This photograph was taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 07:56am), at an altitude of Zero metres, at 08:16am on Sunday January 11th 2015 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.

I set off at 05:30am on a very chilly morning, around two degrees, and a bracing wind that pounded flesh and bones, but well worth the one and a half hour journey there to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.

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Nikon D800 24mm 1/1600s f/4.5 iso100 RAW (14Bit) -2.7EV compensation. AF-S single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED IF. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 14.86s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 31.14s

ALTITUDE: 0.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 17.31MB

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PROCESSING POWER:

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

By 1505, eight years before his death, Pope Julius II della Rovere (reigned 1503-1513) had apparently already began contemplating plans to erect a grandiose tomb for himself in the new Saint Peter's Basilica being constructed according to Bramante’s design, and entrusted Michelangelo with the sculptural project. In March-April 1505, Michelangelo probably began the first drawings for the tomb project which according to a first (lost) contract, was to cost 10,000 ducats, was to be finished in five years, and was to be sited in Saint Peter’s at a location that was to be determined. Some of these intentions are already alluded to indirectly in Michelangelo’s letter from Florence to his friend, the architect Giuliano da Sangallo in Rome, on May 2, 1506, for it was Giuliano who had encouraged the Pope in his choice of Michelangelo as the sculptor of the funerary program, amidst the heated artistic jealousies of the papal court.

As described in Ascanio Condivi's biography of Michelangelo (Rome, 1553), the tomb of Julius II was to have been a three-story freestanding monument and may have included as many as forty-seven large figures carved of Carrara marble, but Michelangelo’s project was interrupted by other papal commissions, chiefly the frescoes on the Sistine Ceiling (executed from 1508 to 1512), with which the early drawings for the Julius Tomb share considerable similarities of style. Following the pope's death on February 21, 1513, Michelangelo signed a second contract for a reduced version of the tomb to be finished in seven years. For a number of reasons, the Metropolitan Museum's drawing with its subtly pictorial illusionism of the architecture appears to reflect the first version of the Julius Tomb project, around 1505-6, as was convincingly argued by Michael Hirst in 1988, rather than that of the various designs produced after 1513, as has frequently been maintained in the literature. It is of much more subdued design and scale than the recto of the comparably large, nearly ruined drawing in the Kupferstichkabinett (inv. KdZ 15305), Berlin, which is the design most likely reflecting the contract of May 1513 for the Tomb of Pope Julius II. But the damaged autograph drawing by Michelangelo in Berlin is best understood through the faithful if awkward copy after it by Jacomo Rocchetti, preserved in the same collection (Kupferstichkabinett inv. KdZ 15306, Berlin; Fig. 1).

To the present author’s eye, the appearance of Rocchetti’s design is that of a very clean copy-drawing, in which the underdrawing was the result of a "calco" method of transfer from Michelangelo’s sheet (Kupferstichkabinett inv. KdZ 15305 recto); in a process much like a carbon-paper copy, the original by Michelangelo was placed on top of a sheet with a black-chalk-rubbed verso and another blank sheet underneath (Rocchetti’s surface), and the outlines of the original were then incised with a stylus through the two layers of paper. Tellingly, the deriving copy is inscribed on the bottom of the sheet: "questo disegno é di Michelangelo buonarota hauuto da M[aestro] Iacomo rocchetti" (this design is by Michelangelo Buonarroti derived by Maestro Iacomo Rocchetti). The Berlin design by Michelangelo (as understood from Rocchetti’s clean copy) is also more subdued in design than what is seen of the lower part of the monument in the drawing at the Uffizi (inv. 608 E recto), Florence, once owned by Pierre-Jean Mariette and which is perhaps a somewhat earlier version of the design than the Berlin drawings while being from the same 1513 campaign.

The diagrammatic clarity of form and precise construction of architectural elements in the large Metropolitan Museum sheet are typical of modelli (demonstration drawings), produced for presentation of the design to a patron or to be used for the execution of the design by members of the workshop. As may be deduced from the Metropolitan drawing, the massive tomb ensemble was to be a three-sided structure attached to a wall, and in a daring departure from tradition, Michelangelo designed the pope's effigy to be seen frontally, and within the tall arched niche, angels raise the dead pope toward the Virgin and Child. A quick outline sketch in pen and brown ink for the Pope’s raised effigy, seen in a side view facing left (Casa Buonarroti inv. 43A verso, Florence; Fig. 3), best allows one to envision the design of this main figure in elevation, as it were, in the 1505-6 monument.

The upper part of the wall tomb with its monumental niche, or cappelletta, as it is called in the Julius Tomb documents, is of approximately the same design, though squatter than in the Berlin drawings and the architectural detailing is in a style closer to that of the Quattrocento. Also similar to the solution evident in the Berlin drawings are the motifs of the Virgin and Child in the mandorla (anticipating the design of Raphael's Sistine Madonna, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, of 1513), with the dead pope in frontal view being supported over the sarcophagus by angels. But eliminated from the Berlin drawings are the figures of the youths with hirsute hair and somewhat whimsical expression who flank and face the niche in the Metropolitan sheet -- that on the left with an aspergillum and bucket of holy water, that on the right with a censer; in the Berlin sheets, these flanking figures are idealized and more schematic, while looking outward. The lower part of the Metropolitan drawing, however, most radically differs from the designs in the Uffizi and Berlin sheets. It omits the classicizing figures of the slaves and herm pilasters seen in the latter, and the nearly square relief at center offers an inventive portrayal of the Gathering of Manna (Exodus 16:11 - 36; Numbers 11:7 – 9), with acorns falling from an oak tree, in allusion to the heraldic device of the Della Rovere family (in Italian, "rovere" means oak). The Della Rovere acorns abound elsewhere in the design, filling a footed cup between two reclining river gods at lower center, and they decorate the finials of the thrones of the sibyl and prophet on the second storey of the monument. Allegorial figures of Charity and Faith stand within the niches to the left and right on the lower storey. The projection of the tomb from the wall is indicated by statues of standing figures seen in profile at extreme left and right, and the ensemble portrayed in the Metropolitan Museum drawing would have rested on a stepped base, as is seen in the Uffizi and Berlin designs, but which in this case is cropped by the lower border of the sheet.

The early date of the Metropolitan sheet in 1505-6 is confirmed by the style of the figures, similar to those in the small pen-and-ink jottings on the sheet connected with the Battle of Cascina (Uffizi inv. 233 F, Florence); as well as further by the discovery in 1990, of the fragmentary designs for the Julius Tomb, on the versos of two corresponding portions of the same sheet now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and of which the recto of one sheet depicts a nude seen from the back for the Battle of Cascina, began in 1504. "The tragedy of the tomb," as Condivi called Michelangelo's forty-year ordeal in producing the Tomb of Julius II, did not end until 1545, when the present, much scaled-down structure was installed in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, far away from the papal majesty of Saint Peter's Basilica (Fig. 2); the most in-depth study of the related drawings for the Julius monument is by Claudia Echinger Maurach.

The gradual reinstatement of the large, carefully rendered Metropolitan Museum drawing in the Michelangelo literature is due to Michael Hirst in 1976, who published the first detailed analysis of it, also advocating for the authorship of Michelangelo himself; the Metropolitan Museum of Art had acquired the drawing fourteen years earlier, as a work by the school of Michelangelo. While the attribution to Michelangelo has met mostly with approval since 1976, it was not endorsed by Charles de Tolnay in his Corpus (1975-80), who considered it a copy, with a style of outline-drawing too calligraphic, too soft, and less dynamic than Michelangelo's autograph studies, and the drawing was also more recently rejected by Frank Zöllner, Christof Thoenes, and Thomas Pöpper in 2008, without offering any reasoning. Hirst’s opinion in 1976 was that the Metropolitan sheet dated more or less to the time of the Berlin design (Kupferstichkabinett inv. KdZ 15305), but in a revised opinion in 1988, proposed instead the Metropolitan drawing as Michelangelo's original project of 1505 for the Julius Tomb. Michelangelo’s designs for the Tomb of Julius II offered meaningful visual sources (perhaps even normative ones) for artists of the following generation, as is seen, for example, in the design produced by Antonio da Sangallo "The Younger" for the Tomb of Pope Clement VII. Both drawings served as modelli, or demonstration drawings, perhaps for the patron, being precisely executed over a comprehensive construction with the stylus, compass, and ruler. While Michelangelo’s working drawing is in good overall condition, the design has been roughly silhouetted and mounted onto a larger sheet, and the drawing surface seems sufficiently abraded for the underdrawing to have disappeared in several passages; the sheet also exhibits minor accretions, a horizontal crease at center, and some brown stains.

Carmen C. Bambach (2009, revised in 2014)

Südafrika - Kleine Karoo

Red Stone Hills Farm

Sunrise - Sonnenaufgang

The Karoo (/kəˈruː/ kə-ROO; from a Khoikhoi word, possibly garo "desert") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. There is no exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo, and therefore its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate — above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold. The Karoo also hosted a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils.

The Karoo is sharply divided into the Great Karoo and the Little Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain Range, which runs east-west, parallel to the southern coastline, but is separated from the sea by another east-west range called the Outeniqua –Langeberg Mountains. The Great Karoo lies to the north of the Swartberg range; the Little Karoo is to the south of it.

The Little Karoo is separated from the Great Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain range. Geographically, it is a 290 km long valley, only 40–60 km wide, formed by two parallel Cape Fold Mountain ranges, the Swartberg to the north, and the continuous Langeberg-Outeniqua range to the south. The northern strip of the valley, within 10–20 km from the foot of the Swartberg mountains is most un-karoo-like, in that it is a well watered area both from the rain, and the many streams that cascade down the mountain, or through narrow defiles in the Swartberg from the Great Karoo. The main towns of the region are situated along this northern strip of the Little Karoo: Montagu, Barrydale, Ladismith, Calitzdorp, Oudtshoorn and De Rust, as well as such well-known mission stations such as Zoar, Amalienstein, and Dysselsdorp.

The southern 30–50 km wide strip, north of the Langeberg range is as arid as the western Lower Karoo, except in the east, where the Langeberg range (arbitrarily) starts to be called the Outeniqua Mountains.

The Little Karoo can only be accessed by road through the narrow defiles cut through the surrounding Cape Fold Mountains by ancient, but still flowing rivers. A few roads traverse the mountains over passes, the most famous and impressive of which is the Swartberg Pass between Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo and Prince Albert on the other side of the Swartberg mountains in the Great Karoo. There is also the main road between Oudtshoorn and George, on the coastal plain, that crosses the mountains to the south via the Outeniqua Pass. The only exit from the Little Karoo that does not involve crossing a mountain range is through the 150 km long, narrow Langkloof valley between Uniondale and Humansdorp, near Plettenberg Bay.

(Wikipedia)

Die Karoo (auch Karroo, früher Karru; Khoisan für Halbwüste) ist eine Halbwüstenlandschaft in den Hochebenen des Landes Südafrika, nördlich der Großen Randstufe und im südlichen Namibia. Unterschieden werden Kleine Karoo, Große Karoo und Obere Karoo sowie Sukkulentenkaroo und Nama-Karoo. Mit einer Ausdehnung von 500.000 km² umfasst die Karoo fast ein Drittel des Territoriums Südafrikas. Die Sukkulentenkaroo gehört zu den Biodiversitäts-Hotspots der Erde und wird u. a. im Rahmen von BIOTA AFRICA systematisch kartiert.

Der Name Karoo kommt von kurú (trocken) aus der Sprache der San, die einst hier lebten und jagten. In Hinsicht auf die geographische Ausdehnung des Karoo-Begriffs sind die folgenden Teilaspekte zu beachten und voneinander zu unterscheiden.

Die Karoo als Landschaft im traditionellen Verständnis ist eine südafrikanische Trockenregion innerhalb der Provinzen Westkap, Ostkap und Nordkap sowie im Süden Namibias. Ihre spezifische kapländische Strauchvegetation weist sie als Halbwüste aus. Ursprünglich wird in zwei Regionen unterschieden: Große Karoo und Kleine Karoo.

Die Große Karoo besitzt eine West-Ost-Ausdehnung von über 750 Kilometern und eine Nord-Süd-Ausdehnung von etwa 110 Kilometern. Sie wird im Westen vom Massiv der Zederberge und im Osten durch die Winterberge begrenzt. Im Norden bilden die Bergketten vom Roggeveld-, Koms-, Nuweveldberge und Sneeuberg und im Süden die Höhenzüge der Witteberge, Groot Swartberge und die Groot Winterhoek die natürliche Begrenzung.

Südlich dieser Region schließt sich die Kleine Karoo an. Diese wird wiederum an ihrer südlichen Flanke von den küstennahen Langebergen und Outeniqua-Bergen begrenzt.

Anders als in dieser traditionellen Gliederung, wird die Karoo heute nach ökologischen Gesichtspunkten in einen östlichen Teil, die Nama-Karoo, und einen westlichen Teil, die Sukkulenten-Karoo, gegliedert, wobei auch die Gesamtausdehnung der Karoo nach diesem Konzept von jener der traditionellen Betrachtungsweise abweicht.

(Wikipedia)

Die Little Karoo (englisch, auf Afrikaans Klein Karoo) ist eine Region in der Western Cape Provinz in Südafrika.

