinder unit from the Talbot Record in the top of the line Talbot Baby, which in this form was called the Talbot Baby/6 Luxe, and had the slightly longer wheel-base and overall length enforced by the greater length of the six-cylinder engine.[4]

T14 LS engine / Talbot Lago Sport

Main article: Talbot Lago Sport

1956 Talbot-Lago T14 LS

 

At the 1954 Salon de L'Automobile de Paris, Talbot-Lago presented their last new engine: the new four-cylinder still had the typical twin laterally mounted camshafts, although it was upgraded to five main bearings. The new 120 PS (88 kW) 2,491 cc engine was called the T14 LS, but it did not have a car to go in until May 1955 when the Talbot-Lago 2500 Coupé T14 LS was finally presented.[11] The first car had all-aluminium bodywork, but later cars used more steel. 54 of these coupés were built, but they proved hard to sell - the stylish bodywork couldn't quite hide the thirties' underpinnings, and the rough engine offered little elasticity nor longevity.[12]

 

Lacking the resources to engineer the necessary improvements, for 1957 Talbot-Lago had to resort to buying in an engine. They chose the V8 2580 cc made available by BMW, albeit with the bore diameter slightly reduced, to 72.5 mm, which gave rise to a 2476 cc engine displacement, positioning the car (just) within the 14CV car tax band.[13] Reflecting the company's export plans, Talbot now rebranded the car as the "Talbot Lago America" and (finally) came into line with other French automakers by placing the driver on the left side of the car.[13] Unfortunately market response remained lukewarm, however, and only about a dozen of the BMW powered Talbot Lago Americas were produced.[13] It was now, in the early summer of 1958, that Tony Lago decided to accept an offer from Simca president, Henri Pigozzi, for the sale of the Talbot brand to Simca.[13] The sale of the business went ahead in 1959.[14]

 

With the sale of the business to Simca, the new owners found themselves with a handful of the final Talbot Lago Americas which were awaiting engines.[15] There was now no question of Simca being permitted, or wishing, to produce cars with BMW engines, and the only solution available was to fit the last batch of cars with Simca's own 2351 cc V8.[4] This engine had its roots in 1930s Detroit, and was originally provided by Ford to give the (then) Ford Vedette produced by their French subsidiary a flavor of the driving experience offered by an unstressed US style V8 sedan.[15] It was by no stretch of the imagination an engine for a sports car, and even with a second carburetor produced only 95 bhp (71 kW), as against the 138 bhp (103 kW) of the BMW-engined cars from the previous year's production.[15] Claimed top speed was now 165 km/h (103 mph) in place of the 200 km/h (124 mph) listed the previous year.[15] At the 1959 Paris Motor Show a stand had been booked for what was by now the Simca-Talbot brand, but a late decision was taken not to exhibit a Lago America and the stand was instead given up to a hastily constructed "motorshow special" prototype of which, after the motor show, nothing more would be heard.[15]

Commercial and financial

 

Sales data by model were kept confidential, possibly in connection with the company’s financial difficulties, but the overall totals for the early 1950s tell a dire story. The Suresnes plant produced 155 cars in 1947, an output which increased by 23 in 1948.[6] 433 cars were produced in 1950, but this then fell to 80 in 1951 and to 34 in 1952. In 1953 it is thought that the company turned out just 13 of the 26CV Record model and 4 of the 15 CV Babys.[3] During the rest of the decade volumes did not recover significantly; no more than 54 of the T14 LS were built in 1955 and 1956.[12]

 

As the company’s commercial trajectory implies, the years following the end of the war were marked by the slow financial collapse of Anthony Lago’s Talbot company. Other luxury automakers whose glory years had been the 1930s fared no better in the 1940s and 1950s than Talbot, with Delage, Delahaye, Hotchkiss and Bugatti disappearing from the car business while Panhard, nimbly if slightly improbably, reinvented itself as a manufacturer of small fuel efficient cars. Customers with enough money to spend on a luxury car were hard to find, and even among those with sufficient funds, in a country where well into the 1950s the Communists, buoyed by the heroic role played by some of their leaders during the years of Resistance, regularly polled 25% of the vote in national elections, there was little of the “live for today: pay later” spirit that had supported extravagant spending patterns in the 1930s. Government policy supported the austerity by creating a post-war tax regime that savagely penalised owners of cars with engines above two litres in size, and an Economic Plan, the Pons Plan,[6] which bestowed government favour (and allocations of materials still in short supply such as steel) on just five automakers, these being the businesses that became France’s big five automakers in the 1950s and early 60s. For France’s other luxury automakers, meanwhile, including Talbot, the tide had simply gone out.[3]

 

The money ran out, and Anthony Lago was obliged to seek court protection from his creditors, under a procedure known at that time as a ”Dépôt de bilan”. On 6 March 1951 the court agreed a debt moratorium which permitted a limited restart to production at the company’s Suresnes plant, but the affair provided unwelcome publicity for Talbot’s cash flow problems, and the company now experienced increased difficulty in obtaining credit. Production was also limited by the extent to which it had been necessary to cut the workforce, and by the reputational damage caused by reports of the whole process.[3]

 

The business staggered on till 1959, but never had the financial strength to support the development and production of its last model, the Talbot-Lago 2500 Coupé T14 LS, launched after a lengthy gestation in May 1955. In 1958 Lago decided to throw in the sponge and put the business up for sale. An offer was received from Henri Pigozzi under the terms of which the remains of the Talbot business would become part of Simca. In order to avoid bankruptcy, Lago agreed to sell the business on the terms proposed by the Simca president-director, a fellow Italian expatriate. Talbot-Lago was transferred to Simca in 1959.[14] Despite the sorry state of the Talbot business during the preceding ten years, commentators suggest that Pigozzi got a good bargain, receiving at Suresnes an industrial site and buildings worth many times the amount paid, along with a brand name that still resonated strongly with anyone old enough to remember the glory days of Talbot.[14]

 

Tony Lago died in 1960.[14]

Today

 

Talbot-Lagos have become a top-prized car at various auctions. A Figoni et Falaschi-bodied T150C SS Teardrop Coupe, owned by Brooks Stevens, would sell for US$3,535,000 at Christie's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance auction on Aug 18, 2005,[16] another for US$3,905,000 at the Palm Beach International Concours d'Elegance Gooding & Company auction on January 22, 2006 where it was unanimously voted "Best in Show",[17][18][19] and another for US$4,620,000 at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance RM Auctions Sports & Classics of Monterey auction on August 14, 2010.[20][21][22] A T150 C SS with a Pourtout Aerocoupé body, designed by Georges Paulin, sold for US$4,847,000 at the 2008 Bonhams & Butterfields Sale of Exceptional Motorcars and Automobilia at Quail Lodge.[23]

 

An unrestored 1948 T26 Grand Sport, with coachwork by Oblin and chassis #110106, is a part of the permanent collection of the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia, PA, USA.[7]

 

A 1949 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport Coupé by Saoutchik from the Baillon Collection sold for €1.450.000 at the Artcurial auction in February 2015.[24]

 

Even Talbot-Lagos with factory bodies, rather than custom coachwork, are highly valued; a factory-bodied 1939 T150 C SS selling in 2013 for US$418,000 at the Gooding & Company Scottsdale auction.[25]

Existential planes are not given conditions but levels of intensity of metaphysical seeing (sanskrit vidya).

 

The wisdom of non-differentiation is superior to the wisdom of differentiation, but it could not be achieved without the wisdom of differentiation. Therefore the wisdom of differentiation should precede the wisdom of non-differentiation.

 

5. How can it be imagined about the one who is unable to surmount his own education and the effects of his family, schooling and mass communication that he can surmount that which will arise as ontic bondage on his spiritual way?

 

6. To eliminate his defective judgements of value man should attend to a process of radical autocorrection in the course of which every earlier view should be rejected, and then that which stands the test of the new view should be reaccepted.

 

9. Not only a view but a way of looking; not only a view of the world but a way of looking at the world; not only a Weltanschauung (world view) but world contemplation; not only structure and frame but a living process…

 

32. Spiritual and theistic Weltanschauungs should be markedly different from materialistic and atheistic ones in each aspect of life: in eating, sleeping, walking but first of all in their views.

 

39. There is but one true normality: the normality of the centre.

 

40. If the knowledge related to the centre is lacking, then in fact the knowledge related to the periphery is lacking as well.

 

52. Beyond a certain level there can not be external or internal any more. There is no external or internal - for in relation to the limit of consciousness everything is inside and in relation to the centre of consciousness everything is outside.

 

53. Existential planes are not given conditions but levels of intensity of metaphysical seeing (sanskrit vidya).

 

56. The wisdom of non-differentiation is superior to the wisdom of differentiation, but it could not be achieved without the wisdom of differentiation. Therefore the wisdom of differentiation should precede the wisdom of non-differentiation.

 

57. Things can only be united if they have previously been separated.

 

62. Earth can essentially be in touch with Heaven (the Motionless Mover) only where it is not in motion - i. e. at the poles.

 

64. In the cosmos the spirit manifests itself as light. When Christ says that »I am the light of the cosmos«, it means that He is the light of the cosmos which is beyond the cosmos - that is to say, He is the spirit of the cosmos but this spirit is beyond the cosmos.

 

65. The material world is essentially a spiritual world. What does »spiritual« mean? Does that mean that it is more subtle than material? It also means that but the main point is something else. The world is spiritual if the fact that it is in the consciousness becomes evident.

 

-----

 

Metaphysical aphorisms by András László

 

www.tradicio.org/english/solumipsum.htm

 

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Painting by Giovanni di Paolo

Rolleiflex 3.5f

Ilford HP5 plus, pushed to 800.

 

Ilford Microphen.

9min 36sec

 

Epson V600

(16bit grey scale, 2400dpi, medium sharp, dust removal)

 

Aperture

 

This is a common antelope found in the wetlands of South-Central Africa. You don't see it mentioned too often, given how common it is in areas like the Okavongo Delta...

"Zero Fucks Given"

 

-- No description needed, it speaks for itself when you have absolutely...zero fucks given. --

 

_____________

Body: Maitreya Mesh Body w/ Bento Hands

 

Head: Catwa Mesh Bento HEAD - Sofia

 

Skin: #Amara Beauty - Miriela 01 Catwa & Maitreya Applier

 

Ears: Swallow Skin and Accessory Second Life Pixie Mesh Ears - Protruding

 

Lashes: alaskametro<3 for Catwa Powder Pack (12/2017)

_______________

Hair: little bones. Xia - The Dark Pack

 

Makeup: Studio Exposure DECEMBER GIFT - CATWA CHRISTMAS MAKEUP COLLECTION

 

#DAZED. Storm Lips Set - Catwa

_______________

Outfit: JCKLP / Lucy Top / FATPACK / Maitreya

 

.::Nanika::. Sunglasses Michele - White

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Jewelry: Vexiin 12inch [18k] Cuban Lock Necklace - Gold

 

Seven; 7;] Kartier Dainty Diamond Watch - Mixed

 

Seven; 7;] Eck Ear Candy Earrings - Gold

 

(Yummy) Bohemia Ring Set - Maitreya

 

(Yummy) Stella Septum - Gold

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Prop: KR Design - Photo Studio Backdrop

The peg is off . Northern Rail 150110 and 150220 are about to pass Buxton SB working the 2B18 1208 Manchester Piccadilly - Buxton terminating service .

 

19 4 21

Cuánto tiempo perdemos en soltar eso que nos hace mal?

Que no nos damos cuenta que nos está afixiando lentamente, que nos mata el corazón...

 

Soltar los pensamientos negativos, las personas negativas y ventajeras...

 

Creemos que el otro hará y sentirá lo mismo que uno, al menos para los que buscamos paz. Mas allá de que la paz está dentro de uno y no afuera... intentamos encontrar alguien parecido a nosotros.

Y quizás tenías razon, que tipos fiel como vos no iba a encontrar, o quizás no... aunque venís acertando.

Pero cuando ya no hay amor no puede haber nada.

 

No busco un amor, busca sentirme respetada... y sabés qué? Nadie lo hace ya...

Por suerte las redes sociales te muestran la realidad que las palabras te esconden... que la mayoría de los hombres buscan el deseo y que ya no buscan amor... que vale mas un like a una mujer en ropa interior exponiendo su cuerpo (que no está mal), que un buen café y charlar de la vida...

 

Nací en el mundo equivocado.

Nací hace mucho tiempo más que vos... dónde los valores eran otros y los sentimientos sinceros...

 

Todas tenemos una puta dentro, por supuesto.

 

Pero no te jactes del hombre ejemplar, o al menos disimulalo.

 

Nací en el mundo y tiempo equivocado... yo creo en el Amor para toda la vida, y creo en un compañero que se la juegue tanto como yo lo haría por él.

 

Pero si estamos en distinta sintonía, no me vengas a tocar la puerta...

 

Yo también soy puta, pero ahora sé a quien cerrarle las piernas y tambien cerrarles las puertas de mi vida.

 

Cuando crezcas, hablamos.

  

Given To Fly...

 

Ya abrí mis Alas, y estoy dada a volar... a un mundo dónde existan mis mismos valores...

Given the different color patterns and morphs of some species of the genus Perisesarma, this specimen is possible P. bidens, as it was found among many P. bidens individuals. Ting Kok mangroves, Hong Kong.

Given the PSE 8 treatment

I was given this yesterday by my friend in Hampshire. I'm not allowed to open it yet though. So many January birthdays and celebrations to follow in the coming week, I'm finding it difficult to find time to comment on other 365ers - bear with me.

On the subject of so many January birthdays , it makes me wonder how much truth there is in Alfred Lord Tennyson's quote, “In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” Think about it ;-)

Turn of a Friendly Card

************************************************************

Based on a true adventures of a rogue active in the waning years of the 1930’s as discovered in the criminal archives of Chatwick University.

 

Act 1

I begin my tale in the present…

 

That afternoon a soiree was given as part of the purchase price of the tickets for the annual Autumn Charity Ball to be presented later that evening at the manor’s great house. Since I was alone, I just went mainly for the free food and to rub my elbows with the wealthy guests who would be in happy attendance there, and at the Ball. I was alone, but certainly not bored. There was a game I enjoyed playing to pass the time at these affairs that entailed scoping out by their dress and day jewels worn, those ladies whom would be most likely to be wearing the better costumes and sparklers that evening. It often proved to be a most beneficial insight into the actions and mannerisms of the very rich. I walked amongst the cheerful guests, eying one here ( a lady in satin and pearls) and another there( a high spirited girl with a diamond pin at the throat of her frilly silken blouse). It was as I was passing the latter that the friend she had been talking too (dressed like a vamp), bumped up against me. I caught her, steadying her as they both giggled. I didn’t mind, for the lassie’s too tight satin sheath tea dress had been an enticement to hold, and the gold bracelet that had been dangling from her gloved wrist had been a pleasure to observe. I kissed her gloved hand, rings glittering, as I apologized gallantly for my clumsiness. Her eyes were bright, almost as bright as the twin necklaces of gold that hung swaying down pleasantly from between her ample bosom. I left them, moving on to greener pastures, and it was very green, all of it….

 

It was then that I detected another pretty lassie. It was her long fiery red hair with falling wispy curls that first captured my attention. She was wearing a fetchingly smart white chiffon party dress that commanded me to acquire a closer examination. She appeared to be a blithe spirit, seemingly content with just being by herself and roaming about with casual elegance, the extensive grounds of the manor proper. I began to discreetly follow her at a distance. Although she did not wear any jewelry, her manner and the eloquent way she moved is what attracted me the most. It would be very interesting to seek her out later that evening and she what she would have chosen to decorate herself with. I followed her as she sojourned into the depths of a traditional English garden with a maze of lushly green trimmed 8 foot high hedges

 

As I strolled through the hedgerows in her wake I allowed my mind to wander its own course. Suddenly I straightened up, my reverie broken by an epiphany of sorts. I allowed myself to grin and the lady whose enchantment I was swollen up in, at that moment turned, and seeing my beaming smile assumed it was for her and gave me a rather cute nod of her head. I answered in same, as I headed en route to a nearby stone garden bench to allow my thoughts to think through themselves.

 

But before I go on, allow me the pleasure to sojourn and reminisce about an incident that occurred several years prior:

*******************

I was still working unaided in those days, travelling on to a new next quest that would take me just outside of Surrey.

I had just purchased my train ticket and had seen my luggage safe on board when I decided to rest in the lounge, it being some 45 minutes before allowed to enter personally aboard. Being so early the lounge was almost deserted, only one other occupant. I assumed she was waiting for someone on an incoming train due to the fact she carried no luggage. She was obviously well off, well dressed in satins and lace, and her jewels shone magnificently in the dim lights. Especially one of her rings, noticeably lying loosely around a finger, it sparkled with an expensive brilliance. I had seen one like it in a tiffanies store, worth almost 250 pounds. But she did not appreciate the show her jewelry was putting on under the lounge lights, for she was fast asleep.

 

I circled around her, aiming for a seat next to her, eyeing her and her possessions carefully. I noticed her purse had fallen off her lap and lay on the floor. An idea popped into my head, and I picked the purse up, and looked around carefully, before placing my plan into action. But I was thwarted as an older, matronly lady was spotted heading our way. I slipped the purse into my jacket and moved off before I was noticed. Of course she came in and took the empty seat across form the sleeping princess, and soon busied herself with knitting. As the older lady had sat down, not quietly, the wealthy lady stirred waking up at the noise. I went into a corner and sat, waiting. The two ladies soon fell into conversation; the minute’s ticked by excruciatingly slow. Soon I noticed we even had more company.

He was a lad of only fourteen, but with a devilish look about him that marked him a kindred spirit to meself, and his quick eyes were darting about taking it all in as he stood outside the paned glass window.

 

It was as the first announcement of boarding the train that I saw a chance for opportunity to strike.

The older lady folded up her knitting and clinching her bag, bid adieu to her new friend,( befuddled a little by the old ladies constant stream of gossip), and headed to the train. I was twenty steps ahead of her and was standing behind the youth as she left the lounge. I tapped him on the shoulder; he looked around at me suspiciously, and then caught sight of the shilling I was holding in front of his nose. I quickly whispered a few words into his ear on how he could earn it, and his grin spread as he bought into my story. I still held onto the shilling as he darted around and inside the lounge. I watched as he ran up behind the lady, circling her, then running in front of her he tripped over her leg, as she helped him up, her hand with the ring reaching down, he turned and spat onto the wrist and sleeve of that hand, than standing he ran away. Running alongside me, I handed him the shilling in passing as he ran off, disappearing in to the street.

 

I went inside and approached the astonished lady, as she was looking for her purse to get a handkerchief, confused as to its absence, while she held up her soiled hand( ring glittering furiously) in utter disbelief. I approached, catching her attention by the soothing words I uttered to her. I took her hand, unbelieving with her at just had happened, and I as I apologized for the youth of today I produced my own silk handkerchief and starting with her silky sleeve, began to wipe it off, continuing my tirade of displeasure and contempt at what had just occurred to the dear lady as I did so. As I finishing wiping her down, ending with her warm slender fingers, I kissed them, just as the last boarding announcement came over (perfect timing!) I let her go, explaining that I must catch my train. I turned and without looking back made the train just as it was letting off steam before chugging off.

 

I gained my private carriage just as the train began to lurch away. It wasn’t until after the train began its journey that I casually removed my silk handkerchief from my pocket and unwrapped it carefully, admiring up close the shimmering, valuable tiffany ring that was lying inside. I pocketed it, and then remembered the purse. I took it out and examined its contents: coin and notes equaling a handsome amount, a gold (gilded) case, embroidered lacy handkerchief, small silver flask of perfume, and ( of all things)a large shimmering prism , like one that would have dangled from a fancy crystal chandelier. A prism?, I questioned with interest as I examined it. It was pretty thing, about the circumference of a cricket ball, but shaped like a pendulum, it shimmered and glittered like the most precious of jewels. Why she had it in her purse? I couldn’t guess, and I saw no value in it, so I pocketed it and allowed it to leave my mind.

 

As I settled into my seat I began to think of the lad I had just met, I had been right on the money as far as his eagerness for mischief. Actually he reminded me of myself at that age, and I wondered if that lad with the shifty eyes would also turn out to follow the same course I had explored.

 

Which Begs the question, what had I turned out to become. And since I’m still reminiscing

I’ll give little background material about me, hopefully I don’t come across as being too conceited about my self-taught skills..

 

I had never been one to take the hard road, and even at a young age I was always looking for angles, or short cuts to make some money.

Once, while watching for some time a street magician and his acts. I observed a pick pocket working the crowd. He approached a pair of well-dressed ladies in shiny clothes, and standing behind them bided his time and then lifted a small pouch from one velvet purse, and a fat wallet from a silken one, then he moved on. Now both ladies were wearing shiny bracelets, one with jewels. I thought that he could have realized a greater profit if he had nicked one or both of the bracelets first, than try for the contents of their purses. The bracelets’ alone would have realized a far greater profit than what he lifted from their purses. It further occurred to me that by mimicking some of the sleight of hand tricks and misdirection that the magician was using on his audience, it could be accomplished. A hand placed on the right shoulder and as the lady turned right, whisk off the bracelet from her left wrist, and excuse oneself, that sort of thing.

 

So, I practiced (on my sisters, who proved to be willing accomplices to “my game”) and learned to pick their purses and pockets. I than moved onto their jewelry, starting by lifting bracelets and slipping away rings, before advancing to the brooches, necklaces and earrings they were wearing. After I was satisfied at my skill level, I went out and worked the streets. Sometimes using my one sister who was also hooked on what I was doing as a willing partner.

But I found myself still not being satisfied, in the back of my mind I thought there had to be a more lucrative way to turn a profit.

 

I’d found my answer when an attractive lady in a rustling satin gown zeroed in on me while I was “visiting” a ballroom. She was jeweled like a princess right up to the diamond band she wore holding up her piles of soft locks like a glimmering crown. The more she drank, the closer she got and I decided that her necklace would definitely help pay my expenses more than the contents of her purse (although I had already lifted the fat wallet from her small purse), and I did have very expensive tastes to pay for. So I took her onto the dance floor.

 

I was amazed at how easily I had been able to open the necklace’s clasp , slipping it over her satiny shoulder, lifting it off and placing it safely in my pocket with almost no effort. Then she decided to be playful once the song ended and brushed up against me. She felt the necklace in my pocket and before I could act she had her hand in and pulled it out.

 

The silly naive twit thought I was teasing her and told me that for my penance I had to go up to her suite in order to put it back on for her. I kept up the charade as best as I could.

 

And that’s where we ended up. A little bit of light fondling began as I placed the necklace back around her throat. I began to tease her, plied her with more and more alcohol as I tried to keep my distance, and virginity. Finally she passed out in a drunken stupor, but not before I had learned where she hid her valuables by suggesting she should lock her jewels up for the night..

