View allAll Photos Tagged modulation
The works of Peruvian-French artist Bryan Ley (1988) sow confusion. Are we looking at photographs, or something else entirely? With his choice of black-and-white or monochrome acrylic paintings and day-night modulations, Ley creates dusky mysteries. Drawing inspiration from online photographs and images from magazines, he lends his subjects an iconic charge, transforming them into new incarnations and imagined portraits. Museum MORE presents more than 30 works in Bryan Ley’s first solo museum exhibition, from 9 November 2025 to 3 May 2026.
Jpeg straight out of the camera, no Photoshop, post processing or suchlike.
More testing of the newly improved DLW with the SD card reader and LCD screen. It's a little more robust now, but perhaps not enough to take it out and about.
Testing out a new DIY LED-onna-stick arrangement. Still need to get the timing right on the pulse-width modulation.
The works of Peruvian-French artist Bryan Ley (1988) sow confusion. Are we looking at photographs, or something else entirely? With his choice of black-and-white or monochrome acrylic paintings and day-night modulations, Ley creates dusky mysteries. Drawing inspiration from online photographs and images from magazines, he lends his subjects an iconic charge, transforming them into new incarnations and imagined portraits. Museum MORE presents more than 30 works in Bryan Ley’s first solo museum exhibition: from 9 November 2025 to 3 May 2026.
After almost eighteen years of deceptive silence, Brazen is back with Distance, an ambitious indie-rock epic where melancholic modulations and vocal harmonies intertwine on a soaring instrumental carpet. The eight tracks that make up the album are characterised by refined songwriting, carried by an epic breath that makes each track a journey in its own right. Composed, arranged and recorded remotely between London and Geneva over the course of almost a decade, the album is as musically polished as it is rich in narrative twists. The meticulous care taken in its conception gives it a timeless character that in no way detracts from its emotional intensity.
Waving lights in an empty room again. This time a more traditional motif, The Orb, but with slightly different texture. For endless variation on a theme, you can rely on light orbs.
No post processing or suchlike, Maltby Standard SOOC.
Currently discontinued!
The Pulsemonger is a one of a kind design by me. It takes an input signal, squares it up, divides it by 2 (the sub-octave), and sends each pitch through individual pulse width modulator circuits that generates synth like tones. With the internal shapeable triangle LFO chorus and sci-fi sounds can be produced. The pulse width is variable from 1-50% and each can be externally controlled via the 1/4" input jacks.
Rolex Learning Center - EPFL Lausanne
Designed by Roger Pfund
(MODULATION ENTRE HARMONIE ET MATHÉMATIQUE - 2010 Roger Pfund)
I'm back from my yacht trip with the fabulous Sadie Peckham!
I'll be hard at work again tomorrow, at No. 1 Westmoreland Mews. This is the 'notorious address in West One' where The Salon is located: my high-class bordello, catering exclusively for the nobility and gentry. The Salon is entirely staffed by a team of happily-married, blue-blooded Aristocratic Ladies - shameless hotwives and cuckoldresses all!!
It never ceases to amuse me to see how naturally-adapted the upper-class English Lady is to a life of unrestrained depravity and corruption. How easily these snooty and entitled snobs pander to the Gomorran vices of their customers! And with what eagerness do their adoring husbands flock to watch their spouses' descent into the deepest depths of debauchery. It seems as if we have uncovered a hitherto unexplored psychological truth in the love lives and sexuality of our ruling class!!
As you all know, a harlot must dress as a harlot - it's what our clients expect. But the language of transactional lust has many modulations. Teaming this crisply-tailored jacket with my tarty PVC (vinyl) skirt and heels is the kind of fashion statement that always makes their Lordships stiff with anticipation!
Woo Hoo! It'll be such fun to be back at work!
Toodle Pip! Love and Kisses to All!!!
xxxxxx
Lady Rebecca Lyndon
Duchess of Basingstoke
I always prefer photographing in available light – or Rembrandt-light I like to call it – so you get the natural modulations of the face. It makes a more alive, real, and flattering portrait.
~ Alfred Eisenstaedt, Eisenstaedt : Remembrances by Bryan Holme, Doris C. O'Neil, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Barbara Baker Burrows , ISBN: 0821225979 , Page: XVII
*Copyright © 2010 Lélia Valduga, all rights reserved.
*Reprodução proibida. © Todos os direitos reservados.
*Imagem protegida pela Lei do Direito Autoral Nº 9.610 de 19/02/1998.
A Casa de Mateus é mandada construir na primeira metade do século XVIII por António José Botelho Mourão, 3º Morgado de Mateus. Substitui-se à casa da família já existente no local em inícios do século XVII. Em 1911 é classificada como Monumento Nacional.
A arquitectura barroca, de gosto italiano, é atribuída a Nicolau Nasoni pela coerência do estilo e semelhança com outras obras de sua autoria. Segundo Robert Smith, especialista na sua obra, o arquitecto terá dedicado à construção da Casa, ou pelo menos à sua fachada central e decoração, os anos entre 1739 a 1743.
Para além do esplendor barroco da fachada principal e da riqueza da decoração, composta por cimalhas curvas, frontões, pináculos e estatuária, impressiona a racionalidade da planta e o rigor da métrica e da modulação.
A planta inscreve-se num rectângulo, e divide-se em dois quadrados vazados ao centro, que criam várias alas e compõem dois pátios ligados entre si por grandes aberturas no piso térreo. O pátio frontal é aberto libertando a vista da fachada principal recuada e voltada a poente, e o posterior é encerrado, e definem através dos grandes vãos do rés-do-chão um eixo central de perspectiva que atravessa toda a construção, e constitui um enfiamento de expressão clássica e grande harmonia.
O acesso ao piso nobre faz-se por duplas escadarias que se repetem nas fachadas transversais dos dois pátios, duas a poente e uma a nascente, e acentuam a simetria e o movimento barroco de toda a ornamentação.
No 1º andar, entre os pátios e com fachadas sobre ambos, ao centro da construção e definindo a linha de união dos dois quadrados que compõem a planta, localiza-se o Salão de Entrada. Dá acesso a norte e a sul, respectivamente à Biblioteca e ala de quartos, e à Sala do Tijolo e ala das salas. As duas alas são ligadas entre si no topo nascente através de uma ala com quartos que dá acesso ao Coro da Capela.
Os vinhos são DIVINOS e os jardins magníficos!
Fonte:casademateus.com/historia.htm
----------------------------------------------
The Matthew House is ordered to be built in the first half of the eighteenth century by Antonio José Botelho Mourao, 3rd Morgado de Mateus. Replaces up to the family home already on site in the early seventeenth century. In 1911 is classified as a National Monument.
The baroque architecture of Italian style, is attributed to Nasoni consistency of style and resemblance to other works of authorship. According to Robert Smith, an expert in his work, the architect will be devoted to building the house, or at least its central facade and decor, the years between 1739 to 1743.
Apart from the baroque splendor of the main façade and wealth of decoration, consisting of curved cornice, gables, spiers and statuary, impresses the rationality and accuracy of the plant and metric modulation.
The plant is part of a rectangle and divided into two quadrants in the center, creating several wards and consist of two courtyards connected by large openings on the ground floor. The front patio is open, releasing the rearward view of the main facade and facing the west, and the latter is closed, and define through large openings in the ground-floor view of a central axis running through the building, and is a string of classical expression and great harmony.
Access to the first floor is by twin staircases that are repeated on the facades of the two cross courts, two to the west and east, and emphasize the symmetry and movement of all the Baroque ornamentation.
On the 1st floor, between the courts and on both fronts, the center of the building and defining the line of union of the two squares that make up the plant, located in the Entrance Hall. Provides access to the north and south respectively to the library and ward rooms, and room of the Brick and ward rooms. The two wings are linked together through spring at the top of a wing with rooms that gives access to the Chapel Choir.
The wines are magnificent gardens and DIVINE!
More waving the Pulse Width Modulation device at Tynemouth beach) , with a bit of the newly refurbished City Lites addressable LED stick thrown in for good measure.
This one has had contrast and levels slightly tweaked in Adobe Camera RAW.
[ Compulsory note: I did something here that I never do -- replaced a photo/post. Explanation: I uploaded this while taking a walk recently, or tried to, rather. No Wi-Fi [was in semi-Rural Texas at the time] and 0 phone data availability. Anyway, I accidentally uploaded the same image twice. Shockingly, I didn't go for twenty-three identical images or more [I am joking].
SO, instead of moving forward, ignoring the identical twins of my stream, AND to keep myself from just deep-sixing it [that wouldn't be very nice at all ;], I subbed a BW image shot at approx. same time and local.
Appreciate your understanding. Prost.
"Deliverance" Chardonnay 2020, North Canterbury New Zealand
A good Saturday afternoon with wine, sun and ABBA
The greatest pop band ever in existence is back. It's like saying Elvis is in fact alive or Bowie faked his death (which he totally did) or Prince had a twin who is also a genius and still alive living as a recluse playing funk or Beatles recorded secret album in 1967 which just been found.
Favourite ABBA song?
impossible
but let's say I need to pick one for aliens to show them what ABBA thing is?
Ok I'll go with that one, it's just because I know, no strike that, my body knows (skin and all) , every note every shade of the keyboard track every voice modulation of every second of it, all of which is in its perfect place
A science project, stretch a 50 foot wire antenna and create a crystal radio. This was how I discovered 'Rock n Roll'!
Pose created using Anypose
The crystal radio operates without a power source.
Think about it.
Technical Characteristics
Medium wave signals travel via ground wave propagation, allowing them to follow the curvature of the Earth for reliable local coverage during the day. As night falls, these signals can also bounce off the ionosphere, enabling long-distance reception that may span hundreds of miles under the right conditions.
Amplitude modulation varies the strength of the radio wave to carry audio information, making it the oldest method used for radio broadcasting.
To create this image, first I went to MP and bought a window. Then on MP I bought a blank folded piece of paper. I also purchased siding textures and a Casablanca poster. I then googled images of insulators and vintage earphones. When I found the images I wanted I erased the backgrounds. I googled the schematic for a crystal radio and added it to the piece of paper. The Avatar is seated in the open window in front of the Casablanca poster holding the paper with schematic. Everything else, the earphone, the siding, the insulator, the wire... they were all layered in.