Durch die Little Karoo zieht sich die Route 62.

Die Klein Karoo ist ein halbwüstenartiger Landstrich, der zwischen den Swartbergen im Norden und den Outeniqua-Bergen im Süden liegt. Die Gegend ist fruchtbar und nicht ganz so trocken wie die nördlich anschließende Große Karoo. Die Kleine Karoo ist bekannt für die Straußenzucht, allein in der Umgebung von Oudtshoorn gibt es angeblich über 400 Betriebe, landwirtschaftliche Nutztiere der Region sind auch Schafe und Angoraziegen.

Die Kleine Karoo ist das östlichste Weinbaugebiet Südafrikas. Muskatweine, Portweine und Desertweine gedeihen in dem recht trockenen Klima, ein Teil des Weines wird zu Brandy verarbeitet. Auch das hier angebaute Obst wird teilweise zu Schnaps verarbeitet, man bekommt aber auch überall recht preisgünstig getrocknete Früchte.

(wikivoyage.org)

Photograph taken at an altitude of One hundred and eleven metres, in the Golden Hour around Sunset (which was at precisely 19:38pm), at 19:13pm on Saturday 14th September 2013 Just before Aberfeldy On the shoreline of Loch Tay, nestled in the Tay Forest Park near Kenmore off the A827.

Kenmore (Cheannmhor) is a small village in Perthshire in the Highlands of Scotland where Loch Tay drains into the River Tay.

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Nikon D800 24mm 1/60s f/5.6 iso200 RAW (14Bit). AF-S Single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL15 batteries.Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap. Sandisc 32GB Ultra Class 10 30MB/s SDHC. Nikon DK-17a magnifying eyepiece. Hoodman HGEC soft eyepiece cup. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

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LATITUDE: N 56d 34m 52.26s

LONGITUDE: W 4d 1m 13.74s

ALTITUDE: 111.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED FILE: 13.62MB

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Processing power:

HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

Precisely short after saying 'I have this tool since I'm 14 and I love it'. Well, if there is a tool retirement this one really earned it. How easy is to find a replacement?

Photograph taken at an altitude of Zero metres in the golden hour around sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 05:26am), at 05:30am on Thursday May 3rd 2018 off Botany Road and Foreness Close on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay, the northern most of seven bays in Broadstairs , Kent, England.

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Nikon D850 50mm 1/125s f/4.0 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Hand held. Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 18.80s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 15.80s

ALTITUDE: 0.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB (NEF 89.3mb)

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 37.20MB

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PROCESSING POWER:

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

This North Korean movie poster on exhibit at the Korea Film Archive (KOFA) in Seoul is the real deal - but it was designed for display in the former Czechoslovakia. Ergo, it's abstract-looking enough not to be a threat in Seoul (heh heh)....

Photograph taken at an altitude of One hundred and nineteen metres, in the Golden Hour around Sunset (Sunset was at precisely 19:38pm, at 19:09pm on Saturday 14th September 2013 Just before Aberfeldy On the shoreline of Loch Tay, nestled in the Tay Forest Park near Kenmore off the A827.

Kenmore (Cheannmhor) is a small village in Perthshire in the Highlands of Scotland where Loch Tay drains into the River Tay. My last evening in Scotland, lying in the Hotel room when I felt the need to try and capture one last sunset, one last look at the beauty all around me. So for this series of shots I was standing in the Loch in my rather fetching Green Wellies.......

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Nikon D800 26mm 1/125s f/5.6 iso200 Handheld. AF-S single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL15 batteries. Sandisc 32GB Ultra Class 10 30MB/s SDHC. Nikon DK-17a magnifying eyepiece. Hoodman HGEC soft eyepiece cup. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

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LATITUDE: N 56d 34m 52.68s

LONGITUDE: W 4d 1m 15.68s

ALTITUDE: 119.0m

RAW (FINE) FILE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED FILE: 16.13MB

Processing power:

HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

Aleurites moluccanus (or moluccana), the candlenut, is a flowering tree in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, also known as candleberry, Indian walnut, kemiri, varnish tree, nuez de la India, buah keras, or kukui nut tree, and Kekuna tree.

Its native range is impossible to establish precisely because of early spread by humans, and the tree is now distributed throughout the New and Old World tropics. It grows to a height of 15–25 m, with wide spreading or pendulous branches. The leaves are pale green, simple, and ovate, or trilobed or rarely five-lobed, with an acute apex, 10–20 cm long. The nut is round, 4–6 cm in diameter; the seed shell has white, oily, and fleshy kernel that contains a thin embryo surrounded by an endosperm. Its kernel serves as the source of oil, and is covered with a thin layer of secondary seed coat.

HISTORY

The candlenut was first domesticated in the islands of Southeast Asia. Remains of harvested candlenuts have been recovered from archaeological sites in Timor and Morotai in eastern Indonesia, dated to around 13,000 and 11,000 BP, respectively. Archaeological evidence of candlenut cultivation is also found in Neolithic sites of the Toalean culture in southern Sulawesi dated to around 3,700 to 2,300 BP. Candlenuts were widely introduced into the Pacific islands by early Austronesian voyagers and became naturalized to high volcanic islands.

The Proto-Austronesian word for candlenut is reconstructed as *kamiri, with modern cognates including Hanunó'o, Iban, and Sundanese kamiri; Javanese and Malay kemiri; and Tetun kamii, but the Oceanian words for candlenut is believed to be derived, instead, from Proto-Austronesian *CuSuR which became Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *tuhuR, originally meaning "string together, as beads", referring to the construction of the candlenut torches. It became Proto-Eastern-Malayo-Polynesian and Proto-Oceanic *tuRi which is then reduplicated. Modern cognates including Fijian, Tongan, Rarotongan, and Niue tui-tui; and Hawaiian kui-kui or kukui.

USES

The nut is often used cooked in Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine, where it is called kemiri in Indonesian or buah keras in Malay. On the island of Java in Indonesia, it is used to make a thick sauce that is eaten with vegetables and rice.

In the Philippines, the fruit and tree are traditionally known as lumbang after which Lumban, a lakeshore town in Laguna is named. Before the intrusion of non-native species, it was frequently used as a property-line manager, because its silvery underleaf made the tree easy to distinguish from a distance.

Outside of Southeast Asia, macadamia seeds are sometimes substituted for candlenuts when they are not available, as they have a similarly high oil content and texture when pounded. The flavor, however, is quite different, as the candlenut is much more bitter. At least one cultivar in Costa Rica has no bitterness, and an improvement program could likely produce an important food crop if nontoxic varieties can be selected and propagated. A Hawaiian condiment known as ʻinamona is made from roasted kukui (candlenuts) mixed into a paste with salt. ʻInamona is a key ingredient in traditional Hawaiian poke.

In ancient Hawaiʻi, kukui nuts were burned to provide light. The nuts were strung in a row on a palm leaf midrib, lit on one end, and burned one by one every 15 minutes or so. This led to their use as a measure of time. Hawaiians also extracted the oil from the nut and burned it in a stone oil lamp called a kukui hele po (light, darkness goes) with a wick made of kapa cloth.

Hawaiians also had many other uses for the tree, including: leis from the shells, leaves, and flowers; ink for tattoos from charred nuts; a varnish with the oil; and fishermen would chew the nuts and spit them on the water to break the surface tension and remove reflections, giving them greater underwater visibility. A red-brown dye made from the inner bark was used on kapa and aho (Touchardia latifolia cordage). A coating of kukui oil helped preserve ʻupena (fishing nets). The nohona waʻa (seats), pale (gunwales) of waʻa (outrigger canoes) were made from the wood. The trunk was sometimes used to make smaller canoes used for fishing. Kukui was named the state tree of Hawaii on 1 May 1959 due to its multitude of uses. It also represents the island of Molokaʻi, whose symbolic color is the silvery green of the kukui leaf.

As recently as 1993, candlenuts were chewed into sweet-scented emollient used during a traditional funerary ritual in the outlying islands of the kingdom of Tonga. Their scent was also used for making various sweet-smelling oils for the skin.

In Australia, aborigines also used them for a variety of similar purposes.

Dead wood of candlenut is eaten by a larva of a coleopteran called Agrianome fairmairei.[22] This larva is eaten by some people.

Modern cultivation is mostly for the oil. In plantations, each tree produces 30–80 kg of nuts, and the nuts yield 15 to 20% of their weight in oil. Most of the oil is used locally rather than figuring in international trade.

In Uganda, the seed is referred to as kabakanjagala, meaning "the king loves me" and is traditionally used as an improvised toy to play a marbles game fondly called dool(oo).

In Fiji, this nut is called sikeci and its oil is used in cosmetic products.

TOXICITY

Because the seeds contain saponin and phorbol, they are mildly toxic when raw. However, the kukui seed oil has no known toxicity and is not an irritant, even to the eyes.

MYTHOLOGY

In Maui, the kukui is a symbol of enlightenment, protection, and peace.[citation needed] Kamapuaʻa, the hog-man fertility demigod, was said to be able to transform into a kukui tree. One of the legends told of Kamapuaʻa: one day, a man beat his wife to death and buried her beneath Kamapuaʻa while he was in tree form.

WIKIPEDIA

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

Exhibition Jean Tinguely - Machine Spectacle 1 Oct 2016 - 5 Mar 2017 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Jean Tinguely is famous for his playful, boldly kinetic machines and explosive performances. Everything had to be different, everything had to move. Precisely twenty-five years after his death, the Stedelijk Museum opens a Tinguely retrospective: the largest-ever exhibition of the artist to be mounted in a Dutch museum.

The Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) played a key role in the rise of kinetic art in the fifties. With over a hundred machine sculptures, most of which are in working order, paired with films, photos, drawings, and archive materials, the presentation takes the public on a chronological and thematic journey of Tinguely’s artistic development and ideas, from his love of absurd play to his fascination for destruction and ephemerality.

The presentation features his early wire sculptures and reliefs, in which Tinguely imitated and animated the abstract paintings of artists such as Malevich, Miró, and Klee; the interactive drawing machines and wild dancing installations constructed from salvaged metal, waste materials, and discarded clothing; and his streamlined, military-looking black sculptures.

Tinguely’s self-destructive performances are a special feature of the Stedelijk presentation. The enormous installations Tinguely created between 1960–1970 (Homage to New York, Étude pour une fin du monde No. 1, Study for an End of the World No. 2, and La Vittoria) were designed to spectacularly disintegrate in a barrage of sound. The presentation also spotlights the exhibitions Tinguely organized at the Stedelijk, Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), and the gigantic sculptures he later produced: HON – en katedral (“SHE – a cathedral,” 1966), Crocrodrome (1977) and the extraordinary Le Cyclop (1969–1994), which is still on display outside Paris. The survey ends with a dramatic grand finale, the remarkable, room-filling installation, Mengele-Totentanz (1986), a disturbing display of light and shadow never previously shown in the Netherlands. Tinguely realized the work after witnessing a devastating fire, reclaiming objects from the ashes to piece together his installation: scorched beams, agricultural machinery (made by the Mengele company), and animal skeletons. The final piece is a gigantic memento mori, yet also an invocation of the Nazi concentration camps. Its juddering movements and piercing sounds evoke a haunting, grisly mood.

Jean Tinguely created his work as a rejection of the static, conventional art world; he sought to emphasize play and experiment. For Tinguely, art was not about standing in a sterile white space, distantly gazing at a silent painting. He produced kinetic sculptures to set art and art history in motion, in works that animated the boundary between art and life. With his do-it-yourself drawing machines, Tinguely critiqued the role of the artist and the elitist position of art in society. He renounced the unicity of “the artist’s hand” by encouraging visitors to produce work themselves. Collaboration was integral to Tinguely’s career. He worked extensively with artists like Daniel Spoerri, Niki de Saint Phalle (also his wife), Yves Klein, and others from the ZERO network, as well as museum directors such as Pontus Hultén, Willem Sandberg, and Paul Wember. Thanks to his charismatic, vibrant personality and the dazzling success with which he presented his work (and himself) in the public sphere, Tinguely was a vital figure within these networks, acting as leader, inspirator, and connector.

Amsterdam has enjoyed a dynamic history with Tinguely. The exhibitions Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), for which Tinguely was (co)curator, particularly underline the extraordinarily close relationship that sprang up between the museum and the artist. Not only did he bring his kinetic Méta machines to the Netherlands, he also brought his international, avant-garde network, leaving an enduring impression on museum goers who flocked to see these experimental exhibitions. Close relationships with Willem Sandberg, then director of the Stedelijk Museum, and curator Ad Petersen prompted various retrospectives and acquisitions for the collection: thirteen sculptures, including his famous drawing machine, Méta-Matic No. 10 (1959), Gismo (1960), and the enormous Méta

At 10:30 in the morning on a summer's day in 1911, W.A. Haines, who traveled around the U.S.A. taking panoramic pictures, set his heavy Cirkut Panoramic Camera on the roof of the building where “Vibes” is now. When he was sure that he had precisely framed the picture, he wound a spring, turned a knob, and let the camera slowly turn as it moved a 10-by-36-inch negative in front of the lens and took this picture. Later he printed the picture in his Conneaut, Ohio studio and sold copies back to Ravenna.

The caption below starts on the left of the picture and continues to the right.