 

With her safely unconscious, I began to strip her clean off all her jewels, reclaiming the necklace first. Then I visited all her jewelry casket and began looting it. I even took her small rhinestone clutch with the diamond clasp; of course I already had liberated its small wallet.

 

When I’d left her lying happily asleep in bed, still in her satin gown( the only item left to her that shined), I knew I had found a much more profitable line of “work”

 

So I began making circuits around to the haunts of the very rich, I still kept may hand in pickpocketing, so to speak, but centered only on those “pockets” containing mainly jewelry. I also began to carefully explore new ways of acquiring jewels” in masse”, so to speak.

 

Soon I had accumulated many tricks and tools, having them at my disposal to put into action once required, and for the remaining years up till the present had managed to live quite comfortably off of the ill-gotten gains using them allowed me to acquire.

 

Which brings me back to the train ride, my prism, and the rest of my background story before I retun to the present tale. Please be patient.

*****

So, anyway, I reached Surry without any further incident and disembarking, made my way out to the large country house where I would be staying to take a short rest, vacation if you will. But, pardon the play on words, for there is never any rest for the wicked, is there?

 

I had become acquainted with a servant of the old mansion ( almost a small castle, really) , that was about a mile off. I managed to learn a great deal, and soon found myself, on the pretense of visiting her, exploring the grounds. There was to be a grand ball taking place a couple of weekends away , and the maid had filled my ears with the riches that would be displayed by the multitude of regal ladies making an appearance. I began to think about trying to make a little bit of profit from my vacation. I am not sure how the idea developed, but the prism that I still had in my possession, came up centrally into my plans.

 

Late on the evening of the regal affair, I snuck over, covered head to toe in black, with my small satchel off tools by my side. I set up a candle behind an old stone ivy covered wall in a far corner of the rather large and intricate English garden that surrounded the inner circle around the mansion. I than strung the jewel-like prism in front of it. Standing behind the wall, I would strike the prism with a long stick I was holding whenever I observed sparkles emanating from silkily gowned ladies walking in the distance, solitary or in pairs. The prism would flash fire, sort of like a showy lure being used when fishing in a crooked trout stream. Only I was fishing for far sweeter game than trout. My objective was to trick certain types of jeweled ladies (scatterbrains some may call them) by luring them down onto the path beyond the wall, using their natural curiosity to my advantage.

 

I had at least two strikes rise up to my lure in the second hour.

On was a pretty lady in flowing green satin number, decorated with plenty of emeralds, which, hidden in the shadows, I observed were probably paste. I let her wonder about; as she looked and played with the shiny toy, remaining hidden until she grew bored and wandered off.

The second was a slender maiden wearing a long sleek black gown with long ivory silk gloves. I had never before seen a lady so decked out in jewels, literally head to toe. With the exception of the rhinestones adorning her heels, the rest of the lot was real, so valuably real that I could feel my mouth salivating at the thoughts of acquiring her riches. Now in Edwardian times only older, married ladies would be allowed the privilege of wearing a diamond Tiara. But in these modern times, it had become culturally acceptable for any well-to do lady, single or otherwise, to wear one out in society. Even so, they were still rarely worn, and seldom seen outside the safety of large gatherings. But there it was, a small, delicately slender piece of intricate art that glistened from the top of her head like some elegant beacon. That piece alone was probably worth more than I had made all the last four months combined!

I began to skirt around in the shadows, placing myself in position to cut off her retreat. Her diamonds blazed as she approached, eyeing the swinging prism with total concentration. Which was unfortunate, because as I was about to leave the shadows, she walked into the thorns of a rose bush, screeching out, and attracting the notice of a pair of gentlemen who had just crossed the path quite a ways off, called out when they heard the commotion. She started to become chatty with them, obviously coming on to her rescuers, my prism all but forgotten. Than before I knew it, in a swishing of her long gown, she was gone, “swimming” off before I was able to set me ”hook”.

 

Which I was able to do on the third strike, almost an hour later, just as I was beginning to ponder wither I should call it off and head back home..

 

They were a pair of young damsels in their young twenties. They may have been sisters, or cousins at the least. I still remember how my heart leapt into my throat as they observed my colourful prism and turned down the old flagstone path. I had not seen anyone out and about for some time, so I knew they would be no would be rescuers around to come to their aid

And, best of all, they were both dressed for the kill!

One, the blonde, was clad in a black velvet number that one could cannily describe as quite form fitting. As were the small ropes of pearls that hung from all points of interest, pretty with a matching pricelessness.

But her cousin, as I will refer to her, out shone black velvet quite literally.

This one, a stunning raven haired beauty, wore a long streaming gown of liquid ivory satin. A diamond brooch sparkled as it held up a fold of the gown to her waist. The fold allowed her to show a rather daring amount of a slender bare calf. The brooch was not paste, but a real jewel that had been added for the nights festivities ( To be successful, one learns to read these signs accurately) Her ears and neckline were home to a matching set of pure white diamonds. A wide diamond bracelet graced a bare right wrist ,so she must be left handed I instinctively thought, an observation that would have aided me if I were planning on having a go for slipping the bracelet from her wrist, but tonight I was planning a much more daring attempt to empty the entire jewel casket, so to speak.

 

They went to the prism, playing with it a bit, I had begun to circle around, when I noticed black velvet pointing out with multiple ringed fingers, to something further down the path past the wall.

 

With a clicking of heels I let the pair pass, they apparently wanted to see what was on the other side of the wall. I followed; it was not hard, because the necklace the raven haired one wore, diamonds fully encircling her throat, rippled and sparkled from their perch, caught in the full harvest moon’s cast, giving me more than enough light to shadow them quietly .

 

After a while they caught on that something/someone was following them, but as they turned they could see nothing. I was in black, and hooded, invisible to them in the shadows of the trees. They whispered amongst themselves, now worried, realizing that there were dangers lurking beyond the pale, in their case, the safety of the gardens , especially for ones decked out as they were. They then turned and headed right back from where they had come, right into my waiting arms.

 

It is interesting what good breeding does for young, poised ladies. For, as I stepped out of the shadows, a finger of my right hand to my lips, my Fairborn in my left hand, its black blade glinting wickedly in the moonlight , they did not scream out or shout for help. Instead the pair merely let out small gasps, and then they both, in a quite charming synchronized display of disbelief, place each one hand over their open mouths, and the other upon their perspective necklaces.

 

And as I flourished my wicked looking Fairbairn–Sykes blade in their direction, they unquestioningly reached around and undid those pretty necklaces, tremblingly handing them out to me, like actresses following a well-read script. I took the little pretties and after stuffing them into my satchel, held out again my free hand, my fingers beckoning. Not a word was spoken between us, as the frightened pair of young ladies began removing their shimmering jewels and added them in a neat little growing pile along my open palm. The raven haired girl even undid her brooch without me having to command her to do so. Once I had stashed it all away, I motioned for them to turn back around, than with a little helpful prodding on my part, they began moving forward back down the hill, away from the garden. The one in white hobbling a little now as she kept tripping over the hem of her dress, now no longer held up by the stolen brooch.

 

After we had traveled about 200 meters I had them stop, and take off their high heels. Then picking the pretty things up, I motioned them to turn back around and made them walk back the way we had come in their bare feet, watching the pair awkwardly hobble barefooted down the wooded path. They would be quite a while on their journey back, allowing me more than ample time to make me escape. I threw their shoes off to the side and went briskly the other way, reaching the place was staying at , gaining my room without notice. But not before I had hidden the jewels inside an old stump to retrieve them at a later date. I never really heard so much as a whisper of the incident, other than from the pretty lips of my friendly maiden. The wee hours of the morning before my early departure for the train station found me revisiting the stump and retrieving my satchel and its precious cargo. After hiding it all in a false bottom of my case I laid my head on the pillow and drifted off to sleep as I wondered what had happened to the little prism, marveling at how useful it had ended up proving to be.

 

So, how does this story (journey rather) relate to the one I had already started? Please read on, and enrich your curiosity… my dear readers.

****************************************************************************

Act 2

 

So, with apologies for my lengthy elucidation, but I now return you back to the garden party I was now attending on that warm fall day. But, as you will see, my prism story needed to be told in order to add a bit of flavor to what was about to unfold.

 

As I sat on the garden bench I formulated my plans. I should be able to acquire the main piece tonight at the Ball, I would have time this afternoon to retrieve my ever handy satchel and its array of tools and have it hidden at the spot I had already selected. It was perfect, located at the end of the path I had found, or rather the charming lady in the smart chiffon dress had found for me. A gas lamp would provide adequate light for my “lure”, and it led to a back wood where I could lead any victims away and liberate them of their valuables before making my escape. I rose, just enough time to walk my escape route, before setting up and then be dressed for the evening’s festivities. I looked around, I was alone now, my lady in white had disappeared, following her own course, whatever it may have been.

 

The Autumn Ball that evening was in full swing by the time I arrived. Being a cool fall day, most of the women were wearing long gowns and dresses, and that, for whatever the reason, usually meant they were decked out with more layers of jewelry than say , if it had been the middle of summer. In order to put my plan in action I need and intrinsic piece of the trap, a prism. The one I had once had was long ago lost, a minor pawn in a game to take a pair of princesses.

 

I knew exactly the type of prism required for my plan, and so began mingling amongst the guests with that in mind.

 

I started out by walking through to the chamber like ballroom where a full orchestra was starting to play. The first person I saw from the garden party was the little tramp who had been wearing the too tight satin tea dress. That dress had been replaced with a long silky gown, her gold jewelry replaced with emeralds; including a thin bracelet that had taken the place of the gold one that she had so obligingly dangled in my larcenous path. I decided to avoid her In principle, and in doing so spied someone quite interesting.

 

That someone was a pretty lady in a long velvet gown standing off to one side, idly watching the many dancers out on the floor. The dancing couples were forming an imagery of a rainbow coloured sea of slinky swirling gowns and with erupting fireworks of sparkling jewels, ignited by pair of immensely large chandeliers that hung over the dance floor, setting them off. I made my way, skirting the dance floor to reach her, my eyes on her jewels, which were making pretty fireworks of their own. I happened to walk up just as a waiter with a tray of drinks was passing by. Plucking off a drink I offered it to the lady with one hand, my other hand placed on her back as If to steady myself. She laughed prettily, and taking the drink I met her eyes, as she was focused on reaching and holding the glass in her slippery gloved hand, mine was on the ruby and diamond necklace. My hand behind her had flicked open the simple hook and eye clasp of the antique piece and was in the process of lifting it up and whisking it away from her throat. As I said a few words to her, I pocketed it, while also taking in the rest of her lovely figure and its shiny decorations, before biding adieu. She smiled, her pale bare neckline now quite glaringly extinguished of its fire.

 

It was about an hour later, after spotting, but unable to make inroads with several likely candidates, that I finally struck gold (figuratively). It came in the form of a young couple arguing between themselves in a far corner of the chamber. She was lecturing a rather handsome man in a tux, her jeweled fingers flying in his face. If she hadn’t been moving about in such an animated fashion as she lectured, I may not have even noticed her. But as it happened I did, especially noticeable was the sanctimonious lady’s wide jeweled bracelet that was bursting out in a rainbow of colorful flickers as her hand was emphatically waving, as her long gown of silk swished around with every movement she made. Perfect. I watched for a bit, and sure enough they moved off, the man heading for the patio leading outside, the wealthy girl following him, still giving him lashes with her tongue. I moved and managed to have her bump into me simply by stepping on the hemline of her long gown. For a few seconds I was the one on the receiving end of her wrath, but I took it like a man, I could see in the eyes of her tongue lashed husband, that he was grateful for the respite. I was also grateful; grateful for the quite wide, very shimmering, bracelet that I had removed from her wrist and now was residing in my pocket.

 

I began to leave the patio, but was stopped by a matronly lady in ruffles, laces and pearls, her breath heavy with alcohol. She started to question me on what the couple had been on about. Then without waiting for an answer she launched herself into a tirade of her own, her gem encrusted, silken gloved fingers, waving in my face for emphasis. It was almost ten minutes before I was able to make my escape. Which I did, but not before slipping off one of the lecturing ladies vulgarly large cocktail rings.

 

I headed onto the patio; the time was getting ripe for my plan, which I was now ready to put into motion, now having acquired its most essential piece. I went to the end of the large patio, weaving in and out of the by now well liquored guests whom had assembled there. Across the way I saw a lady tripping over her own gown. By the time I reached her she had fallen down, giggling merrily. Two of us rushed to her aid, she was busy gushed her thanks to the rescuer she knew, while ignoring the one she didn’t! Which was unfortunate on her part, for by ignoring me, she also was ignorant of the fact that I was busy lifting the small stands of black pearls from her wrist. I left unnoticed, much like a shadow fading out of the light, or at least that’s how it seemed. Finally I reached the patios outer edge without further incident, or gain. I went on the grass and turned a corner with the intention of going, post haste around the house to reach the gardens by the long way, hoping not to be seen by anyone. But I no sooner turned the corner, when I realized that it was not to be the case.

 

It was my blithe spirit in white chiffon from the garden party, pardon me, soiree. She was unescorted, looking up at the moon above a stone turret with one lit window, so intently that my presence had not been noticed. I had been absolutely correct in my observation of her as far as what she would be wearing for the evening. For what she had lacked in ornaments at the soiree, she had more than made up for in the evening festivities. She was absolutely gorgeous, resplendent in as beautiful a silvery satin gown that I had ever witness. It was just pouring down, shimmering along her delightful figure. Her long blazing red hair was still curling down and free, but now a pair of long chandelier earrings cascading down from her earlobes, were peeking out every now and then as they swayed with her every movement. Her blazingly rippling necklace was all diamonds, dripping down the front of her tightly satin covered bosom, twinkling iridescently like an intensively glimmering waterfall. Her slender gloved wrists were home to a pair of dangling diamond bracelets that were almost outshone by her many glistening rings. All in all she was quite a lure all too herself

 

I came up to her, starling her from her reverie. Taking up her hand, I looked into her startled, suddenly blushing face. I complimented her on the fine gown she wore. She thanked me, and I could see I that she suddenly remembered she me as the chap who she thought smiled to her in the garden. She seemed to accept my compliment quite readily. I chanced it( although Lord knows I was short on time) and asked her to a dance. I did not think she would agree, so it was with a little bit of surprise, hoping she would politely decline and walk off, leaving me free to go about my business unobserved. But she accepted, and I will admit that my heart leapt as she agreed (although in the back of my mind I knew I should be off if my plan was to work). The music had stopped so we made small talk as we slowly walked back to the ballroom. Her name was Katrina. It seems she was waiting for someone, which suited my plans, but he was late and so she had time. Which may have sounded dismissive, but from the apologetic way she said it, it was anything but the sort.

 

The orchestra started to tune back up as we entered, and taking her offered hand up, was soon lost in the elegance of my appealing partner. It was a long dance, and a formal one, but I could tell she was subtly anxious to be off on her meeting, as I was to be off to my own adventure. But Katrina did not really allow it to show, which was very uncharacteristic of her someone with her obvious breeding. So I was ready when the by the end of the music she begged her condolences and took flight. I watched her as she fluidly moved away, her jewels sparkling, all of them. On her mission to meet Mr. X I thought, for whom I was already harboring a quite jealous dislike. I should be off I thought to meself.

 

But I stood, still as stone; totally mesmerized by the way Katrina’s swirling silvery satin gown was playing out along her petite, jewel sparkling figure. It wasn’t till the last of her gown swished around a corner out of sight that I moved, but not without having to shake my head to clear the thoughts of her out of it. Well old son, focus. For by now the guests were starting to wander a bit afield in the waning hours of the Autumn Ball, and my small window of opportunity was closing fast. If my little plan was going to have any chance of success it would have to be now.

 

I walked out and made my way to one of the outside exist of the garden wall. Reaching into my pocket as I did so, fingering the bracelet, now cold, that had belonged to the quarrelsome lady,and soon would be playing another role, far from one its former mistress would ever have dreamed off. I also felt my new acquisition, still warm from my dance partner’s body. I will admit that I had felt a twinge of regret for taking it from a lady I had found to be most charmingly captivating. But slipping off the diamonds up and away from her throat had been as temptingly easy as it had been automatic. I had advantageously made use of the sleekness of her scintillatingly silky gown, and with the distractions created by the movements of the dance, successfully managed to keep Katrina’s attention safely diverted from the reality of why my fingers were ever so gently, caressingly sliding along her slippery gowns neckline. The truth was I had originally placed my hand there because it had felt so right, and I was a little startled when my fingers had subconsciously started playing with her necklaces clasp. Before I knew it, they had flicked open the gemstone clasp of her obviously expensive diamond necklace, and had lifted up. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, almost like I was a spectator, as opposed to being the perpetrator, I saw the chain move up and over her shoulder; its diamonds sparkling with is as the necklace disappeared from view behind her back.

It was a favored technique that I had perfected to the point that by this stage of my career I nearly always acquired my objective. But, as odd as it sounds, I was not happy with myself on this occasion.

 

But I did not long dwell on my mixed feelings on taking the charming lass’s diamonds, for by now I had reached my place of ambush. It was in one of the farthest reaches of the garden, at a bend on the end of a long path that, with a gas lamp at its beginning just off the patio, would allow me to see from some distance off. Behind me was a break in the hedge wide enough for a person to walk through comfortably. It was here, off a tree limb, underneath a second ornate cast iron gas lamp, which was now lit, that I hung the shimmering bracelet that I had sought out and acquired for just that reason

 

I walked around and saw that it could be seen flickered off in the distance from the woods, Perfect! Earlier I had hidden my satchel with a hood and knife and bit of rope in the hollow of an old tree. I now retrieved them, and after getting ready, found my position and waited. At 10 minutes past the first hour of my wait, with nary a single glimpse of anyone, I started to fidget. My corner may be just a bit too desolated I was beginning to admit to myself. It seemed that most of the guests were staying by the patio. I was starting to think that I should pack it in, possibly rejoining the guests for one last parting( of someone from her Jewelry). I was just reaching down to pick up my satchel when I suddenly saw something flash under the gas lamp at the beginning of the path, and my senses immediately perked up. I watched as the wisps of rich shimmery satin moved closer, I stiffened, drooling with anticipation, the game was afoot.

  

I could see clearly the flickering jewels she wore, and by their blazing sparkles of rippling fire, I knew that my long vigil would not have been in vain. As the lady drew I recognized her gown of silvery satin! I knew who was making those tantalizing flashes of appealing treasures. Katrina!

 

I watched as she approached, in all her glittering elegance. My heart and conscious was in turmoil, but I knew I probably would not get a second chance. I could not let her get away unscathed. Beside, from the shock of being confronted with a masked scoundrel wielding a wicked blade, she would be in no shape to recognize her assailant. She stopped, apprehensively looking back towards the bright lights of the Manor, Then turning back I saw she had a self-satisfied smile creeping upon her face. She reached up, and undoing her hair, shook it down, curls of softness cascading down, hanging loosely down. It was as she performed this provocative act, that I saw her eyes open wide in curiosity; she had spied my pretty little “prism”. The charming fish was hooked.

 

I waited, watching her approaching ever closer to fate, and from my concealment, I basked in her glow. My heart beating fast, my adrenaline pumping, for the remaining jewels (I thought of her necklace in my custody) that she possessed I already had witnessed were quite valuable. She passed my hiding spot and went to the hanging, shimmering object. As she reached up, looking around, she failed to see me approaching in the shadows. I came up from behind, jabbing a finger in her back as I reached her, I gruffly in no uncertain terms, snarled for her to freeze and make no sound. She stiffened under my touch, but made no move or outcry. I went around; pointing my knife in her direction, looking into her sad doe wide eyes as she realized what was going to happen next. She was trembling; from fear I guessed, and knew I had her right where I wanted. As I made my demands upon her, gimme them jewels sister, she, not surprisingly, was very compliant in giving them up to me. She reached for her necklace last, and looked entirely shocked to find her throat bare, as she searched the neckline of her gown I saw her look into my hand, now dripping with her precious jewelry, almost as if to see if she had not already removed it. She looked apologetically into my eyes, startled; almost pleading that she didn’t know what had happened to it. I just played dump. She than spoke for the first time, sir, may I ask to keep my purse? Her words would have instantly melted even the coldest chunk of ice, I looked down at the little silvery clutch hanging from her arm on its rhinestone chain, I nodded, indicating that she could, and saw relief wash over her face. I told her she now needed to turn around and walk off into the woods ahead of me. She hesitated, and I told her no harm would befall her, I had no intentions along those lines.

 

About 5 meters in I stopped her, and had her remove her shoes, as she bent over to undo the high heels rhinestone clasps I watched her gown tightly outlining her figure. She tripped on the hem of her gown, and as she attempted to keep her balance, accidently let her purse slip off her shoulder. Without thinking I reached down to pick it up for her as she tried reached for it simultaneously

 

The small purse was far heavier than it should have been. Curious I opened it, finding that it contained a rather extensive array of mismatched jewelry, glittering in unbelievably expensive fire . I looked into Katrina’s horror struck eyes dumb founded, as she looked guiltily into mine. The gig was up. The jewels belonged to the lady of the manor, my muse in silver was a thief, a female version of me very self.

 

Aye, what’s this than luv? I questioned her as she looked into my eyes, hers large with a mixture of fright and disbelief. She melted before me, fainting, I caught her in my arms, and it was no ruse. I held her as she came to, holding her warm, silky figure lovingly to mine. I did not know what to think. Nor could I ever explain what possessed me to do what I did next. As she came to, her eyes opened, and I removed my mask, looking back into them deeply.

 

Oh, she gasped, I’m glad it was you, startled that she had said the words out loud. She than started to coyly blushes, quite demurely. Something sparked in me, and unless she was an incredibly good actress, it did also for Katrina. Our eyes both looked into the others, melting away in the lust of the moment. We embraced, deeply, and I held her squirming warm slick figure tight in my enveloping arms. I looked over her shoulder, eyeing the glistening bracelet hanging from its branch. To catch a thief, the thought suddenly opened in my mind, what a great title for a novel I thought to myself, as I buried my nose into Katrina’s luxuriously soft hair.

 

We talked for a bit, walking off into the woods, then she looked into my eyes again, a coy, look that melted me on the spot, and that was the end of it, we embraced again, and wholly gave ourselves to one another. What about your man I asked suddenly remembering, my man she questioned , than oh, you mean the Lord, I was waiting for him to come down from smoking in his tower study, that’s where the lady’s jewels are kept. She broke into an Irish brogue as she said the last bit, and that I guessed was her natural tongue. she laid a hand on the side of my face, thanks for being jealous though, me lad.