Radioteletype (RTTY) is a telecommunications system consisting originally of two or more electromechanical teleprinters in different locations connected by radio rather than a wired link. Radioteletype evolved from earlier landline teleprinter operations that began in the mid-1800s. The US Navy Department successfully tested printing telegraphy between an airplane and ground radio station in 1922. Later that year, the Radio Corporation of America successfully tested printing telegraphy via their Chatham, Massachusetts, radio station to the R.M.S. Majestic. Commercial RTTY systems were in active service between San Francisco and Honolulu as early as April 1932 and between San Francisco and New York City by 1934. The US military used radioteletype in the 1930s and expanded this usage during World War II. From the 1980s, teleprinters were replaced by personal computers (PCs) running software to emulate teleprinters.
The term radioteletype is used to describe both the original radioteletype system, sometimes described as "Baudot", as well as the entire family of systems connecting two or more teleprinters or PCs using software to emulate teleprinters, over radio, regardless of alphabet, link system or modulation.
In some applications, notably military and government, radioteletype is known by the acronym RATT (Radio Automatic Teletype).
The background picture is entitled: St. Louis, May 1940. "Downtown street on Sunday morning." and is the property of Shorpy.com. The original picture can be viewed here
* Obviously the following commentary is quite lengthy and makes for difficult reading "on screen". (If) you care to take to trouble of reading the entire text, my suggestion would be to copy the text and paste it into a Word document.
........... and you think the world is in chaos today?..............
The New York Stock Exchange crashed in October 1929 throwing the nation into the grips of poverty and financial despair. 1930 was the beginning of the Great Depression. It would last a decade in the United States, where, at its nadir in 1933, 25 percent of all workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm workers were completely out of work. Some people starved; many others lost their farms and homes. Homeless vagabonds sneaked aboard the freight trains that crossed the nation. Dispossessed cotton farmers, the “Okies,” stuffed their possessions into dilapidated Model Ts and migrated to California in the false hope that the posters about plentiful jobs were true. Although the U.S. economy began to recover in the second quarter of 1933, the recovery largely stalled for most of 1934 and 1935. A more vigorous recovery commenced in late 1935 and continued into 1937, when a new depression occurred. The American economy had yet to fully recover from the Great Depression when the United States was drawn into World War II in December 1941. Because of this agonizingly slow recovery, the entire decade of the 1930s in the United States is often referred to as the Great Depression.
Socialism declared the Death of Capitalism; Hitler rose to power; From July 1936 to April 1939 Spain was ravaged by a Civil War, In 1931, the Japanese Kwangtung Army attacked Chinese troops in Manchuria. Ominous clouds of impending war loomed on the horizon. In the United States, the majority of its citizens were too preoccupied with trying to survive another day under the strains of the depression to notice.
But all of this drove technology forward: Radio was now the dominant mass medium in the so-called civilized world; the first commercial intercontinental airline flights began.
Some inventions and innovations of the 1930s and 40’s that shaped the culture:
1930: Planet discovered: Pluto, by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory
1930: Photoflash bulb
1930: Freon invented by Midgley et al.
1930: Artificial fabric polymerized from acetylene (J. Walter Reppe, Germany)
1930: High-octane gasoline invented by Ipatief (Russia)
1931: Cyclotron invented (Ernest O. Lawrence, USA)
1931: Neoprene (synthetic rubber) developed by Julius A. Nieuwland
1931: Synthetic resin, invented by Hill (England)
1931: Electronic microscope, Lroll & Ruska (Germany)
1932: Vitamin D discovered
1933: Electronic television invented by Philo Farnsworth (USA)
1933: Pure Vitamin C synthesized by Tadeusz Reichstein
1934: Launderette, invented by Cantrell (USA)
1935: Aircraft-detecting radar, by Robert Watson Watt
1935: First sulfa drug (Prontosil) for streptococcal infections (G. Domagk, Germany)
1936: Artificial Heart invented by Dr. Alexis Carrel
1937: Nylon patented for DuPont by Wallace H. Carothers
1937: First jet engine, built by Frank Whittle
1938: Fiberglass invented at Owens-Corning
1938: Teflon invented at Du Pont
1938: Vitamin E identified
1938: Fluorescent lamp, at General Electric
1939: First nylon stockings
1939: Polyethylene invented
1939: First helicopter, built by Igor Sikorsky (Russian-American)
1939: FM (Frequency Modulation) radio invented by Edwin H. Armstrong
1940: First USA helicopter flight, Vought-Sikorsky Corporation
1940: Penicillin perfected by Howard Florey as useful antibiotic
1940: Cavity Magnetron developed (key to Radar)
1940: First transuranic element (Neptunium) discovered (Philip Abelson & Edwin McMillan)
1940: First electron microscope, RCA
Meanwhile, Hitler's Nazi party gained power (in 1930), and soon led to the annexation of Austria (1938) and the invasion of Poland (1939), which drew France and Great Britain into World War II, despite the dithering of Neville Chamberlain. In June of 1940 the rapidly advancing German Army captured Paris. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is U.S. president (1932 into the next decade). Great Britain sees three kings in the decade: Edward VIII, George V, and George VI.
1930 – 1940 (what were we reading, what were we watching and what were we listening to)
BOOKS:
1932 Aldous Huxley: "Brave New World"
1932 “Tobacco Road” by Erskine Caldwell is published. It is about Georgia sharecroppers.
1938 Ayn Rand: "Anthem”
1939 James Joyce: "Finnegans Wake"
1939 “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck is published.
MOVIES:
1931 “Frankenstein”
1932"The Mummy" - With Boris Karloff.
1933 “Deluge” - New York is wiped out by tsunami. Based on 1928 novel of same name by S.
Fowler Wright. (Plot sound familiar?)
1933 “The Invisible Man” - with Claude Rains as Dr. Jack Giffin, John Carradine, Walter Brennan,
directed by James Whale.
1933 “King Kong” - with Leslie Fenton, Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmond, George Merritt. Directed by Karl Hartl.
1934 "The Thin Man" - With William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan. Based on the book by
Dashiell Hammett.
1935 "Top Hat" - With Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore.
1936 “Flash Gordon” (many sequels to follow)
1936"The Charge of the Light Brigade" - With Erroll Flynn, Olivia DeHavilland, Donald Crisp, Nigel
Bruce, Patric Knowles, David Niven.
1937 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
1938 "The Adventures of Robin Hood" - With Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude
Rains, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale. Directed by Michael Curtiz.
1939 "Gone With the Wind" - With Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia DeHavilland,
Thomas Mitchell, Hattie McDaniel.
1940 "The Grapes of Wrath" - With Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine. Directed by John
Ford.
1940 "The Bank Dick" - With W.C. Fields, Cora Witherspoon, Una Merkel, Franklin Pangborn, Shemp
Howard, Grady Sutton.
MUSIC – 1940
“When You Wish Upon a Star” - Glenn Miller
“In The Mood” - Glenn Miller
“When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano” - Ink Spots
“Frenesi” - Artie Shaw
“Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The Bar” - Will Bradley
“Tuxedo Junction” - Glenn Miller
“Body and Soul” - Coleman Hawkins
“I'll Never Smile Again” - Tommy Dorsey
“Sierra Sue” - Bing Crosby
“Blueberry Hill” - Glenn Miller
“Careless” - Glenn Miller
“Ferryboat Serenade” - Andrews Sisters
“The Woodpecker Song” - Glenn Miller
“Only Forever” - Bing Crosby
“Imagination” - Glenn Miller
RADIO:
Although the origins of television can be traced back as far as 1873 the discovery of the photoconductivity of the element selenium by Willoughby Smith, the first regularly scheduled television service in the United States was not available until July 2, 1928 and yet then it was in its infancy and certainly not perfected and not a widely accepted form of media. Radio was the media of the time. Most Americans, although barely able to put food on the table or clothes on their backs, had some type of radio in their living quarters.
1932, November 7th - the First radio broadcast of "Buck Rogers" www.buck-rogers.com/radio_serial/
What followed was a whole host of Science fiction, mystery, comedy, westerns, detective and music programs. During the mid to late 30’s and 40’s millions of American families gathered around their radios in the evening listening to their favorite radio shows. Radio broadcasts continued well into the late 50’s when eventually television became readily accessible and affordable to most Americans.
A few of the earliest radio shows:
“Flash Gordon” – September, 1935: www.oldradioworld.com/media/Flash%20Gordon%201935-09-07%2...
“The Town Crier” 1929 - 1942: www.oldradioworld.com/media/The%20Town%20Crier%20Twenty%2...
“Sam Bass, Death Valley Days” 1930 – 1945: www.oldradioworld.com/media/Death%20Valley%20Days%201936-...
“The Aldrich Family” – 1939 - 1953: www.oldradioworld.com/media/The%20Aldrich%20Family%201952...
If you would care to delve a little further into the world of radio entertainment (before the days of sex, graphic violence and endless commercials on TV), I suggest you check out this excellent site - www.oldradioworld.com/
Notable events:
1931 - Empire State Building opens in New York City
1931, September – Japanese invade Manchuria
1932 - Ford introduces the Model B, the first low-priced car to have a V-8 engine
1933 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt sworn in as President; he is the last president to be inaugurated on
March 4.
1933, February - Less than a month after Hitler became chancellor, the Reichstag burns down. When the police arrive they find Marinus van der Lubbe on the premises. Upon being tortured by the Gestapo van der Lubbe confesses to starting the fire. However he denies that he was part of a Communist
Conspiracy. Hitler later gives orders that all leaders of the German Communist Party "will be
hanged that very night." Hermann Goering announces that the Nazi Party plans "to exterminate" German communists.
1934 Chancellor Dollfuss of Austria assassinated by Nazis. Hitler becomes führer. USSR admitted to League of Nations.
1934 - John Dillinger is killed in Chicago
1935 - Mussolini invades Ethiopia; League of Nations invokes sanctions. Roosevelt opens second
phase of New Deal in U.S., calling for social security, better housing, equitable taxation, and farm assistance. Huey Long assassinated in Louisiana.