The man wearing the Panama hat is inspecting the fenced-in construction site of Riddle Block 9. The below-ground vaults that extend under the public sidewalk will be used to store goods and coal for the building’s boiler.

When the building was finished in 1912, visitors to the upper floors were impressed with the large atrium and open balconies that brought light inside and down three of the building’s four floors.

The building with the Harper's sign is Reed’s Opera House. Opened in 1872, it hosted many popular entertainers including W.C. Fields.

The interurban streetcar in the distance is heading back towards Brady Lake, Kent, and Akron after making its loop around the block at Chestnut, Spruce, and Prospect Streets. It should arrive in Kent in 30 minutes.

The streetcar line would continue operation until 1932.

The 1893 Ravenna flagpole, at 150 feet, is just one foot shorter than the Statue of Liberty and was once one of the tallest structures in Ohio. The flagpole and the Eiffel Tower, which were built at about the same time, used the same cutting-edge “steel lattice” technology.

The flagpole was moved 15 feet to the right in 1923.

Architecturally the flagpole is Ravenna’s most striking and famous structure.

A thirsty horse is drinking from a water fountain strategically located in the street so that a few horses could drink from it at the same time. A smaller fountain for pedestrians is located closer to the steps leading into the Courthouse.

Most public fountains for horses disappeared when it was discovered that they might carry disease and, at the same time, cars became more popular.

When Riddle Block I was opened in 1889, with 22 offices, it was the largest business structure in Portage County. It also contained nine apartments and the Knights of Pythias Lodge whose symbols of a pyramid and three arched windows can be seen in the left top corner of the building. Under the peaked roof on the right of the building was a dance hall complete with a stage.

When the building opened, a review the local paper noted that in the building were both cold and hot water and that the toilets were well ventilated, “rendering foul odors impossible.”

The elaborate front section of the Portage County Courthouse, which was completed in 1882, is an addition to the 1830 Courthouse which can be seen directly behind it. Both the clock, which is still ticking, and the statue at the top are now at the Portage County Historical Society.

The Courthouse is built on a ridge that marks a geographical divide. A publication from the era noted, “the water from the north roof of the Courthouse went to the Gulf of St Lawrence and [that] from the south roof to the Gulf of Mexico.”

To the right of the Courthouse is the sheriff’s house with the jail behind it and a park behind that. The sheriff’s wife cooked food for the prisoners. The last hanging in Ravenna took place in the jail on April 27, 1866.

Both structures were demolished in 1961 in what is now considered to be a thoughtless rush to modernity.

The Etna House dates from 1868, and in its long history it has been a hotel, restaurant, pool hall, movie theatre, and drug store.

On October 15, 1873, the Etna House hosted the official beginning of the gaslight era in Ravenna and the beginning of the end of candles and carbon oil. The first electric light in Ravenna would not turn on until 1889.

When silent movies started showing at the Etna House in 1911, general seating was 15 cents with the best seats going for 35.

Caption by Jack Schafer, Tom Riddle, and Kevin Gray.

Midtown, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

Summary

This elegant, Beaux-Arts style, twenty- story office building was constructed in 1911- 12 for the United States Rubber Company at a time when the automobile was beginning to exert a powerful influence on American society. Located on Broadway, along the section known as "Automobile Row," the U.S. Rubber Company Building was one of the most prominent and important of the many automobile-related structures concentrated here. The two lowest floors originally provided retail space for the company's subsidiary, the United States Tire Company, while U. S . Rubber occupied eight of the office stories. Designed by the prominent architectural firm of Carrere & Hastings, this office building features delicately-carved marble facades crowned by a broad copper cornice. The design, which continues around both the Broadway and 58th Street facades, features a distinctive rounded corner and vertically-grouped windows with metal spandrels and thin, continuous piers.

In this building, as in their other works, Carrere and Hastings used their training at the French Ecole des Beaux Arts to create an impressive design for a tall building where the skeleton construction is expressed by the thin stone veneei lowest floors of this building were remodeled in which is obviously non-weight-bearing. The two 1959 for a bank.

Automobile Row

At the end of the nineteenth century automobiles, or more precisely horseless carriages, were in the earliest stage of development. At first there were many different types and variations, often growing out of their creator's previous experience in bicycle or carriage manufacture. The new vehicles were looked upon as experimental, purchased only by the very rich and adventurous, since roads, which had been created for horse-drawn vehicles, had uneven, often treacherous surfaces. Between 1886 and 1899 there were approximately 300 individually-built automobiles in the United States. During the first decade of the twentieth century, due to considerable experimentation and advancement of the products including mass- production, discussion in the press, and organization of interested owners and manufacturers, the automobile industry became a strong presence and an economically viable force in the United States. By 1910, The New York Times reported that American automobile manufacturers would produce approximately 200,000 vehicles in that year.

In New York City the influence of the new automobile culture was seen along "Automobile Row," a section of Broadway which eventually stretched between Times Square and 72nd Street. Before 1905, this part of Broadway was home to horses and harness makers, and was characterized as "thoroughly lifeless." In 1907, The New York Times described the same area as "almost a solid line of motor vehicle signs all the way from Times Square to Sherman Square." The 1910 book, Both Sides of Broadway, shows fourteen different automobile and automobile-related stores located between 46th and 50th Streets. The proximity of similar businesses in "Automobile Row" made it easier for customers to view and compare the products of different manufactures. These businesses, which consisted of automobile sales showrooms, stores for parts and accessories, and garages for both storage and repair services, were primarily located in small, remodeled, older buildings.

Within the next few years, larger firms started to buy bigger lots and erect new buildings. The New York Times reported in 1909 on the plans of the B. F. Goodrich Company to build their own showroom and office structure on Broadway and 57th Street (1780- 1782 Broadway, designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw and Waid & Willauer), as well as those of the Peerless and A.T. Demerest Companies to build a block to the south, and the purchase of a building at Broadway and 63rd Street for use as a garage. The construction of the tallest building north of Times Square for the United States Rubber Company, on the large plot at Broadway and 58th Street just to the north of the B. F. Goodrich Company Building, was an importantpartof this trend.

The United States Rubber Company

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

The company was founded by Charles R. Flint who was a self-described "international merchant, financier and negotiator" and also an original partner in the W.R. Grace Company. In 1878, Flint started dealing in rubber produced in the Amazon River basin. In 1892, Flint convinced nine companies involved in the manufacture of rubber footwear (including Charles Goodyear's company which held the first license for the vulcanization process) to merge, and thereby formed the United States Rubber Company. Over the next few years, the company expanded to control about 70 percent of the rubber footwear business in the country, the principal rubber product at that time. Under the leadership of Samuel P. Colt, who began his tenure as president in 1901, the company expanded into related endeavors.

Charles Flint began another company in 1898 called the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company, makers of tires and other rubber industrial products. U.S. Rubber acquired this business in 1899, bringing together four leading brands of tires. After ten years, all these tires were sold under the name "United States Tires," then becoming "U. S. Royal" in 1917. In the same year, the company adopted the "KEDS" name for its many varieties of rubber footwear. During the early years of the twentieth century, the U. S. Rubber Company expanded into the chemical business, manufacturing certain chemicals used in the production of new rubber products and the reclamation of scrap rubber. In 1910, the company also acquired its first rubber plantation in Sumatra to ensure the availability of raw materials. Further expansion into related textiles was achieved in 1917 with the acquisition of the Winnsboro Mills in South Carolina which made tire cord and rubber textile fabrics.

Throughout the twentieth century the company continued to grow and diversify, eventually producing foam rubber, synthetic rubber, and TNT used during World War II, among many other products. During the 1950s the company began to acquire related manufacturers in Europe, while continuing to increase its product range and capacity in this country. In order to unify the corporate identity which was so broadly based, in 1967 all the brands were brought together under the name "UNIROYAL."

The United States Rubber Company was first incorporated in New Jersey and maintained its headquarters in New Brunswick for many years. In 1911, the company leased the land on the corner of 58th Street and Broadway in New York City to build a large, more visible corporate headquarters, and a sales outlet for United States Tires. In their 1913 Annual Report, the company declared that the building was completed in the summer of 1912 and that U.S. Rubber occupied ten floors, as well as the two basements, and that most of the other space had been rented "to good tenants." The organization remained in this building until 1951 when its main offices were moved to Rockefeller Center.

Carrere & Hastings

John Merven Carrere (1858-1911)

Thomas Hastings (1860-1929)

The firm of Carrere and Hastings, active during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was the leading American exponent of the design philosophy of the French Ecole des Beaux Arts. John Merven Carrere was born in Rio de Janeiro to American parents of French descent, and educated in Switzerland. He entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1877, studying in several prominent ateliers, including that of Leon Ginain, a proponent of the neo-Grec style of architecture. Thomas Hastings, born in New York, spent a short time at Columbia University before entering the Ecole des Beaux Arts and serving an apprenticeship in the atelier of Jules Andre. After earning their diplomas - Carrere in 1882 and Hastings in 1884 - both men joined the staff of McKim, Mead & White in New York. After establishing their own partnership in 1885, their first major client was Florida real estate developer Henry Flagler, a partner in Standard Oil.

Carrere & Hastings designed the Ponce de Leon and Alcazar Hotels, and several churches in St. Augustine, as well as the "Whitehall," Flagler's estate in Palm Beach, all in the Spanish Renaissance style, using innovative concrete construction. In 1891 the firm of Carrere & Hastings gained prominence for their Renaissance-inspired, second-place-winning design for the competition for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. They were more successful in 1897, winning the competition for the New York Public Library (constructed 1898-1911, adesignated New York City Landmark). This design established Carrere & Hastings as one the country's leading architectural firms.

In addition to monumental public buildings, the firm of Carrere & Hastings was very active in residential design, and also created the designs for fourteen Carnegie-funded Libraries in New York. The approaches and arch of the Manhattan Bridge (1905, a designated New York City Landmark) and Grand Army Plaza (1913, a designated New York City Scenic Landmark) reveal the architects' interest in city planning. The First Church of Christ, Scientist (1899- 1903, a designated New York City Landmark) at 96th Street and Central Park West was designed by the firm and is in the finest tradition of Beaux-Arts classicism. Woolsey and Memorial Halls at Yale University (1906) and the New (Century) Theater (demolished), the Vanderbilt Estate, Long Island, the Frick Mansion (1913-15, a designated New York City Landmark), the Staten Island Borough Hall (1903-06, a designated New York City Landmark), and the Richmond County Courthouse (1913-1919, a designated New York City Landmark) were all designed by the firm.

Carrere and Hastings were both members of the Architectural League of New York and Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. After Carrere's death in 1911, Hastings continued to work under the firm's name, designing large office buildings such as the Standard Oil Building (1926, a designated New York City Landmark), the Macmillan Building (1924), and theCunardBuilding (1919-21, a designated New York City Landmark).

The United States Rubber Company Building

Most of the work of Carrere and Hastings was in the French Renaissance tradition. Thomas Hastings, the primary designer of the firm, believed that architects needed to be educated in one style that would reflect their own time. Rather than imitate past architecture, he believed they should adapt past styles to contemporary needs. Hastings maintained that even after the turn of the twentieth century, American life was still motivated by the same forces that had brought about the Renaissance. Therefore, Hastings chose to adapt French Renaissance precedents because he felt that only in France was architecture "consistently modem."

Hastings also had ideas about skyscraper design and the increasing height of contemporary buildings. Architects of the early skyscrapers held extensive debates about an appropriate design vocabulary for this completely new building type. They questioned whether the building should somehow express its vertical nature, or whether it should illustrate the idea whether the building should somehow express its vertical nature, or whether it should illustrate the idea that it was really just a tall collection of horizontal floors. They also discussed whether there should be any indication of the supporting steel skeleton frame on the exterior, rather than trying to make the building appear as if it were constructed of heavy, solid masonry.

As president of the Architectural League, Hastings and many of his contemporaries advocated height limitations for skyscrapers, and later demonstrated (in the Fisk Building, 1920-22, and the Liggett Building, 1919-20) what could be accomplished under the restrictions of New York's Building Zone Law of 1916. Through his understanding of Beaux-Arts principles, Hastings was one of the first to conceive that the skeleton frame which actually supported the building and the exterior sheathing material were separate entities because of their separate functions. By 1894, he was using the term "curtain wall" for the exterior, non-bearing walls of a building as we know it today, and he began to design his buildings to reflect this dichotomy.

Carrere & Hastings' Blair Building (1902, demolished, located on Broad Street, south of the Stock Exchange) was one of their first and most successful efforts at the design of tall buildings. It was constructed when most architects were still debating the proper visual expression of tall buildings and using a tripartite division on their tall building facades, implying the heaviness of the structure through ground-story rustication and deep window reveals. The Blair Building was recognized immediately as something different, its marble facades clearly expressed the fact that they were veneers, and not weight-bearing.

The United States Rubber Company Building, although built as part of "Automobile Row" with a large showroom on its ground floor, was primarily an early office tower and as such it expresses the office building sensibility in its design. Like the Blair Building, it is faced in marble and there is little sense of depth on either elevation of the structure. Narrow, continuous stone piers extending from the fourth through seventh stories and from the ninth through nineteenth stories help give the impression that the walls are a thin skin stretched over the steel cage. Although the ornament of the window pediments, elaborate iron balcony railings, and carved stonework around some of the windows is derived from the French Renaissance style, this decoration is clearly subordinate to the main organizing system of recessed windows and continuous piers. The two main facades of the U.S. Rubber building are treated similarly to each other, although the building is somewhat wider on 58th Street.