I should collect my lure I said, which made her smile; it was such an enticing smile at that. We started to head back and watched as it dangled in front of us flickering. With a far off look in her green eyes, Katrina spoke as if in deep though.

 

The daughter of the house, she has a bracelet on like the one you have dangling, a bracelet of diamonds that I had taken a fancy to, wishing it had been in the safe along with the rest of the ladies of manors jewelry. I knew who she was talking about. The one in green taffeta I asked? Aye lad, that’s the one. Actually her necklace would be just as easy, and worth more I said. Just then her bright green eyes gleamed, Give me about a half an hour, she told me, we will put your little lure to use again. She noticed my hesitation, don’t worry luv she said soothingly placing a gloved hand to my cheek, no longer was it sparkly with its stolen bracelet and rings. I’ll leave my purse with you, can’t very well be carrying it around now can I? I nodded my consent, my mind burning with the thoughts she had alluringly placed there.

  

She turned, and then hesitated; turning back she said I probably should not go back in naked luv. I smiled, reaching in I pulled out her necklace and placed it around her throat. With a little gasp she blurted, so it was you, I was wondering who and when it had happened. It’s not the first time I’ve had me jewels lifted, but it’s a bloody annoyance to have to let them get away with it, crawls under my skin to have pretend not to notice so that I don’t draw any attention to me self before making my move to steal the posh ones jewels.

 

But you, mister, I never felt as much as a prickling. I was ready to assume my pretties had been a victim of a broken clasp this time. I gave a little nod in acceptance. That wasn’t exactly a compliment lad, she said in what I hopped was a subtle jest. Just last summer some clumsy bugger slipped of me earrings, my favorite pearls, as we were danc… she stopped, seeing the guilt in my eyes. Men! As thieves you are all of the same skin she spat out angrily, or attempted to sound angry, for the look in her eyes to me she wasn’t. I best be off, before I change me mind about out little endeavor.

 

With that she swirled around on her heels, and started off, but not before turning and giving me an extremely coy look of interest. As she swirled back around I heard her say loud enough for my ears, I’ll learn me self to be a picker of pockets, see how males like to be taken advantage of in their vulnerabilities! She nodded to herself as she said it. Then suddenly she stopped, than twirled on her heels, her gown swirling enticingly along her figure. Looking me dead in the eye she said, “Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie” !

 

What does that mean? I questioned in a low voice, perplexed.

 

Maybe, Mon Cheri, someday I will tell you… And with that she turned on her heel, her gown once again swirling about, and went, determinedly, swishing her way back up the path. I just watched. I had never heard anyone speak French with an Irish Brogue and I had found it to be rather provocative!

 

I watched as she swished and swayed her way back through the hedge and regained the path leading back to the manor. Her plan was simple; she would lead the daughter of the house to my corner and as she had done, go out with her to look at the swinging charm. I would then make my appearance, rob both ladies of their finery, and telling the daughter to wait until I released her friend, walk off with Katrina as a hostage, and we would both take off and make good our escape. A simple plan, so simple it should actually work.

 

So, there I was. Holding a purse with a small fortune in jewels, my pocket full of more jewels worth an additional pretty farthing, and her charms were wearing off by her leaving. And my thieving nature coming back, reawakened from the spell they had been under!

 

The devil of my conscious crept out on my shoulder, the angel markedly absent from the other.

 

Look mate, she may not be all she seems, and possibly has some other game in mind. Maybe she does have a male confidante helping her out… and was actually on her way to fetch him. He said in my inner ear. And, after all, you took her diamonds twice, didn’t ye now? Do you really think shell forgive you of that me lad?

 

And there is no honor amongst thieves, as the saying goes, he added as a closing argument...

 

I rolled it over in my mind…I could leave, absconding with it all, book a cruise to the states or down under where there lay untried fertile grounds to ply my trade. Not to mention working over my fellow passengers aboard the cruise ship while they attended the fancy affairs that were always going on, or so the brochures always seemed to show……

 

Then In the distance I caught a wisp of Katrina’s long silvery gown. She was coming, and not only with the daughter of the manor, but also with a spare. For I could see a purple coloured gown swishing alongside with the prey in rustling green taffeta.. I watched as all three ladies, resplendent with the rippling fiery gems they all possessed, came up the path, gowns sweeping out , shimmery from the now misty distance.

 

The thought of making my escape with all the loot continued to haunt me, there was still time now to take off without notice, or I could rob all three, and leave with purple silk as my hostage, Katrina would not be able to say anything on chance of giving up her part of the game, or I could just be a good lad and sty with the script that Katrina had written. Take a chance, roll the dice and believe that she was all she had me believing she could ever be.

 

As they came closer I knew my time was running out. The thoughts of just looking out for myself kept coming up playing the devil with my conscience as the precious seconds ticked away…

 

No honor amongst thieves…

What will it be, old boy I challenged myself,

What will you have it be?........

To see what his decision ultimately was, and the eventual path it led to, see the album question answered)

*************************************************************************************

Life is not about waiting out the storm, but about learning to dance in the rain.

Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie .

*************************************************************************************

Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

DISCLAIMER

All rights and copyrights observed by Chatwick University, Its contributors, associates and Agents

 

The purpose of these chronological photos and accompanying stories, articles is to educate, teach, instruct, and generally increase the awareness level of the general public as to the nature and intent of the underlying criminal elements that have historically plagued humankind.

 

No Part of this can reprinted, duplicated, or copied be without the express written permission and approval of Chatwick University.

 

These photos and stories are works of fiction. Any resemblance to people, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

As with any work of fiction or fantasy the purpose is for entertainment and/or educational purposes only, and should never be attempted in real life.

We accept no responsibility for any events occurring outside this website.

 

********************************************************************************

 

View On White

Given my very, very brief visit in Boston, sleep was, unfortunately, not quite on the agenda for this night photographer. After exploring the city the night before, I went to bed around midnight only to wake up around 3:45am so I could find the location I had in mind for the sunrise at 5:48am.

 

I have never used GPS to find any location. I’m an avid connoisseur of maps, globes, and road atlases. (Yes, I’m rather "19th century" in that sense). Of course, in my confused state of mind somewhere between lethargy and exhilaration, I realized I had forgotten my maps in the hotel room. It was too late, though -- the key was in the ignition and I was already driving through the empty streets of downtown Boston. Going back to get the maps would waste precious time, which I had so little of, so I had to use my wits and regional topography to get me to East Boston.

 

For me, there’s always something very enjoyable about cruising on the empty highways of a major American city when everyone’s asleep! With the cool wind blowing through the windows, I began to wake from my drowsy stupor. With a few right turns and a few wrong turns, I managed to reach an alternative spot to get the view you see posted above.

 

The place I really wanted to be was a good mile and a half (2.4km) away, which is where this photo was achieved (after jogging the distance and avoiding a skunk in the park who seemed to be oddly drawn to me and wanted my company that early in the morning -- I had to dodge that fellow with stealth). Running with one's camera, backpack, and tripod while racing with the sunrise is no easy feat. That skunk almost blew my chances too!

 

Regardless, these are the entertaining details of my adventures of capturing Boston before dawn! Have an excellent week!

 

The Boston galleries (City Images) (Aerials) are completed and now available on my official website, which has also been overhauled, and undergoing more changes! Enjoy!

 

TIA INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY / TIA Facebook / TIA Twitter / TIA Blogger

IRON MAN IRN BRU CONTEST STANDING WITH KILT WEARING CONTESTANTS AND A TOPLESS SHORT WEARING EATING PERSON AT AN EAST LONDON TOWN SHOW STREET PARK ENGLAND WITH A CAMERA FROM DIXONS GIVEN TO ME BY MY DAD. I WAS ONLY LITTLE THEN july 1989 TS 2

Given that I live in Hernando, we always access Goodman Road from the off-ramp from northbound Interstate 55. I preface these photos with that disclaimer because I have been told by l_dawg2000 that the southbound off-ramp is not quite as far along as this northbound one.

 

That said, this northbound off-ramp is looking pretty good! As you can see in this image, the fresh pavement is complete, with striping as well – but that's not the main feature here. No, that would be those three overhead signs. You see, previously this intersection had a traffic signal with one left-turn lane, and what I believe l_dawg dubbed “country” right-turn lanes, where you simply merge into traffic with a yield sign (no waiting at a stoplight necessary).

 

The problem with that setup here on Goodman Road is that, with eastbound Goodman (headed into Southaven) being five lanes, there were lots of instances where drivers would have to weave and squeeze their way over across all the traffic to make it to the left-turn lane at the next traffic signal, heading toward Baptist Memorial Hospital (seen in the background of the previous pic). My dad calls that sort of maneuver a "Saudi sweep." So, to remedy that... (cont.)

 

(c) 2018 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

Given the amount of activity last night I think it would have been rude to have stayed in, so off I went in search of places above the fog, ended up at Hodge Close quarry in the end as its nice and dark north of there.

 

This is one of my better shots, pretty happy with how this came out but looking back though them I think a shorter exposure and higher ISO might have been the way to go.

 

Considering that it was dark last night with pretty much no moon it was crazy light last night with the light from the Aurora.

 

It was quite hard to see with the naked eye due to the mist that was about but the camera was doing a great job of cutting through that :)

 

You can find more of my work on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/MarkAireyPhotography

 

Church of St Mary, Wath, North Yorkshire www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/5A656n

The manor of Wath juxta Tanfield was given by William the Conqueror to Alan, Earl of Brittany & Richmond, and was still in his hands at the time of the 1086 Domesday Survey. It was granted to the monastery of St Michel in Normandy a few years later in 1146, a cell of the monastery being formed at Wath.

c 1239 The manor was claimed by Robert Marmion in right of his wife Amice, daughter of Gernagan Loed of West Tanfield. The issue was brought to trial by combat. The lordship of the manor thereafter followed the line of Marmion, FitzHugh and Parr to William Parr, Marquess of Northampton (brother of Katherine Parr 6th wife of Henry Vlll ) who was later attainted in 1553 as the result of his support of Lady Jane Gray.

Wath was granted to William Cecil, Baron Burghley in 1571 whose successors were in due course created Earl of Elgin & later Marquess of Ailesbury.

The manor was sold to Joseph Newsome in 1886, and the advowson passed to the Church Society Trust.

 

Late 10c / early 11c stones taken out of the 13c walls during the 1873 repairs point to a Saxon building here before the Normans came, this building is probably the footprint of the present nave with an apsidal east end through a narrow chancel arch also found in 1873

No architectural detail of either the Saxon or the Norman period has been preserved . Sir Stephen Glynne, writing in 1864, saw " the porch is a modern one of brick, but within it is a Norman doorway of one order with shafts, but clogged with whitewash." Sadly during the 1873 repairs "when the thick coating of whitewash, which encased it, was removed, it was found to be in too shattered and crushed condition to be repaired.

The first extension of this small early church was the

building in 1250 of a new chancel at least twice the size of that which it replaced. Its north window survived until the 1873 repairs when it was destroyed to make room for the organ chamber.

At the south end of the south transept licensed to be built in 1316 is the site of the tomb of rector John de Apulby / Appleby d1328 , the founder of the chantry chapel of St John the Baptist here His effigy has now gone, and underneath is a gravestone www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/RKueY1 of 1300 - 10 brought out of the graveyard, carved with a cross inscribed HIC JACET ROBERT FRATER ECT' . . . IOHAN . RC . . c. which could perhaps be his brothers. John did not live to see the transept completed, but work continued according to his wishes and the chantry was founded on "Wednysday afore Seynt George is day (22nd April), 1332". .

At the top of the original east & west transept windows here survive fragments of medieval glass. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/5Jmn0P www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/WMu40B

It was later taken over by the Norton & Graham lords of the manor of Norton Conyers Hall, as their mortuary chapel and there are brass figures of Judge Richard Norton 1420 & wife Catherine Manningham www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/34R695 and their grandson John Norton 1489 flic.kr/p/5sQvES

Sir Richard Graham 1653 & wife Catherine Musgrove are with their children www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/74RqQX & a cherub weeps for Lady Elizabeth Graham of 1767 who died aged 28 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/2rpqgx

Thomas Brand is mourned by his former pupil the Earl of Ailesbury, who he took on the Grand Tour www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/qnTSh0

 

c1480 the narrow lancet windows in the nave were replaced by larger ones to give more light. A vestry with a priest's chamber above was attached to the north wall of the chancel

with a slit opening to view the altar. This window was protected by doors on the inside, the crooks of which remain in the jambs, whilst on the mullion are two large iron eyes for holding bars, which would effectually prevent any person from entering the room from the outside. Access was by a 'winding stone stair of 10 steps, in the north-west angle,

and the upper room was lit on the east by a single square- headed window.

 

The original roofs of the nave and chancel were demolished

in 1629, They were of a lower pitch which necessitated the removal of the chancel and chapel arches. The tie beams of the roof consisted of huge oak baulks, imperfectly squared, and exhibiting the mis-shapen growth of the timber.

 

The tower is modern, having been built in 1812, on the

foundations of a former which had gone to decay. It

contains 6 bells which are inscribed:

1. IN MEMORY OF QUEEN VICTORIA, I9OI by Shaw & Co. Bradford;

2. HONOUR LAUD AND PRAISE TO GOD 1873 by Warners

3. HENRY HARRISON FOUNDER recast 1873 by Warners

4. PETER PRESTON AND JOHN WOOD CHURCHWARDENS 1776

5. CUTHBERT ALLANSON RECTOR 1776

6. WATCH AND PRAY W. C. LUKIS RECTOR ROBERT PEARSON AND THOMAS HIGHMOOR CHURCHWARDENS 1873 -

 

Of the rectors: Alex de Brompton / Brynston was instituted 29th Dec., 1371, on the presentation of the same Avice, Lady Grey de Marmion. flic.kr/p/5r3bvM Resigned 1380

William de Galmeton presented by John Marmion === of West Tanfield , flic.kr/p/5r7UXA and instituted 30 December 1380 , having exchanged benefices with Thomas Raynard, formerly vicar of Burneston,

Richard Barret de Quynton, previously for 3 years rector of West Tanfield, presented by Elizabeth wife of John Marmion === , and instituted 6 September 1395 .

 

In 1507 Joan widow of Sir William Stapleton of Wighill, bequeathed her best beast as a mortuary gift " to the parson of the Churche of Wath, near Ripon." Her daughter, Margaret, was then the wife of Sir John Norton, of Norton Conyers. flic.kr/p/5sQpmQ

  

archive.org/stream/richmondshirechu00mccaiala/richmondshi...

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 46.030+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Sunday 23rd July 2023

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1562394502 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 5,975th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Eighty four metres at 11.48am on Wednesday 7th June 2023 off the Capilano Pacific Trail, beneath the Capilano Suspension bridge in West Vancouver, British Columbia.

  

Kia’palano (Beautiful river) was named by the Squamish first nations people, and gives Capilano park it's name. The suspension bridge was originally a cedar wood and rope bridge designed by George Grant Mackay, a Scottish civil engineer and park commissioner for Vancouver, in 1889. The park was sold and purchased and the bridge completely rebuilt in 1956 and later sold again in 1983 to the present owner, Nancy Stibbard.

  

A treetops adventure was built in 2004 and a cliffwalk added in 2011. The bridge is 140 metres in length and seventy metres from the river bed and receives more than 1.2 million visitors annually.

  

In June 2023 an adult day ticket was not cheap at $67.00 dollars Canadian, but the park makes for a great days enjoyment with food and drinks available.

  

Nikon D850 Single-lens reflex digital camera F Mount with FX CMOS 35.9mm x 23.9mm Image sensor 46.89 Million total pixels Focal length: 24mm Shutter speed: 1/60s (Mechanical shutter) Aperture f/9.0 iso400 Hand held with Nikkor VR Vibration Reduction enabled Image area Full Frame FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L 45.4Million pixels (8256 x 5504) 14 Bit uncompressed AF-C Priority Selection: Release Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Natural light Auto, 0, 0 Colour space: Adobe RGB Picture control: (SD) Standard (Sharpening +3.00/Clarity +1.00)

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup. Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon EN-EL15a battery.

   

LATITUDE: N 49d 20m 34.80s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 6m 56.10s

ALTITUDE: 84.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 94.1MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 51.20MB

     

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.21 (8/12/2022) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (16/01/20) LF 1.00 Nikon Codec Full version 1.31.2 (09/11/2021)

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with Windows 10 Home edition AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. My Passport USB 3.0 2TB portable desktop hard drive. Nikon NX STUDIO 64bit Version 1.2.2 (08/12/2022). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.16.0 (08/12/2022). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

title.

A moment when I stopped in the middle of the crowd.

  

( Nikon coolpix 8700 shot )

  

Manhattan. New York state. united states of america. 2008 … 　 4 / 6

(Today's photo. It's unpublished.)

  

Images

Joe Singo and Harry Quinn … Oh No

youtu.be/KEwqTQjkyJQ?si=ri17R2D0ZiczP4y9

  

Important Notices.

 

I have relaxed the following conditions.

I will distribute my T-shirt to the world for free.

m.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/50656401427/in/dateposted-p...

m.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/50613367691/in/dateposted-p...

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

Exhibition in 2023

  

theme

Camera kisses time.

  

Mitsushiro-Nakagawa

  

organizer

Design festa

designfesta.com

  

place

Tokyo Big Site

www.bigsight.jp/english/

  

schedule

Nov. 11th. Sat. 12th. Sun. 2023.

  

exhibition.mitsushiro.nakagawa@gmail.com

  

images.

SEVENTEEN(세븐틴)-All My Love

youtu.be/RQ4yMA5PWnw

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

   

Latest news.

The following my T-shirt. Free distribution.

Due to the influence of corona # the method of transportation varies from country to country.

 

1/25

The first one has been decided.

It's a German.

m.flickr.com/photos/ute_kluge/favorites/

I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

:)

December 3 # 2020. shipped.

It is a sea mail. It takes 2 to 3 months.

 

2/25

The second is a Thai woman.

youpic.com/photographer/Abbozzo/

I asked her to pick it up.

:)

December 10 # 2020. shipped.

It is a sea mail. It takes 2 to 3 months.

 

3/25

The third is a Mexican woman.

www.facebook.com/OvejaDeSion

She has supported me since the days of fotolog.

She gave me directions.

Thank you.

:)

Shipped on December 10 # 2020.

It is EMS. Maybe it will arrive within 1 to 2 months.

 

4/25

The fourth is a woman from the Republic of Serbia.

youpic.com/photographer/IvanaPopov/

Shipped on December 14 # 2020.

It is a sea mail. Maybe it will arrive within 2 to 3 months.

:)

 

5/25

The fifth is an Indonesian man.

www.flickr.com/photos/33836533@N04/

December 24 # 2020. shipped.

It is EMS. Maybe it will arrive within 1 to 2 months.

 

6/25

The sixth is from France.

youpic.com/image/18158054/ombre-chinoise-by-ce-pe

www.flickr.com/photos/191604817@N04/

January 7 # 2021.

I shipped it.

:)

 

7/25

The seventh person is also from France.

www.flickr.com/photos/151630891@N07/

www.flickr.com/people/liveworkcreate/

January 7 # 2021.

I shipped it.

:)

 

8/25

The eighth person is from Romania.

www.flickr.com/photos/63mr/

It will be shipped in January 2021.

:)

 

9/25

The ninth person is from Japan. He is 16 years old

www.instagram.com/kai.kawazu/

Award history

2017 Oguni Town Photo Contest 2 Division

2018 EPSON meet up selection Data Category Excellence Award

2020 Kumamoto Takafumiren First Half Photo Contest Excellence Award

Web Photo Contest Sponsoring Maker Award

 

10/25

The tenth person is from Brazil.

www.flickr.com/photos/mangelo/

It will be shipped in February 2021.

:)

  

11/25

11th person is from USA.

youpic.com/photographer/HeathBrunner/

www.flickr.com/photos/181948650@N04/

 

vmaxrecords.bandcamp.com

soundcloud.com/vmaxrecords

 

It will be shipped in February 2021.

:)

 

12/25

The 13th person is from Italy.

www.flickr.com/photos/122700703@N05/

youpic.com/photographer/raffadepa2019/

cacciatoredisogniblog.wordpress.com

It will be shipped in February 2021.

 

13/25

The 14th person is from Russia.

www.flickr.com/photos/183731920@N08/

youpic.com/photographer/Andjey/

It will be shipped in March 2021.

 

14/25

The 14th person is from the Philippines.

www.flickr.com/photos/44681455@N00/

youpic.com/photographer/Stitch/

Shipped on November 11, 2021.

  

Mitsu.

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Notice regarding "Lot No.402_”.

  

From now on # I will host "Lot No.402_".

 

The work of Leonardo da Vinci who was sleeping.

That is the number when it was put up for auction.

No sign was written on the work.

So this work couldn't conclude that it was his work.

However # as a result of various appraisals # it was exposed to the sun.

A work that no one notices. A work that speaks quietly without a title.

I will continue to strive to provide it to many people in various ways.

 

October 24 # 2020 by Mitsu - Nakagawa.

  

Mitsushiro Nakagawa belong to Lot No. 402 _.Copyright©︎2023 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Profile.

In November 2014 # we caught the attention of the party selected to undertake the publicity for a mobile phone that changed the face of the world with just a single model # and will conclude a confidentiality agreement with them.

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Interviews and novels.

About my book.

 

I published a book a long time ago.

At that time # I uploaded my interview as a PDF on the internet.

Its Japanese and English.

 

I will publish it for free.

For details # I explained to the Amazon site.

 

How to write a novel.

How to take a picture.

A sense of distance to the work.

 

All of these have something in common.

I wrote down what I felt and left it.

 

I hope my text will be read by many people.

Thank you.

 

Mitsushiro.

 

1 Interview in English

 

2 novels. unforgettable 'English version.(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

 

3 Interview Japanese version

 

4 novels. unforgettable ' JPN version.

 

5 A streamlined trajectory. only Japanese.

 

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

iBooks. Electronic Publishing. It is free now.

 

0.about the iBooks.

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

1.unforgettable '(ENG.ver.)(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216576828?ls=1&...

 

2.unforgettable '(JNP.ver.)(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216584262?ls=1&...

 

3. Streamlined trajectory.(For Japanese only.)

itunes.apple.com/us/book/%E6%B5%81%E7%B7%9A%E5%BD%A2%E3%8... =11

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

My Novel : Unforgettable'

 

(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

  

Synopsis

Kei Kitami # who is aiming for a university # meets Kaori Uemura # an event companion who is 6 years older than her on SNS.

Kaori's dream of coming to Tokyo is to become friends with famous artists.

For that purpose # the presence of radio station producer Ryo Osawa was necessary.

Osawa talks to Kaori during the live radio broadcast.

"I have a wife and a child # but I want to see you."