1935, September - The Nuremberg Race Laws deprive German Jews of their rights of citizenship, giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich. The laws also make it forbidden for Jews to marry or have sexual relations with Aryans or to employ young Aryan women as household help. The Nazis settle on defining a "full Jew" as a person with three Jewish grandparents. Those with less were designated as Mischlinge or a "mixed blood."
1937, May - the German passenger airship, the Hindenburg, catches fire and is destroyed while attempting to dock during a electrical storm at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station. Of the 97 people on board, 15 are killed along with people killed on the ground. The exact cause for this disaster is still unknown.
1936, August – The 1936 Summer Olympics officially known as Games of the XI Olympiad, are held in Berlin, Germany. Jesse Owens wins four gold medals: the 100m sprint, the long jump, 200m sprint and after he was added to the 4 x 100 m relay team, he won his fourth on August 9.
* Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, while at the time blacks in many parts of the United States were denied equal rights. After a New York City ticker-tape parade of Fifth Avenue in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator at the Waldorf-Astoria to reach the reception honoring him.......... a sad chapter in the history of the United States. Owens said, "Hitler didn't snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." On the other hand, Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself. Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor were honors bestowed upon him by president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or his successor Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower honored Owens by naming him an "Ambassador of Sports."
1936 - Germans occupy Rhineland. Italy annexes Ethiopia. Rome-Berlin Axis proclaimed (Japan to join
in 1940). Trotsky exiled to Mexico.
1937 - Hitler repudiates war guilt clause of Versailles Treaty; continues to build German power. Italy withdraws from League of Nations. U.S. gunboat Panay sunk by Japanese in Yangtze River.
Japan invades China, conquers most of coastal area. Amelia Earhart lost somewhere in Pacific
on round-the-world flight. Picasso's Guernica mural – an abstract depicting the chaos and human calamity of the Spanish Civil War.
1938, November - The Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass" is a night when the Gestapo and the SS go through towns of Austria and smash the windows of Jewish occupations. Thousands of homes and businesses are ransacked, 91 Jews are murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 are arrested and placed in concentration camps.
1938, March - The Anschluss, Germany takes over Austria. The German speaking part of Austria wanted to unite with Germany and Hitler states that this was his purpose for the annexation of Austria. However, this is against the Treaty of Versailles.
1939, September - Nazi-Germany attacks Poland, essentially the beginning of World War II. Many
countries around Germany declared war on Germany but do not take overt action against the Third Reich. Recently, Adolf Hitler had agreed in the Munich Agreement that he would not invade Poland. Great Britain and Poland have a mutual aid treaty that requires either country to come to the aid of the other in the event of war. When Germany invades Poland, Britain (and the Commonwealth) is obligated to come to the aid of Poland by declaring war on Germany. The United States, however, does not officially declare war against Germany. Many countries rise up and voiced anger over Hitler’s betrayal but only Britain and the Commonwealth take overt actions to try and stop Hilter’s military aggression.
1939 - President Roosevelt, appears at the opening of the 1939 New York World's Fair, becoming the first President to give a speech that is broadcast on television. Semi-regular broadcasts air during the next two years
1940, August - The Battle of Britain begins. The German Luftwaffe attempts to take over British airspace and destroy the Royal Air Force with the intention of eventually invading England. Against all odds, Britain and The Royal Air Force resist the Luftwaffe aggression causing Hitler to abandon the idea of invading Britain and to turn his attention to Russia.
1940, March - "Lend/Lease" is the name of the program under which the US supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material in return for military bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British West Indies. It
was intended to promote the defense of the US. This act also ended the neutrality of the United States.
1940, May (This picture) – A mostly vacant downtown area of St. Louis on an early Sunday
morning.
As this picture suggests, the United States lay basically asleep, as many Americans are either unaware , or prefer to ignore the ominous winds of war swirling all around them. In a few short months, the hammer would fall and Americans would find themselves anxiously gathered around their radios listening to the President of the United States announce:
“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.
It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.
But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.”
From this day forward, life as American’s knew it, will be drastically and forever changed.
About 7 years after Japan first staked it’s claim on Mercury and began mining the planet for Magnesium ore in an effort to curb reliance on the Russo-Sino Confederacy, the miners began taking scrap and creating maglev tracks and racing modified mining buggies and carts.
Within 20 years, the planetary pastime was refined and became increasingly dangerous, high tech, and profitable in its own right.
Bleeding edge technology not commonly used for terrestrial race applications became commonplace due to the lack of safety regulations pertaining to anything but the extraction of ore, an inherently risk seeking populace of thrill and adventure seekers now a generation deep.
Usually events were matched in three way heats to extend the festivities over the course of a full Mercurian day, or almost 2 months long on Earth. Pilots could expect to cross between scorching heat and bitterly freezing temperatures making the need for robust propulsion systems and life support systems paramount.
Here we see from left to right a Klandonian MKIV, adorned in spoilers which have less to do with producing downforce in a minimal atmosphere and more importantly work to transfer heat to or from the core of the vehicle depending on daytime or night time racing.
The Titan Industries Marauder is the only design produced from a manufacturer based on Mercury, and it’s record number of podium finishes is there to prove it. With a similarly complex set of veins and spoiler surfaces to mitigate heat and provide what aerodynamic modulation it can, it is slightly more delicate than the rest but otherwise supremely tuned to its environment.
Last in this heat is the Subaru Pleiades - a newly designed introduction from the Japanese automobile manufacturer. Hoping to stake a name for themselves in the fastest growing segment of industry and Motorsport entertainment, their cutting edge design was produced in partnership with Titan Industries but takes bold steps away from the reliance on heat sinks, diffusers, and spoilers, and focuses on a robust more rally like design. Not to be easily outdone, the vehicle shares the same power plant as the competitors but recirculates the heat in an ingenious internal channeling system that primes the fuel delivery system for more powerful combustion less reliant on external conditions and is thusly much more consistently performing in its output.
Events rarely end without one or two pilots meeting a glorious end by nightfall, but the prestige and a chance at the grand prize of a peripheral mining colony is too much for many young miners to pass up.
Here at one of the first officially recognized long distance tracks, Hi Bakudan Raceways (re-named after the tremendous and fatal collision during its inaugural race when it was simply known as The Path) all are expected to survive, but the odds are ever shifting.
Racers built by Shawn Davis
Starting Grid built by Peter Carmichael
Steam yacht Thelma, photographed in 1904. My colorization of an image in the Library of Congress archive (Detroit Publishin Co. collection).
Three years later Thelma made made history. The world´s first ship-to-shore broadcast was made from the yacht.
Electrical World reported on August 10, 1907:
"The first actual application of radio-telephony to practical work anywhere in the world was made at Put-in-Bay, in Lake Erie, during the week of July 15 to 20, in reporting the regatta of the Interlake Association. The Radio Telephone Company installed the De Forest wireless telephone on board of the cruiser yacht "Thelma," and also equipped a shore station at the Fox Dock at Put-in-Bay.
The "Thelma" followed the competing yachts around the course through most of the races and full and graphic accounts were telephoned into the shore station.
The greatest distance at which the reports from the yachts were heard and recorded was four miles, considered remarkable in view of the height of "Thelma's" spars and the power of the transmitter on board. Her equipment comprised a 220-volt generator of 1 kilowatt capacity, the DeForest oscillator and transmitter, and for the receiving apparatus an audion detector and "pan cake" form of syntonizer or tuner. Her aerial wires led through the roof of the wheelhouse to a small crossarm on top of the foremast and thence to a similar arm on the mainmast. Ground connection was at first made to the propeller shafts of her twin screws, but as this was found insufficient, more area was added by fastening two sheets of zinc to the yacht's hull at the bow.
The telephone dynamo was belted direct to the flywheel of her starboard engines, aft, and the rest of the radio apparatus was mounted on a small table in her main cabin convenient to all.
On shore 110-volt direct-current was available and this was transformed to 220 volts by a motor generator. The current was led through a rheostat and choke coils to the oscillator. Connected to this oscillator is a shunt circuit consisting of a condenser of peculiar construction and a primary coil, the exact number of turns of which could be varied at will to alter the tune or wave length of the electrical waves which were generated. A second coil within this primary had its upper end connected direct with the antennae or aerial wire, while its lower end led first through the microphone transmitter and thence to the earth plate. In this way the changes in resistance in the microphone produced by the modulations of the human voice directly affect the intensity of the high-frequency currents which are continually passing from the air wire to the ground plate. Inasmuch as the receiver instrument is affected exactly in proportion with the strength of the received electric waves, it is evident that every variation in the microphone resistance by the voice will be reproduced to the listening ear at the distant station by the vibration of the telephone diaphragm there. The microphone transmitter and the telephone receiver are exactly the same as used in the wire telephone, with which all are familiar. The "oscillator" and the "responder" are the only new and additional features, and the ether takes the place of the connecting wire.
Upon the finish of the regatta the telephone apparatus from the "Thelma" and the Put-in-Bay shore station was shipped to Toledo, where it is the intention of the Radio Telephone Company to install it permanently, where it can be in communication with other wireless telephone sets to be installed on vessels sailing Lake Erie. The Great Lakes offer, perhaps, the most promising field anywhere in the world for the first general application of this new invention to the needs of a merchant marine, and it is the intention of the company to at once enter this promising field."
Electrical World, August 10, 1907
A partial view of one of the three apses of Florence's cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, from the bottom up.
I have been fascinated by the series of layers you can see, something like steps in a ladder climbing towards the sky, culminating with the curve surface of Brunelleschi bricks dome and the gilt copper sphere and cross crowning the whole structure (the lantern is hidden due to the curvature of the dome, from this point of view).
This view strikes me as another kind of visual counterpoint, the spiral canon - a canon whose theme at every repetition begins at a different pitch, creating a sort of ascending (or possibly descending - I do not know examples of this, though) musical spiral - or a ladder, indeed.
There are few examples of spiral canons, the most known being the ascending spiral canon in Bach's Musical Offering BWV 1079, which ia accompanied by the Latin motto Ascendenteque Modulatione ascendat Gloria Regis (As the keys ascend so may the glory of the king also ascend).