The strongly-articulated, rounded comer connecting the two sides of Broadway and 58th Street helps reinforce the idea that both facades are part of a well-conceived whole and creates an unusual architectural dynamic along the street. The entire composition is crowned emphatically by its broad, copper, bracketed cornice which continues around both main facades. For many years a large neon sign above the cornice declared the building's ownership to the rest of New York.

The twenty-story building originally had large arched window openings in the lower two stories, that housed retail stores of the United States Tire Company. Ten of the upper floors were used by the U. S. Rubber Company for their offices, while the rest were rented to other businesses.

Subsequent History

In 1911, the U.S. Rubber Company took a twenty- one year lease on this land from Mary Fitzgerald, who had started purchasing numerous lots on this block in 1876. The company was able to purchase the land in 1932. They sold it to a holding company in 1940, remaining in this building until 1951 when they moved to a newer headquarters in Rockefeller Center.

At this time die building was sold to the West Side Federal Savings Bank which wanted a more modem look. They hired architect Herbert Tannenbaum who added an awning over the Broadway entrance to the banking offices. In 1959, at the bank's request, Mr. Tannenbaum completely reconfigured the first two stories of the building, cladding them with a glass and polished gray marble facade. Early in 2000, additional windows were installed at the second story level. The building is still used for offices with a bank in the ground floor.

Description

The United States Rubber Company Building is a twenty-story, Beaux-arts style structure located on the southeast comer of Broadway and 58th Street, with main facades facing both streets. A rounded comer faced in rusticated stone connects the two facades, and the entire structure is capped by a broad copper cornice. Above the two lowest stories, the building is clad in marble, with original metal-sash windows. The two lowest stories are faced with polished gray marble with large modem display windows at the ground floor. The second story has newly-installed, metal casement windows.

Broadway Facade

Floors 1-2: The main entrance to the lobby and elevators which serve the upper stories of this building is in the southernmost bay on the Broadway facade. This entrance and the connecting lobby (which is not part of this designation) were renovated in 1988. The entrance consists of an exterior and interior set of double bronze-and-glass doors (installed during the renovation) topped by a plain glass transom. Outside the doorway, to the south, a small vertical sign is, attached to the comer of the building, with the numbers "1790." The rest of the ground story has double-height, plate-glass display windows. The entrance to the bank, which occupies the ground floor commercial space, is located near the corner lot line. It consists of revolving doors recessed slightly behind two comer columns clad in metal. The second story is clad in polished gray marble panels, with seven bays along Broadway. The windows in the two end bays have two sections while all the others have three.

Floors 3-7: Stone bandcourses above the second and seventh stories distinguish this section from those above and below it. Horizontally, the facade is divided into five bays in the center section with one bay on each side. The side bays are faced with rusticated stone, and each has a single, smaller window with original two-over-two metal sash. Each of these side windows is topped by stone voussoirs which merge with the curved spandrel of the floor above. The seventh story is an exception. Here the two windows of the side bays are topped by elaborate carvings including lions' heads, shields, and feathers, which support the small balconies fronting the side windows on the eighth story.

The third story is transitional, with elaborate stone surrounds on each window of the central section. Rounded and triangular pediments alternate above these windows, with flat stone pilasters between each bay. The windows have three-over-three metal sash.

The five center bays of floors four through seven have one-over-one, metal sash windows with metal spandrels, and ornate balcony railings. Continuous, flat stone piers edged with moldings rise between each of the center windows, joining together in segmental arches above the seventh story windows. 8th Floor. This is another transitional story, set off by wide bandcourses above and below it. Each window has three-over-three, metal-framed sash, with engaged pilasters between each bay. The windows in each side bay are capped by rounded pediments which form part of the upper bandcourse.

Floors 9-19: Above the bandcourse is a continuous stone balustrade which extends across the entire facade. On these floors the two end bays are distinct from the five bays in the center. They have smaller, square-headed windows with two-over-two metal sash. In the side bays the windows of each two stories are joined vertically by metal spandrel panels and omate metal balcony railings. Within the center section, all the windows have one-over-one metal sash. Continuous, flat stone piers with moldings rise between each bay and join together above the windows of the nineteenth story. Floors nine and ten are joined vertically, as are floors 11 through 16 and floors 17 through 19, by metal spandrel panels and omate iron balcony railings in front of the windows. The windows of the tenth and sixteenth stories have segmentally-arched tops.

Floor 20: The twentieth story is set off by another prominent bandcourse. Twelve windows are evenly spaced across the facade at this level, each with two- over-two metal sash. Each end bay has elaborately carved window surrounds comprised of carved panels with classical ornament.

Cornice: A very broad, projecting copper cornice featuring moldings and brackets tops the building. Roof: A modern penthouse and a chimney are visible from Broadway and Central Park South. 58th Street Facade

The design of this facade is the same as that on Broadway with the following minor exceptions. On the ground story, there are a freight entrance and a vehicular entrance in the two eastern bays. This facade is slightly wider than that on Broadway, and there are eight rather than seven bays on the second story, while the floors above have six bays in the center section. Along the entire height of the building, the easternmost corner has been refaced with shallow indications of rustication.

The eastern facade of the building is visible over the low building to the east. It is faced in unarticulated brick, with one, square-headed window on each floor, containing three-over-three metal sash.

The southern facade is also visible above the neighboring building to the south. It is also faced with unarticulated brick, pierced by numerous unadorned, square-headed windows.

- From the 2000 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Establishing medium overhead aerial video truck movement tracking with a motorized cotton picker as it travels from upward as it uses a GPS-based automatic steering system to precisely navigate thousands of cotton rows during the Schirmer family cotton harvest, in Batesville, TX, on August 23, 2020. Cotton can be seen going into the large basket at its rear.

For more information about the cotton harvest, the Schirmer family, and their farms, please go to flic.kr/s/aHsmPYgNPx

USDA Photo and Media by Lance Cheung.

Photograph taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 07:46am), at an altitude of Seven metres, at 07:01am on Tuesday December 9th 2014 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.

A very chilly morning on the beach, around One degree, and a bracing wind that pounded flesh and bones, but well worth the one and a half hour journey there to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.

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Nikon D800 27mm 1/1.6s f/2.8 iso200 RAW (14Bit) AF-S single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 16.96s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 26.47s

ALTITUDE: 7.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 16.96MB

Processing power:

HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

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St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey, London

NOTICE on Wednesdays and Fridays baptisms and churchings are solemnized at 12 o'clock precisely and attendance given in the vestry [at half past 11 o'clock] for searching and granting certificates and signing such papers as require the minister's signature. MARRIAGE LICENSES may be obtained on application at the rectory adjoing the church or at the parish clerk's.

Surviving notice set in stone from the late 1860s.

Sir,—A visit to this church will well repay a stranger, if only to see what can be done with an old building to render it in conformity with modern times. The church, we are told, was built in 1690 — that is, the body of the church. The tower is much older, and from the Norman arches supporting the second storey, seems to date from the period when "that grasping rasping race" held rule. These arches can at present only be seen by entering the belfry and opening the case of the organ, which occupies nearly the whole of the recess. There is, however, a drawing extant by Turner, R.A., which shows the vestibule of the church previous to the introduction of the belfry floor in 1722. The arches there delineated exhibit all the beauty seen in Norman structure, whilst the light emitted from the Gothic window (restored by G. Porter, Esq., in 1830) sheds a delightful chiara oscuro over the picture. The roof of the nave of the original church was supported, no doubt, upon a series of similar columns and arches, of which these only remain. While I am on the subject of the tower, I may mention that in 1733 the image of Mary Magdalen over the clock was ordered to be taken down, and iron bars put up in the belfry windows to prevent the boys from going on the leads; so even at that time the Bermondsey youths had to be restricted in their amusements.

In the beginning of the year 1676, the parish church being much decayed, and in great danger of falling, we find the vestry meeting, and agreeing that it shall be well and sufficiently repaired from the foundations upwards, at the charge of the parishioners. It was further ordered that a tabernacle be set up for the purpose of divine service, and that Dr. Parr, the rector, be requested to procure the bishop's licence for preaching therein. The cost of these reparations was about £1,799, and the necessary sum was raised by a three years' tax, together with subscriptions collected by a committee of gentlemen, formed to assist Dr. Parr in petitioning the Earl of Salisbury, and other persons of quality who were living out of the parish for their free gratuity towards the repairs of the church. William Castel, a Justice of the Peace, whose monument is at the south east-end of the church, seems to have taken a very active part in this re-building.

In the same year, we have the parish getting into litigation with the Quakers, who refused to pay the tax for the church, and which resulted in the imprisonment of some of that body; for in 1681 William Schoomger, a Quaker and pin-maker, attended before the vestry, and obtained the release of his friends upon their promising to do something for the parish in some other way, because, as they said, their consciences would not allow them to pay any tax for the repairs of a church which they neither do nor can worship in, and this spirit moving sect again contended with the parish in 1807.

In 1705 the north gallery was erected (at this time the hangings of the pulpit were of green velvet with gold fringe). Aubrey, writing in 1718, thus describes the chancel: "The altar piece is adorned with cornish and large compass pediment; under the latter are Queen Anne's arms, carved in relievo, and under the former the decalogue in two tablets placed between the portraits of Moses and Aaron." This carving has long since disappeared, and your correspondent was very much struck at seeing only a few years ago in the window of a public-house, called the King's Arms and Hand Inn, opposite the church, a shield of oak wainscoat of a like character to that in the church.

I went in and saw the landlord, who told me that he had found it among other lumber when the house was transferred to him, and that he had separated the lion and unicorn from it. He stated that as the house was the sign of the King's Arms, the carving represented the arms of the monarch who had quaffed a glass of foaming ale at the house. This was very fine, but scarcely agreed with the quartering on the shield which was such as Queen Anne alone bore, the arms of Scotland on its union being quartered for the first time with the royal arms during this reign, and no succeeding monarch ever bore the same arms. But to pass on. In 1795 the gallery on the south side was erected, the carvings of cherubims and oak leaves being of like description with the north gallery. The pulpit and desks were then removed from where they stood, and set up on the north side of the middle aisle.

In 1843, the old double pews were made single, and extensive alterations effected. The chancel window of stained glass was put in, with the dove holding an olive branch; this was the gift of the then contractor, James Hunt, Esq., of Idol-lane. The pillars supporting the church, which, till then, had been plain white, were painted imitation Sienna marble; the flags of the Bermondsey Volunteers were taken down, and the whole of the repairs cost about £500.

The present alterations consist in lowering the pews about a foot throughout the church; the backs have been also inclined. The carved pulpit, which dates from 1609, has been moved some seven feet farther east from its former position, enabling a better view of the preacher to be had, as also of affording more pew accommodation. The old reading-desk has disappeared, and a neat oak one, divided by Gothic panels, in admirable keeping with the early portion of the church, has been substituted. This has been erected upon a raised platform on the south side of the chancel.

Two new coronas, each with eighteen burners, for lighting the church, have been introduced, and does credit to the taste of the churchwarden, G. Redgrave, Esq., who has personally superintended the whole of the recent improvements. The Tuscan columns supporting the roof have been cleaned and revarnished, the bases painted imitation red granite, the corbels white. The columns of the composite order supporting the galleries are red. The carvings of the cherubims, fruit, and festoons in the communion have been painted white, enriched with gold; the paterers adorning the ceiling have been likewise gilt, with cobalt ground, and harmonizes nicely with the stained glass window.

The manner in which the alterations have been viewed by the parishioners is evinced by the crowded state of the church during the two last Sundays, and betokens that they admire both sound gospel preaching and comfortable seats. The services at this church, commencing at 11 am, and 6.30 p.m., are conducted by the Rev. Lewen Tugwell, the rector; there is also afternoon service at 3 o'clock for the benefit of persons unable to attend at the other services. This is under the able ministration of the Rev. R. S. Keitch, the senior curate. I may mention as a sign of the times that the alterations have been effected by voluntary means.

[Newspaper cutting , 1870s]

Dryslwyn Castle is a native Welsh castle, sited on a rocky hill roughly halfway between Llandeilo and Carmarthen in Wales. It stands on high ground overlooking the Tywi Valley with extensive views. It was built in about the 1220s by one of the princes of the kingdom of Deheubarth, and changed hands several times in the struggles between the Welsh and English over the ensuing centuries. It is considered one of the most important remaining structures built by a Welsh chieftain and is a Grade I listed building.

Perched on the top of an isolated, rocky hill above the Towy Valley, Dryslwyn Castle occupies a splendid defensive position. It may occupy a spot previously used in as a fortification in prehistoric times but no evidence has been found to support this theory. In the twelfth century, Rhys ap Gruffydd, often known as "Lord Rhys", reigned over the kingdom of Deheubarth and brought it a period of peace and stability. On his death in 1197, his three sons contested his inheritance and fought between themselves for supremacy. Neighbouring Welsh kingdoms and the English took advantage of this to infiltrate Deheubarth and it was around this time that Dryslwyn Castle was built.