Kay's classmate # Rika Sanjo # who thinks of him # was exploring Kaori's trends. .. .. .. ..

Synopsis.

 

Kei Kitami who aims at university.

A 6 year old older event companion woman. Meet Kaori Uemura on SNS.

 

The dream of Kaori who has moved to Tokyo.

It is to be a friend of the artist.

 

The producer of the radio station for that. The existence of Ryo Osawa was necessary.

Live on the radio.Osawa talks to Kaori.

 

"I have a wife and a child # but I want to see you."

Kei’s classmate Rika Sanzyou who is thinking of him.

She was searching for Kaori.

   

Mitsushiro Nakagawa

All Translated by Yumi Ikeda .

www.fotolog.net/yuming/

  

images.

U2 - No Line On The Horizon Live in Dublin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related

  

Main story

 

There are two reasons why a person faces the sea.

One # to enjoy a slice of shine in the sea like children bubbling over in the beach.

The other # to brush the dust of memory like an old man who misses old days # staring at the shine

quietly.

Those lead to only one meaning though they do not seem to overlap. It’s a rebirth.

I face myself to change tomorrow # a vague day into something certain.

That is the meaning of a rebirth.

I had a very sweet girlfriend when I was 18.

After she left # I knew the meaning of gentleness for the first time and also a true pain of loss. After

she left # how many times did I depend too much on her # doubt her # envy her and keep on telling lies

until I realized it is love?

I wonder whether a nobody like me could have given something to her who was struggling in the

daily life in those days. Giving something is arrogant conceit. It is nothing but self-satisfaction.

I had been thinking about such a thing.

However # I guess what she saw in me was because I had nothing. That‘s why she tried to see

something in me. Perhaps she found a slight possibility in me # a guy filled with ambiguous # unstable

tomorrow. But I wasted days depending too much on her gentleness.

Now I finally can convey how I felt in those days when we met.

  

1/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24577016535/in/dateposted...

2/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24209330259/in/dateposted...

3/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/23975215274/in/dateposted...

4/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24515964952/in/dateposted...

5/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24276473749/in/dateposted...

6/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24548895082/in/dateposted...

7/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24594603711/in/dateposted...

8/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24588215562/in/dateposted...

9/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24100804163/in/dateposted...

  

Fin.

  

images.

U2 - No Line On The Horizon

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Title of my book : unforgettable'

Author : Mitsushiro Nakagawa

Out Now.

ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

in Amazon.

www.amazon.co.jp/Unforgettable’-Mitsushiro-Nakagawa/dp/...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

The schedule of the next novel.

Still would stand all time. (Unforgettable '2)

(It will not go away forever)

Please give me some more time. That is Japanese.

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

Exhibition in 2023

  

theme

The camera kisses time.

  

Mitsushiro --Nakagawa

  

The schedule for 2023 is unstable.

I plan to do one of the following two.

Both are scheduled around November.

  

I give priority to museums.

  

1 This will be done when the 1st attached gallery is released in 2023.

place

DIC Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art 1st attached gallery

kawamura-museum.dic.co.jp/

  

2 This is planned as a spare.

place

Design Festa

designfesta.com

  

images.

BTS… Film out Lyrics (방탄 소년단 / BTS Film out Japanese subtitles 가사) [Color Coded Lyrics / Kan / Rom / Eng]

youtu.be/az_6PrN-biI

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

My Works.

 

1 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48072442376/in/dateposted...

2 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48078949821/in/dateposted...

3 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48085863356/in/dateposted...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Do you want to hear my voice?

:)

 

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

1

About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. First type.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

2

About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. Second type.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=443

 

3

About when I started Fotolog. Architect 's point of view.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=649

 

4

Why did not you have a camera so far?

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=708

 

5

What is the coolest thing? The photo is as it is.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=776

 

6

About the current YouTube bar. I also want to tell # I want to leave.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=964

 

7

About Japanese photographers. Japanese YouTube bar is Pistols.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1059

 

8

The composition of the photograph is sensibility. Meet the designers in Milan. Two questions.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1242

 

9

What is a good composition? What is a bad composition?

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1482

 

10

What is the time to point the camera? It is slow if you are looking into the viewfinder or display.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1662

 

11

Family photos. I can not take pictures with others. The inside of the subject.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1745

 

12

About YouTube 's photographer. Camera technology etc. Sensibility is polished by reading books.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2144

 

13

About the Japanese newspaper. A picture of a good newspaper is Reuters. If you continue to look at useless photographs # it will be useless.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2305

 

14

About Japanese photographers. About the exhibition.

Summary. I wrote a novel etc. What I want to tell the most.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2579

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

I talked about how to make a work.

 

About work production 1/2

youtu.be/ZFjqUJn74kM

  

About work production 2/2

youtu.be/pZIbXmnXuCw

 

1 Photo exhibition up to that point. Did you want to go?

 

2 Well # what is an exhibition that you want to visit even if you go there?

 

3 Challenge to exhibit one work every month before opening a solo exhibition at the Harajuku Design Festa.

 

4 works are materials and silhouettes. Similar to fashion.

 

5 Who is your favorite artist? What is it? Make it clear.

 

6 Creating a collage is exactly the same as taking photos. As I wrote in the interview # it is the same as writing a novel.

 

7 I want to show it to someone # but I do not make a piece to show it. Aim for the work you want to decorate your own room as in the photo.

 

8 What is copycat? Nowadays # it is suspected to be beaten. There is something called Mimesis?

 

ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimesis

kotobank.jp/word/Mimesis-139464

 

9 What is Individuality? What is originality?

 

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

Explanation of composition. 2

 

1.Composition explanation 2 ... 1/4

youtu.be/yVbvneBIMs8

 

2.Composition explanation 2 ... 2/4

youtu.be/LToFez9vOAw

 

3.Composition Explanation 2 ... 3/4

youtu.be/uTR0wVi9Z7M

 

4.Composition Explanation 2 ... 4/4

youtu.be/h2LjfU6Vvno

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

My shutter feeling.

 

youtu.be/3JkbGiFLjAM

 

Today's photo.

It is a photo taken from Eurostar.

 

This video is an explanation.

 

I went to Milan in 2005.

At that time # I went from Milan to Venice.

We took Eurostar into the transportation.

 

This photo was not taken from a very fast Eurostar.

When I changed the track # I took a picture at the moment I slowed down.

  

Is there a Japanese beside you?

Please have my video translated.

:)

 

In the Eurostar to Venice . 2005. shot ... 1 / 2

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/49127115021/in/dateposted...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

flickr.

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

instagram.

www.instagram.com/mitsushiro_nakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Pinterest.

www.pinterest.jp/MitsushiroNakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

YouPic

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

twitter.

twitter.com/mitsushiro

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

facebook.

www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

threads.

www.threads.net/@mitsushiro_nakagawa

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Amazon.

www.amazon.co.jp/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHSKI3YMYPYE5UE...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

My statistics. (As of May 11 # 2021)

youtu.be/UpezrGm4HYA

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Japanese is the following.

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

 

Mitsu Nakagawa belong to Lot No. 204 _ . Copyright©︎2020 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.

_________________________________

_________________________________

   

title.

雑踏の中で立ち止まった一瞬。

  

( Nikon coolpix 8700 shot )

  

マンハッタン。ニューヨーク州。アメリカ合衆国。２００８年 … 4 / 6

(今日の写真。それは未発表です。）

  

Images

Joe Singo and Harry Quinn … Oh No

youtu.be/KEwqTQjkyJQ?si=ri17R2D0ZiczP4y9

  

次の小説のイメージ。

Still would stand all time.(unforgettable'2)

（いつまでもなくならないだろう）

    

重要なお知らせ。

 

僕は以下の条件を緩和します。

僕はTシャツを無料で世界中へ配布します。

m.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/50656401427/in/dateposted-p...

m.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/50613367691/in/dateposted-p...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

２０２３年の展示

  

テーマ

カメラは時間にキスをする。

  

Mitsushiro - Nakagawa

  

主催

デザインフェスタ

designfesta.com

 

場所

東京ビッグサイト

www.bigsight.jp

  

日程

１１月１１日。土曜日。12日。日曜日。2023年。

  

exhibition.mitsushiro.nakagawa@gmail.com

 

images.

SEVENTEEN(세븐틴)-All My Love

youtu.be/RQ4yMA5PWnw

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

   

最新のお知らせ。

以下の僕のTシャツ。無料配布。

コロナの影響で、運送方法は国によって変わります。

 

1/25

一人目が決まりました。

それはドイツの人です。

m.flickr.com/photos/ute_kluge/favorites/

僕は心から感謝します。ありがとう。

:)

２０２０年１２月３日。発送しました。

船便です。２ヶ月から３ヶ月を要します。

 

2/25

二人目はタイの女性です。

youpic.com/photographer/Abbozzo/

僕は彼女へ受け取って欲しいとお願いしました。

:)

２０２０年１２月１０日。発送しました。

船便です。２ヶ月から３ヶ月を要します。

 

3/25

3人目はメキシコの女性です。

www.facebook.com/OvejaDeSion

彼女はfotologの頃からずっと僕を支えてくれました。

彼女は僕の道案内をしてくれました。

ありがとう。

:)

２０２０年１２月１０日発送しました。

EMSです。たぶん１ヶ月から２ヶ月以内で到着します。

 

4/25

4人目は、セルビア共和国の女性です。

youpic.com/photographer/IvanaPopov/

２０２０年１２月１４日発送しました。

船便です。たぶん２ヶ月から３ヶ月以内で到着します。

:)

 

5/25

５人目は、インドネシアの男性です。

www.flickr.com/photos/33836533@N04/

２０２０年１２月２４日。発送しました。

EMSです。たぶん１ヶ月から２ヶ月以内で到着します。

１月８日。到着しました。

 

6/25

6人目は、フランスの方です。

youpic.com/image/18158054/ombre-chinoise-by-ce-pe

www.flickr.com/photos/191604817@N04/

２０２１年１月７日。

僕は発送しました。

:)

 

7/25

7人目も、フランスの方です。

www.flickr.com/photos/151630891@N07/

www.flickr.com/people/liveworkcreate/

２０２１年１月７日。

僕は発送しました。

:)

 

8/25

８人目の 方はルーマニアの方です。

www.flickr.com/photos/63mr/

2021年１月中に発送します。

:)

 

9/25

9人目は日本の方です。16歳です。

www.instagram.com/kai.kawazu/

受賞歴

2017 小国町フォトコンテスト2部門

2018 EPSONmeet up selectionデータ部門優秀賞

2020 熊本高文連前期写真コンテスト優秀賞

Webフォトコンテスト協賛メーカー賞

  

10/25

10人目は、ブラジルの方です。

www.flickr.com/photos/mangelo/

２０２１年２月中に発送します。

:)

 

11/25

11人目は、アメリカの方です。

youpic.com/photographer/HeathBrunner/

www.flickr.com/photos/181948650@N04/

 

vmaxrecords.bandcamp.com

soundcloud.com/vmaxrecords

 

２０２１年２月中に発送します。

:)

  

12/25

12人目は、イタリアの方です。

www.flickr.com/photos/122700703@N05/

youpic.com/photographer/raffadepa2019/

cacciatoredisogniblog.wordpress.com

２０２１年２月中に発送します。

 

13/25

13人目は、 ロシアの方です。

www.flickr.com/photos/183731920@N08/

youpic.com/photographer/Andjey/

２０２１年３月中に発送します。

 

14/25

14人目は、フィリピンの方です。

www.flickr.com/photos/44681455@N00/

youpic.com/photographer/Stitch/

２０２１年１１月１１日に発送しました。

  

Mitsu.

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

” Lot No.402_ ” に関するお知らせ。

  

今後、僕は、” Lot No.402_ ”を主催します。

 

このロットナンバーは、眠っていたレオナルドダヴィンチの作品がオークションにかけらた際に付されたものです。

作品にはサインなどがいっさい記されていなかったため、彼の作品だと断定できませんでした。

しかし、様々な鑑定の結果、陽の光を浴びました。

誰にも気づかれない作品。肩書がなくとも静かに語りかける作品。

僕はこれから様々な形で、多くの皆様に提供できるよう努めてゆきます。

 

2020年10月24日 by Mitsu - Nakagawa.

 

Copyright©︎2021 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.

_________________________________

_________________________________

プロフィール

2014年11月、たった1機種で世界を塗り替えた携帯電話の広告を請け負った選考者の目に留まり、秘密保持同意書を結ぶ。

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

インタビューと小説。

僕の本について。

 

僕は、昔に本を出版しました。

その際に、僕のインタビューをPDFでネット上へアップロードしていました。

その日本語と英語。

 

僕は、無料でを公開します。

詳細は、アマゾンのサイトへ解説しました。

 

小説の書き方。

写真の撮影方法。

作品への距離感。

 

これらはすべて共通項があります。

僕は、僕が感じたことを文章にして、残しました。

 

僕のテキストが多くの人に読んでもらえることを望みます。

ありがとう。

 

Mitsushiro.

 

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

  

１　インタビュー　英語版

 

２　小説。unforgettable’ 英語版。

 

３　インタビュー　日本語版

 

４　小説。unforgettable’ 日本語版。(この小説は未来のアーティストへ捧げます)

(四百字詰め原稿用紙４５６枚)

 

　あらすじ

　大学を目指している北見ケイは、SNS上で、6歳年上のイベントコンパニオン、上村香織に出会う。

　上京してきた香織の夢は、有名なアーティストの友達になるためだ。

　そのためにはラジオ局のプロデューサー、大沢亮の存在が必要だった。

　大沢は、ラジオの生放送中、香織へ語りかける。

　「僕には妻子がある。しかし、僕は君に会いたいと思っている」

　ケイの同級生で、彼を想っている三條里香は、香織の動向を探っていた。。。。。

  

本編

 

人が海へ向かう理由には、二つある。

　ひとつは、波打ち際ではしゃぐ子供のように、今の瞬間の海の輝きを楽しむこと。

　もうひとつは、その輝きを静かに見据えて、過ぎ去った日々を懐かしむ老人のように記憶の埃を払うこと。

　二つは重なり合わないようではあるけれども、たったひとつの意味しか生まない。

　再生だ。

　明日っていう、曖昧な日を確実なものへと変えてゆくために、自分の存在に向き合う。

　それが再生の意味だ。

 

　十八歳だった僕には大切な人がいた。

 

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

  

５　流線形の軌跡。　日本語のみ。

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

iBooks.電子出版。（現在は無料）

 

0.about the iBooks.

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

1.unforgettable’ ( ENG.ver.)(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216576828?ls=1&...

For Japanese only.

 

2.unforgettable’ ( JNP.ver.)(この小説は未来のアーティストへ捧げます)

itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216584262?ls=1&...

 

3.流線形の軌跡。

itunes.apple.com/us/book/%E6%B5%81%E7%B7%9A%E5%BD%A2%E3%8...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

僕の小説。英語版　

My Novel Unforgettable' (This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

 

Mitsushiro Nakagawa

All Translated by Yumi Ikeda .

www.fotolog.net/yuming/

   

1/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24577016535/in/dateposted...

2/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24209330259/in/dateposted...

3/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/23975215274/in/dateposted...

4/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24515964952/in/dateposted...

5/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24276473749/in/dateposted...

6/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24548895082/in/dateposted...

7/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24594603711/in/dateposted...

8/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24588215562/in/dateposted...

9/9

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24100804163/in/dateposted...

Fin.

  

images.

U2 - No Line On The Horizon Live in Dublin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Title of my book : unforgettable'

Author : Mitsushiro Nakagawa

Out Now.

 

ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

in Amazon.

www.amazon.co.jp/Unforgettable’-Mitsushiro-Nakagawa/dp/...

_________________________________

_________________________________

次の小説の予定。

Still would stand all time.(unforgettable'2)

（いつまでもなくならないだろう）

もう少し時間をください。それは日本語です。

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

僕の作品。

 

1 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48072442376/in/dateposted...

2 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48078949821/in/dateposted...

3 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48085863356/in/dateposted...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

あなたは僕の声を聞きたいですか？

:)

 

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

  

1

フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。１種類目。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

2

フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。２種類目。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=443

 

3

Fotologを始めた時について。 建築家の視点。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=649

 

4

なぜ、今までカメラを手にしなかったのか？

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=708

 

5

何が一番かっこいいのか？　写真はありのままに。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=776

 

6

現在のユーチューバーについて。僕も伝え、残したい。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=964

 

7

日本人の写真家について。日本のユーチューバーはピストルズ。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1059

 

8

写真の構図は、感性。ミラノのデザイナーに会って。二つの質問。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1242

 

9

良い構図とは？　悪い構図とは？

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1482

 

10

カメラを向ける時とは？　ファインダーやディスプレイを覗いていては遅い。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1662

 

11

家族写真。他人では撮れない。被写体の内面。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1745

 

12

ユーチューブの写真家について。カメラの技術等。感性は、本を読むことで磨く。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2144

 

13

日本の新聞について。良い新聞の写真はロイター。ダメな写真を見続けるとダメになる。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2305

 

14

日本の写真家について。その展示について。

まとめ。僕が書いた小説など。僕が最も伝えたいこと。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2579

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作品制作について 1/2

youtu.be/ZFjqUJn74kM

 

作品制作について 2/2

youtu.be/pZIbXmnXuCw

  

１　それまでの写真展。自分は行きたいと思ったか？

 

２　じゃ、自分が足を運んででも行きたい展示とは何か？

 

３　原宿デザインフェスタで個展を開くまでに、毎月ひとつの作品を展示することにチャレンジ。

 

４　作品とは、素材とシルエット。ファッションと似ている。

 

５　自分が好きなアーティストは誰か？　どんなものなのか？　そこをはっきりさせる。

 

６　コラージュの作成も写真の撮り方と全く同じ。インタビューに書いたように小説の書き方とも同じ。

 

７　誰かに見せたい、見せるがために作品は作らない。写真と同じように自分の部屋に飾りたい作品を目指す。

 

８　パクリとは何か？　昨今、叩かれるパクリ疑惑。ミメーシスとは？

 

　　https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ミメーシス

　　https://kotobank.jp/word/ミメーシス-139464

  

９　個性とはなにか？　オリジナリティってなに？

 

おまけ　眞子さまについて

 

という流れです。

お時間がある方は是非聴いてください。

:)

 

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

 

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構図の解説２

 

1.構図の解説２ ... 1/4

youtu.be/yVbvneBIMs8

 

2.構図の解説２ ... 2/4

youtu.be/LToFez9vOAw

 

3.構図の解説２ ... 3/4

youtu.be/uTR0wVi9Z7M

 

4.構図の解説２ ... 4/4

youtu.be/h2LjfU6Vvno

 

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僕のシャッター感覚

 

youtu.be/3JkbGiFLjAM

 

In the Eurostar to Venice . 2005. shot ... 1 / 2

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/49127115021/in/dateposted...

 

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Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

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flickr.

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/

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YouTube.

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

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instagram.

www.instagram.com/mitsushiro_nakagawa/

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Pinterest.

www.pinterest.jp/MitsushiroNakagawa/

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YouPic

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

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fotolog

www.fotolog.com/stealaway/

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twitter.

twitter.com/mitsushiro

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facebook.

www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa

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threads.

www.threads.net/@mitsushiro_nakagawa

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Amazon.

www.amazon.co.jp/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHSKI3YMYPYE5UE...

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僕の統計。（2021年5月11日現在）

youtu.be/UpezrGm4HYA

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Japanese is the following.

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...

 

Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

 

Mitsushiro Nakagawa belong to Lot no.204_ . Copyright©︎2020 Lot no.204_ All rights reserved.

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” Lot No.402_ ” に関するお知らせ。

  

今後、僕は、” Lot No.402_ ”を主催します。

 

このロットナンバーは、眠っていたレオナルドダヴィンチの作品がオークションにかけらた際に付されたものです。

作品にはサインなどがいっさい記されていなかったため、彼の作品だと断定できませんでした。

しかし、様々な鑑定の結果、陽の光を浴びました。

誰にも気づかれない作品。肩書がなくとも静かに語りかける作品。

僕はこれから様々な形で、多くの皆様に提供できるよう努めてゆきます。

 

2020年10月24日 by Mitsu - Nakagawa.

 

Copyright©︎2020 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.

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Model: Given

@ the background Michelle Romero

 

Hair and Make-up: Egay Dacanay

Location: Intramuros Golf Course Club House, Manila

Still just perusing my archives for something to post.

18. Friendship.

This is my 100 Pictures project. The idea is to photograph 100 photos for given tittles.

given the speed at which i took this shot, I am quite pleased with it.

I walked around the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge today. I ran into a guy using a Nikon D4 and a Nikon 600mm f/4. Combined total (before tax); $15495.95. That's not counting the monster tripod he was using. He also had one of those camouflage lens skin on the 600mm. I can only assume that's custom too. I tried striking up a conversation with him, but after he looked at my Canon 5dmk3 and Canon 100-400 he wanted nothing to do with me.

 

Image title comes from a Pearl Jam song.

 

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, WA

 

View it on Tumblr.

Given it was cold enough to wear a jacket on my walk, I was surprised to see all these milkweed beetles.

Class 33 (D6513) 33102 “Sophie”

 

A day out today, whilst staying local-ish! say us dropping past the Churnet Valley Railway at Cheddleton Station, along with a sneaky half at The Boat

 

Upon chatting to one of the volunteers we were kindly shown around the engine shed and also given a tour around the locos they operate - many thanks!!!

 

Class 33 102 "Sophie" was one such loco.

 

D6513 (33102) was built at the Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company works in Smethwick. One of 98 that were built between 1960 and 1962. Initially Class 33’s were known as BRCW Type 3 Locomotives under the British Railways modernisation plan. This class of Locomotives were built for the Southern Region.

 

As with many railway locomotives and rolling stock nicknames were common these locomotives became known as ‘cromptons’, this was after the Crompton Parkinson Electrical equipment.

 

They were more powerful than other BRCW Locomotives, the Class 26 and Class 27’s. This in part was because a steam heating boiler was not required by the Southern region as they were to be used to haul passenger traffic in the summer negated the need for carriage heating. In the winter their expected work was to be mostly freight so heating was not an issue.

 

Fitted with a Sulzer 8-cylinder engine developing 1,550hp they were the first class of locomotive to be equipped with electric train heat from new and were also equipped with dual braking systems - vacuum and air. They were also the most powerful BR Bo-Bo diesel locomotive.

 

In common with the Class 26 and Class 27 the Class 33 bodywork and cab ends were Steel. They were remarkably similar in appearance to class 26 locos but carried Southern Region two-digit headcode blinds between the cab windows. Unlike The class 26 and Class 27, Class 33’s never received cab front end gangway doors.