The spiral canon is one of the "musical traps" set by Bach for Frederick the Great, to whom the work is dedicated - with no flattery from the Author. The motto is related to the structure of the canon, which undeniably sports an ascending pitch progression - on the stave, at least. But the Royal Theme permeating the whole work - a tricky theme imposed upon Bach by Frederick himself for an impromptu display of his masterly contrapunctal arts - is so rich in chromaticism that, upon execution, one cannot really perceive the ascending modulation. I strongly suspect that this could be just a way to negate with music the letter of the Latin motto, getting into perspective Frederick's earthly power (possibly suggesting that the only King is not of this world) :-))
I have blended three HDR images derived from a 3-bracketing, -1 ev/0/+1 ev, generated and tonemapped with Luminance HDR 2.4.0 (Mantiuk06, Reinhard05 and Fattal operators).
Luminance HDR 2.4.0 tonemapping parameters:
Operator: Mantiuk06
Contrast Mapping factor: 0.54
Saturation Factor: 0.51
Detail Factor: 2.7
------
PreGamma: 0.45
Operator: Fattal
alpha: 2.0
beta: 0.90
Saturation: 0.81
Noiseredux: 0
fftsolver: 1
---
PreGamma: 1.12
Operator: Reinhard05
Brightness: -1.8
Chromatic adaptation: 0.13
Light adaptation: 0.90
---
PreGamma: 1.18
Testing out the fadeable cathode wrangled by Mr J Barkby.
Changed the tube to blue, and annoyingly, the pot that controls the speed of the fade broke off.
Germany, Hamburg, Harbour City, Magellan Terraces, a square covering about 5,000 square metres, similar to an amphitheatre & providing a fine view of the Traditional-Ship Harbour in the Harbour City. This square is an inviting place to linger & is also used for cultural events.
For almost one & a half century, since 1866, the Harbour at the “Sandtorwall” was used as a port for ships with all kinds of imports from around the world. With the increasing size of cargo ships & later the container giants, the ware house area was not able to handle the freighters any longer. The whole area started than to be changed, maintaining the historic structure & buildings, into today’s harbour city, housing offices, apartments, gastronomy, shops etc., the re-modulation of the harbour city will still go on for many years, including the never ending story of the philharmonic concert hall.
👉 One World one Dream,
...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over
10 million visits in my photostream with countless motivating comments
There is a superhighway between the brain and GI system that holds great sway over humans
"There is a muscle that encircles the gut like a lasso when we are sitting… creating a kink in the tube," Giulia Enders explains in Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ. She calls the mechanism "an extra insurance policy, in addition to our old friends, the sphincters" (you have two sphincters – keep reading) and cites studies showing that squatters, with their unkinked guts, are less susceptible to haemorrhoids and constipation.Enders, a 25-year-old student at the Institute for Microbiology in Frankfurt, inside an underground public lavatory in central London. "Is there a toilet in this toilet?" she asks when she arrives. There is not, a barista tells her. The Victorian urinals, abandoned in the 1960s, have been converted into cafe with booths and stools, and no room for anything else.After a dash to a pub loo above ground, Enders talks with infectious energy about the wonder of the gut. She has been delighted to discover how many people share her fascination with a subject that can suffer for being taboo. "Even today in the taxi, I told the driver what I was doing and within about two minutes he was telling me about his constipation," she says in perfect English, which she owes to a year of study in the US. "And it's not just him. It's ladies with chic hair at big gala dinners, too. Everyone wants to talk about it."Enders first got noticed after a self-assured turn at a science slam in Berlin three years ago. Her 10-minute lecture went viral on YouTube, and now, weeks after completing her final exams as a doctoral student, she is a publishing sensation. Her book, called Darm Mit Charme ("Charming Bowels") in Germany, has sold more than 1.3 million copies since it came out last year. Rights have been sold to dozens of countries.
Her way into the gut is a lightness that some reviewers have found too childish or lacking in scientific rigour to be taken seriously. But there is something compelling and refreshing about her curiosity and popular approach. "When I read the research, I think, why don't people know about this – why am I reading about it in some paper or specialist magazine? It's ridiculous because everyone has to deal with it on a daily basis." After she explains the inspiration for her fixation (the suicide of an acquaintance who had had severe halitosis, and her own teenage skin condition, which turned out to have been caused by a wheat intolerance) Enders starts at the end of the digestive tract with what she calls the "masterly performance" that is defecation. "There is so much about the anus that we don't know," she says, reaching for a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie. "The first surprise is the sophistication of our sphincters… you know about the outer one because you can control it, but the inner one nobody knows about."
This inner opening is beyond our conscious control, releasing waste material into a sort of anal vestibule where, in Enders words, "a small taster" hits sensor cells that tell the body what it's dealing with and how to respond using the outer sphincter. This opening, and our mouths, are the recognisable and controllable ends of a system that, stretched out, would be almost as long as a bus. But it's the bits in between, and their link with the rest of our bodies, including our brains and emotions, that really interest Enders.
"Medical diagrams show the small intestine as a sausage thing chaotically going through our belly," she says. "But it is an extraordinary work of architecture that moves so harmonically when you see it during surgery. It's clean and smooth, like soft fabric, and moves like this." She performs a wavy, pulsating motion with her hands. Enders believes that if we could think differently about the gut, we might more readily understand its role beyond basic digestion – and be kinder to it. The great extent to which the gut can influence health and mood is a growing field in medicine. We speak of it all the time, whether we describe "gut feelings", "butterflies in our stomachs", or "pooing our pants" in fear, but popular understanding of this gut-brain axis remains low.
A primal connection exists between our brain and our gut. We often talk about a “gut feeling” when we meet someone for the first time. We’re told to “trust our gut instinct” when making a difficult decision or that it’s “gut check time” when faced with a situation that tests our nerve and determination. This mind-gut connection is not just metaphorical. Our brain and gut are connected by an extensive network of neurons and a highway of chemicals and hormones that constantly provide feedback about how hungry we are, whether or not we’re experiencing stress, or if we’ve ingested a disease-causing microbe. This information superhighway is called the brain-gut axis and it provides constant updates on the state of affairs at your two ends. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach after looking at your postholiday credit card bill is a vivid example of the brain-gut connection at work. You’re stressed and your gut knows it—immediately.
The enteric nervous system is often referred to as our body’s second brain. There are hundreds of million of neurons connecting the brain to the enteric nervous system, the part of the nervous system that is tasked with controlling the gastrointestinal system. This vast web of connections monitors the entire digestive tract from the esophagus to the anus. The enteric nervous system is so extensive that it can operate as an independent entity without input from our central nervous system, although they are in regular communication. While our “second” brain cannot compose a symphony or paint a masterpiece the way the brain in our skull can, it does perform an important role in managing the workings of our inner tube. The network of neurons in the gut is as plentiful and complex as the network of neurons in our spinal cord, which may seem overly complex just to keep track of digestion. Why is our gut the only organ in our body that needs its own “brain”? Is it just to manage the process of digestion? Or could it be that one job of our second brain is to listen in on the trillions of microbes residing in the gut?
Operations of the enteric nervous system are overseen by the brain and central nervous system. The central nervous system is in communication with the gut via the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system, the involuntary arm of the nervous system that controls heart rate, breathing, and digestion. The autonomic nervous system is tasked with the job of regulating the speed at which food transits through the gut, the secretion of acid in our stomach, and the production of mucus on the intestinal lining. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, or HPA axis, is another mechanism by which the brain can communicate with the gut to help control digestion through the action of hormones.
This circuitry of neurons, hormones, and chemical neurotransmitters not only sends messages to the brain about the status of our gut, it allows for the brain to directly impact the gut environment. The rate at which food is being moved and how much mucus is lining the gut—both of which can be controlled by the central nervous system—have a direct impact on the environmental conditions the microbiota experiences.
Like any ecosystem inhabited by competing species, the environment within the gut dictates which inhabitants thrive. Just as creatures adapted to a moist rain forest would struggle in the desert, microbes relying on the mucus layer will struggle in a gut where mucus is exceedingly sparse and thin. Bulk up the mucus, and the mucus-adapted microbes can stage a comeback. The nervous system, through its ability to affect gut transit time and mucus secretion, can help dictate which microbes inhabit the gut. In this case, even if the decisions are not conscious, it’s mind over microbes.
What about the microbial side? When the microbiota adjusts to a change in diet or to a stress-induced decrease in gut transit time, is the brain made aware of this modification? Does the brain-gut axis run in one direction only, with all signals going from brain to gut, or are some signals going the other way? Is that voice in your head that is asking for a snack coming from your mind or is it emanating from the insatiable masses in your bowels? Recent evidence indicates that not only is our brain “aware” of our gut microbes, but these bacteria can influence our perception of the world and alter our behavior. It is becoming clear that the influence of our microbiota reaches far beyond the gut to affect an aspect of our biology few would have predicted—our mind.
For example, the gut microbiota influences the body’s level of the potent neurotransmitter serotonin, which regulates feelings of happiness. Some of the most prescribed drugs in the U.S. for treating anxiety and depression, like Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil, work by modulating levels of serotonin. And serotonin is likely just one of a numerous biochemical messengers dictating our mood and behavior that the microbiota impacts.
Most of us can relate to the experience of having butterflies in our stomach, or to a visceral gut-wrenching feeling, and how often are we told not to ignore our “gut-instinct” or “gut-feeling” when making a decision.
Even from our simple slang, it’s clear just how symbolically connected the gut is to our emotions. Now, there’s tangible proof to support these popular metaphors.
We all have a microbiome, and they are as unique as our neural pathways
Research has shown that the body is actually composed of more bacteria than cells. We are more bug than human! Collectively, these trillions of bacteria are called the microbiome. Most of those bacteria reside in our gut, sometimes referred to as the gut microbiota, and they play multiple roles in our overall health.
The gut is no longer seen as an entity with the sole purpose of helping with all aspects of digestion. It’s also being considered as a key player in regulating inflammation and immunity.
A healthy gut consists of different iterations of bacteria for different people, and this diversity maintains wellness. A shift away from “normal” gut microbiota diversity is called dysbiosis, and dysbiosis may contribute to disease. In light of this, the microbiome has become the focus of much research attention as a new way of understanding autoimmune, gastrointestinal, and even brain disorders.