It is not clear precisely who built it, but it was probably constructed in the 1220s by one of the princes of Deheubarth, perhaps Rhys Gryg. In any event, the castle at Dryslwyn was, along with the neighbouring Dinefwr Castle, for a long time central to the security of the kingdom. It was apparently assaulted in 1246, because it was mentioned in an ancient chronicle, Annales Cambrie, where a siege of the castle by the Seneschal of Carmarthen was mentioned. He was apparently acting on behalf of its "rightful owner", but who that rightful owner was, or whether the siege was successful, is not known. It may have been that Rhys Gryg built the two fortresses of Dryslwyn and Dinefwr in order to provide legacies for his two sons after his death, which happened in 1234. The two castles are of very similar construction, with a round tower with flared base inside a ward enclosed by a curtain wall that contoured round the hillside. The ward contained a great hall and an adjoining building that was probably a kitchen. Between the hall and the curtain wall was an enclosed small structure that it has been suggested may have been a prison.

The castle underwent a lengthy period of expansion in the late thirteenth century. After the death of the last native prince of Wales, Dafydd ap Gruffudd, in 1283, the castle was one of the few remaining substantial stone castles in Wales to be held by a Welshman; the most prominent surviving Welsh lord, Rhys ap Maredudd, continued to augment the castle's defences. He was allowed by the English to keep his castle as he had shown a more conciliatory attitude towards them than other Welsh lords. However, in 1287 he revolted against English rule, and the castle was besieged and captured after a three-week siege by the forces of King Edward I. The English troops numbered 11,000 and methods of assault included the use of a trebuchet and the undermining of the curtain walls. Several English knights were killed when one of the mine workings collapsed while they were inspecting it. Rhys's revolt petered out the following year, and Rhys himself was captured and executed in 1292.

Dryslwyn was seized by Owain Glyndŵr in the summer of 1403 and when the English forces recaptured it they decommissioned it by blocking various access routes, walling up the gatehouse, removing the treads from stone stairs and even removing the hinges from the main gate. At some later stage, all the major buildings were burned to the ground. Following this a lot of the stone was removed from the site.

The castle of limestone walls was built in the 1220s, and was systematically demolished in the early fifteenth century, presumably in an attempt to stop Welsh rebels using it again. The polygonal inner ward contains principal remains to the south-west, with traces of the middle and outer ward to the north-east. The early-thirteenth-century curtain wall to the inner ward only stands 1 m (3 ft) high. There is a garderobe to the east side, and a remodelled thirteenth-century gatehouse to the north-east, surviving at foundation level only. On the south side of the gatehouse is the Round Tower, the original keep. The foundations of the original great hall and Rhys ap Maredudd's hall survive.

Little is left of the original structure and much of what is now visible has been revealed by excavation. A small portion of the middle and outer walls survive, mostly associated with the middle and outer gates. The best-preserved remains are within the inner ward, and here can be seen the polygonal plan that was adopted to fit in with the shape of the hilltop. It is considered one of the most important remaining structures built by a Welsh chieftain and is a Grade I listed building, being noteworthy as the only native Welsh castle to have three wards.

Carmarthenshire is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as the "Garden of Wales" and is also home to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Carmarthenshire has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The county town was founded by the Romans, and the region was part of the Kingdom of Deheubarth in the High Middle Ages. After invasion by the Normans in the 12th and 13th centuries it was subjugated, along with other parts of Wales, by Edward I of England. There was further unrest in the early 15th century, when the Welsh rebelled under Owain Glyndŵr, and during the English Civil War.

Carmarthenshire is mainly an agricultural county, apart from the southeastern part which was once heavily industrialised with coal mining, steel-making and tin-plating. In the north of the county, the woollen industry was very important in the 18th century. The economy depends on agriculture, forestry, fishing and tourism. West Wales was identified in 2014 as the worst-performing region in the United Kingdom along with the South Wales Valleys with the decline in its industrial base, and the low profitability of the livestock sector.

Carmarthenshire, as a tourist destination, offers a wide range of outdoor activities. Much of the coast is fairly flat; it includes the Millennium Coastal Park, which extends for ten miles to the west of Llanelli; the National Wetlands Centre; a championship golf course; and the harbours of Burry Port and Pembrey. The sandy beaches at Llansteffan and Pendine are further west. Carmarthenshire has a number of medieval castles, hillforts and standing stones. The Dylan Thomas Boathouse is at Laugharne.

Stone tools found in Coygan Cave, near Laugharne indicate the presence of hominins, probably neanderthals, at least 40,000 years ago, though, as in the rest of the British Isles, continuous habitation by modern humans is not known before the end of the Younger Dryas, around 11,500 years BP. Before the Romans arrived in Britain, the land now forming the county of Carmarthenshire was part of the kingdom of the Demetae who gave their name to the county of Dyfed; it contained one of their chief settlements, Moridunum, now known as Carmarthen. The Romans established two forts in South Wales, one at Caerwent to control the southeast of the country, and one at Carmarthen to control the southwest. The fort at Carmarthen dates from around 75 AD, and there is a Roman amphitheatre nearby, so this probably makes Carmarthen the oldest continually occupied town in Wales.

Carmarthenshire has its early roots in the region formerly known as Ystrad Tywi ("Vale of [the river] Tywi") and part of the Kingdom of Deheubarth during the High Middle Ages, with the court at Dinefwr. After the Normans had subjugated England they tried to subdue Wales. Carmarthenshire was disputed between the Normans and the Welsh lords and many of the castles built around this time, first of wood and then stone, changed hands several times. Following the Conquest of Wales by Edward I, the region was reorganized by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 into Carmarthenshire. Edward I made Carmarthen the capital of this new county, establishing his courts of chancery and his exchequer there, and holding the Court of Great Sessions in Wales in the town.

The Normans transformed Carmarthen into an international trading port, the only staple port in Wales. Merchants imported food and French wines and exported wool, pelts, leather, lead and tin. In the late medieval period the county's fortunes varied, as good and bad harvests occurred, increased taxes were levied by England, there were episodes of plague, and recruitment for wars removed the young men. Carmarthen was particularly susceptible to plague as it was brought in by flea-infested rats on board ships from southern France.

In 1405, Owain Glyndŵr captured Carmarthen Castle and several other strongholds in the neighbourhood. However, when his support dwindled, the principal men of the county returned their allegiance to King Henry V. During the English Civil War, Parliamentary forces under Colonel Roland Laugharne besieged and captured Carmarthen Castle but later abandoned the cause, and joined the Royalists. In 1648, Carmarthen Castle was recaptured by the Parliamentarians, and Oliver Cromwell ordered it to be slighted.

The first industrial canal in Wales was built in 1768 to convey coal from the Gwendraeth Valley to the coast, and the following year, the earliest tramroad bridge was on the tramroad built alongside the canal. During the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815) there was increased demand for coal, iron and agricultural goods, and the county prospered. The landscape changed as much woodland was cleared to make way for more food production, and mills, power stations, mines and factories sprang up between Llanelli and Pembrey. Carmarthenshire was at the centre of the Rebecca Riots around 1840, when local farmers and agricultural workers dressed as women and rebelled against higher taxes and tolls.

On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, Carmarthenshire joined Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire in the new county of Dyfed; Carmarthenshire was divided into three districts: Carmarthen, Llanelli and Dinefwr. Twenty-two years later this amalgamation was reversed when, under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, the original county boundaries were reinstated.

The county is bounded to the north by Ceredigion, to the east by Powys (historic county Brecknockshire), Neath Port Talbot (historic county Glamorgan) and Swansea (also Glamorgan), to the south by the Bristol Channel and to the west by Pembrokeshire. Much of the county is upland and hilly. The Black Mountain range dominates the east of the county, with the lower foothills of the Cambrian Mountains to the north across the valley of the River Towy. The south coast contains many fishing villages and sandy beaches. The highest point (county top) is the minor summit of Fan Foel, height 781 metres (2,562 ft), which is a subsidiary top of the higher mountain of Fan Brycheiniog, height 802.5 metres (2,633 ft) (the higher summit, as its name suggests, is actually across the border in Brecknockshire/Powys). Carmarthenshire is the largest historic county by area in Wales.

The county is drained by several important rivers which flow southwards into the Bristol Channel, especially the River Towy, and its several tributaries, such as the River Cothi. The Towy is the longest river flowing entirely within Wales. Other rivers include the Loughor (which forms the eastern boundary with Glamorgan), the River Gwendraeth and the River Taf. The River Teifi forms much of the border between Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, and there are a number of towns in the Teifi Valley which have communities living on either side of the river and hence in different counties. Carmarthenshire has a long coastline which is deeply cut by the estuaries of the Loughor in the east and the Gwendraeth, Tywi and Taf, which enter the sea on the east side of Carmarthen Bay. The coastline includes notable beaches such as Pendine Sands and Cefn Sidan sands, and large areas of foreshore are uncovered at low tide along the Loughor and Towy estuaries.

The principal towns in the county are Ammanford, Burry Port, Carmarthen, Kidwelly, Llanelli, Llandeilo, Newcastle Emlyn, Llandovery, St Clears, and Whitland. The principal industries are agriculture, forestry, fishing and tourism. Although Llanelli is by far the largest town in the county, the county town remains Carmarthen, mainly due to its central location.

Carmarthenshire is predominantly an agricultural county, with only the southeastern area having any significant amount of industry. The best agricultural land is in the broad Tywi Valley, especially its lower reaches. With its fertile land and agricultural produce, Carmarthenshire is known as the "Garden of Wales". The lowest bridge over the river is at Carmarthen, and the Towi Estuary cuts the southwesterly part of the county, including Llansteffan and Laugharne, off from the more urban southeastern region. This area is also bypassed by the main communication routes into Pembrokeshire. A passenger ferry service used to connect Ferryside with Llansteffan until the early part of the twentieth century.

Agriculture and forestry are the main sources of income over most of the county of Carmarthenshire. On improved pastures, dairying is important and in the past, the presence of the railway enabled milk to be transported to the urban areas of England. The creamery at Whitland is now closed but milk processing still takes place at Newcastle Emlyn where mozzarella cheese is made. On upland pastures and marginal land, livestock rearing of cattle and sheep is the main agricultural activity. The estuaries of the Loughor and Towy provide pickings for the cockle industry.

Llanelli, Ammanford and the upper parts of the Gwendraeth Valley are situated on the South Wales Coalfield. The opencast mining activities in this region have now ceased but the old mining settlements with terraced housing remain, often centred on their nonconformist chapels. Kidwelly had a tin-plating industry in the eighteenth century, with Llanelli following not long after, so that by the end of the nineteenth century, Llanelli was the world-centre of the industry. There is little trace of these industrial activities today. Llanelli and Burry Port served at one time for the export of coal, but trade declined, as it did from the ports of Kidwelly and Carmarthen as their estuaries silted up. Country towns in the more agricultural part of the county still hold regular markets where livestock is traded.

In the north of the county, in and around the Teifi Valley, there was a thriving woollen industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here water-power provided the energy to drive the looms and other machinery at the mills. The village of Dre-fach Felindre at one time contained twenty-four mills and was known as the "Huddersfield of Wales". The demand for woollen cloth declined in the twentieth century and so did the industry.

In 2014, West Wales was identified as the worst-performing region in the United Kingdom along with the South Wales Valleys. The gross value added economic indicator showed a figure of £14,763 per head in these regions, as compared with a GVA of £22,986 for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. The Welsh Assembly Government is aware of this, and helped by government initiatives and local actions, opportunities for farmers to diversify have emerged. These include farm tourism, rural crafts, specialist food shops, farmers' markets and added-value food products.

Carmarthenshire County Council produced a fifteen-year plan that highlighted six projects which it hoped would create five thousand new jobs. The sectors involved would be in the "creative industries, tourism, agri-food, advanced manufacturing, energy and environment, and financial and professional services".

Carmarthenshire became an administrative county with a county council taking over functions from the Quarter Sessions under the Local Government Act 1888. Under the Local Government Act 1972, the administrative county of Carmarthenshire was abolished on 1 April 1974 and the area of Carmarthenshire became three districts within the new county of Dyfed : Carmarthen, Dinefwr and Llanelli. Under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, Dyfed was abolished on 1 April 1996 and Carmarthenshire was re-established as a county. The three districts united to form a unitary authority which had the same boundaries as the traditional county of Carmarthenshire. In 2003, the Clynderwen community council area was transferred to the administrative county of Pembrokeshire.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Carmarthen and Wrexham were the two most populous towns in Wales. In 1931, the county's population was 171,445 and in 1951, 164,800. At the census in 2011, Carmarthenshire had a population of 183,777. Population levels have thus dipped and then increased again over the course of eighty years. The population density in Carmarthenshire is 0.8 persons per hectare compared to 1.5 per hectare in Wales as a whole.

Carmarthenshire was the most populous of the five historic counties of Wales to remain majority Welsh-speaking throughout the 20th century. According to the 1911 Census, 84.9 per cent of the county's population were Welsh-speaking (compared with 43.5 per cent in all of Wales), with 20.5 per cent of Carmarthenshire's overall population being monolingual Welsh-speakers.