 

The North Staffordshire Railway Company's class 33 33102, works number was DEL015, and entered traffic back in June 1960, and originally numbered D6513 and painted in two tone green livery. It was allocated to Hither Green Depot.

 

In May 1967 it was reallocated to Eastleigh depot and entered the works in October of that year for the fitment of Push Pull mode technology as part of a batch of 19 locomotives.

 

Push Pull mode was to enable them to handle services over the non-electrified section of line between Bournemouth and Weymouth. 33102 was often seen displaying yellow box with a bell and orange beacon on the front when running along Weymouth Quay. By this time she was carrying BR blue livery.

 

December 1973 saw her renumbered to 33102 under the British Rail TOPS scheme and became part of Class 33/1 - indicating a push-pull fitted loco.

 

33102 received its last overhaul at Eastleigh works in July 1987. In the early 90’s 33102 had a cab front pipe fitted below its central headlight for trails with rail head cleaning equipment. 33102 was the only class 33 so fitted.

 

She was withdrawn from mainline service in 1992, still carrying BR Blue livery, and by then had been unofficially named 'Sophie' by one of the depot staff at Eastleigh. Initial rumours were that 102 was named after the depot cat however its believed that the name was actually from a well-liked TV soap character from Australian TV series Home and Away.

 

The North Staffs Railway Diesel Group based at the Churnet Valley Railway were successful in buying her through a tendering process in 1993 and she was moved to the railway in October of that year. Following considerable restoration work she entered service on the railway in 1997.

 

During 2000, 33102 received a bogie swap following a traction motor fire. The bogies came from 33056 Burma star which at the time was also preserved at the CVR.

 

By the end of 2009 'Sophie', now owned by the North Staffs Railway Co (1978) Ltd, was again in need of restoration and refurbishment. After a lengthy overhaul which included extensive body work, a rewire, new internal guttering and drains, replacement of cant rail grilles, complete strip down and overhaul of the compressor, new batteries and a complete repaint 33102 appeared in time for the CVR’s 2012 diesel weekend.

 

Since then, 33102 has proved a popular locomotive and regular performer on railway services, and during September 2018 saw a trip to Llangollen Railway, only the second time a 33 had been to the railway. It subsequently visited, CVR’s railway neighbour Foxfield Railway for their Diesel gala in April 2019 and was seen running demonstration coal trains. 33102’s last trip out was to the Ecclesborune Valley Railways diesel gala in August 2019, where 33102 was seen paired up with sister locomotive 33103, and also operated services with Class 31 31601 and other Southern region stalwart 73201.

 

33102 also made an appearance in UKTV’s Train Truckers as part of one of these trips.

 

33102 carries a Brass plaque in its number 1 end cab in memory of the Late Nick Corby, who died in December 2019, a former NSRC member and railway volunteer who played a significant part of the Locomotives more recent history.

 

As one of two operational mainline locomotives on the CVR, 33102 can often be seen hauling both passenger, goods and engineering trains anywhere along the line. When not in use 33102 is usually found within the confines of Cheddleton MPD yard.

 

Maintenance is kept under review to ensure that the locomotive is available for use as much as possible. During 2020, 33102 has benefited from a refurbished triple pump, heat exchanger and one exhauster.

Montezuma Castle National Monument protects a set of well-preserved dwellings located in Camp Verde, Arizona, which were built and used by the Sinagua people, a pre-Columbian culture closely related to the Hohokam and other indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States, between approximately AD 1100 and 1425. The main structure comprises five stories and about 20 rooms and was built over the course of three centuries.

 

Several Hopi clans and Yavapai communities trace their ancestries to early immigrants from the Montezuma Castle/Beaver Creek area. Archaeological evidence proves that the Hohokam and Hakataya settled around or in the Verde Valley. Clan members periodically return to these ancestral homes for religious ceremonies.

 

Neither part of the monument's name is correct. When European-Americans first observed the ruins in the 1860s, by then long-abandoned, they named them for the famous Aztec emperor Montezuma in the mistaken belief that he had been connected to their construction (see also Montezuma mythology). Having no connections to the Aztecs, the Montezuma Castle was given that name due to the fact that the public had this image of the Aztecs creating any archaeological site. In fact, the dwelling was abandoned more than 40 years before Montezuma was born, and was not a "castle" in the traditional sense, but instead functioned more like a "prehistoric high rise apartment complex".

 

Montezuma Castle is situated about 90 feet (27 m) up a sheer limestone cliff, facing the adjacent Beaver Creek, which drains into the perennial Verde River just north of Camp Verde. It is one of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in North America, in part because of its ideal placement in a natural alcove that protects it from exposure to the elements. The precariousness of the dwelling's location and its immense scale of floor space across five stories suggest that the Sinagua were daring builders and skilled engineers. Access into the structure was most likely permitted by a series of portable ladders, which made it difficult for enemy tribes to penetrate the natural defense of the vertical barrier.

 

Perhaps the main reason the Sinagua chose to build the Castle so far above the ground, however, was to escape the threat of natural disaster in the form of the annual flooding of Beaver Creek. During the summer monsoon season, the creek frequently breached its banks, inundating the floodplain with water. The Sinagua recognized the importance of these floods to their agriculture, but likely also the potential destruction they presented to any structures built in the floodplain. Their solution was to build a permanent structure in the high recess afforded by the limestone cliff.

 

The walls of Montezuma Castle are examples of early stone-and-mortar masonry, constructed almost entirely from chunks of limestone found at the base of the cliff, as well as mud and/or clay from the creek bottom. The ceilings of the rooms also incorporated sectioned timbers as a kind of roof thatching, obtained primarily from the Arizona sycamore, a large hardwood tree native to the Verde Valley.

 

Evidence of permanent dwellings like those at Montezuma Castle begins to appear in the archaeological record of Arizona's Verde Valley about 1050 AD. The first distinctly Sinagua culture may have occupied the region as early as 700 AD.

 

The area was briefly abandoned due to the eruption of Sunset Crater Volcano, about 60 miles (97 km) to the north, in the mid-11th century. Although the short-term impact may have been destructive, nutrient-rich sediment deposited by the volcano may have aided more expansive agriculture in later decades. During the interim, the Sinagua lived in the surrounding highlands and sustained themselves on small-scale agriculture dependent on rain. After 1125, the Sinagua resettled the Verde Valley, using the reliable watershed of the Verde River alongside irrigation systems left by previous inhabitants, perhaps including Hohokam peoples, to support more widespread farming.

 

The region's population likely peaked around 1300 AD, with the Castle housing between 30 and 50 people in at least 20 rooms. Radiocarbon dates from multiple construction beams show that the cliff dwelling was probably constructed in the middle 1100s AD with remodeling and additions in the last decades of the 1200s. A neighboring segment of the same cliff wall suggests there was an even larger dwelling ("Castle A") around the same time, of which only the stone foundations have survived. Its discovery in 1933 revealed many Sinagua artifacts and greatly increased understanding of their way of life.

 

The latest estimated date of occupation for any Sinagua site comes from Montezuma Castle, around 1425 AD. After this, the Sinagua people apparently abandoned their permanent settlements and migrated elsewhere, as did other cultural groups in the southwestern United States around that time. The reasons for abandonment are unclear, but possibilities include drought, resource depletion, and clashes with the newly arrived Yavapai people. Due to the very little human contact since abandonment, Montezuma Castle was well preserved. It was heavily looted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, though other Sinagua sites have remained more or less intact. Because of the rise in settlers, tourists and industries in or surrounding Montezuma Castle, the monument and even Verde Valley have been threats to the preservation of Montezuma Castle.

 

Due to the lack of basic knowledge on the natural resources of the national parks, the National Park Service created a program in order to record and identify any changes in the environment and its inhabitants. An inventory of plants and animals at Montezuma Castle was taken between 1991 and 1994 by researchers from Northern Arizona University and the United States Geological Survey. According to the United States Geological Survey, about 784 species were recorded at Montezuma Castle National Monument, including plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Only 11% of the species were non-native. Common species include bats, snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, foxes, owls and mice.

 

The monument itself encloses 860 acres near the geographic center of Arizona and the intersection of the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range physiographic provinces.

 

The dwellings and the surrounding area were declared a U.S. National Monument on December 8, 1906 as a result of the American Antiquities Act, signed earlier that year. It is one of the four original sites designated National Monuments by President Theodore Roosevelt. Montezuma Castle was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.

 

It is an easy monument to visit, just a short distance off Interstate 17, at exit 289. There is a 1⁄3 mile (0.54 km) paved trail starting at the visitor center that follows the base of the cliff containing the ruins. Access to the interior of the ruins has not been allowed since 1951 due to concerns about visitor safety and damage to the dwelling. About 400,000 tourists visit the site each year. The park is open from 8am to 5pm every day of the year, except for Christmas Day.

 

The visitor center includes a museum about the Sinagua culture and the tools they used to build the dwellings. The museum houses many artifacts, such as stone tools, metates used for grinding corn, bone needles, and ornaments of shell and gemstone, which prove that the Sinagua were fine artisans as well as prolific traders. There is also a Park Store operated by Western National Parks Association.

 

Montezuma Well, a natural limestone sinkhole, measuring approximately 100 by 120 yards, also containing Sinagua dwellings, was purchased by the federal government in 1947 and is considered a detached unit of Montezuma Castle National Monument. It is located about 5 miles north of the Castle near the town of Rimrock, Arizona, accessible from exits 293 and 298 off Interstate 17.

 

Montezuma Castle National Monument has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSk) with cool winters and very hot summers.

 

In popular culture

Montezuma Castle plays a key role in the climax of the Western Flaming Feather (1952), which was shot on location at the site.

 

The Rocky Slope Residence[15] was designed by well-known Phoenix Valley architect Eddie M. Jones and the residence had strong architectural similarities to the Montezuma Castle Monument. The design and the residence were featured by many magazines including the "Architect Magazine" in 2013. The design was completed and approved by the City of Phoenix in 2007 and construction was completed by 2009. As seen in the photos, the house design has a strong resemblance to the curved walls of Montezuma Castle as well as the layered structure.

 

Arizona is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States. Arizona is part of the Four Corners region with Utah to the north, Colorado to the northeast, and New Mexico to the east; its other neighboring states are Nevada to the northwest, California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. It is the 6th-largest and the 14th-most-populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix.

 

Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of Alta California and Nuevo México in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848, where the area became part of the territory of New Mexico. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase.

 

Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. Northern Arizona features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees; the Colorado Plateau; mountain ranges (such as the San Francisco Mountains); as well as large, deep canyons, with much more moderate summer temperatures and significant winter snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Sunrise, and Tucson. In addition to the internationally known Grand Canyon National Park, which is one of the world's seven natural wonders, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments.

 

Arizona's population and economy have grown dramatically since the 1950s because of inward migration, and the state is now a major hub of the Sun Belt. Cities such as Phoenix and Tucson have developed large, sprawling suburban areas. Many large companies, such as PetSmart and Circle K, have headquarters in the state, and Arizona is home to major universities, including the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. The state is known for a history of conservative politicians such as Barry Goldwater and John McCain, though it has become a swing state since the 1990s.

 

Arizona is home to a diverse population. About one-quarter of the state is made up of Indian reservations that serve as the home of 27 federally recognized Native American tribes, including the Navajo Nation, the largest in the state and the United States, with more than 300,000 citizens. Since the 1980s, the proportion of Hispanics in the state's population has grown significantly owing to migration from Mexico. A substantial portion of the population are followers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

The history of Arizona encompasses the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Post-Archaic, Spanish, Mexican, and American periods. About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians settled in what is now Arizona. A few thousand years ago, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and the Sinagua cultures inhabited the state. However, all of these civilizations mysteriously disappeared from the region in the 15th and 16th centuries. Today, countless ancient ruins can be found in Arizona. Arizona was part of the state of Sonora, Mexico from 1822, but the settled population was small. In 1848, under the terms of the Mexican Cession the United States took possession of Arizona above the Gila River after the Mexican War, and became part of the Territory of New Mexico. By means of the Gadsden Purchase, the United States secured the northern part of the state of Sonora, which is now Arizona south of the Gila River in 1854.

 

In 1863, Arizona was split off from the Territory of New Mexico to form the Arizona Territory. The remoteness of the region was eased by the arrival of railroads in 1880. Arizona became a state in 1912 but was primarily rural with an economy based on cattle, cotton, citrus, and copper. Dramatic growth came after 1945, as retirees and young families who appreciated the warm weather and low costs emigrated from the Northeast and Midwest.

 

In the Mexican–American War, the garrison commander avoided conflict with Lieutenant Colonel Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, withdrawing while the Americans marched through the town on their way to California. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded to the U.S. the northern 70% of modern-day Arizona above the Sonora border along the Gila River. During the California Gold Rush, an upwards of 50,000 people traveled through on the Southern Emigrant Trail pioneered by Cooke, to reach the gold fields in 1849. The Pima Villages often sold fresh food and provided relief to distressed travelers among this throng and to others in subsequent years.

 

Paleo-Indians settled what is now Arizona around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. According to most archaeologists, the Paleo-Indians initially followed herds of big game—megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, and bison—into North America. The traveling groups also collected and utilized a wide variety of smaller game animals, fish, and a wide variety of plants. These people were likely characterized by highly mobile bands of approximately 20 or 50 members of an extended family, moving from place to place as resources were depleted and additional supplies needed. Paleoindian groups were efficient hunters and created and carried a variety of tools, some highly specialized, for hunting, butchering and hide processing. These paleolithic people utilized the environment that they lived in near water sources, including rivers, swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, and drew birds and game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. At the latest by 9500 BCE, bands of hunters wandered as far south as Arizona, where they found a desert grassland and hunted mule deer, antelope and other small mammals.

 

As populations of larger game began to diminish, possibly as a result of intense hunting and rapid environmental changes, Late Paleoindian groups would come to rely more on other facets of their subsistence pattern, including increased hunting of bison, mule deer and antelope. Nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Hunting was especially important in winter and spring months when plant foods were scarce.

 

The Archaic time frame is defined culturally as a transition from a hunting/gathering lifestyle to one involving agriculture and permanent, if only seasonally occupied, settlements. In the Southwest, the Archaic is generally dated from 8000 years ago to approximately 1800 to 2000 years ago. During this time the people of the southwest developed a variety of subsistence strategies, all using their own specific techniques. The nutritive value of weed and grass seeds was discovered and flat rocks were used to grind flour to produce gruels and breads. This use of grinding slabs in about 7500 BCE marks the beginning of the Archaic tradition. Small bands of people traveled throughout the area, gathering plants such as cactus fruits, mesquite beans, acorns, and pine nuts and annually establishing camps at collection points.

 

Late in the Archaic Period, corn, probably introduced into the region from central Mexico, was planted near camps with permanent water access. Distinct types of corn have been identified in the more well-watered highlands and the desert areas, which may imply local mutation or successive introduction of differing species. Emerging domesticated crops also included beans and squash.

 

About 3,500 years ago, climate change led to changing patterns in water sources, leading to a dramatically decreased population. However, family-based groups took shelter in south facing caves and rock overhangs within canyon walls. Occasionally, these people lived in small semisedentary hamlets in open areas. Evidence of significant occupation has been found in the northern part of Arizona.

 

In the Post-Archaic period, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and Sinagua cultures inhabited what is now Arizona. These cultures built structures made out of stone. Some of the structures that these cultures built are called pueblos. Pueblos are monumental structures that housed dozens to thousands of people. In some Ancestral Puebloan towns and villages, Hohokam towns and villages, Mogollon towns and villages, and Sinagua towns and villages, the pueblo housed the entire town. Surrounding the pueblos were often farms where farmers would plant and harvest crops to feed the community. Sometimes, pueblos and other buildings were built in caves in cliffs.

 

The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Pre-Columbian Native American civilization that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture.

 

They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient people's community structure. Some of their most impressive structures were built in what is now Arizona.

 

Hohokam was a Pre-Columbian culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. Hohokam practiced a specific culture, sometimes referred to as Hohokam culture, which has been distinguished by archeologists. People who practiced the culture can be called Hohokam as well, but more often, they are distinguished as Hohokam people to avoid confusion.

 

Most archaeologists agree that the Hohokam culture existed between c. 300 and c. 1450 CE, but cultural precursors may have been in the area as early as 300 BC. Whether Hohokam culture was unified politically remains under controversy. Hohokam culture may have just given unrelated neighboring communities common ground to help them to work together to survive their harsh desert environment.

 

The Mogollon culture was an ancient Pre-Columbian culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.

 

The Mogollon culture was one of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The culture flourished from c. 200 CE, to c. 1450 CE or 1540 CE, when the Spanish arrived.

 

The Sinagua culture was a Pre-Columbian culture that occupied a large area in central Arizona from the Little Colorado River, near Flagstaff, to the Verde River, near Sedona, including the Verde Valley, area around San Francisco Mountain, and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country, between approximately 500 CE and 1425 CE. Besides ceremonial kivas, their pueblos had large "community rooms" and some featured ballcourts and walled courtyards, similar to those of the Hohokam culture. Since fully developed Sinagua sites emerged in central Arizona around 500 CE, it is believed they migrated from east-central Arizona, possibly emerging from the Mogollon culture.

 

The history of Arizona as recorded by Europeans began in 1539 with the first documented exploration of the area by Marcos de Niza, early work expanded the following year when Francisco Vásquez de Coronado entered the area as well.

 

The Spanish established a few missions in southern Arizona in the 1680s by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino along the Santa Cruz River, in what was then the Pimería Alta region of Sonora. The Spanish also established presidios in Tubac and Tucson in 1752 and 1775. The area north of the Gila River was governed by the Province of Las California under the Spanish until 1804, when the Californian portion of Arizona became part of Alta California under the Spanish and Mexican governments.

 

In 1849, the California Gold Rush led as many as 50,000 miners to travel across the region, leading to a boom in Arizona's population. In 1850, Arizona and New Mexico formed the New Mexico Territory.

 

In 1853, President Franklin Pierce sent James Gadsden to Mexico City to negotiate with Santa Anna, and the United States bought the remaining southern strip area of Arizona and New Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. A treaty was signed in Mexico in December 1853, and then, with modifications, approved by the US Senate in June 1854, setting the southern boundary of Arizona and of New Mexico.

 

Before 1846 the Apache raiders expelled most Mexican ranchers. One result was that large herds of wild cattle roamed southeastern Arizona. By 1850, the herds were gone, killed by Apaches, American sportsmen, contract hunting for the towns of Fronteras and Santa Cruz, and roundups to sell to hungry Mexican War soldiers, and forty-niners en route to California.

 

During the Civil War, on March 16, 1861, citizens in southern New Mexico Territory around Mesilla (now in New Mexico) and Tucson invited take-over by the Confederacy. They especially wanted restoration of mail service. These secessionists hoped that a Confederate Territory of Arizona (CSA) would take control, but in March 1862, Union troops from California captured the Confederate Territory of Arizona and returned it to the New Mexico Territory.

 

The Battle of Picacho Pass, April 15, 1862, was a battle of the Civil War fought in the CSA and one of many battles to occur in Arizona during the war among three sides—Apaches, Confederates and Union forces. In 1863, the U.S. split up New Mexico along a north–south line to create the Arizona Territory. The first government officials to arrive established the territory capital in Prescott in 1864. The capital was later moved to Tucson, back to Prescott, and then to its final location in Phoenix in a series of controversial moves as different regions of the territory gained and lost political influence with the growth and development of the territory.

 

In the late 19th century the Army built a series of forts to encourage the Natives to stay in their territory and to act as a buffer from the settlers. The first was Fort Defiance. It was established on September 18, 1851, by Col. Edwin V. Sumner to create a military presence in Diné bikéyah (Navajo territory). Sumner broke up the fort at Santa Fe for this purpose, creating the first military post in what is now Arizona. He left Major Electus Backus in charge. Small skirmishes were common between raiding Navajo and counter raiding citizens. In April 1860 one thousand Navajo warriors under Manuelito attacked the fort and were beaten off.

 

The fort was abandoned at the start of the Civil War but was reoccupied in 1863 by Colonel Kit Carson and the 1st New Mexico Infantry. Carson was tasked by Brigadier-General James H. Carleton, Commander of the Federal District of New Mexico, to kill Navajo men, destroy crops, wells, houses and livestock. These tactics forced 9000 Navajos to take the Long Walk to a reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. The Bosque was a complete failure. In 1868 the Navajo signed another treaty and were allowed to go back to part of their former territory. The returning Navajo were restocked with sheep and other livestock. Fort Defiance was the agency for the new Navajo reservation until 1936; today it provides medical services to the region.

 

Fort Apache was built on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation by soldiers from the 1st Cavalry and 21st Infantry in 1870. Only one small battle took place, in September 1881, with three soldiers wounded. When the reservation Indians were granted U.S. citizenship in 1924, the fort was permanently closed down. Fort Huachuca, east of Tucson, was founded in 1877 as the base for operations against Apaches and raiders from Mexico. From 1913 to 1933 the fort was the base for the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 10th Cavalry Regiment. During World War II, the fort expanded to 25,000 soldiers, mostly in segregated all-black units. Today the fort remains in operation and houses the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network.

 

The Pueblos in Arizona were relatively peaceful through the Navajo and Apache Wars. However, in June 1891, the army had to bring in troops to stop Oraibi from preventing a school from being built on their mesa.

 

After the Civil War, Texans brought large-scale ranching to southern Arizona. They introduced their proven range methods to the new grass country. Texas rustlers also came, and brought lawlessness. Inexperienced ranchers brought poor management, resulting in overstocking, and introduced destructive diseases. Local cattleman organizations were formed to handle these problems. The Territory experienced a cattle boom in 1873–91, as the herds were expanded from 40,000 to 1.5 million head. However, the drought of 1891–93 killed off over half the cattle and produced severe overgrazing. Efforts to restore the rangeland between 1905 and 1934 had limited success, but ranching continued on a smaller scale.

 

Arizona's last major drought occurred during Dust Bowl years of 1933–34. This time Washington stepped in as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration spent $100 million to buy up the starving cattle. The Taylor Grazing Act placed federal and state agencies in control of livestock numbers on public lands. Most of the land in Arizona is owned by the federal government which leased grazing land to ranchers at low cost. Ranchers invested heavily in blooded stock and equipment. James Wilson states that after 1950, higher fees and restrictions in the name of land conservation caused a sizable reduction in available grazing land. The ranchers had installed three-fifths of the fences, dikes, diversion dams, cattleguards, and other improvements, but the new rules reduced the value of that investment. In the end, Wilson believes, sportsmen and environmentalists maintained a political advantage by denouncing the ranchers as political corrupted land-grabbers who exploited the publicly owned natural resources.