The benefit of a healthy gut is illustrated most effectively during early development. Research has indicated just how sensitive a fetus is to any changes in a mother’s microbiotic makeup, so much so that it can alter the way a baby’s brain develops. If a baby is born via cesarean section, it misses an opportunity to ingest the mother’s bacteria as it travels down the vaginal canal. Studies show that those born via c-section have to work to regain the same diversity in their microbiome as those born vaginally. Throughout our lives, our microbiome continues to be a vulnerable entity, and as we are exposed to stress, toxins, chemicals, certain diets, and even exercise, our microbiome fluctuates for better or worse.
The gut as second brain
Our gut microbiota play a vital role in our physical and psychological health via its own neural network: the enteric nervous system (ENS), a complex system of about 100 million nerves found in the lining of the gut.
The ENS is sometimes called the “second brain,” and it actually arises from the same tissues as our central nervous system (CNS) during fetal development. Therefore, it has many structural and chemical parallels to the brain.
Our ENS doesn’t wax philosophical or make executive decisions like the gray shiny mound in our skulls. Yet, in a miraculously orchestrated symphony of hormones, neurotransmitters, and electrical impulses through a pathway of nerves, both “brains” communicate back and forth. These pathways include and involve endocrine, immune, and neural pathways.
At this point in time, even though the research is inchoate and complex, it is clear that the brain and gut are so intimately connected that it sometimes seems like one system, not two.
Our emotions play a big role in functional gastrointestinal disorders
Given how closely the gut and brain interact, it has become clear that emotional and psychosocial factors can trigger symptoms in the gut. This is especially true in cases when the gut is acting up and there’s no obvious physical cause.
The functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are a group of more than 20 chronic and hard to treat medical conditions of the gastrointestinal tract that constitute a large proportion of the presenting problems seen in clinical gastroenterology.
While FGID’s were once thought to be partly “in one’s head,” a more precise conceptualization of these difficulties posits that psychosocial factors influence the actual physiology of the gut, as well as the modulation of symptoms. In other words, psychological factors can literally impact upon physical factors, like the movement and contractions of the GI tract, causing, inflammation, pain, and other bowel symptoms.
Mental health impacts gut wellness
In light of this new understanding, it might be impossible to heal FGID’s without considering the impact of stress and emotion. Studies have shown that patients who tried psychologically based approaches had greater improvement in their symptoms compared with patients who received conventional medical treatment.
Along those lines, a new pilot study from Harvard University affiliates Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that meditation could have a significant impact for those with irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease. Forty-eight patients with either IBS or IBD took a 9-week session that included meditation training, and the results showed reduced pain, improved symptoms, stress reduction, and the change in expression of genes that contribute to inflammation.
Poor gut health can lead to neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders
Vice-versa, poor gut health has been implicated in neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Disturbances in gut health have been linked to multiple sclerosis, autistic spectrum disorders, and Parkinson’s disease. This is potentially related to pro-inflammatory states elicited by gut dysbiosis-microbial imbalance on or inside the body. Additional connections between age-related gut changes and Alzheimer’s disease have also been made.
Further, there is now research that is dubbing depression as an inflammatory disorder mediated by poor gut health. In fact, multiple animal studies have shown that manipulating the gut microbiota in some way can produce behaviors related to anxiety and depression. (Maes, Kubera, Leunis, Berk, J. Affective Disorders, 2012 and Berk, Williams, Jacka, BMC Med, 2013).
Our brain’s health, which will be discussed in more depth in a later blog post, is dependent on many lifestyle choices that mediate gut health; including most notably diet (i.e., reduction of excess sugar and refined carbohydrates) and pre and probiotic intake.
The brain-gut connection has treatment implications
We are now faced with the possibility of both prevention and treatment of neurological/neuropsychiatric difficulties via proper gut health. On the flip side, stress-reduction and other psychological treatments can help prevent and treat gastrointestinal disorders. This discovery can potentially lead to reduced morbidity, impairment, and chronic dependency on health care resources.
The most empowering aspect to the gut-brain connection is the understanding that many of our daily lifestyle choices play a role in mediating our overall wellness. This whole-body approach to healthcare and wellness continues to show its value in our longevity, well-being, and quality of life: that both physical and mental health go hand-in-hand.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish Mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the unpleasant issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.
Lettice is now engaged to Sir John Nettleford Hughes. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John, according to London society gossip enjoys dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Although she did not become engaged to him then, Lettice did reacquaint herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by mutual friends Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate in 1924. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again later that year at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. When Lettice’s understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, fell apart, Lettice agreed to Sir John’s proposal. Then, during the General Strike* that almost brought the nation to a standstill, Selwyn and Lettice were reintroduced, and she found out that Selwyn wasn’t engaged to another woman at all, as she was led to believe by Lady Zinnia, and it had all been a fabrication, leaving her in a quandary over what to do: break her engagement with Sir John and marry the man she truly loves and has never stopped loving, or remain engaged to Sir John, preserving his honour and the good name of her own family.
Now however, standing on the sweeping front steps of Portland stone as she looks up at the impressive Regency façade of Sir John’s Belgravia townhouse and knocks at the black painted front door with the polished brass knocker, she knows what she must do.
Sir John’s gentle faced butler in his stiffly starched collar and black barathea suit, answers the door.
“Miss Chetwynd!” Grindley says, allowing his ever calm façade to drop for just a moment as his eye widen to see Lettice standing outside on his master’s front steps.
“How do you do Grindley. Is His Lordship at home?” Lettice asks a little uncertainty.
“Certainly His Lordship is in residence, Miss Chetwynd,” the butler says kindly as he steps aside, ushering her from the cold and dark, empty street outside into the warmly illuminated marble hallway within. “Please do come inside.”
“Is he in the upstairs drawing room, Grindley?” Lettice asks.
“He is, Miss Chetwynd.” Grindley affirms with a deferential bow. “I’ll let His Lordship know that you’re here.”
“Oh please don’t bother, Grindley,” Lettice replies hurriedly. “I can show myself up. You’re sure you have a hundred and one other more important things to do than escort me upstairs.” She insists. “I know the way.”
And before the butler can object, Lettice slips lithely past him and hurries towards the sweeping carpeted spiral staircase to the upper floors of the townhouse.
The clip of Lettice’s louis heels echo throughout the lofty entrance hall as she scuttles across the marble floor. She passes by the uncomfortable Regency hall chair on which she sat, awaiting Grindley to announce her to Sir John the first time she visited the house. The hallway is illuminated by the grand electrified crystal chandelier suspended from a dome three storeys above. She stops momentarily as she reaches the bottom of the staircase and places her hand on the black painted metal railing and glances back, her heartbeat thumping in her ears. Grindley stands where she left him, a lone figure in the entranceway, with a look on his face she can’t quite read – perhaps a mixture of astonishment, perplexity, concern and maybe even fear. However even as she breathes heavily where she stands, Lettice knows that she hasn’t a moment to lose, as she needs to follow her instincts whilst she has the wherewithal to do so, and already she can feel her courage fading with every fluttering heartbeat.
Lettice looks nervously up the stairs, before gulping and hurrying up them. As she passes the ornately framed portraits of Sir John’s ancestors, she is reminded of how she felt seeing their imperious stares looking down upon her from their gilded homes the first time she passed them. “Interloper!” they seemed to silently say that time, and since getting to know Sir John and his ancestors subsequently, Lettice has no more warmed to them than they seem to have toward her. “Coquette” they state disapprovingly this time, their looks accusational and critical as she Takes the stairs hurriedly, on occasion two at a time. “Bolter!” Do they know what she has planned this time, she wonders as she tries not to catch their steely gazes.
“Good evening, John.” Lettice says breezily as she opens the door of the first floor drawing room, swinging it widely open and walking into the warmly illuminated room where Sir John sits in his favourite wingback armchair, dressed in a smart velvet smoking jacket. The room hasn’t changed since Lettice set foot in it a year ago, to accept Sir John’s businesslike proposal of marriage. The room is still a symbol of restrained elegant and uncluttered lines from the Regency era. A selection of newspapers are spread out neatly on the surface of the central round Regency swan table next to a beautiful blue and white Chinese vase of blue irises and leather volumes from his library stand on the table next to his chair, along with a decanter of port. Arthur Burrows’* round vowels and gentle modulation drifts from the large mahogany wireless announcing the first news bulletin of the evening, featuring a story about a cinema disaster in Dromcollogher in County Limerick** with many lives lost.
“Why good evening, my dear Lettice.” Sir John replies, grasping his silver topped walking stick as he awkwardly rises from his at a comfortable seat. “What a pleasant surprise, my dear. Please, do take a seat.” He indicates with an elegant sweep of his hand to the sofa. He glances at the mantle and notes that the time is just after seven o’clock in the evening, his face crumpling in concern.
Before Lettice can answer, there is a surring slap of footsteps outside, as out of breath and red faced, Grindley enters the drawing room. “I do beg your pardon, Your Lordship.” he huffs. “I did try to stop her, but Miss Chetwynd did insist on entering your presence unannounced.”
“And quite right she is too, Grindley.” Sir John says with a smile, the response causing Grindley’s face to suddenly drain of colour and his eyes widen in surprise. “My fiancée knows her own mind, and will have things her way, as she sees fit.”
Not quite sure how to respond at first, the butler simply stands there like a caricature statue of a butler, before managing to reply in a strangulated voice, “Very good, Your Lordship.”
“Besides, as my fiancée and your future mistress,” Sir John goes on. “Miss Chetwynd has no need for an introduction in her own home.” He turns his attentions back to Lettice. “Because it is her home every bit as much as it is mine as well. And anything I have, I will share equally with my wife.”
“I do beg your pardon, Miss Chetwynd.” Grindley manages to say before bowing low before his employer’s future wife.
“Oh no, please don’t apologise, Grindley.” Lettice assures the male servant. “I can be a little tempestuous and rash sometimes.”
“Very good, Miss Chetwynd.” Grindley replies with another less deep bow.