In 1931, 82.3 per cent could speak Welsh and in 1951, 75.2 per cent. By the 2001 census, 50.3 per cent of people living in Carmarthenshire could speak Welsh, with 39 per cent being able to read and write the language as well.

The 2011 census showed a further decline, with 43.9 per cent speaking Welsh, making it a minority language in the county for the first time. However, the 2011 census also showed that 3,000 more people could understand spoken Welsh than in 2001 and that 60% of 5-14-year-olds could speak Welsh (a 5% increase since 2001). A decade later, the 2021 census, showed further decrease, to 39.9% Welsh speakers -- the largest percentage drop in all of Wales.

With its strategic location and history, the county is rich in archaeological remains such as forts, earthworks and standing stones. Carn Goch is one of the most impressive Iron Age forts and stands on a hilltop near Llandeilo. The Bronze Age is represented by chambered cairns and standing stones on Mynydd Llangyndeyrn, near Llangyndeyrn. Castles that can be easily accessed include Carreg Cennen, Dinefwr, Kidwelly, Laugharne, Llansteffan and Newcastle Emlyn Castle. There are the ruinous remains of Talley Abbey, and the coastal village of Laugharne is for ever associated with Dylan Thomas. Stately homes in the county include Aberglasney House and Gardens, Golden Grove and Newton House.

There are plenty of opportunities in the county for hiking, observing wildlife and admiring the scenery. These include Brechfa Forest, the Pembrey Country Park, the Millennium Coastal Park at Llanelli, the WWT Llanelli Wetlands Centre and the Carmel National Nature Reserve. There are large stretches of golden sands and the Wales Coast Path now provides a continuous walking route around the whole of Wales.

The National Botanic Garden of Wales displays plants from Wales and from all around the world, and the Carmarthenshire County Museum, the National Wool Museum, the Parc Howard Museum, the Pendine Museum of Speed and the West Wales Museum of Childhood all provide opportunities to delve into the past. Dylan Thomas Boathouse where the author wrote many of his works can be visited, as can the Roman-worked Dolaucothi Gold Mines.

Activities available in the county include rambling, cycling, fishing, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, horse riding, caving, abseiling and coasteering.[7] Carmarthen Town A.F.C. plays in the Cymru Premier. They won the Welsh Football League Cup in the 1995–96 season, and since then have won the Welsh Cup once and the Welsh League Cup twice. Llanelli Town A.F.C. play in the Welsh Football League Division Two. The club won the Welsh premier league and Loosemores challenge cup in 2008 and won the Welsh Cup in 2011, but after experiencing financial difficulties, were wound up and reformed under the present title in 2013. Scarlets is the regional professional rugby union team that plays in the Pro14, they play their home matches at their ground, Parc y Scarlets. Honours include winning the 2003/04 and 2016/17 Pro12. Llanelli RFC is a semi-professional rugby union team that play in the Welsh Premier Division, also playing home matches at Parc y Scarlets. Among many honours, they have been WRU Challenge Cup winners on fourteen occasions and frequently taken part in the Heineken Cup. West Wales Raiders, based in Llanelli, represent the county in Rugby league.

Some sporting venues utilise disused industrial sites. Ffos Las racecourse was built on the site of an open cast coal mine after mining operations ceased. Opened in 2009, it was the first racecourse built in the United Kingdom for eighty years and has regular race-days. Machynys is a championship golf course opened in 2005 and built as part of the Llanelli Waterside regeneration plan. Pembrey Circuit is a motor racing circuit near Pembrey village, considered the home of Welsh motorsport, providing racing for cars, motorcycles, karts and trucks. It was opened in 1989 on a former airfield, is popular for testing and has hosted many events including the British Touring Car Championship twice. The 2018 Tour of Britain cycling race started at Pembrey on 2 September 2018.

Carmarthenshire is served by the main line railway service operated by Transport for Wales Rail which links London Paddington, Cardiff Central and Swansea to southwest Wales. The main hub is Carmarthen railway station where some services from the east terminate. The line continues westwards with several branches which serve Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven and Fishguard Harbour (for the ferry to Rosslare Europort and connecting trains to Dublin Connolly). The Heart of Wales Line takes a scenic route through mid-Wales and links Llanelli with Craven Arms, from where passengers can travel on the Welsh Marches Line to Shrewsbury.

Two heritage railways, the Gwili Railway and the Teifi Valley Railway, use the track of the Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway that at one time ran from Carmarthen to Newcastle Emlyn, but did not reach Cardigan.

The A40, A48, A484 and A485 converge on Carmarthen. The M4 route that links South Wales with London, terminates at junction 49, the Pont Abraham services, to continue northwest as the dual carriageway A48, and to finish with its junction with the A40 in Carmarthen.

Llanelli is linked to M4 junction 48 by the A4138. The A40 links Carmarthen to Llandeilo, Llandovery and Brecon to the east, and with St Clears, Whitland and Haverfordwest to the west. The A484 links Llanelli with Carmarthen by a coastal route and continues northwards to Cardigan, and via the A486 and A487 to Aberystwyth, and the A485 links Carmarthen to Lampeter.

Bus services run between the main towns within the county and are operated by First Cymru under their "Western Welsh" or "Cymru Clipper" livery. Bus services from Carmarthenshire are also run to Cardiff. A bus service known as "fflecsi Bwcabus" (formerly just "Bwcabus") operates in the north of the county, offering customised transport to rural dwellers.

Carmarthenshire has rich, fertile farmland and a productive coast with estuaries providing a range of foods that motivate many home cooks and chefs.

It's precisely the cliché. Stunningly beautiful.

This one I can pinpoint precisely - indeed I've been here and this garage still exists today. Currently branded Pace as seen on Streetview but was Scottish Fuels as can be seen below www.google.co.uk/maps/@57.2842977,-3.8154135,3a,75y,200.7...

Tsukemen

- pork broth, fish powder, menma, chāshū, thick tsukemen noodles

I made it to Tokyo station after a 14-hour flight from New York, and Rokurinsha ramen ( more precisely - their legendary tsukemen) was just too much of a temptation to resist.

Rokurinsha is widely believed to be one of Tokyo's best ramenayas, and I must admit - my meal reflected that notion. The line was fairly long, but after a reasonable wait - I would say may be 20 minutes, or so - I somehow chose the right button on the ticket vending machine and was seated at a communal table for two; my youthful dining companion spoke no English, but I just followed his lead in proper tsukemen manners. The biggest difference between Rokurinsha tsukemen were the noodles - as thick as traditional udon, and much thicker and wider than any ramen or tsukemen I have had before. Noodles were exceptionally well made and cooked, but served cold - to prevent additional cooking, I might guess.

The biggest attraction was definitely the broth - unmistakeable tonkotsu consistency and taste were complimented by slightly darker color one might expect from a typical milky-white tonkotsu soup (actually, it has been a bit of an issue in my own kitchen - my tonkotsu always turns out darker than I would like it to be; I tend to use more bones and natural skin gelatin than necessary). I think Rokurinsha broth color comes from a generous amount of bones used in the broth, but also from an addition of dried mackerel and, to a lesser degree, seaweed. The key player in the soup was the ground fish powder, no doubt ( the latter can be seen at the 6 o'clock position in the picture). Fish powder added an assertive, if not aggressive, umami component - I wasn't even sure if I liked it at first, but when the thick noodles found their new cradle in the broth all my concerns were laid to rest - I was simply hooked and just couldn't stop eating. Phenomenal bowl of noodles.

There is a lot to be said about Rokurinsha ramen, but it hardly can add anything to what two local Tokyo and independent from each other food writers have written about this gem of a restaurant in the past:

- first, exceptional in many ways, Japan Times and Tokyo Food File writer Robbie Swinnerton;

- second, extremely interesting and engaging Tokyo Cuisine Guide with Tokyo Joe at the helm;

Please refer to post by those exceptional bloggers for a different, and perhaps, a bit more comprehensive opinion of Rokurinsha ramen and tsukemen. All I can say - my $9.- meal at Rokurinsha was beyond exceptional - if only I could have those noodles again.

Turtle Bay, Manhattan

Designed by Philip C. Johnson in 1948 and built in 1949-50, the former Rockefeller Guest House is one of the earliest buildings in New York City to reflect the influence of the modem movement in architecture and the celebrated German-American architect Mies van der Rohe. The house, which was described by the noted architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable as "sophisticated . . . handsome, unconventional," is remarkably intact.

Johnson's subtle and elegant design incorporates features borrowed from two earlier projects by Mies: his unbuilt "court houses" of the 1930s, and the elevations he designed for various buildings at the Illinois Institute of Technology (hereafter, IIT). Built without the use of traditional ornament, the striking two-story street facade is articulated with precisely arranged structural elements, including a symmetrical first story consisting of a handsome wood door and flanking polished reddish brown ironspot brick walls laid in Flemish bond, surmounted by a grid of six fixed translucent windows faced with four steel H-sections.

The house was commissioned by Blanchette Rockefeller, the wife of John D. Rockefeller 3rd and a major patron of the Museum of Modem Art (hereafter, MoMA), to display her collection of modem painting and sculpture and to entertain guests. The Rockefellers donated the house to the museum in 1955, and in the years that followed it had a succession of owners, many of whom were associated with the international art community, including Johnson who lived in the house from 1971 -79. A significant early work by one of the country's leading architects and his only private residential building in New York City, in May 1989 the Rockefeller Guest House became the first work of architecture in the city to be sold by a leading art auction house.

Design and Construction

In June 1948, the Empire Mortgage Company, acting on behalf of the Rockefeller family acquired a 25 by 100 foot lot on East 52nd Street, west of Second Avenue. It was an ideal location - midway between her home in Turtle Bay on Beekman Place and the museum. On the site were two vacant structures, both dating from circa 1870. Johnson later described them as "completely nondescript, [a] small house, wedged between brick walls, a gap and a weed patch, with a dumpy coach house."17 This sequence of spaces -closed, open, and closed-would shape Johnson's plan. Whereas most urban townhouses have gardens at the rear of the lot, the "gap" and "weed patch" would become an internal courtyard, filled with water and partly open to the sky.

An associate in Johnson's office, Frederick C. Genz, filed plans for the guest house in late 1948.18 Since the existing brick walls were retained, it was classified as an alteration, consisting of mainly plastering, plumbing, carpentry, and masonry work. The project's estimated cost was $64,000.19 Construction began in 1949, and the house was ready for use in 1950.

The Rockefeller Guest House was one the first buildings in New York City to reflect the influence of the modem movement in architecture and the celebrated German-American architect Mies van der Rohe. It would also be Johnson's first and only private residential building in the city. Located on the south side of 52nd Street, the simple two-story brick and glass facade stood in sharp contrast to the late nineteenth century buildings adjoining it, a tenement and schoolhouse.

Johnson's spartan design reflects two projects by Mies: the unbuilt "court houses" of the 1930s, where he explored the "flow of space . . . confined within a single rectangle formed by the outside walls of court and house conjoined," and the architect's elevations for the various buildings at HT which were notable for their "subtleties of detailing."20 In describing these facades, Johnson wrote in 1947:

Structural elements are revealed as are those of a Gothic cathedral . . . And whereas the medieval architect relied on the collaboration of the sculptor and painter for his ultimate effect, Mies, so to speak, had to perform the functions of all three professions. He joins steel to steel or steel to glass or brick, with the taste and skill that formerly went into the chiseling of a stone capital or the painting of a fresco.

Johnson followed Mies's example; rather than embellishing the guest house facade with traditional ornament, he articulated the street facade with precisely arranged structural elements. He divided the two-story facade into two visually-distinct sections. The lower portion of the first floor facade, which projects slightly in front of the windows, consists of a wood door at center flanked by polished reddish brown brick walls laid in Flemish bond. The brick, which resembled that used on the cylinder that enclosed the bathroom in Johnson's New Canaan residence of the previous year, was chosen to compliment the facade of the adjacent schoolhouse.

Above the solid base of the first story is a grid of six "unpolished plate glass" windows.22 The mullions that divide the fixed translucent windows are faced with two decorative steel H-sections that rest atop the brick sill. Whereas the second story has vertical floor-to-ceiling windows, the lower horizontal panes act as clerestories, enclosing the upper portion of the first floor facade. These two sets of windows have been traditionally hung with identical white draperies, giving the impression of a single floor above the brick base.

The first floor interior (not part of this designation) was designed as a single flowing space. In front was a large living area with a fireplace and a compact kitchen hidden by folding doors, and in the rear, a bedroom with bath and dressing area. Between the rooms was an interior court with a pool that extends the full width of the building. A grid of floor-to-ceiling windows face the courtyard, similar in effect to the courtyard Mies designed for the Chemical Engineering and Metallurgy Building (1945-46) at 13T. Uninterrupted brick walls painted white extended from the living area through the courtyard, providing a neutral backdrop for the owner's art collection; which included pieces by Alberto Giacometti, Hans Arp, Robert Motherwell, Elie Nadelman, Jacques Lipchitz, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.

Above the living area on the second floor (not part of this designation) were two unheated bedrooms and a bathroom. These rooms served two purposes; providing additional space for guests, but also giving the guest house a stronger presence on the street. Johnson later claimed that he designed the second story mainly to "give the facade height" and because a one-story house "would look all wrong."24 These second-floor bedrooms face the interior courtyard.