 

On February 23, 1883, United Verde Copper Company was incorporated under New York law. The small mining camp next to the mine was given a proper name, 'Jerome.' The town was named after the family which had invested a large amount of capital. In 1885 Lewis Williams opened a copper smelter in Bisbee and the copper boom began, as the nation turned to copper wires for electricity. The arrival of railroads in the 1880s made mining even more profitable, and national corporations bought control of the mines and invested in new equipment. Mining operations flourished in numerous boom towns, such as Bisbee, Jerome, Douglas, Ajo and Miami.

 

Arizona's "wild west" reputation was well deserved. Tombstone was a notorious mining town that flourished longer than most, from 1877 to 1929. Silver was discovered in 1877, and by 1881 the town had a population of over 10,000. Western story tellers and Hollywood film makers made as much money in Tombstone as anyone, thanks to the arrival of Wyatt Earp and his brothers in 1879. They bought shares in the Vizina mine, water rights, and gambling concessions, but Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt were soon appointed as federal and local marshals. They killed three outlaws in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most famous gunfight of the Old West.

 

In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. Walter Noble Burns's novel Tombstone (1927) made Earp famous. Hollywood celebrated Earp's Tombstone days with John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and Hour of the Gun (1967), Frank Perry's Doc (1971), George Cosmatos's Tombstone (1993), and Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp (1994). They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman.

 

Jennie Bauters (1862–1905) operated brothels in the Territory from 1896 to 1905. She was an astute businesswoman with an eye for real estate appreciation, and a way with the town fathers of Jerome regarding taxes and restrictive ordinances. She was not always sitting pretty; her brothels were burned in a series of major fires that swept the business district; her girls were often drug addicts. As respectability closed in on her, in 1903 she relocated to the mining camp of Acme. In 1905, she was murdered by a man who had posed as her husband.

 

By 1869 Americans were reading John Wesley Powell's reports of his explorations of the Colorado River. In 1901, the Santa Fe Railroad reached Grand Canyon's South Rim. With railroad, restaurant and hotel entrepreneur Fred Harvey leading the way, large-scale tourism began that has never abated. The Grand Canyon has become an iconic symbol of the West and the nation as a whole.

 

The Chinese came to Arizona with the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880. Tucson was the main railroad center and soon had a Chinatown with laundries for the general population and a rich mix of restaurants, groceries, and services for the residents. Chinese and Mexican merchants and farmers transcended racial differences to form 'guanxi,' which were relations of friendship and trust. Chinese leased land from Mexicans, operated grocery stores, and aided compatriots attempting to enter the United States from Mexico after the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Chinese merchants helped supply General John Pershing's army in its expedition against Pancho Villa. Successful Chinese in Tucson led a viable community based on social integration, friendship, and kinship.

 

In February 1903, U.S. Senator Hamilton Kean spoke against Arizona's statehood. He said Mormons who fled from Idaho to Mexico would return to the U.S. and mix in the politics of Arizona.

 

In 1912, Arizona almost entered the Union as part of New Mexico in a Republican plan to keep control of the U.S. Senate. The plan, while accepted by most in New Mexico, was rejected by most Arizonans. Progressives in Arizona favored inclusion in the state constitution of the initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators, woman suffrage, and other reforms. Most of these proposals were included in the constitution that was rejected by Congress.

 

A new constitution was offered with the problematic provisions removed. Congress then voted to approve statehood, and President Taft signed the statehood bill on February 14, 1912. State residents promptly put the provisions back in. Hispanics had little voice or power. Only one of the 53 delegates at the constitutional convention was Hispanic, and he refused to sign. In 1912 women gained suffrage in the state, eight years before the country as a whole.

 

Arizona's first Congressman was Carl Hayden (1877–1972). He was the son of a Yankee merchant who had moved to Tempe because he needed dry heat for his bad lungs. Carl attended Stanford University and moved up the political ladder as town councilman, county treasurer, and Maricopa County sheriff, where he nabbed Arizona's last train robbers. He also started building a coalition to develop the state's water resources, a lifelong interest. A liberal Democrat his entire career, Hayden was elected to Congress in 1912 and moved to the Senate in 1926.

 

Reelection followed every six years as he advanced toward the chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which he reached in 1955. His only difficult campaign came in 1962, at age 85, when he defeated a young conservative. He retired in 1968 after a record 56 years in Congress. His great achievement was his 41-year battle to enact the Central Arizona Project that would provide water for future growth.

 

The Great Depression of 1929–39 hit Arizona hard. At first local, state and private relief efforts focused on charity, especially by the Community Chest and Organized Charities programs. Federal money started arriving with the Federal Emergency Relief Committee in 1930. Different agencies promoted aid to the unemployed, tuberculosis patients, transients, and illegal immigrants. The money ran out by 1931 or 1932, and conditions were bad until New Deal relief operations began on a large scale in 1933.

 

Construction programs were important, especially the Hoover Dam (originally called Boulder Dam), begun by President Herbert Hoover. It is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border with Nevada. It was constructed by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation between 1931 and 1936. It operationalized a schedule of water use set by the Colorado River Compact of 1922 that gave Arizona 19% of the river's water, with 25% to Nevada and the rest to California.

 

Construction of military bases in Arizona was a national priority because of the state's excellent flying weather and clear skies, large amounts of unoccupied land, good railroads, cheap labor, low taxes, and its proximity to California's aviation industry. Arizona was attractive to both the military and private firms and they stayed after the war.

 

Fort Huachuca became one of the largest nearly-all-black Army forts, with quarters for 1,300 officers and 24,000 enlisted soldiers. The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, composed of African-American troops, trained there.

 

During the war, Mexican-American community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the American servicemen fighting the war, especially the Mexican-American servicemen from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community.

 

Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.

 

Heavy government spending during World War II revitalized the Arizona economy, which was still based on copper mining, citrus and cotton crops and cattle ranching, with a growing tourist business.

 

Military installations peppered the state, such as Davis-Monthan Field in Tucson, the main training center for air force bomber pilots. Two relocation camps opened for Japanese and Japanese Americans brought in from the West Coast.

 

After World War II the population grew rapidly, increasing sevenfold between 1950 and 2000, from 700,000 to over 5 million. Most of the growth was in the Phoenix area, with Tucson a distant second. Urban growth doomed the state's citrus industry, as the groves were turned into housing developments.

 

The cost of water made growing cotton less profitable, and Arizona's production steadily declined. Manufacturing employment jumped from 49,000 in 1960 to 183,000 by 1985, with half the workers in well-paid positions. High-tech firms such as Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Goodyear Aircraft, Honeywell, and IBM had offices in the Phoenix area. By 1959, Hughes Aircraft had built advanced missiles with 5,000 workers in Tucson.

 

Despite being a small state, Arizona produced several national leaders for both the Republican and Democratic parties. Two Republican Senators were presidential nominees: Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008; both carried Arizona but lost the national election. Senator Ernest McFarland, a Democrat, was the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate from 1951 to 1952, and Congressman John Rhodes was the Republican Minority Leader in the House from 1973 to 1981. Democrats Bruce Babbitt (Governor 1978–87) and Morris Udall (Congressman 1961–90) were contenders for their party's presidential nominations. In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court; she served until 2006.

 

Retirement communities

Warm winters and low cost of living attracted retirees from the so-called snowbelt, who moved permanently to Arizona after 1945, bringing their pensions, Social Security, and savings with them. Real estate entrepreneurs catered to them with new communities with amenities pitched to older people, and with few facilities for children. Typically they were gated communities with controlled access and had pools, recreation centers, and golf courses.

 

In 1954, two developers bought 320 acres (1.3 km2) of farmland near Phoenix and opened the nation's first planned community dedicated exclusively to retirees at Youngtown. In 1960, developer Del Webb, inspired by the amenities in Florida's trailer parks, added facilities for "active adults" in his new Sun City planned community near Phoenix. In 1962 Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. Other developers copied the popular model, and by 2000 18% of the retirees in the state lived in such "lifestyle" communities.

 

The issues of the fragile natural environment, compounded by questions of water shortage and distribution, led to numerous debates. The debate crossed traditional lines, so that the leading conservative, Senator Barry Goldwater, was also keenly concerned. For example, Goldwater supported the controversial Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP). He wrote:

 

I feel very definitely that the [Nixon] administration is absolutely correct in cracking down on companies and corporations and municipalities that continue to pollute the nation's air and water. While I am a great believer in the free competitive enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. To this end, it is my belief that when pollution is found, it should be halted at the source, even if this requires stringent government action against important segments of our national economy.

 

Water issues were central. Agriculture consumed 89% of the state's strictly limited water supply while generating only 3% of the state's income. The Groundwater Management Act of 1980, sponsored by Governor Bruce Babbitt, raised the price of water to farmers, while cities had to reach a "safe yield" so that the groundwater usage did not exceed natural replenishment. New housing developments had to prove they had enough water for the next hundred years. Desert foliage suitable for a dry region soon replaced grass.

 

Cotton acreage declined dramatically, freeing up land for suburban sprawl as well as releasing large amounts of water and ending the need for expensive specialized machinery. Cotton acreage plunged from 120,000 acres in 1997 to only 40,000 acres in 2005, even as the federal treasury gave the state's farmers over $678 million in cotton subsidies. Many farmers collect the subsidies but no longer grow cotton. About 80% of the state's cotton is exported to textile factories in China and (since the passage of NAFTA) to Mexico.

 

Super Bowl XXX was played in Tempe in 1996 and Super Bowl XLII was held in Glendale in 2008. Super Bowl XLIX was also held in Glendale in 2015.

 

Illegal immigration continued to be a prime concern within the state, and in April 2010, Arizona SB1070 was passed and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. The measure attracted national attention as the most thorough anti-illegal immigration measure in decades within the United States.

 

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a political event in Tucson on January 8, 2011. The shooting resulted in six deaths and several injuries. Giffords survived the attack and became an advocate for gun control.

 

On June 30, 2013, nineteen members of the Prescott Fire Department were killed fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. The fatalities were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a hotshot crew, of whom only one survived as he was working in another location.

 

Border crisis: by 2019 Arizona was one of the states most affected by the border crisis, with a high number of migrant crossings and detentions.

- - - Please note that ALL of my images are "All Rights Reserved" and are posted for educational purposes only. Please do the right thing and contact me in advance if you wish to discuss the use or reuse of my images and provide a link to my originals. I would also ask that I be given a "first look" at any 7Up UnCola billboards or posters before you market them to the general public in return for my extensive investment in time, money and research, including interviewing some of the surviving artists. Thanks, and enjoy. - - -

 

Search "7Up UnCola Billboards" on eBay or Flickr.com if you'd like to learn more about this stunning body of work or acquire originals that might be duplicates to me. I keep the best and sell the rest.

 

Partial billboard, combined with a close-up thumbnail image on the right from a small American Contemporary Graphics Booklet produced in late 1970 or early 1971 for a traveling exhibition.

www.flickr.com/photos/30559980@N07/8387105130/in/album-72...

 

Only (4) of the (12) 43" wide x 59" tall panels are present. The rest were separated away in 1969 when the seller boldly asked a sign company for whatever they would give him. They just handed him 3 1/3 billboards for free including: "Uncanny In Cans" by John Alcorn (see listing on eBay), Un & Un Is Too" by Kim Whitesides, "Visit Un-derland" by Whitesides and the top left corner of this really trippy "Turn Un" by Pat Dypold.

 

At least the 4 panels are in perfect New Old Stock (NOS) condition.

 

This was the very 5th 21'x10' billboard design issued in 1969 to introduce the hugely successful "The UnCola" ad campaign to America. The rainlap diagram on the back of the top left panel A1 lists this as [Design] DES 69-5, C-2692. Pat Dypold illustrated the bulk of the 53+ 7Up UnCola billboard images issued between 1969 and the mid-1970's. Her signature is in the bottom right, next to the rim of the glass. At least 1 copy each of roughly half of those original billboards have been gathered into my collection and saved from destruction or the trash heap, usually one at a time.

 

The first 5 of 53 billboards were:

DES 69-1, C-2589, "# Un In The Sun" Pat Dypold (bikini girl)

DES 69-2, C-2587, "Butterfly & Bottle", Pat Dypold

DES 69-3, C-2588, "Un & Un Is Too", Kim Whitesides (guitars)

DES 69-4, C-2691, "Visit Un-Derland", Kim Whitesides (dancer)

DES 69-5, C-2692, "Turn Un", Pat Dypold, (melting face)

 

It was 1969 and 7Up wanted to appeal to the youth market. What else can I say... The UnCola adaptation of the popular phrase at the time "Turn On" did NOT refer to flipping light switches on during that era. Look it up if you need further explanation. The original phrase at the time was "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" by psychedelic LSD guru Timothy Leary.

www.flickr.com/photos/jimedblanchard/4774204283/in/photol...

I think there might have been something else mixed in with the liquid in the glass. Just imagine seeing this giant billboard actually looming over your local schoolyard back then. No advertiser would even consider doing anything so absolutely BOLD today.

 

This is #23 in my series of restored (if needed) and posted 7Up UnCola billboards to date. See more of the series in this album:

www.flickr.com/photos/30559980@N07/albums/72157632169912289

 

Contact me if you have a serious interest in acquiring any of my dozen or so duplicate billboards. I'm also interested in trades that will complete my collection.

 

Will also consider a legitimate gallery showings if you have a space large enough to hold up to 2 dozen billboards at 21'x10' each.

 

My prices would be FAR more reasonable and come with in-depth accurate research compared to my $15,000 (linen backed) & $12,500 competition:

www.1stdibs.com/furniture/wall-decorations/wallpaper/1969...] - - - ! ! !

www.20thdesign.com/itemdetails.php?id=1834992

 

Vintage duplicate original Billboards and Posters for sale:

www.flickr.com/photos/30559980@N07/albums/72157658672736088

 

Here's a Duke University archive photo of another early 1970's 7Up billboard in Phoenix using a tamer version of "Turn Un":

plus.google.com/+Bradhallart/posts/b72V4JEpSks

  

Goofy is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. He is a tall, anthropomorphic dog who typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled fedora. Goofy is a close friend of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and is Max Goof's father. He is normally characterized as hopelessly clumsy and dim-witted, yet this interpretation is not always definitive; occasionally, Goofy is shown as intuitive and clever, albeit in his own unique, eccentric way.

 

Goofy debuted in animated cartoons, starting in 1932 with Mickey's Revue as Dippy Dawg, who is older than Goofy would come to be. Later the same year, he was re-imagined as a younger character, now called Goofy, in the short The Whoopee Party. During the 1930s, he was used extensively as part of a comedy trio with Mickey and Donald. Starting in 1939, Goofy was given his own series of shorts that were popular in the 1940s and early 1950s. Two Goofy shorts were nominated for an Oscar: How to Play Football (1944) and Aquamania (1961). He also co-starred in a short series with Donald, including Polar Trappers (1938), where they first appeared without Mickey Mouse. Three more Goofy shorts were produced in the 1960s after which Goofy was only seen in television and Disney comics. He returned to theatrical animation in 1983 with Mickey's Christmas Carol. His most recent theatrical appearance was How to Hook Up Your Home Theater in 2007. Goofy has also been featured in television, most extensively in Goof Troop (1992), House of Mouse (2001–2003), Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (2006–2016), Mickey Mouse (2013–2019), Mickey and the Roadster Racers / Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures (2017–2021), and Mickey Mouse Funhouse (2021–present).

 

Originally known as Dippy Dawg, the character is more commonly known simply as "Goofy", a name used in his short film series. In his 1950s cartoons, he usually played a character called George G. Geef. Sources from the Goof Troop continuity give the character's full name as G. G. "Goofy" Goof, likely in reference to the 1950s name. In many other sources, both animated and comics, the surname Goof continues to be used. In other 2000s-era comics, the character's full name has occasionally been given as Goofus D. Dawg.

 

Characteristics

In the comics and his pre-1992 animated appearances, Goofy was usually single and childless. Unlike Mickey and Donald, he did not have a steady girlfriend. The exception was the 1950s cartoons, in which Goofy played a character called George Geef who was married and at one point became the father of a kid named George Junior. In the Goof Troop series (1992–1993), however, Goofy was portrayed as a single father with a son named Max, and the character of Max made further animated appearances until 2004. This marked a division between animation and comics, as the latter kept showing Goofy as a single childless character, excluding comics taking place in the Goof Troop continuity. After 2004, Max disappeared from animation, thus removing the division between the two media. Goofy's wife was never shown, while George Geef's wife appeared—but always with her face unseen—in 1950s-produced cartoon shorts depicting the character as a "family man".

 

In the comics, Goofy usually appears as Mickey's sidekick, though he also is occasionally shown as a protagonist. Goofy lives in Mouseton in the comics and in Spoonerville in Goof Troop. In comics books and strips, Goofy's closest relatives are his smarter nephew Gilbert. and his grandmother, simply called Grandma Goofy. In Italian comics, he has been given several cousins, including adventurer Arizona Goof (original Italian name: Indiana Pipps), who is a spoof of the fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

 

Goofy's catchphrases are "gawrsh!" (which is his usual exclamation of surprise and his way of pronouncing "gosh"), along with "ah-hyuck!" (a distinctive chuckle) that is sometimes followed by a "hoo hoo hoo hoo!", and especially the Goofy holler. In the classic shorts, he would sometimes say "Somethin' wrong here" (first heard in Lonesome Ghosts) whenever he suspected something was not right about the situation he was currently in, or sing a few bars of "The World Owes Me a Livin'" from the Silly Symphonies cartoon The Grasshopper and the Ants (the first instance of Goofy singing this song is On Ice). In The Grasshopper and the Ants, the Grasshopper had an aloof character similar to Goofy and shared the same voice actor (Pinto Colvig) as him.

 

According to biographer Neal Gabler, Walt Disney disliked the Goofy cartoons, thinking they were merely "stupid cartoons with gags tied together" with no larger narrative or emotional engagement and a step backward to the early days of animation. As such, he threatened constantly to terminate the series, but only continued it to provide make-work for his animators. Animation historian Michael Barrier is skeptical of Gabler's claim, saying that his source did not correspond with what was written.

 

History

Goofy, anonymous in his debut cartoon, Mickey's Revue (1932)

The character of Goofy originated with his voice actor; a former circus and vaudville actor, comedian, clown and chalk talk artist Pinto Colvig, who began working as a story man for the Disney Studio in 1930.

 

According to Colvig, one day in 1931, he was having a conversation with Walt Disney and director Wilfred Jackson, and began to reminice about “…a grinny, half-baked village nitwit back in my hometown whose mannerisms I had copied and used for one of my former stage characters, The Oregon Appleknocker.” Colvig later identified this “village nitwit” as a local flagman that worked at Jacksonville, Oregon's main railroad crossing, who he described as a “...slow-minded guy who is the happiest fellow in the world. Each small town has one, and he always seems to hang around the depot... As a youngster I used to watch every train come in, and I knew all the details and peculiarities of that flagman's life. I impersonated that man for Disney, not in jest, but because I admired him and his simplicity. I always laughed with him rather than at him."

 

Walt Disney was captivated by Colvig's impersonation, and eager to expand his cast of recognizable cast of characters,[16] decided to develop a new character around Colvig’s former stage routine for Mickey’s ever growing roster of supporting players. The next day, Colvig went in front of a microphone and camera and started acting out “the loose ungangly mannerisms” of his Oregon Appleknocker persona, while animator Tom Palmer sketched out a character based on his performance. “Thus ‘Goofy, the Guy with a Silly Laugh’ was hatched” as Colvig would later declair with pride.[14]

 

The character first appeared in Mickey's Revue, released on May 27, 1932. Directed by Jackson, the short features Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow performing a song and dance show: a typical Mickey cartoon of the time. What set this short apart was the appearance of a new character - a dog-like member of the audience who as a running gag, constantly irritates his fellow spectators by noisily crunching peanuts and laughing loudly, (the laugh being provided by Colvig) until two of those fellow spectators knocked him out with their mallets, before revealing they have the same exact laugh.

 

This early version of Goofy was named Dippy Dawg by Disney artist Frank Webb[citation needed] - and was depicted as an old man with a white beard, a puffy tail, and no trousers, shorts, or undergarments. A considerably younger and more refined version of the Dippy Dawg character next appeared in The Whoopee Party (released on September 17, 1932) this time as a party guest and a friend of Mickey and his gang.

 

Dippy Dawg made a total of six appearances between 1932 and 1933, but most of them were mere cameos. By his seventh appearance, in Orphan's Benefit (released on August 11, 1934), he gained the new name "Goofy", but was still considered a minor character.

 

The Trio Years and Development under Art Babbitt

Inspired by popular comedy trio acts of the era - such as The Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers - Walt Disney and his storymen decided to team Mickey, Goofy and the newly popular character of Donald Duck together in a cartoon entitled Mickey's Service Station: directed by Ben Sharpsteen and eventually released on March 16, 1935.

 

In mid-1934, Walt held a story meeting for Mickey's Service Station where he and Sharpsteen began assigning animators to specific sequences. One of the animators assigned to the short, Art Babbitt, took a particular liking to a sequence with Goofy. "I had to fight for that..." Babbitt rememebred years later:

 

"... in it [Mickey's Service Station] there’s a small sequence of Goofy on this cylinder block of a car. And he reaches down in one of the holes of the cylinder block and his own hand comes up behind him. God, I wanted that... Walt was in this story meeting and I said, “Gee I want that.” [Walt said] “Nah, I’ve got you scheduled to do Pete, Pegleg Pete". I said “I’ll do Pegleg Pete, but give me Goofy, too.” And so that was the final deal, I’d do Pegleg Pete and get Goofy for dessert. Goofy was originally a sort of stock character in mob scenes, so on, but nobody attempted to do anything with him, so I can’t say that I created Goofy, but I was the first that made him into a character. I liked the character, there was all sorts of possibilities."

 

Babbitt’s scene with Goofy was originally timed to be 7 feet of film (just over 4 seconds), however Babbitt padded his scene adding additional bits of comic business, with the final scene being 57 feet (38 seconds) long. Sharpsteen was furious that Babbitt had gone over his allotted time without permission, but Walt was impressed by Babbitt's work and approved his scene.

 

Upon completing his sequence with Goofy in Mickey’s Service Station, Babbitt - who had been studying Konstantin Stanislavski's theories of method acting - not only redesigned Goofy from his earlier ganglier appearance to a more ovular streamlined version - but also psychoanalyzed the character: something no other animator had done before. Babbitt wrote a two-and-a-half page character bible of Goofy, entitled Character Analysis of the Goof that circulated the studio in late 1934. Some of what Babbitt wrote included:

 

In my opinion the Goof, hitherto, has been a weak cartoon character because both his physical and mental make-up were indefinite and intangible. His figure was a distortion, not a caricature, and if he was supposed to have a mind or personality, he certainly was never given sufficient opportunity to display it... In the case of the Goof, the only characteristic which formerly identified itself with him was his voice. No effort was made to endow him with appropriate business to do, a set of mannerisms or a mental attitude...