“I was not long settled down with my friend here,” He holds out the thick volume in his left hand to allow Lettice to read the spine. “To listen to the news from Marconi House***
“Tennyson,” Lettice reads aloud from the spine, before chuckling in a disappointed way. “In should have known.”
“I’m having a glass of port. Would you like one, or perhaps you’d prefer something stronger?” Sir John asks. “Perhaps a gin and tonic?”
“No. No thank you, John.” Lettice replies nervously. “I can’t stop for long. I have other places to visit.”
Sir John’s face, bright and animated at her arrival suddenly takes on a disappointed look.
“But thank you for the thought, though.” Lettice goes on.
“Well at least have a seat, Lettice my dear.” His thoughts suddenly alight on his manservant standing there, awaiting instructions from his employer. “Err… that will be all, thank you Grindley.”
“Very good, Your Lordship.” he replies with another deep bow.
Once the doors to the drawing room are closed again, and they can no longer hear the butler’s footsteps echoing in the hallway outside, Lettice goes on, “I had to come and see you, and I had to do it whilst I still had the courage to tell it to you.”
“Tell me what, Lettice?” Sir John queries. “This sounds somewhat troubling.” He discards his book of Tennyson and deposits it on top of the pile sitting to his left. “Am I going to need something a little stronger than brandy to cope with what you have to say?”
“Oh!” Lettice sighs as she lowers herself onto the elegant Regency Stripe upholstery of the sofa. “I really don’t know, John. In don’t even know quite how to say it, myself.”
“If it is a bitter pill to swallow, might I suggest that it is said quickly, and with minimal preamble.”
Lettice sighs heavily this time, her shoulders rising and then falling again. She looks John squarely in the face. He isn’t handsome in the way Selwyn is: striking yes, in that way mature men past their prime sometimes were, and clearly very comfortable with the power that privilege and money bestows, but not handsome. She thinks for a moment. What is she about to give up? A comfortable existence as Lady Nettleford-Hughes. She doesn’t need Sir John’s money. She has enough of her own, and with more commissions for her services as an interior designer, she will soon have more. A relationship based on mutual respect. But what respect ca a man have for his wife when he prefers the company of chorus girls younger than her? Will that fascination wane over time? She doubts it. Selwyn respects Lettice enough to have come back to her. A fondness from Sir John, versus true love from Selwyn.
“I’m breaking off our engagement, John.” Lettice blurts out.
“Ahh.” Sir John replies from his seat, his eyes rolling to the ornate plaster ceiling above as he nods sagely.
“Ahh? Ahhh?” Lettice exclaims with exasperation. “Is that all you have to say, John?”
“Well, what else is there to say, Lettice my dear? You have come to a decision, and that decision must be honoured. We both agreed from the outset, that should you have a change in circumstances that also changed your answer to me, that you were able to apply your prerogative and end the engagement.”
“What do you know of my circumstances, or their alterations, John?” Lettice queries, looking at him with suspicious eyes.
“It may surprise you, Lettice my dear, but rather a good deal, and evidently far more than you give me credit for.”
“Well, you don’t seem very surprised, or upset.” Lettice huffs.
“Ahh, I may know a great deal about your circumstances, Lettice my dear. However it appears that you in return, after nearly a year of engagement, know nothing about me and my inner workings and emotions.”
“Very well then, John. You don’t appear to be surprised or upset to me.”
“Well, in response you your first presumption, you are right. I’m not surprised. However, as to the second, I am very much upset, but this too shall pass.”
“That’s a very civilised response, John.”
“As you also know, my dear Lettice, I come from a family for whom any signs of emotion were a weakness to be smothered and quashed. I have learned to hide my feelings beneath countless layers of bored indifference and civility, but do not presume I am not upset by your announcement, albeit not an unexpected one. I am, extremely upset.”
“How is it that you were expecting this turn of events, dear John?”
“If I am being brutally frank, which you know I am apt to do on select occasions, I actually suspected this would have happened when the idea of our engagement had lost its sheen and became tarnished with time. I’d made the proposition to you, now that I consider it in hindside, perhaps a little out of kindness, or perhaps chivalry, or dare I even say this aloud, out of pity for you, because I knew that Zinnia would never allow you and Spencely to marry.”
Lettice cannot help but laugh a shocked and staccato guffaw which lacks mirth.
“I can’t say I’ve ever been the subject of someone’s pity before, or at least not as far as I know.”
Ignoring her remark, Sir John goes on, “And then about a month ago, I knew almost certainly that it would only be a matter of time before things came to a head.”
“Does this have anything to do with my ardent dislike for your Gaiety Girl****, Miss Young?”
“Paula?” Sir John asks, looking earnestly at Lettice. “Good god no! Anyway, as I have told you on countless occasions before now, I’m about through with Paula and her predatorial attitudes and cloying clinginess.”
“But not just yet.”
“No, Lettice.” he replies a little peevishly as his eyes widen and a flame of irritation flares amidst the cool blue of eyes. “I did say I’m about through with Paula. I’m not quite done, yet.”
“Then how was it that you know with certainty that I would end the engagement?”
“It came from the most unlikely of places, actually,” Sir John says, picking up his crystal goblet and taking a sip of brandy. “It occurred as a result of a business visit to Lord Pendergast.”
“Lord Pendergast?” Lettice asks in surprise.
“Yes, after the success of the Radiolympia*****, we’re looking to patent a new design of glass valves for wirelesses.” He indicates to the large mahogany radiogram where Arthur Burrows well-modulated and clear tones talk now about the lighter subject of Gene Tunney becoming the new world heavyweight boxing champion after a fight in Philadelphia with Jack Dempsey******.
“No, I meant how does Lord Pendergast know anything about me, or that I was likely to end our engagement?”
“Oh!” Sir John chortles sadly as he returns his now empty goblet to the polished surface of his side table, next to the bulbous decanter. “It wasn’t Lord Pendergast who told me of your change in circumstance, but rather Lady Pendergast. I believe she was working with you at that volunteer kitchen******* in Leicester Square Railway Station during the General Strike********.”
Lettice suddenly remembers the older lady with her white hair set modishly in smart marcelled waves********* dressed in a soft pink day dress beneath a cotton pinny apron********** who despite her diminutive stature had a booming voice perfect for commanding her fellow volunteers and showed a remarkable adeptness and efficiency in her tea making skills.
Breaking into her thoughts, Sir John goes on. “Lady Pendergast remarked to me in the drawing room upon my visit to their home, as I waited for Lord Pendergast to arrive usher me to his study, that you had been chatting with ‘that lovely son of the Duke of Walmsford’. She said you had quite an interlude.”
“Lady Pendergast had no right to speak out of turn.” Lettice mutters irritably.
“Oh I don’t think she was speaking out of turn, my dear, and there was no malice intended in her telling me what she did, which in itself was quite innocuous.” Sir John goes on. “She was just being polite to one of her husband’s business associates whom she doesn’t know terribly well.”
“And what else did Lady Pendergast have to say, John?”
“Nothing, and she didn’t need to. I merely needed to make contact with his club*********** to establish that he was back in London after his enforced sojourn to Durban.”
“I’m sorry John.” Lettice lowers her gaze to her lap.
“It’s a pity really,” Sir John opines ruefully. “I really do feel that given time, we would have made an excellent pair, you and I, with a great deal of mutual respect for one another.”
“If circumstances were different.” Lettice intervenes. “But they aren’t, and I can’t apologise to you for loving someone else. You of all people know how complicated the affairs of the heart are.”
“So, you are saying you love young Spencely, Lettice my dear?”
“I am, John, and I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving Selwyn since we first met in 1922. You must understand the attractions of love, John, and its pull. I know you do.”
“Of course I do, but I find it all rather tiresome.”
“Tiresome? Do you find Miss Young, or even Mademoiselle Flanton tiresome, John?”
“Paula only has one love, Lettice my dear, and that is herself.” Sir John opines. “There is no more room for anyone else in her shrivelled and desiccated heart, although her excellent skills as an actress hide that,” He chortles with amusement, which surprises Lettice. “At least at first, they do. No wonder she has been such a sensation on the West End stage.”
“Then what do you find tiresome, John?”
“Love of course! In my day, we didn’t need love to get married – no grand sweeping gestures of romance, or expectations of devotion from sunup to sundown. I blame all those ridiculously romantic moving pictures all you Bright Young Things************ watch at the Kinema************* We just needed respect for one another, which I really thought we had between us, Lettice, a modicum of patience and a little discretion.”
“Well, I’m afraid that I fell in love with Selwyn when I first met him at Mater’s 1922 Hunt Ball, John, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt any differently to that, even when Lady Zinnia tore him away from me.”
“Well, they do say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“And it’s true, or at least it is true for me John.”
“And does young Spencely feel the same way about you, as you do about him, Lettice?” Sir John asks seriously.
“Oh, he does, John!” Lettice enthuses. “It may be a sweeping romantic gesture you detest, but he has even told me so, numerous times since we reacquainted ourselves that day at the in Leicester Square.”
“You paint me uncharitably, Lettice. It isn’t becoming of you.” Sir John chides. “I never said I detested romantic gestures. I should be a lonely man if I didn’t apply them to my paramours**************.” He chuckles with a sudden tiredness in his voice. “I just don’t see the necessity for them in marriages.”
“I’m sorry John. That was rather catty*************** of me.” Lettice says contritely. “Forgive me?”
“Of course, Lettice.”
“You know, should really hate me, John,” Lettice says. “Loathe me.”
“But why should I do that, Lettice, when I do not hate or loathe you at all?”
“You should be in a pique, want to scratch my eyes out, or dig out my cold and uncaring heart from my chest.”
“There is no point, Lettice my dear, when it appears that you are doing a perfectly capable job of loathing and torching yourself without any assistance from me.”
“You’re so maddeningly calm, John.”
“Well, you know how I hate amateur dramatics,” He looks earnestly at her. “And melodrama.” he adds a little peevishly. “I don’t see the point of either. You have had your say, exercised your right as the engaged female in the party to use your prerogative to terminate the engagement.”
“You make it sound, so… so…” Lettice struggles for the word before stating, “So clinical, so businesslike.”