Critical Reception

The Rockefeller Guest House received considerable attention, with articles and photographic spreads in The New York Times, Interiors, and the Architectural Review. House & Home admired the simplicity of the living areas, suggesting that such "restraint" could "help make a cheap house look more expensive."25 In a 1961 guide to modem architecture in New York City, published by MoMA and the Municipal Art Society, the noted critic Ada Louise Huxtable described the house as "sophisticated . . . handsome, unconventional."

While many writers noted Johnson's long-standing debt to Mies and the intricate detailing on the facade, his friend and ally, the critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr., highlighted the building's "classical leanings" and how the arrangement with a central courtyard resembled "Pompeiian domestic planning."

Several critics detected a subtle Asian influence in Johnson's design.28 In August 1950, a writer for Architectural Forum described the "inward-directed plan" and the emphasis on the "restful" courtyard:

The idea of a quietly serene and empty space at the very core of the house and its busy life is one that might have appealed to Lao Tse the philosopher.

Modern architecture's minimalist character is also likely to have appealed to the owners who made frequent trips to Asia and were avid collectors of Asian and particularly Japanese art. White and black predominated throughout the sparsely-furnished interiors, and the pool in the courtyard was traversed by three raised travertine stepping stones that MoMA historian Russell Lynes later speculated were a "concession" to the Rockefeller's fondness toward "things Japanese." Furthermore, round wood pegs, set flush into the outer section of the dooijamb, suggest the hand-crafted quality of traditional Japanese woodwork.

Subsequent History

During the early 1950s, the Rockefeller Guest House became "an informal arm" of MoMA.

It was presided over by a butler named Charles, who could and frequently did run up luncheons for a small number of trustees and donors to the Museum, for Important Persons and those being wooed. There, too, were cocktail parties and small dinners and the ever present hazard of someone accidently backing into the shallow pool...

In 1954 the house was the site of an exhibition to benefit the activities of the Junior Council. Curated by Barr, Dorothy C. Miller and William Lieberman, it displayed paintings, sculptures and prints owned by various council members. Although The New York Times critic Aline Saarinen was disappointed by the cautious character of the artworks displayed, the exhibition offered the public a rare opportunity to view the elegantly minimal interiors.

Despite his antipathy to modern art, John 3rd attended functions at the house and on one occasion he and their children stayed overnight. He regretted the amount of time his wife devoted to running the guest house and eventually convinced her to donate the building to MoMA in the summer of 1955.32 Until the museum's East Wing (designed by Philip Johnson) was completed in 1964, the near-by guest house was used for a various museum events and functions, including receptions, conferences, and special exhibitions.

The guest house was purchased by Robert C. Leonhardt, a Manhattan business consultant, in 1964 for $100,000.

At the time of the sale, The New York Times described the house as "one of Mr. Johnson's most striking designs."33 With the death of Mr. Leonhardt in 1971, his widow, Lee Sherrod, sought a suitable tenant, inviting Johnson and his partner, the former art dealer and exhibition designer, David C. Whitney, to lease the house. Johnson, who described their previous residence as a "ratty old two-room walk-up," made few changes, repainting the interiors white and hanging paintings by such celebrated contemporary artists as Roy Lichtenstein, John Chamberlain and Frank Stella. Andy Warhol, who occasionally visited Johnson, admired the openness of the plan, calling it "a prototype of loft living in New York."

Robin Symes, a London antiquities dealer, acquired the house in 1979. Ten years later, in May 1989, he consigned it to the Sotheby's auction house. Sold to Ronald S. Lauder, a MoMA trustee since 1973, the building was described by The New York Times as "the first ever offered at a New York art auction — and the first piece of real estate auctioned anywhere in the world by Sotheby's." Anthony d'Offay, a London gallery owner specializing in modem art, purchased the guest house in the mid-1990s. In May 2000, Christie's auctioned the Rockefeller Guest House. Six bidders competed, and the final price was $11.16 million.

Description

The Rockefeller Guest House is located on the south side of East 52nd Street, between Second and Third Avenues. The street facade is symmetrical and two stories high. The lower section of the first story projects forward and is faced with reddish-brown Flemish bond brick with tan mortar, similar to that used on the adjoining school building.36 To the east, the brick facade recedes to metal extending the full height of the building, to brick that extends south and is visible from both the front and the side until it intersects with west wall of the adjoining school building. To the west, the brick facade recedes to metal extending the full height of the building, to brick that extends south to the adjoining tenement building.

The entrance is at the center of the first story, marked by a wood door that is divided by vertical lines into seven sections. The historic door, which rises as high as the brick walls, is opened with a brass handle located to the east. At approximately eye level is a peephole, and centered below, a brass mail slot.

The historic doorframe is made of identical wood. Round wood pegs, set flush into the outer frame, are visible. The east side of the door jamb incorporates (from top to bottom) a non-historic brass security camera, a brass speaker/microphone, and brass lock. The historic brass saddle, screwed to the threshold, is scored with incised lines. The door head incorporates a flush rectangular lighting fixture. To the west of the door is the building's address "2 4 2" in historic raised brass letters. Below these numbers, close to the ground, is a circular black metal vent. To the far right, near the west edge of the facade, aligned with the vent, is a small non-historic plastic apparatus. To the west of the door, set into the sidewalk, is a non-historic metal grate.

Six fixed historic translucent windows rise above the brick facade. Four projecting steel H-sections are welded to the columns that divide and frame the windows. The two outer beams extend the full height of the building, from the roof to the ground, framing the east and west edges of the brick facade and windows. The two center beams rest on the brick facade. A continuous horizontal metal panel, set behind the H-sections, divides the upper and lower windows, creating horizontal clerestory windows that illuminate the first story, and the larger, vertical, floor-to-ceiling, second-story windows.

An unadorned metal fence, set back several feet from the front of the building, extends across the roof from east to west. Behind the fence, pipes are visible to the west and east, as well as an irregularly shaped ventilation unit. All of these elements are painted black. At the rear of the building, adjoining the tenement, rises a black chimney.

- From the 2000 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

This animation from individual images shows precisely half an hour's movement of this fast-moving comet seen through the field of view of my 14inch f/10 SCT with an Atik 460EX mono CCD. It is 120 frames at 15 seconds played back at 3 frames per second.

In the middle some passing cloud virtually blots out the stars but this bright comet still shows through. The star in the lower middle of the image is magnitude 9.3 HDS 1470 - also known as star HIP 50000 in the Hipparchus catalogue.

Peter

Photograph taken at an altitude of Seven metres, in the magic of the Golden hour around sunrise at 05:38am, (sunrise was at precisely 06.15am) on Saturday 6th September 2014 off the Patricia Bay Highway 17, on Lochside Drive close to Frost Avenue and the Lochside Waterfront Park, in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

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Nikon D800 112mm 1/400s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 15.70s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 24m 12.67s

ALTITUDE: 7.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 11.29MB

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Processing power:

HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

Photograph taken at an altitude of Zero metres, prior to the magic of the Golden Hour at 05:49am (Sunrise was at precisely 06:15am) on Friday 5th September 2014 off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue looking towards the Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

The Bevan Avenue fishing pier is one of the main focal points in this small but beautiful town where some of my family are so lucky to reside. I am never happier than when walking around and capturing the beauty and charm of this most special of locations. Work commenced on the pier in 1993 withn Phase one, a 90 metre straight section being completed in 1996. A year later the 110 metre Phase two section was completed.

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Nikon D800 24mm 1/80s f/8.0 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Handheld AF-S Single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup.Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap. Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 53.30s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 35.84s

ALTITUDE: 0.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 16.89MB

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Processing power:

HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

Photograph taken at an altitude of Sixty nine metres, during the first vestiges of dawn light prior to the magic of the Golden Hour around sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 04:38am), at 03:47am on Thursday 12th June 2014 off Lullingstone Lane and Eagle Heights in the poppy field beside the Eynsford Viaduct in the village of Eynsford, Kent, England.

Lurking in the darknes to the extreme right of the frame, this impressive nine-arched red-brick viaduct is a prominent feature on the line to the 'Bat & Ball' station. The structure was built by the independent ''Sevenoaks Railway'', incorporated in 1859 to link the ''Chatham'' main line with the market town of Sevenoaks. And first services began on 2nd June 1862. The viaduct has nine arches of 30-foot span, and rises to a height of 75-feet above the valley and the River Darent.

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Nikon D800 29mm 1/250s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Nikon RC-DC2 remote shutter release. Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering.

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

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LATITUDE: N 51d 22m 4.12s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 11m 52.61s

ALTITUDE: 69.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED FILE: 14.66MB

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Processing power:

HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.90 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

When we precisely look onto the advancements that Artificial Intelligence has made in the industry, there has been quite a debate that has been going on lately about the impact that Artificial Intelligence training in Bangalore would bring out in the future and the human workforce. On whether this would bring out opportunities and open door to many other areas or would it be a threat to the present job market.

Extract from precisely dated image: www.flickr.com/photos/athens_greece/44813403501

In this photo, although the building looks quite similar to the earlier photo of 1890, there is a skylight on the right and also the chimney appears to have been moved to the right -- although the latter may be a matter of awkward perspective.

Public Domain

It is precisely the function of dread to break down this glass house of false interiority and to deliver man from it. It is dread, and dread alone, that drives a man out of this private sanctuary in which his solitude becomes horrible to himself without God. But without dread, without the disquieting capacity to see and to repudiate the idolatry of devout ideas and imaginings, man would remain content with himself and with his “inner life” in meditation, in liturgy or in both. Without dread, the Christian cannot be delivered from the smug self-assurance of the devout ones who know all the answers in advance, who possess all the clichés of the inner life and can defend themselves with infallible ritual forms against every risk and every demand of dialogue with human need and human desperation.

Contemplative Prayer

by Thomas Merton

Precisely a year ago my father in law, Jan, died, aged 80.

At this photo you see him with his wife, to which he stayed married all his life (not so common as it used to be), celebrating their honeymoon at Wijk aan Zee.

Jan was very much his own man. When he left the army, in his twenties, the release note stated that Jan was, " a troublesome and impertinent soldier." Jan took orders from no one, and that didn't change fundamentally after leaving the army.

His most favourite expression was: "Bullshit" . There was not much that he didn't consider to be absolutely ridiculous. To a great extent I could relate to his anarchistic and somewhat cynical view of the world, especially since he spiced it up with a lot of humour.

If there is some kind of heaven I'm sure that Jan will be greatly un-impressed.

Here's to you Jan!

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

(Marmota flaviventris) Okanagan Lake Park, BC.

At first rather shy when he saw us, he was much more amenable to posing for portraits the next morning.

In fact, this shot was taken at precisely 6:33:45 AM. While it may appear that he was expressing some kind of rage, let me assure one and all that I simply caught him mid-yawn!

"Habitat and distribution:

The yellow-bellied marmot lives in the western United States and southwestern Canada, including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.[5] It inhabits steppes, meadows, talus fields and other open habitats, sometimes on the edge of deciduous or coniferous forests, and typically above 6,500 feet (2,000 m) of elevation.

Their territory is about 4 to 7 acres (2 to 3 ha) around a number of summer burrows. Marmots choose to dig burrows under rocks because predators are less likely to see their burrow. Predators include wolves, foxes, coyotes, dogs and eagles. When a marmot sees a predator, it whistles to warn all other marmots in the area (giving it the nickname "whistle pig").[5] Then it typically hides in a nearby rock pile.

Behavior

Marmots reproduce when about two years old, and may live up to an age of fifteen years. They reside in colonies of about ten to twenty individuals. Each male marmot digs a burrow soon after he wakes up from hibernation. He then starts looking for females, and by summer may have up to four female mates living with him. Litters usually average three to five offspring per female.[4] Only about half of those pups survive and become yearlings.[5] Marmots have a "harem-polygynous" mating system in which the male reproduces with two or three mates at the same time.[4] Female offspring tend to stay in the area around their home. Male offspring typically leave when they are yearlings and will defend one or more females.[5]

Yellow-bellied marmots spend about 80% of their life in their burrow, 60% of which is spent hibernating.[6] They often spend mid-day and night in a burrow as well.[6] These burrows are usually constructed on a slope, such as a hill, mountain, or cliff.[6] The hibernation burrows are can be up to 5 to 7 metres (16 to 23 ft) deep, but the burrows constructed for daily use are usually only 1 metre (3.3 ft) deep. Their hibernation period varies on elevation, but it is typically from September to May. Occasionally, they will climb trees and other flora, but they are usually terrestrial.[5]

Yellow-bellied marmots are diurnal.[4] The marmot is also an omnivore, eating grass, grains, leaves, flowers, legumes, fruit, grasshoppers, and bird eggs."

(Wikipedia)

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

A HENDERSON MYSTERY.

DISCOVERY OF A SKELETON

SHOT THROUGH THE HEAD.