... Think of the Goof as a composite of an everlasting optimist, a gullible Good Samaritan, a half-wit, a shiftless, good-natured colored boy and a hick... He can move fast if he has to, but would rather avoid any over-exertion, so he takes what seems the easiest way. He is a philosopher of the barber shop variety. No matter what happens, he accepts it finally as being for the best or at least amusing. He is willing to help anyone and offers his assistance even where he is not needed and just creates confusion. He very seldom, if ever, reaches his objective or completes what he has started. His brain being rather vapoury, it is difficult for him to concentrate on any one subject. Any little distraction can throw him off his train of thought and it is extremely difficult for the Goof to keep to his purpose. Yet the Goof is not the type of half-wit that is to be pitied. He doesn’t dribble, drool or shriek. He is a good-natured, dumb bell who thinks he is pretty smart. He laughs at his own jokes because he can’t understand any others. If he is a victim of a catastrophe, he makes the best of it immediately and his chagrin or anger melts very quickly into a broad grin. If he does something particularly stupid he is ready to laugh at himself after it all finally dawns on him. He is very courteous and apologetic and his faux pas embarrass him, but he tries to laugh off his errors. He has music in his heart even though it be the same tune forever, and I see him humming to himself while working or thinking. He talks to himself because it is easier for him to know what he is thinking if he hears it first.

 

Babbitt's Character Analysis was considered highly influential within the studio, and character bibles were quickly adopted for all the Disney's major stars; including Mickey, Donald and Pluto.

 

Mickey's Service Station also set the template for a series of films where Mickey, Donald and Goofy attempted to perform a certain task, with each character being separated early on, and attempting to solve a problem in their own way and with their distinct style of comedy, before reuniting at the end - often resulting failure rather than success.

 

While other animators would also animate also the character of Goofy in these "trio" shorts (such as in Mickey's Fire Brigade, released in August 1935, where an earlier Pre-Babbitt version of Goofy was animated by Wolfgang Reitherman) - Art Babbitt became the Goofy specialist at the Disney studio and the authority on the character.

 

Babbitt continued to develop the character of Goofy when he next animated him in On Ice (released in September 1935). Here he developed a technique he called "breaking the joints" - where Goofy's arms, legs, feet and other appendages would bend the wrong way for a few frames before popping back into the correct position. This gave the character a lot more loose and unpredictable movements - emphasising his stupid personality.

 

Babbitt finally crystalized the character of Goofy with his third time animating the character in Moving Day (released in June 1936), where he was tasked to animate a scene of Goofy attempting to move a piano onto a truck. For this scene Babbitt created another first for animation: using his recently acquired 16mm camera, he filmed Pinto Colvig performing Goofy's movements in his Oregon Appleknocker persona - making Babbitt the first animator to use live-action reference.

 

As animation historian Michael Barrier wrote of this scene: "Babbitt’s Moving Day animation was by far his most ambitious... Babbitt’s Goofy was the first Disney character after [Norm] Ferguson’s Pluto to have a visible inner life and Goofy, stupid though he was, was clearly more complex than Pluto. For the most part, Pluto simply reacted; Goofy schemed and planned, however dimly."

 

Ben Sharpsteen directed the majority of the Mickey, Donald and Goofy trio cartoons. Clock Cleaners and Lonesome Ghosts (released on both October 15 and December 24, 1937 respectively), are considered the highlights of this series, with the former being voted Number 27 in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons.

 

Progressively during the series, Mickey's part diminished in favor of Donald, Goofy, and Pluto. The reason for this was simple: between the easily frustrated Donald and Pluto and the always-living-in-a-world-of-his-own Goofy, Mickey—who became progressively gentler and more laid-back—seemed to act as the straight man of the trio. The studio's artists found that it had become easier coming up with new gags for Goofy or Donald than Mickey, to a point that Mickey's role had become unnecessary.

 

Polar Trappers, released on June 17, 1938, was the first film to feature Goofy and Donald as a duo. Mickey would return in The Whalers, released on August 19, 1938, but this and Tugboat Mickey, released on April 26, 1940, would be the last two shorts to feature all three characters as a team.

 

Solo series

Goofy next starred at his first solo cartoon Goofy and Wilbur directed by Dick Huemer, first released on March 17, 1939. The short featured Goofy fishing with the help of Wilbur, his pet grasshopper.

 

The How to... series

Jack Kinney would take over the Goofy cartoons with the second short Goofy's Glider (1940). Kinney's Goofy cartoons would feature zany, fast-paced action and gags similar to those being made at Warner Bros and MGM, and possibly influenced by Tex Avery. Kinney found Goofy to be "a nice long, lean character that you could move; you could get poses out of him, crazy poses". A sports fan, he would place Goofy in How to... themed shorts in which Goofy would demonstrate, poorly, how to perform certain sports.

 

How to Ride a Horse, a segment in the 1941 film The Reluctant Dragon, would establish the tone and style of future shorts like The Art of Skiing (1941), How to Fish (1942), How to Swim (1942) and How to Play Golf (1944). Cartoon shorts like How to Play Baseball (1942), How to Play Football (1944) and Hockey Homicide (1945) would feature Goofy not as a single character but multiple characters playing the opposing teams. Animation historian Paul Wells considers Hockey Homicide to be the "peak" of the sports cartoons. Some of the later sports-theme cartoons, like Double Dribble (1946) and They're Off (1948) would be directed by Jack Hannah.

 

Pinto Colvig had a falling out with Disney in 1937 and left the studio, leaving Goofy without a voice. Kinney recalls "so we had to use whatever was in the library; you know, his laugh and all those things. But he did have a hell of a library, of different lines of dialogue". In addition, the studio had voice artist Danny Webb record new dialog. Kinney also paired Goofy with a narrator voiced by John McLeish: "He had this deep voice, just a great voice, and he loved to recite Shakespeare. So I suggested, my God, we'll get McLeish for a narrator, and don't tell him that he's not doing it straight. Just let him play it". Colvig returned to Disney in 1941 and resumed the voice until 1967.

 

The Everyman years

Disney had started casting Goofy as a suburban everyman in the late 1940s. And with this role came changes in depiction. Goofy's facial stubble and his protruding teeth were removed to give him a more refined look. His clothing changed from a casual style to wearing business suits. He began to look more human and less dog-like, with his ears hidden in his hat. By 1951, Goofy was portrayed as being married and having a son of his own. Neither the wife nor the son was portrayed as dog-like. The wife's face was never seen, but her form was human. The son lacked Goofy's dog-like ears. One notable short made during this era is Motor Mania (1950). Kinney disliked making most of these later shorts, stating "...those pictures were disasters, because I didn't fight it hard enough". Goofy would also be given a formal name in these cartoons, George Geef.

 

Christopher P. Lehman connects this depiction of the character to Disney's use of humor and animal characters to reinforce social conformity. He cites as an example Aquamania (1961), where everyman Goofy drives to the lake for a boat ride. During a scene depicting a pile-up accident, every car involved has a boat hitched to its rear bumper. Goofy is portrayed as one of the numerous people who had the same idea about how to spend their day. Every contestant in the boat race also looks like Goofy. Lehman does not think that Disney used these aspects of the film to poke fun at conformity. Instead, the studio apparently accepted conformity as a fundamental aspect of the society of the United States. Aquamania was released in the 1960s, but largely maintained and prolonged the status quo of the 1950s. The decade had changed but the Disney studio followed the same story formulas for theatrical animated shorts it had followed in the previous decade. And Lehman points that Disney received social approval for it. Aquamania itself received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

 

Later appearances

After the 1965 educational film Goofy's Freeway Troubles, Goofy was mostly retired except for cameos because of the cartoons' fading popularity and the death of voice actor Pinto Colvig. Goofy had an act in the 1969 tour show Disney on Parade with costar Herbie the Love Bug. His profile began to rise again after his appearance in Mickey's Christmas Carol as the ghost of Jacob Marley. After that, he appeared in Sport Goofy in Soccermania, a 1987 television special. He made a brief appearance in Disney/Amblin's Academy Award-winning film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, in which the titular character, Roger Rabbit, says of Goofy: "Nobody takes a wallop like Goofy! What timing! What finesse! What a genius!". He later appears at the end of the film with the other characters.

 

In the 1990s, Goofy got his own TV series called Goof Troop. In the show, Goofy lives with his son Max and his cat Waffles, and they live next door to Pete and his family. Goof Troop eventually led to Goofy and Max starring in their own movies: A Goofy Movie (in 1995) and An Extremely Goofy Movie (in 2000); as well as starring in their own segments of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (in 1999) and Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas (in 2004). While Goofy is clearly depicted as a single custodial parent in all of these appearances, by the end of An Extremely Goofy Movie he begins a romance with the character Sylvia Marpole, Max being grown and in college by this point.

 

In one episode of Bonkers, Goofy has an off-screen cameo whose distinctive laugh is "stolen" by a disgruntled toon. In another episode, both he and Pete cameo as actors who film cartoons at Wackytoon Studios. And in a third episode, Goofy cameos as part of a group of civilians held hostage in a bank robbery.

 

Goofy returned to his traditional personality in Mickey Mouse Works and appeared as a head waiter in House of Mouse (2001 to 2003). Goofy's son Max also appeared in House of Mouse as the nightclub's valet, so that Goofy juggled not only his conventional antics but also the father-role displayed in Goof Troop and its aforementioned related media. In both Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse, Goofy also seemed to have a crush on Clarabelle Cow, as he asks her on a date in the House of Mouse episode "Super Goof" and is stalked by the bovine in the Mickey Mouse Works cartoon "How To Be a Spy". Though Clarabelle was noted as Horace Horsecollar's fiancé in early decades, comics from the 1960s and 1970s and in later cartoons like the aforementioned House of Mouse and Mickey Mouse Works, as well as Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, imply some mutual affections between Goofy and Clarabelle; perhaps as an attempt for Disney to give Goofy a more mainstream girlfriend to match his two male co-stars.

 

On Toontown Online, an interactive website for kids, Goofy previously ran his own neighborhood called Goofy Speedway until the close of Toontown. Goofy Speedway was a place where players could race cars and enter the Grand Prix. Tickets were exclusively spent on everything there, instead of the usual jellybean currency. The Grand Prix only came on "Grand Prix Monday" and "Silly Saturday". Goofy's Gag Shop was also found in almost every part of Toontown' except Cog HQs, Goofy Speedway, or Chip & Dale's Acorn Acres. At Goofy's Gag Shop, Toons could buy gags.

 

Goofy also appears in the children's television series, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, with his trademark attire and personality. Goofy appeared in The Lion King 1½. Goofy starred in a new theatrical cartoon short called How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, that premiered at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. The short received a positive review from animation historian Jerry Beck and then had a wide release on December 21, 2007, in front of National Treasure: Book of Secrets and has aired on several occasions on the Disney Channel.

 

In 2011, Goofy appeared in a promotional webtoon advertising Disney Cruise Line. He is also a main character on Mickey and the Roadster Racers. He has also appeared in the third season of the 2017 DuckTales TV series; based on his Goof Troop incarnation. Guest starring in the episode, "Quack Pack", Goofy appears as the Duck family's wacky neighbor after Donald accidentally wished them into a '90s sitcom. Donald hires him to be the photographer for a family photo, but after the Ducks realize what Donald did, Goofy helps him understand that "normal" does not necessarily mean the same thing between families; using the relationship he has with his son Max as an example.

 

Comics

Comic strips first called the character Dippy Dawg, but his name changed to Goofy by 1936. In the early years, the other members of Mickey Mouse's gang considered him a meddler and a pest but eventually warmed up to him.

 

The Mickey Mouse comic strip drawn by Floyd Gottfredson was generally based on what was going on in the Mickey Mouse shorts at the time, but when Donald Duck's popularity led to Donald Duck gaining his own newspaper strip, Disney decided that he was no longer allowed to appear in Gottfredson's strips. Accordingly, Goofy remained alone as Mickey's sidekick, replacing Horace Horsecollar as Mickey's fellow adventurer and companion. Similarly in comics, the Mickey Mouse world with Goofy as Mickey's sidekick was usually very separate from the Donald Duck world and crossovers were rare. Goofy also has a characteristic habit of holding his hand in front of his mouth, a trademark that was introduced by Paul Murry.

 

A character called "Glory-Bee" was Goofy's girlfriend for some years.

 

In 1990, when Disney was publishing their own comics, Goofy starred in Goofy Adventures, that featured him starring in various parodies. Perhaps because of poor sales, Goofy Adventures was the first of the company's titles to be canceled by the Disney Comics Implosion, ending at its 17th issue.

Given that this was my last few months in the DC area, I had to go out to Shenandoah for the foliage one last time. I think we hit it better this year than we did last. We spent one night (last year we camped, and it was cold!) this year, and I only brought my serious hiking boots and flip-flops (my year-round, go anywhere footwear). My boots were drenched from the night before, so all I had were my flip flops. Standing out on this rock face for 45 minutes waiting for the sunrise with temperatures near 30º and a tremendous wind gust (must've been close to 50 mph -- note the movement in the foreground most tree) gave my feet a really hard time. Painful. Single RAW exposure. Stacked 2 and 3 soft stop Singh-Ray GNDs. Slight level adjustments in CS4.

 

[ Most Interesting | Set: Shenandoah National Park | View On Black ]

Aankomst in Rotterdam van het containerschip EVER GIVEN , VB TIGER , ROTTERDAM , SD STINGRAY en RT ROB van Boluda Towage assisteerden naar de ECT in de Amazonehaven.29-7-2021 gezien vanaf de KRVE 71

I've given up,

I'm sick of feeling.

Is there nothing you can say?

Take this all the way.

I'm suffocating.

Tell me what the fuck is wrong

With me.

 

Given Up, by Linkin Park.

 

those lyrics mean alot to me right now. for a lot of different reasons.

 

i may have used that quote before, but i don't care. i love it.

this is from a while ago. i cropped it and edited it. i hope you like it.

-L xo

Given to Margaret by our grandchildren, she treasures it.

Metropolitan police officer on duty.

 

via Instagram bit.ly/29v9xJp

The outside of this store was given a refresh recently with the help of $100,000 from the city of Des Plaines. I guess maybe they felt guilty after welcoming the sparkling new Mariano's in...but just last year, the store had a aged and dirty concrete or stuccoed facade without the triangular portion in the middle.

 

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

 

While working in Chicago earlier this year, I decided to check out the local retail grocery situation. There is a lot of change going on here—former market leader Dominick’s is gone after a long decline under Safeway’s shlocky leadership and Central Grocer’s Strack & Van Til and Ultra Foods stores, which also dot the Chicago landscape are closing or being sold. Walmart had just closed a much-heralded urban Neighborhood Market in a new downtown development after only 6 years (similar to this one in CT), and I was starting to see a lot more Kroger-owned Mariano’s popping up. In addition, Kmart had 3 of its 4 K-Fresh prototypes in the Chicago market (one of which was closed by the time I got there)

 

Then there is Jewel-Osco, always my favorite because of the way my friend’s mom pronounces “Jewel-Osco” in her Chicago accent. It seems to be the only hometown store still standing.

 

In Des Plaines, IL, a sparkling new Mariano’s was opening and this meant that a few of the Jewel-Osco stores in the area had received refreshes. I decided to check them out to see what the new interiors looked like. I was wondering if Safeway-Albertsons was making them closer to the new Safeway stores in Florida or the Acme stores at home. This store seemed to have a lot of elements of the refreshed Acme stores back home.

Like many museums, they get given donations of stuff that don't really belong, but they don't want to throw away, yet they don't really have a place for it.

 

Smiths Falls Heritage House Museum; Smiths Falls, Ontario.

Covent Garden (/ˈkɒvənt/) is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum.

 

Though mainly fields until the 16th century, the area was briefly settled when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. After the town was abandoned, part of the area was walled off by 1200 for use as arable land and orchards by Westminster Abbey, and was referred to as "the garden of the Abbey and Convent". The land, now called "the Covent Garden", was seized by Henry VIII, and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build some fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Paul's. The design of the square was new to London, and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for the laying-out of new estates as London grew. A small open-air fruit and vegetable market had developed on the south side of the fashionable square by 1654. Gradually, both the market and the surrounding area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses and brothels opened up; the gentry moved away, and rakes, wits and playwrights moved in. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes. An Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowler's neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The area declined as a pleasure-ground as the market grew and further buildings were added: the Floral Hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market. By the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, and is now a tourist location containing cafes, pubs, small shops, and a craft market called the Apple Market, along with another market held in the Jubilee Hall.

 

Covent Garden, with the postcode WC2, falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, and the parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. The area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907; the journey from Leicester Square, at 300 yards, is the shortest in London.

 

Early history

 

The route of the Strand on the southern boundary of what was to become Covent Garden was used during the Roman period as part of a route to Silchester, known as "Iter VII" on the Antonine Itinerary. Excavations in 2006 at St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a Roman grave, suggesting the site had sacred significance. The area to the north of the Strand was long thought to have remained as unsettled fields until the 16th century, but theories by Alan Vince and Martin Biddle that there had been an Anglo-Saxon settlement to the west of the old Roman town of Londinium were borne out by excavations in 1985 and 2005. These revealed Covent Garden as the centre of a trading town called Lundenwic, developed around 600 AD, which stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually shifted the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, and the site returned to fields.

 

Around 1200 the first mention of an abbey garden appears in a document mentioning a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to "the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster". By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre (16 ha) quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land, lying between modern-day St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane, and Floral Street and Maiden Lane. The use of the name "Covent"—an Anglo-French term for a religious community, equivalent to "monastery" or "convent" —appears in a document in 1515, when the Abbey, which had been letting out parcels of land along the north side of the Strand for inns and market gardens, granted a lease of the walled garden, referring to it as "a garden called Covent Garden". This is how it was recorded from then on.

 

The Bedford Estate (1552–1918)

 

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII took for himself the land belonging to Westminster Abbey, including the convent garden and seven acres to the north called Long Acre; and in 1552 his son, Edward VI, granted it to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford. The Russell family, who in 1694 were advanced in their peerage from Earl to Duke of Bedford, held the land from 1552 to 1918.

 

Russell had Bedford House and garden built on part of the land, with an entrance on the Strand, the large garden stretching back along the south side of the old walled-off convent garden. Apart from this, and allowing several poor-quality tenements to be erected, the Russells did little with the land until the 4th Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, an active and ambitious businessman, commissioned Inigo Jones in 1630 to design and build a church and three terraces of fine houses around a large square or piazza. The commission had been prompted by Charles I taking offence at the condition of the road and houses along Long Acre, which were the responsibility of Russell and Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth. Russell and Carey complained that under the 1625 Proclamation concerning Buildings, which restricted building in and around London, they could not build new houses; the King then granted Russell, for a fee of £2,000, a licence to build as many new houses on his land as he "shall thinke fitt and convenient". The church of St Paul's was the first building, begun in July 1631 on the western side of the square. The last house was completed in 1637.

 

The houses initially attracted the wealthy, though when a market developed on the south side of the square around 1654, the aristocracy moved out and coffee houses, taverns, and prostitutes moved in. The Bedford Estate was expanded in 1669 to include Bloomsbury, when Lord Russell married Lady Rachel Vaughan, one of the daughters of the 4th Earl of Southampton.

 

By the 18th century, Covent Garden had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes such as Betty Careless and Jane Douglas. Descriptions of the prostitutes and where to find them were provided by Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, the "essential guide and accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure". In 1830 a market hall was built to provide a more permanent trading centre. In 1913, Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford agreed to sell the Covent Garden Estate for £2 million to the MP and land speculator Harry Mallaby-Deeley, who sold his option in 1918 to the Beecham family for £250,000.

 

Modern changes

 

Charles Fowler's 1830 neo-classical building restored as a retail market.

The Covent Garden Estate was part of Beecham Estates and Pills Limited from 1924 to 1928, after which time it was managed by a successor company called Covent Garden Properties Company Limited, owned by the Beechams and other private investors. This new company sold some properties at Covent Garden, while becoming active in property investment in other parts of London. In 1962 the bulk of the remaining properties in the Covent Garden area, including the market, were sold to the newly established government-owned Covent Garden Authority for £3,925,000.

 

By the end of the 1960s, traffic congestion had reached such a level that the use of the square as a modern wholesale distribution market was becoming unsustainable, and significant redevelopment was planned. Following a public outcry, buildings around the square were protected in 1973, preventing redevelopment. The following year the market moved to a new site in south-west London. The square languished until its central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980. An action plan was drawn up by Westminster Council in 2004 in consultation with residents and businesses to improve the area while retaining its historic character. The market buildings, along with several other properties in Covent Garden, were bought by a property company in 2006.

 

Geography

 

Historically, the Bedford Estate defined the boundary of Covent Garden, with Drury Lane to the east, the Strand to the south, St. Martin's Lane to the west, and Long Acre to the north. However, over time the area has expanded northwards past Long Acre to High Holborn, and since 1971, with the creation of the Covent Garden Conservation Area which incorporated part of the area between St Martins Lane and Charring Cross Road, the Western boundary is sometimes considered to be Charring Cross Road. Shelton Street, running parallel to the north of Long Acre, marks the London borough boundary between Camden and Westminster. Long Acre is the main thoroughfare, running north-east from St Martin's Lane to Drury Lane.

 

The area to the south of Long Acre contains the Royal Opera House, the market and central square, and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Transport Museum; while the area to the north of Long Acre is largely given over to independent retail units centred on Neal Street, Neal's Yard and Seven Dials; though this area also contains residential buildings such as Odhams Walk, built in 1981 on the site of the Odhams print works, and is home to over 6,000 residents.

 

Governance

The Covent Garden estate was originally under the control of Westminster Abbey and lay in the parish of St Margaret. During a reorganisation in 1542 it was transferred to St Martin in the Fields, and then in 1645 a new parish was created, splitting governance of the estate between the parishes of St Paul Covent Garden and St Martin, both still within the Liberty of Westminster. St Paul Covent Garden was completely surrounded by the parish of St Martin in the Fields. It was grouped into the Strand District in 1855 when it came within the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

 

In 1889 the parish became part of the County of London and in 1900 it became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster. It was abolished as a civil parish in 1922. Since 1965 Covent Garden falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, and is in the Parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. For local council elections it falls within the St James's ward for Westminster, and the Holborn and Covent Garden ward for Camden.