“Well, as you have rightly sighted as your reasoning for ending our understanding, it wasn’t a grand, sweeping gesture or love. It was a business agreement. Agreements are frequently broken, especially in business. What’s done is done. Let it be thus.”
He pauses for a moment.
“I don’t hate you, or loathe you, Lettice. I never could. I have too much admiration for you, Lettice. Even now, in this moment, I cannot help but do so, because you are exercising your own right to happiness and self-determination, which is something that has always made you appealing to me.”
“You make me sound like a piece of ripe fruit, John.” Lettice chuckles in an attempt to lift their spirits.
“You are a woman who knows her own mind.” Sir John clarifies. He pauses and then adds, “But what about Spencely and his diamond mine heiress? Has he ended it with her?”
“No, John,” Lettice replies simply with a heavy sigh that is half sadness and half relief. “Because there was no Kitty Avendale in the first place, a diamond mine heiress or otherwise.”
“What’s that?”
“It is all some fabrication, concocted by Lady Zinnia.”
“But you saw newspaper articles. You showed me one.”
“It was created by Lady Zinnia, as were all the others that she showed me – convincingly I’ll admit – but fabricated nonetheless.”
“Really?”
“And I have also discovered that my youngest brother Lionel is involved in some way, although I am still trying to determine exactly how.”
“How do you know all this, Lettice?” Sir John asks in awe.
“It was Gerald’s idea, really. He suggested some time ago that we hire a Pinkerton**************** to investigate this supposed engagement, what we ourselves couldn’t, and where we couldn’t.”
Sir John’s eyes grow wide. “A Pinkerton?”
“He’s actually uncovered quite a bit thus far, but we are still waiting on more evidence on the details of this fabrication of Lady Zinnia’s.”
“I’ve always admired you for your pluck as well, Lettice my dear.”
“Oh, and Selwyn recently found out why Lady Zinnia has taken against me so.” Lettice adds, almost as an afterthought.
“I presume it is because as far as Zinnia is conconcerned, you come from too parochial and unremarkable a lineage. At least that is what you have implied to me.”
“Well, I thought that too,” Lettice agrees. “But it turns out that she has taken against me because of my father’s refusal.”
“Refusal? Refusal of what?”
Lettice’s cheeks colour with embarrassment as she replies, “Her advances. He was married to Mater at the time she… propositioned him. He refused her, of course.”
Sir John does not remark on how very different Lettice’s father, the Viscount, is to most men of his acquaintance.
“And so now she is being spiteful, just to be contrary., because her pride was hurt by my father twenty or so years ago.”
“Well, you may remember me saying to you, that Zinnia was a vain woman when she was younger, Lettice my dear.”
“And she certainly has a long memory.”
“So, what are you and young Spencely going to do then, Lettice? You have the desire to be married, but if Zinnia is set against your union, you now know to what depths she will sink to prevent it from happening.”
“Where there is a will, there is a way, dear John. We are waiting for more evidence linking Lady Zinnia to that sham of a marriage claim. If he can uncover irrefutable, incriminating and compelling evidence of this, then Selwyn and I will have her over a barrel, and be able to marry.”
Sir John sighs with satisfaction. “I’ve always admired your pluck as well my dear.”
“I’m sorry John. My mind is made up. I can’t settle for fondness when I can have love. You said I know my own mind, and this is something I know for certain.”
“It’s a pity for all of us, really. You have a wonderful way with the servants that I certainly don’t have. Not to mention darling Clemmie.”
“Thinking of whom,” Lettice says, standing up from the sofa. “That is who I will go and see tomorrow. She deserves to know the truth.”
“Then let her hear that from me, Lettice.”
“But shouldn’t it?”
“No.” Sir John cuts her off, holding up one of his elegant hands to stop her from speaking any more. “It will be far better coming from me, as her beloved brother. Let her vent her pain and take her frustrations out on me. I’m her elder brother, and I know how to best manage her raging. You will doubtless only gain her ire.”
Lettice doesn’t speak straight away.
“I’m very sorry to have caused her pain, and you too of course. I really love Clemance and I treasure her friendship. I didn’t want her to be caught in the crosshairs.”
“I’ll manage that, Lettice.” Sir John insists.
“Do…” Lettice begins gingerly. “Do you ever think she will want to be friends with me again?”
Sir John does not answer immediately as he considers his response thoughtfully.
“Give her time, Lettice. Time is a healer of wounds.”
“And you, John? I should be sorry to forgo your friendship, and I do think we are friends, or could be so.”
Again, a heavy silence envelops them as Sir John considers his response before speaking it.
“Lettice, that might be considered as eating your cake and having it at the same time*****************. You must allow me time as well.” He sighs heavily. “Since I have had some time on my own to contemplate this eventuality, I have also had time to consider what I might do.”
“What are you going to do, John?”
“I’m not needed here for business at the moment, and the Season is drawing to a close for the year. Poor Clemmie hasn’t been frightfully happy ever since she arrived here in London. She has tried to fit in, and your presence has certainly helped make her re-assimilation easier and happier, but the adjustment has been very hard for her. She’s been away from England too long, and she misses her old Parisian friends and speaking French regularly with people other than her maid. There is also the fact that those nearest and dearest to her are buried in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise***************** in Paris. This news about you, I cannot deny, will be a blow to her. Therefore, I thought I might take some rooms in a fashionable Paris district and take Clemmie back to the city she loves for a while.”
“How long is a while?” Lettice asks hesitantly.
“We’ll see.” Sir John says enigmatically. “We’ll see.”
“The Picasso,” Lettice says. “I’ll organise to have it returned to you.”
“No, no, Lettice.” Sir John replies. “You keep it. You know I have no eye for those daubs you like so well. Better it stay with someone who will appreciate it.”
“Are you sure, John?” Lettice queries.
“Quite, Lettice.”
“That is so generous of you, John. I… I don’t know what to say, except thank you!” Lettice replies in astonishment.
“Keep it with my blessings, Lettice. And if you happen to think of your old friend every now and then when you look at, I’d be grateful.”
“Of course, John.”
The pair fall silent again, the air filled with unspoken words, regrets and a future destined not to come to fruition.
Lettice gathers her snakeskin handbag and stumpy umbrella from the sofa. “Well, if there is nothing else, I really should be leaving, John. I’ve disrupted your evening more than enough with my presence.”
“Yes.” Sir John replies absentmindedly, gathering himself up out of his seat with the aid of his cane. “Yes, Tennyson awaits me.”
Lettice can see a sudden sallowness in his face, almost as if he has aged a decade since she arrived at his townhouse. His shoulders are less proud and his stance more slumped and reliant upon his cane for support. His blue eyes sparkle dully.
“Goodbye John.”
“Goodbye Lettice, and good luck.”
Lettice turns and walks with slightly shaking footsteps across the thick carpet towards the door. As she depresses the handle of the right-hand door, she pauses and looks back.
“If you are going back to Paris for a while, you might like to have dinner with Mademoiselle Flanton. I know you are not the greatest fan of love, but it appears as obvious as the nose on your face, to me, that you and Mademoiselle Flanton have rekindled a flame that has never truly been extinguished either. Perhaps Paris is where you belong, with her. Don’t miss out on your second chance. They seldom come around.”
And without saying another word, Lettice opens the door, walks out and closes it behind her.
*Arthur Richard Burrows (1882–1947) was a pioneering British journalist and wireless enthusiast who famously became the very first voice of the BBC. Often referred to as the founding father of broadcast journalism in the United Kingdom, he was responsible for many of the nation's milestone media "firsts".
**The Dromcollogher Cinema Disaster was widely reported across British and Irish newspapers and on radio in early September 1926. A tragic fire at a temporary cinema housed in a barn loft in Dromcollogher, County Limerick, resulted in the deaths of forty-eight people, shocking the public and prompting intense discussions on rural safety.
***The BBC’s first radio station 2LO was originally broadcast from the 2LO transmitter studio on the seventh floor of Marconi House, a building at 335 the Strand. Arthur Burrows spoke the historic opening line: "This is 2LO, Marconi House, London calling," before reading the news at the start of the 2LO broadcast, which commenced at seven in the evening.
****Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.
*****The first National Radio Exhibition—popularly known as Radiolympia—opened its doors on the 4th of September 1926 at the Empire Hall in Olympia, London, establishing a massive annual tradition that would define British home entertainment for decades. The 1926 show marked the exact moment radio moved away from being a messy, technical experiment for hobbyists into a user-friendly appliance for the mainstream living room. Prior to 1926, home radios required cumbersome, messy acid batteries (accumulators) that had to be taken to local garages to be recharged. Therefore, the star technology of the first exhibition was the debut of mains-powered (AC) radio receivers. The most prominent was the Gambrell Baby Grand, which allowed consumers to plug their wireless set directly into the domestic wall socket for the first time.
******On September the 26th, 1926, Gene Tunney defeated Jack Dempsey in Philadelphia to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a massive sporting result heavily covered by London morning papers.
*******During the 1926 General Strike, the volunteer canteens — often staffed by "titled ladies" to feed volunteers maintaining essential services — were largely organized and supported by the upper classes, society women, and the government\'s emergency volunteer network. Women from high society and the aristocracy, including Lady Louis Mountbatten, Lady Quilter, Lady Mary Ashley Cooper, and Lady Carmichael-Anstruther, participated in and helped manage these canteens. Canteens, such as those overseen by a "Mrs. Loeffler" at Scotland House and similar efforts in Hyde Park, provided food and refreshments to the thousands of middle-class volunteers, such as special constables, who broke the strike. These canteens were part of a coordinated effort by the Conservative government to maintain essential services and counter the strike\'s effectiveness. The focus of these efforts was to support the volunteer workforce—such as the "special constables"—to keep services running, as opposed to the soup kitchens operated in mining communities by workers\' wives to support the miners.
********The General Strike in Britain occurred between May the 3rd and May the 12th, 1926. It was a nine-day nationwide stoppage called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to support coal miners facing wage reductions and worsening conditions. Roughly one million, seven hundred thousand workers went on strike, primarily in transport and heavy industry.