 

Economy

 

The area's historic association with the retail and entertainment economy continues. In 1979, Covent Garden Market reopened as a retail centre; in 2010, the largest Apple Store in the world opened in The Piazza. The central hall has shops, cafes and bars alongside the Apple Market stalls selling antiques, jewellery, clothing and gifts; there are additional casual stalls in the Jubilee Hall Market on the south side of the square. Long Acre has a range of clothes shops and boutiques, and Neal Street is noted for its large number of shoe shops. London Transport Museum and the side entrance to the Royal Opera House box office and other facilities are also located on the square. During the late 1970s and 1980s the Rock Garden music venue was popular with up and coming punk rock and New Wave artists.

 

The market halls and several other buildings in Covent Garden were bought by CapCo in partnership with GE Real Estate in August 2006 for £421 million, on a 150-year head lease. The buildings are let to the Covent Garden Area Trust, who pay an annual peppercorn rent of one red apple and a posy of flowers for each head lease, and the Trust protects the property from being redeveloped. In March 2007 CapCo also acquired the shops located under the Royal Opera House. The complete Covent Garden Estate owned by CapCo consists of 550,000 sq ft (51,000 m2), and has a market value of £650 million.

 

Landmarks

 

The Royal Opera House, often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", was constructed as the "Theatre Royal" in 1732 to a design by Edward Shepherd. During the first hundred years or so of its history, the theatre was primarily a playhouse, with the Letters Patent granted by Charles II giving Covent Garden and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane exclusive rights to present spoken drama in London. In 1734, the first ballet was presented; a year later Handel's first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premières here. It has been the home of The Royal Opera since 1945, and the Royal Ballet since 1946.

 

The current building is the third theatre on the site following destructive fires in 1808 and 1857. The façade, foyer and auditorium were designed by Edward Barry, and date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive £178 million reconstruction in the 1990s. The Royal Opera House seats 2,268 people and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The stage performance area is roughly 15 metres square. The main auditorium is a Grade 1 listed building. The inclusion of the adjacent old Floral Hall, previously a part of the old Covent Garden Market, created a new and extensive public gathering place. In 1779 the pavement outside the playhouse was the scene of the murder of Martha Ray, mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, by her admirer the Rev. James Hackman.

 

Covent Garden square

 

Balthazar Nebot's 1737 painting of the square before the 1830 market hall was constructed.

The central square in Covent Garden is simply called "Covent Garden", often marketed as "Covent Garden Piazza" to distinguish it from the eponymous surrounding area. Laid out in 1630, it was the first modern square in London, and was originally a flat, open space or piazza with low railings. A casual market started on the south side, and by 1830 the present market hall was built. The space is popular with street performers, who audition with the site's owners for an allocated slot. The square was originally laid out when the 4th Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, commissioned Inigo Jones to design and build a church and three terraces of fine houses around the site of a former walled garden belonging to Westminster Abbey. Jones's design was informed by his knowledge of modern town planning in Europe, particularly Piazza d'Arme, in Leghorn, Tuscany, Piazza San Marco in Venice, Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence, and the Place des Vosges in Paris. The centrepiece of the project was the large square, the concept of which was new to London, and this had a significant influence on modern town planning in the city,[56] acting as the prototype for the laying-out of new estates as the metropolis grew. Isaac de Caus, the French Huguenot architect, designed the individual houses under Jones's overall design.

 

The church of St Paul's was the first building, and was begun in July 1631 on the western side of the square. The last house was completed in 1637. Seventeen of the houses had arcaded portico walks organised in groups of four and six either side of James Street on the north side, and three and four either side of Russell Street. These arcades, rather than the square itself, took the name Piazza; the group from James Street to Russell Street became known as the "Great Piazza" and that to the south of Russell Street as the "Little Piazza". None of Inigo Jones's houses remain, though part of the north group was reconstructed in 1877–79 as Bedford Chambers by William Cubitt to a design by Henry Clutton.

 

Covent Garden market

 

The first record of a "new market in Covent Garden" is in 1654 when market traders set up stalls against the garden wall of Bedford House. The Earl of Bedford acquired a private charter from Charles II in 1670 for a fruit and vegetable market, permitting him and his heirs to hold a market every day except Sundays and Christmas Day. The original market, consisting of wooden stalls and sheds, became disorganised and disorderly, and the 6th Earl requested an Act of Parliament in 1813 to regulate it, then commissioned Charles Fowler in 1830 to design the neo-classical market building that is the heart of Covent Garden today. The contractor was William Cubitt and Company. Further buildings were added—the Floral hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market for foreign flowers was built by Cubitt and Howard.

 

By the end of the 1960s, traffic congestion was causing problems for the market, which required increasingly large lorries for deliveries and distribution. Redevelopment was considered, but protests from the Covent Garden Community Association in 1973 prompted the Home Secretary, Robert Carr, to give dozens of buildings around the square listed-building status, preventing redevelopment. The following year the market relocated to its new site, New Covent Garden Market, about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, with cafes, pubs, small shops and a craft market called the Apple Market. Another market, the Jubilee Market, is held in the Jubilee Hall on the south side of the square. The market halls and several other buildings in Covent Garden have been owned by the property company Capital & Counties Properties (CapCo) since 2006.

 

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

 

The current Theatre Royal on Drury Lane is the most recent of four incarnations, the Second of which opened in 1663, making it the oldest continuously used theatre in London. For much of its first two centuries, it was, along with the Royal Opera House, a patent theatre granted rights in London for the production of drama, and had a claim to be one of London's leading theatres. The first theatre, known as "Theatre Royal, Bridges Street", saw performances by Nell Gwyn and Charles Hart. After it was destroyed by fire in 1672, English dramatist and theatre manager Thomas Killigrew engaged Christopher Wren to build a larger theatre on the same spot, which opened in 1674. This building lasted nearly 120 years, under leadership including Colley Cibber, David Garrick, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In 1791, under Sheridan's management, the building was demolished to make way for a larger theatre which opened in 1794; but that survived only 15 years, burning down in 1809. The building that stands today opened in 1812. It has been home to actors as diverse as Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, child actress Clara Fisher, comedian Dan Leno, the comedy troupe Monty Python (who recorded a concert album there), and musical composer and performer Ivor Novello. Since November 2008 the theatre has been owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and generally stages popular musical theatre. It is a Grade I listed building.

 

London Transport Museum

 

The London Transport Museum is in a Victorian iron and glass building on the east side of the market square. It was designed as a dedicated flower market by William Rogers of William Cubitt and Company in 1871, and was first occupied by the museum in 1980. Previously the transport collection had been held at Syon Park and Clapham. The first parts of the collection were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century by the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) when it began to preserve buses being retired from service. After the LGOC was taken over by the London Electric Railway (LER), the collection was expanded to include rail vehicles. It continued to expand after the LER became part of the London Passenger Transport Board in the 1930s and as the organisation passed through various successor bodies up to TfL, London's transport authority since 2000. The Covent Garden building has on display many examples of buses, trams, trolleybuses and rail vehicles from 19th and 20th centuries as well as artefacts and exhibits related to the operation and marketing of passenger services and the impact that the developing transport network has had on the city and its population.

 

St Paul's Church

 

St Paul's, commonly known as the Actors' Church, was designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission by Francis Russell in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fitt for the habitacons of Gentlemen and men of ability". Work on the church began that year and was completed in 1633, at a cost of £4,000, with it becoming consecrated in 1638. In 1645 Covent Garden was made a separate parish and the church was dedicated to St Paul. It is uncertain how much of Jones's original building is left, as the church was damaged by fire in 1795 during restoration work by Thomas Hardwick; though it is believed that the columns are original—the rest is mostly Georgian or Victorian reconstruction.

 

Culture

 

The Covent Garden area has long been associated with both entertainment and shopping, and this continues. Covent Garden has 13 theatres, and over 60 pubs and bars, with most south of Long Acre, around the main shopping area of the old market. The Seven Dials area in the north of Covent Garden was home to the punk rock club The Roxy in 1977, and the area remains focused on young people with its trendy mid-market retail outlets.

 

Street performance

 

Street entertainment at Covent Garden was noted in Samuel Pepys's diary in May 1662, when he recorded the first mention of a Punch and Judy show in Britain. Impromptu performances of song and swimming were given by local celebrity William Cussans in the eighteenth century. Covent Garden is licensed for street entertainment, and performers audition for timetabled slots in a number of venues around the market, including the North Hall, West Piazza, and South Hall Courtyard. The courtyard space is dedicated to classical music only. There are street performances at Covent Garden Market every day of the year, except Christmas Day. Shows run throughout the day and are about 30 minutes in length. In March 2008, the market owner, CapCo, proposed to reduce street performances to one 30-minute show each hour.

 

Pubs and bars

 

The Covent Garden area has over 60 pubs and bars; several of them are listed buildings, with some also on CAMRA's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors; some, such as The Harp in Chandos Place, have received consumer awards. The Harp's awards include London Pub of the Year in 2008 by the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood, and National Pub of the Year by CAMRA in 2011. It was at one time owned by the Charrington Brewery, when it was known as The Welsh Harp; in 1995 the name was abbreviated to just The Harp, before Charrington sold it to Punch Taverns in 1997. It has been owned by the landlady since 2010.

 

The Lamb and Flag in Rose Street has a reputation as the oldest pub in the area, though records are not clear. The first mention of a pub on the site is 1772 (when it was called the Cooper's Arms – the name changing to Lamb & Flag in 1833); the 1958 brick exterior conceals what may be an early 18th-century frame of a house replacing the original one built in 1638.[94] The pub acquired a reputation for staging bare-knuckle prize fights during the early 19th century when it earned the nickname "Bucket of Blood". The alleyway beside the pub was the scene of an attack on John Dryden in 1679 by thugs hired by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, with whom he had a long-standing conflict.

 

The Salisbury in St. Martin's Lane was built as part of a six-storey block around 1899 on the site of an earlier pub that had been known under several names, including the Coach & Horses and Ben Caunt's Head; it is both Grade II listed, and on CAMRA's National Inventory, due to the quality of the etched and polished glass and the carved woodwork, summed up as "good fin de siècle ensemble". The Freemasons Arms on Long Acre is linked with the founding of the Football Association in 1896; however, the meetings took place at The Freemasons Tavern on Great Queen Street, which was replaced in 1909 by the Connaught Rooms.

 

Other pubs that are Grade II listed are of minor interest, they are three 19th century rebuilds of 17th century/18th century houses, the Nell Gwynne Tavern in Bull Inn Court, the Nag's Head on James Street, and the White Swan on New Row; a Victorian pub built by lessees of the Marquis of Exeter, the Old Bell on the corner of Exeter Street and Wellington Street; and a late 18th or early 19th century pub the Angel and Crown on St. Martin's Lane.

 

Cultural connections

 

Covent Garden, and especially the market, have appeared in a number of works. Eliza Doolittle, the central character in George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion, and the musical adaptation by Alan Jay Lerner, My Fair Lady, is a Covent Garden flower seller. Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy about a Covent Garden fruit vendor who becomes a serial sex killer, was set in the market where his father had been a wholesale greengrocer. The daily activity of the market was the topic of a 1957 Free Cinema documentary by Lindsay Anderson, Every Day Except Christmas, which won the Grand Prix at the Venice Festival of Shorts and Documentaries.

 

Transport

 

Covent Garden is served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station on the corner of Long Acre and James Street. The station was opened by Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway on 11 April 1907, four months after services on the rest of the line began operating on 15 December 1906. Platform access is only by lift or stairs; until improvements to the exit gates in 2007, due to high passenger numbers (16 million annually), London Underground had to advise travellers to get off at Leicester Square and walk the short distance (the tube journey at less than 300 yards is London's shortest) to avoid the congestion. Stations just outside the area include the Charing Cross tube station and Charing Cross railway station, Leicester Square tube station, and Holborn tube station. While there is only one bus route in Covent Garden itself—the RV1, which uses Catherine Street as a terminus, just to the east of Covent Garden square—there are over 30 routes which pass close by, mostly on the Strand or Kingsway.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covent_Garden

Given an opportunity to go out (I try not to miss them!) but nowhere to 'prepare'... my dear friend Richard gave me his sitting room, and so he met Yollie for the first time! 🌸👱‍♀️💞

Such a kind and gentle soul (not me, him!) Everyone needs a Richard....Thankyou my darling!! 😉💗💗💗💄👠👠👗💋💋

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Sixty metres at 08:23am on an overcast summer morning on Tuesday 3rd August 2021, off Hythe Avenue and Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Here we see a juveneile Dunnock (Prunella modularis), a small passerine or perching bird that is found throughout temperate Europe and Asian Russia, as well as being successfully introduced into New Zealand. They are also known as Hedge sparrows or Hedge accentors and are 14-15cm in length with a wingspan of 19-21cm and weight of between 16 to 25g. There are currently over two and a third million breeding birds in all territories though in decline, they are are listed on the amber conservation status list.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length: 600mm Shutter speed: 1/500s Aperture: f/7.1 iso800 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON (Position 1) 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1 (4370k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.14s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.72s

ALTITUDE: 60.00m

  

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Name: Thomas Pearson

Arrested for: not given

Arrested at: North Shields Police Station

Arrested on: 15 November 1907

Tyne and Wear Archives ref: DX1388-1-117-Thomas Pearson

 

An image of his accomplice Stephen Fitzgibbon is also available www.flickr.com/photos/twm_news/24620365114/in/album-72157....

 

The Shields Daily News for 16 November 1907 reports:

 

“THEFTS FROM OFFICE ON THE NORTH SHIELDS FISH QUAY.

 

At the North Shields Police Court this morning - before Lieut.-Colonel F.R.N. Haswell, Coun. G. Addison and Mr G.H. Stansfield - Stephen Fitzgibbon (17) of 15 Bird Street; Thomas Pearson (16) and Charles Pearson (19), also of Bird Street, were brought up in custody charged with various thefts. Fitzgibbon and Thomas Pearson were charged with larceny from back yards, being called upon to answer three cases, while Fitzgibbon and Charles Pearson were charged with three thefts from offices on the North Shields Fish Quay.

 

Evidence having been given in support of all the cases, the defendants were formally charged. They admitted the thefts and had no excuse to offer.

 

Chief Constable Huish told the magistrates that other charges could have been preferred against the accused. Altogether there had been eleven offices broken into on the quay.

 

They were each committed to prison for 14 days in each case, which means Fitzgibbon will receive three months’ hard labour and the two Pearsons 6 weeks each.

 

Chief Constable Huish mentioned that the elder Pearson was in the habit of carrying about with him loaded firearms. A six-chambered revolver had been recovered from his house.”

 

These images are a selection from an album of photographs of prisoners brought before the North Shields Police Court between 1902 and 1916 in the collection of Tyne & Wear Archives (TWA ref DX1388/1).

 

This set contains mugshots of boys and girls under the age of 21. This reflects the fact that until 1970 that was the legal age of majority in the UK.

 

(Copyright) We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk.

Ook mijn rode Alfa Romeo blijft mooi. Ook “foute” zwarte velgen staan hier goed.

 

The Giulia showed that if given proper attention by its parent, Alfa Romeo could be successfully reinvented. The Stelvio further demonstrates the depth of engineering and design talent within Fiat Chrysler. Which only makes the minor flaws of this SUV all the more maddening: with just a little more money invested in certain components, Alfa's first SUV could beat the BMW X3 to become best-in-segment.

 

Not only BMW, but Daimler, Audi, Volvo and JLR engineers will likely have been forensically examining the Stelvio, keen to learn the secrets of this remarkable model.

 

The engine being positioned far back and low, the length of the wheelbase, a lack of long overhangs, the clever way that the car's height and therefore excellent headroom is disguised - these are just some of the things which FCA has mastered in its first attempt at an Alfa Romeo SUV.

 

Interior - maddeningly close to perfect

 

FCA still haw some things to learn, though. The main one is simple: if Alfa Romeo is to be remade as a luxury marque, then buyers expect an interior with Italian flair and flawness design.

 

The genius of the German makes plus Jaguar, Range Rover and Volvo is in providing an instant buzz for anyone who sits in most of their passenger vehicles. It's an ambience which can be hard to define. It might comprise some or all of the following: perfect weighting of the door and a satisfying thunk, a welcoming scent, soft lighting, cosiness, luxurious feeling materials.

 

When it comes to a true premium vehicle, less is more: silence instead of whirring for the seat motors, and no loud beeps as the doors lock and the electric tailgate opens and closes, Fasten Seatbelt chimes which are too quick to nag. These things are now missing even from most Jeeps, and that has never been a brand known for its absence of brashness. FCA clearly understands this stuff, so hopefully, true Italian luxury is headed Alfa's way.

 

Aside from its Ferrari division, Fiat Chrysler isn't a company with which most people would associate true luxury. Maserati gets close but certain brittle feeling or overly shiny interior components shared with Fiats and which you would never find in an Audi, Mercedes or a BMW can be all too visible. Not to mention how quickly an overloaded or non-intuitive touchscreen can turn minimalist-looking into maddening.

 

The frustration with the Stelvio, a model which has been manufactured for more than a year now, is not one of build quality. The bad, bad decades, and there were many of them for Alfa Romeo cars, do appear to be behind the marque. This XC60-sized SUV could, with some frustratingly easy-to-remedy changes, push aside all current rivals in the D segment when it comes to overall excellence. Already, the dynamics are as good as the best - the X3 - and way better than certain others. Interior space is also superb and to many, the looks are highly appealing. Why then did FCA not go the extra mile to lift less-than-best details to the same standards?

 

The driving experience: joyous

 

Every time I drove this model over seven days, it just kept on underlining how good it is. Few other elevated models grip the road or have more direct-feeling steering than the Stelvio. Jumping into a Grand Cherokee immediately after the Alfa went back to Fiat Chrysler UK was telling. It isn't that there is anything wrong with the big, aged Jeep. Just that the Stelvio feels like a (tall) sports car whereas the GC is more of a heavyweight off-roader. The Italian brand needs several more SUVs as good as the Stelvio in its line-up. Pronto. Just as long as FCA irons out some of the creases, of which a few need sorting out ASAP.

 

Press the unlock button and the Alfa beeps loudly. An Audi does not. Touch the lever to select D or R and the immediate sensation is 'slippery' plastic. This, you do not find in a Macan. And then...well, there is nothing else to complain about. The steering wheel is as beautiful as the metal pedals, the door coverings are lovely pieces of design, the instruments and their curved hoods have exactly the right amount of retro-look linking them to Alfas of old, the quilted leather is classy, the headliner has a premium feel, and so on.

 

The tested model had FCA's turbocharged 280PS 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine and an eight-ratio ZF torque converter automatic gearbox. The exhaust note could have a touch more character, and a bit more torque would have been handy but there is no faulting the suspension system. You may choose Dynamic, Natural or All-weather/Enhanced Efficiency from a controller with d n a markings. The variations are relevant and useful, unlike in many cars where the alternatives to automatic/normal are a sudden hardening of the ride or way too much lean in corners as part of a comfort setting.

 

The ownership experience: it has to be perfetto

 

Alfa Romeo is one of those names which most people know, and yet that's not always a good thing. Friends up from Australia holidaying in England, wanted to have good look at the Stelvio. One of them comes from a family which has owned an Alfetta, GTV, 90, 164, and a couple of 156 sedans. Now a Mazda6 estate-driving mum, my buddy explained to me that she wouldn't risk the reliability issues - her husband agreed. Both wanted to know had the test car behaved itself. It had.

 

More than 17,000 miles were showing on the odometer of the Stelvio 2.0-litre and aside from a little bit of minor wear on the driver's leather-covered seat, it could have been showroom fresh. The boot and rear doors were opened for cargo volume and leg room assessment, eyes were run over the front, rear and sides and I could almost hear the sound of minds opening. If my friends take a test drive upon their return to Sydney, I won't be surprised.

 

Europe, US and China sales - up, up and not-yet up

 

What FCA really needs Alfa Romeo to do most is to expand its sales outside Italy. The locals are loyal to home brands - witness how strong Lancia registrations remain even though everyone knows that marque is doomed - and this has been one of the issues with Alfa. The Giulietta is old, the MiTo is older still, and yet Italians keep buying them. Understandably, given how old the two smaller hatchbacks are, few other Europeans do though. But people are falling for the Giulia, and even more so for the Stelvio.

 

The Giorgio architecture models are the reason why Alfa's Europe-wide registrations were able to (just) cross the 50,000 registrations mark during the first half of 2018. Selling 50,098 cars represented an 8.6 per cent year-on-year rise, with the market reaching the highest total this century even with the ongoing situation in the UK.

 

In the world's two other major regions for car sales, the picture is good and bad. First, the USA. In July, Alfa sales reached 2,016 vehicles. Not only was that a jump of 65 per cent but the Stelvio accounted for 1,014 of the total. This means that so far in 2018, 14,281 Alfas have been sold to US-based customers. If only dealers had SUVs in the size classes below and above the Stelvio, this brand could be starting to really challenge the established premium makes.

 

China remains the greatest challenge for Alfa Romeo. In the first half of 2018, just 2,308 vehicles were delivered. For Fiat Chrysler, the world's number one market is all about Jeep, the Fiat brand's two locally built cars having failed. Alfa, like Maserati, remains a low-volume, import brand. Perhaps FCA and its partner GAC are waiting for the arrival of more suitable models before committing to manufacturing Alfa Romeos. FCA stated only a few months ago that there will be extended versions of the Giulia and Stelvio and it is presumed that these will be for the PRC. Small models are needed too.

 

What FCA should do to perfect the Stelvio

 

We heard all about FCA's plans for Alfa Romeo back in June. The timing of facelifts, new models, and extra models remains vague but it can be reasonably assumed that the Stelvio won't have or need any styling refresh for some years yet. Extra variants could do wonders for this model's worldwide success, there being a perplexingly wide chasm between the current 280PS and 510PS petrol engines.

 

US buyers in particular could surely be easily persuaded to pay high prices for a Stelvio powered by the 350hp and 430hp Ferrari 3.0-litre turbo V6s which can be found in the Maserati Levante. FCA might wish to preserve those engines for the Trident logo marque's SUV as well as Alfa's own future equivalent but that seems silly when additional money could be made.

 

Stelvio proves the Alfa Romeo doubters wrong

By Glenn Brooks | 17 August 2018

 

What about more diesel options? As the situation in Italy shows, sales of such engines are not falling dramatically in all countries, so adding some high-torque diesels could do wonders to boost Stelvio sales in relevant markets.

 

Summary

 

Right now, Alfa Romeo has two first rate models which are being held back from their true potential. The interior upgrades which are needed don't have to wait for mid-cycle facelifts: some nicer plastics could be a running change, in the same way that other updates have just been announced for 2019. And how about ditching the bland steering wheel and key badges, replacing both with ones that uses Alfa's green and red badge?

 

If FCA would do these few things, the Stelvio would shift from being a gorgeous yet frustrated communicator burdened by one arm tied behind its back. Italians are surely at their best when speaking with both hands.