*********Marcelling is a hair styling technique in which hot curling tongs are used to induce a curl into the hair. Its appearance was similar to that of a finger wave but it is created using a different method. Marcelled hair was a popular style for women\'s hair in the 1920s, often in conjunction with a bob cut. For those women who had longer hair, it was common to tie the hair at the nape of the neck and pin it above the ear with a stylish hair pin or flower. One famous wearer was American entertainer, Josephine Baker.
**********A pinny apron (short for "pinafore") is a sleeveless, apron-like garment designed to protect clothing while working. Popular in Britain and Australia, it typically features a bib front, a loose fit, and large pockets, often crossing over at the back rather than tying, making it easy to slip on for cooking, cleaning, or crafting.
***********A gentleman’s club is a private members' club originally created by and for British upper-class men in the Eighteenth Century. Originating in London’s West End—particularly around St James's Street and Pall Mall (often called "Clubland")—these clubs were established as exclusive, second homes for aristocratic, wealthy, or influential men. hey offered a private space to socialise, network, play cards, dine, and smoke away from the bustle of the city and family life. Traditional clubs are known for grand architecture, extensive libraries, formal dining rooms, and quiet, comfortable drawing chairs. Membership requires a formal nomination process by existing members. Historically, they enforced rigid dress codes (such as formal evening wear) and barred women from entering.
************The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.
*************The word kinema is the original, archaic British spelling of cinema (a movie theatre or the art of motion pictures). he term comes directly from the Greek word kinēma, which means "movement" or "motion". It is the exact same root used in scientific words like kinetics (the study of motion). When motion pictures first gained popularity in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the French adopted the spelling cinéma. The British initially preferred to stick closer to the Greek root, using a "K". By the mid-to-late 1920s, British newspapers, signage, and trade magazines were using "kinema" and "cinema" interchangeably. Eventually, the "C" spelling became the global English standard.
**************A paramour is a secret, illicit romantic partner or lover, particularly one involved with a person who is already married to someone else. Unlike a standard relationship, the term almost always implies that the relationship is improper, forbidden, or secretive. A paramour has no legal marital standing; the relationship exists outside of wedlock or formal partnership. The word comes from the Old French phrase par amour, which translates literally to "by or through love."
***************Whilst “catty” fits perfectly into the sharp, conversational dialogue of the 1920s, the adjective actually originated slightly earlier. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first written use of "catty" meaning "devious and spiteful" to 1886. It gradually replaced the older Victorian term "cattish". According to the OED, the associated noun "cattiness" made its very first appearance in print in 1920. The concept of "catty remarks" or "catty gossip" became incredibly popular in 1920s magazine stories, plays, and social commentary.
****************A “Pinkerton” is a private detective, and refers to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, founded by Allan Pinkerton, known for its historical role in labour disputes and spying. For decades after Allan Pinkerton's death, his name became a slang term for any private investigator, regardless of whether they worked for the Pinkerton Agency or not. Today, the agency (now simply called Pinkerton) focuses on risk management, intelligence, and security services.
*****************Although we know the phrase as “to have your cake and eat it too”, this well known English phrase was not always spoken thus. "A man cannot have his cake and eat his cake." was the first time it was recorded. The phrase appears in a letter from Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, to King Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell in 1546. The phrase gained widespread popularity when it was included in playwright John Heywood's famous 1546 glossary, A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue. In this version, the wording was slightly different: "Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?" The original 16th-century phrasing—"eat your cake and have it"—made the logical meaning of the proverb much clearer, and was still in common use up until the Second World War. It explicitly highlighted the physical impossibility of the sequence: once you consume the cake, it is gone, so you can no longer possess it. Over the centuries, English speakers gradually flipped the order of the words to the modern "have your cake and eat it too," which often confuses people today because having a cake is usually the natural prerequisite to eating it.
*****************Cimetière du Père-Lachaise is the largest and most famous cemetery in Paris, spanning one hundred and ten acres in the city's 20th arrondissement. Established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804, it is widely considered the world's first garden cemetery and stands as the most visited burial ground on Earth, drawing millions of visitors annually. It was designed by architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart as a vast English park, featuring winding cobblestone paths, thousands of mature trees, and ornate, house-like stone mausoleums. This layout completely revolutionised funerary architecture, directly inspiring the design of Victorian-era cemeteries across Britain and North America.
This upper-class Belgravia drawing room may look real to you, but it is not all that it seems, for it is in fact made up entirely of miniatures from my 1;12 miniatures collection, including some particularly special pieces.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s pretty dyed green straw cloche adorned with satin roses, green ribbons and peacock feathers is an artisan miniature. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism such as these are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. The maker of this hat is unknown, but it is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.
Lettice’s crocodile skin handbag comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in England.
Lettice’s furled green umbrella is a 1:12 artisan pieces made of silk, with a wooden lacquered handle. It comes from specialist artisan miniature makers in England. Sir John’s silver knobbed walking stick is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. The top is sterling silver. It was made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures.
Sir John’s smart and select drawing room has been furnished for the most part by the high-end miniature manufacturers Bespaq and J.B.M. The gilt swan decorated tables and pedestal come from Bespaq, whilst the Regency stripe low backed sofa and wingback arm chair come from J.B.M.
The beautiful gold and bronze decorated black chinoiserie screen in the background is a very special 1:12 miniature screen created especially for me, and there is no other like it anywhere else in the world. It was handmade and decorated over a twelve month period for me as a Christmas gift last year by miniature artisan Tim Sidford as a thanks for the handmade Christmas baubles I make him every year. Tim’s miniature works are truly amazing! You can see some of his handmade decorated interiors using upcycled Playmobil, found objects and 1:12 miniatures here: www.flickr.com/photos/timsidford/albums/72157624010136051/
The blue and white Chinese vase, like the ones on the pedestals in the background are 1:12 artisan miniatures. The vase on the table, which has been hand decorated was acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom, whilst the two in the background came from an online specialist on eBay. The blue irises in the vase are all made of polymer clay that is moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. Very realistic looking, they are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.
The pile of books in the table next to Sir John’s armchair, and the newspaper broadsheets in the central table are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print, as is the case with the headlines on the newspapers! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. In this case, the books on the table are non-opening, however what might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The carafe and glass on the table next to Sir John’s chair are made of real glass, and also came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House in the United Kingdom.
The tall Dutch style chest of drawers to the far left of the photo was one of the first pieces of miniature furniture I ever bought for myself. I chose it as payment for several figures I made from Fimo clay for a local high street toy shop when I was eight years old. All these years later, I definitely think I got the better end of the deal!
The two Regency silhouettes hanging on the wall came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.
The Georgian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom. The striped wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Kingdom Animalia
Superphylum Ecdysozoa
Phylum Arthropoda
Subphylum Hexapoda
Class Insecta
Subclass Pterygota
Infraclass Palaeoptera (ancient winged insects)
Order Odonata (Damselflies & Dragonflies)
Suborder Anisoptera (Dragonflies)
Family Libellulidae (Common Skimmers)
Genus Erythemis
Species simplicicollis (Eastern Pondhawk) - ♂
August 9, 2020; Leon County; Tallahassee, Florida.
There were many dozens of male pondhawks at the local pond Sunday. I only saw a couple of females, and they where seeking refuge towards the center of the pond. The males were busy harassing each other along the pond's fringes.
Canon M6 Mark II; MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro; 101 images @ 100um increments; WeMacro rail; Used a DIY "light tunnel" fabricated from a roll of sheet metal and LED strip lights placed in the interior in a tight spiral (a proof of concept prototype); Canon DPP4 used to convert raw images to TIF; Zerene Stacker using slabbing method (10 images each with 3 overlap) with Pmax; exposure and color balanced w/ PS..
I knew nothing about the practical use of LED strip lights before this project. I've since discovered the concept of "pulse width modulation," or PWM. There's plenty of info on the net about it. What I observed was ghost imaging at high magnifications (>5X) and at shutter speeds of less than 1/400s. The "light tunnel" produces a lot of light, but I still had to use an ISO of 1000 at TV 1/400s and Av 5.6 at those high magnifications. The ghosting effect decreases to negligibility at lower magnifications of less than 2X and I was able to adjust exposure parameters such as reducing ISO and Tv. I did not notice any typical banding effects. I had installed a dimmer mechanism on the LED circuit, but will remove it to see if it affects anything.
I like the light that the "light tunnel" produces. Very soft and diffused.
200809_Pondhawk_Head_05
Kingdom Animalia
Superphylum Ecdysozoa
Phylum Arthropoda
Subphylum Hexapoda
Class Insecta
Subclass Pterygota
Infraclass Palaeoptera (ancient winged insects)
Order Odonata (Damselflies & Dragonflies)
Suborder Anisoptera (Dragonflies)
Family Libellulidae (Common Skimmers)
Genus Erythemis
Species simplicicollis (Eastern Pondhawk) - ♂
August 9, 2020; Leon County; Tallahassee, Florida.
There were many dozens of male pondhawks at the local pond Sunday. I only saw a couple of females, and they where seeking refuge towards the center of the pond. The males were busy harassing each other along the pond's fringes.
Canon M6 Mark II; MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro; 101 images @ 100um increments; WeMacro rail; Used a DIY "light tunnel" fabricated from a roll of sheet metal and LED strip lights placed in the interior in a tight spiral (a proof of concept prototype); Canon DPP4 used to convert raw images to TIF; Zerene Stacker using slabbing method (10 images each with 3 overlap) with Pmax; exposure and color balanced w/ PS..
I knew nothing about the practical use of LED strip lights before this project. I've since discovered the concept of "pulse width modulation," or PWM. There's plenty of info on the net about it. What I observed was ghost imaging at high magnifications (>5X) and at shutter speeds of less than 1/400s. The "light tunnel" produces a lot of light, but I still had to use an ISO of 1000 at TV 1/400s and Av 5.6 at those high magnifications. The ghosting effect decreases to negligibility at lower magnifications of less than 2X and I was able to adjust exposure parameters such as reducing ISO and Tv. I did not notice any typical banding effects. I had installed a dimmer mechanism on the LED circuit, but will remove it to see if it affects anything.
I like the light that the "light tunnel" produces. Very soft and diffused.
200809_Pondhawk_Head_04