It is rather gruesome, when wandering through scrub on a fine Sunday afternoon, to suddenly discover the skeleton of a man with a little round hole in the forehead to silently announce a violent death. This is precisely what occurred to two settlers in the Henderson district. Mr Moffat and his mate were on what is known as the "Brickworks Track," when they found the skeleton in some scrub. They at once started to the telephone at Waikomiti cemetery, in order to forward the information to the police. On the, way they encountered another settler on horseback, who at once saved them a, further walk by galloping off with the message. Sergeant Gamble, promptly despatched Mounted Trooped Ready to inquire into the affair, That officer reached the place just about dusk, Constable Ready, on examining the remains, found a bullet hole in the centre of the forehead. The bullet had gone through the skull, and was protruding at the back of the head; the hands of the deceased were extended at full length by the side of the body, and the revolver lay on the left side between the body and the left arm. Deceased was dressed in blue trousers very much torn and faded by the weather, had on a striped shirt, and a cricketing belt was round the waist. He had on new lace up boots, and had worn, a black felt soft hat, which was lying alongside. The coat had been rolled up and placed under his headas a pillow. No papers of any kind were found to give a clue to the identity of the man, who appears to be about 40 years of age. The man must have been dead for months as most of, the flesh had disappeared. Apparently the man had deliberately folded up his coat and placed it beneath his head in order to rest himself. The revolver was lying on the ground a little distance from the left hand of the skeleton, as if it had fallen or been thrown there after the fatal shot was fired. The deceased's beard was long and of a dark brown colour, as was also his hair. Evidently the man was not hard up, as Constable Ready found in his pockets six £5 notes, six sovereigns, one shilling, four threepenny pieces, four fourpenny pieces, a pipe and knife. The revolver was a small one with five chambers ; One had been discharged and the remainder were loaded, besides which nine other cartridges were found in the pockets of the deceased. Although indications point to the wound being self inflicted, still it does not necessarily follow that deceaeed deliberately committed suicide. In the first place he was not in want, and usually a man does not carry nine loose cartridges in his pocket when he intends to blow out his brains by holding a revolver so close that he could not miss the mark. Then, again, folding up a coat and placing it beneath his head looks more like lying down to rest, as past experience shows that persons generally stand up to shoot themselves. It is just likely that the man had done a long tramp and laid down to rest, then while idly toying with his revolver had accidentally inflicted the fatal wound. The spot where the body was discovered is just about a mile and a-half alone the Great North Road, past the turning to Waikomiti Cemetery. Just on the hill above Henderson a track strikes through the scrub towards the brickworks by the sea. About 500 yards down this track, and about 50 yards in the scrub to the left hand, there is growing a large acacia tree. It was at the foot of this tree that the skeleton was discovered. The strangest feature of the whole business is that the disappearance of a man has not been reported to the police, and so far the remains have not been identified. The body was removed to the Henderson Hotel pending the inquest, which will take place to-morrow. The reason the holding of the inquest was delayed is that Mr Bollard thought if the matter were made public, identification of the remains might be obtained.

The coroner (Mr Bollard) has definitely fixed the inquest for one o'clock to-morrow.

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS18940122.2.11

Continued from Paperspast:

At the inquest held on the body, Mr C. Little, undertaker, stated that when placing the remains in the coffin he found in the inside pocket of deceased's clothing a deposit receipt. Some words were undicipherable, but it read as follows : — "Copy of your ledger account with –, folio 455. Dec. 1893. New Australia Co-operative Settlement Association, Head Office, 111, Elizabeth-street, Sydney, N.S.W. (1318). Neil Jensen, of (word seems to be Queensland), £61. W. Head, per J. A., Secretary." The outside of the document is endorsed, "Certificate of membership" — but the remainder cannot be read. Then follows the words, "The Secretary Australian Co-operative Settlement Association, 111, Elizabeth - street, Sydney." The jury returned a verdict that the deceased, name unknown, met his death from a bullet wound in the head, apparently fired from a revolver lying at his side, and that there is no evidence to show whether the said wound was inflicted accidentally or otherwise. The police have kept portions of the clothing with a view to identification. It is reasonable to suppose that the deceased was the Neil Jensen named in the document. As the date is December, 1893, the remains may have been where they were discovered for the past two months. As no person of the name of Neil Jensen has been reported missing, it is most likely that the man had only recently arrived here from Australia when he set off to tramp the country in search of work.

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS18940125.2.21.17

The police authorities have at last ascertained pretty conclusively that the man whose decayed remains were found lying in the scrub near Henderson, in February last, were, as was surmised at the time, those of a foreigner named Neil Jensen,who had been missing from Sydney last year, it seems that Jensen was a member of the "New Australia" party, and intended leaving Sydney for Paraguay last year. He lefts Brisbane for Sydney last year, and then left Sydney with the avowed intention of coming to New Zealand to look for his sick brother. Since he left Sydney nothing had ever been heard of him, and it is believed by the Auckland police, as the result of the enquiries made in Australia, that the remains found in the scrub near Henderson were none other than those of Neil Jensen.

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS18940313.2.20

Plot 22: Neil Jensen buried 23/1/1894 –

Thomas Gerrans (66 or 77) 22/1/1894 – Labourer – at Hospital (Ang.)

John Henry Prior (55) 23/1/1893 – at Costley Home (Ang.)*

Stillborn Child 31/1/1894

Anglican divisions M and N are what is known as ‘Potters Fields’, they were used to bury some of the people whose families were unable to afford funeral costs, were institutionalised or unidentified at the time of burial. These plots were common graves with many having several individuals interred in each. They were narrower and closer together and, because they were not paid for, permanent grave markers were not permitted to be erected.

It is now no longer known where either Anglican Division M or N starts let alone the rows or individual plots which have now been protected by ghost gums, native trees & flax.

*plot details sourced through N.Z.G.S. N.Z. Cemetery Records & Family Search.

Costley Home for the Aged Poor

nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Cyc02Cycl-t1-body1-...

Image of Costley Home

manawatuheritage.pncc.govt.nz/item/88c78623-cd79-4dcd-a22...

If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.

Or if you need to talk to someone else:

• LIFELINE: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)

• SUICIDE CRISIS HELPLINE: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)

• YOUTHLINE: 0800 376 633

• NEED TO TALK? Free call or text 1737 (available 24/7)

• KIDSLINE: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)

• WHATSUP: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm)

• DEPRESSION HELPLINE: 0800 111 757

This photograph was taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 07:39am), at an altitude of Six metres, at 07:40am on Thursday January 28th 2016 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.

I set off at 05:00am on a clear morning, the moon and the stars out to dazzle in temperatures around five degrees, on a plesant hour and half long journey to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.

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Nikon D800 270mm 1/3200s f/6.3 iso1600 RAW (14Bit) Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Nikon AF Fine tune set to +6.

Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR. Power UP 95mm HD UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 18.56s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 19.22s

ALTITUDE: 6.0m

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 15.86MB

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PROCESSING POWER:

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

One of the most annoying things anyone can do to me is interrupt my lunch. Yet this is precisely what I did to attain this portrait. Four lovely young girls were happily chomping on their sandwiches and chinwagging for England when along came a photographer and sat down beside them. In typical youthful nonchalance all the girls agreed to being photographed. Having developed a slight obsession with different coloured hair I focused more on Bella and Alex (to follow). Bella had strawberry coloured tresses which I thought really suited her.

I assumed the girls were University students as they were sitting on a bench outside the Student Union but it turned out they were sixth formers about to take their A Levels this year. Bella told me they were taking a break from studying in library. I was really impressed to learn this because my view of young people these days is that they avoid libraries like the plague - unless their lives (degrees) depend on it they won't stray anywhere near one. Certainly A Level does not necessitate library visits so all credit to these bright young people who were taking their education and futures so seriously. (Can you tell I was teacher once?).

This picture is #29 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page

We walked over the two tops that form the Screes, it rained low, snowed high, visibility on top was poor and then I decided to use the Screes path back to the car park at Wasdale. A big mistake in the wet, every boulder was deadly slippy. I only used the little G1X MK2, I carried the 5D but it stayed in my backpack for a change, there wasn't much to get excited about

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

Midtown West, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

Summary

This elegant, Beaux-Arts style, twenty- story office building was constructed in 1911- 12 for the United States Rubber Company at a time when the automobile was beginning to exert a powerful influence on American society. Located on Broadway, along the section known as "Automobile Row," the U.S. Rubber Company Building was one of the most prominent and important of the many automobile-related structures concentrated here. The two lowest floors originally provided retail space for the company's subsidiary, the United States Tire Company, while U. S . Rubber occupied eight of the office stories. Designed by the prominent architectural firm of Carrere & Hastings, this office building features delicately-carved marble facades crowned by a broad copper cornice. The design, which continues around both the Broadway and 58th Street facades, features a distinctive rounded corner and vertically-grouped windows with metal spandrels and thin, continuous piers.

In this building, as in their other works, Carrere and Hastings used their training at the French Ecole des Beaux Arts to create an impressive design for a tall building where the skeleton construction is expressed by the thin stone veneei lowest floors of this building were remodeled in which is obviously non-weight-bearing. The two 1959 for a bank.

Automobile Row

At the end of the nineteenth century automobiles, or more precisely horseless carriages, were in the earliest stage of development. At first there were many different types and variations, often growing out of their creator's previous experience in bicycle or carriage manufacture. The new vehicles were looked upon as experimental, purchased only by the very rich and adventurous, since roads, which had been created for horse-drawn vehicles, had uneven, often treacherous surfaces. Between 1886 and 1899 there were approximately 300 individually-built automobiles in the United States. During the first decade of the twentieth century, due to considerable experimentation and advancement of the products including mass- production, discussion in the press, and organization of interested owners and manufacturers, the automobile industry became a strong presence and an economically viable force in the United States. By 1910, The New York Times reported that American automobile manufacturers would produce approximately 200,000 vehicles in that year.

In New York City the influence of the new automobile culture was seen along "Automobile Row," a section of Broadway which eventually stretched between Times Square and 72nd Street. Before 1905, this part of Broadway was home to horses and harness makers, and was characterized as "thoroughly lifeless." In 1907, The New York Times described the same area as "almost a solid line of motor vehicle signs all the way from Times Square to Sherman Square." The 1910 book, Both Sides of Broadway, shows fourteen different automobile and automobile-related stores located between 46th and 50th Streets. The proximity of similar businesses in "Automobile Row" made it easier for customers to view and compare the products of different manufactures. These businesses, which consisted of automobile sales showrooms, stores for parts and accessories, and garages for both storage and repair services, were primarily located in small, remodeled, older buildings.

Within the next few years, larger firms started to buy bigger lots and erect new buildings. The New York Times reported in 1909 on the plans of the B. F. Goodrich Company to build their own showroom and office structure on Broadway and 57th Street (1780- 1782 Broadway, designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw and Waid & Willauer), as well as those of the Peerless and A.T. Demerest Companies to build a block to the south, and the purchase of a building at Broadway and 63rd Street for use as a garage. The construction of the tallest building north of Times Square for the United States Rubber Company, on the large plot at Broadway and 58th Street just to the north of the B. F. Goodrich Company Building, was an importantpartof this trend.

The United States Rubber Company

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

The company was founded by Charles R. Flint who was a self-described "international merchant, financier and negotiator" and also an original partner in the W.R. Grace Company. In 1878, Flint started dealing in rubber produced in the Amazon River basin. In 1892, Flint convinced nine companies involved in the manufacture of rubber footwear (including Charles Goodyear's company which held the first license for the vulcanization process) to merge, and thereby formed the United States Rubber Company. Over the next few years, the company expanded to control about 70 percent of the rubber footwear business in the country, the principal rubber product at that time. Under the leadership of Samuel P. Colt, who began his tenure as president in 1901, the company expanded into related endeavors.

Charles Flint began another company in 1898 called the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company, makers of tires and other rubber industrial products. U.S. Rubber acquired this business in 1899, bringing together four leading brands of tires. After ten years, all these tires were sold under the name "United States Tires," then becoming "U. S. Royal" in 1917. In the same year, the company adopted the "KEDS" name for its many varieties of rubber footwear. During the early years of the twentieth century, the U. S. Rubber Company expanded into the chemical business, manufacturing certain chemicals used in the production of new rubber products and the reclamation of scrap rubber. In 1910, the company also acquired its first rubber plantation in Sumatra to ensure the availability of raw materials. Further expansion into related textiles was achieved in 1917 with the acquisition of the Winnsboro Mills in South Carolina which made tire cord and rubber textile fabrics.

Throughout the twentieth century the company continued to grow and diversify, eventually producing foam rubber, synthetic rubber, and TNT used during World War II, among many other products. During the 1950s the company began to acquire related manufacturers in Europe, while continuing to increase its product range and capacity in this country. In order to unify the corporate identity which was so broadly based, in 1967 all the brands were brought together under the name "UNIROYAL."

The United States Rubber Company was first incorporated in New Jersey and maintained its headquarters in New Brunswick for many years. In 1911, the company leased the land on the corner of 58th Street and Broadway in New York City to build a large, more visible corporate headquarters, and a sales outlet for United States Tires. In their 1913 Annual Report, the company declared that the building was completed in the summer of 1912 and that U.S. Rubber occupied ten floors, as well as the two basements, and that most of the other space had been rented "to good tenants." The organization remained in this building until 1951 when its main offices were moved to Rockefeller Center.

Carrere & Hastings

John Merven Carrere (1858-1911)

Thomas Hastings (1860-1929)

The firm of Carrere and Hastings, active during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was the leading American exponent of the design philosophy of the French Ecole des Beaux Arts. John Merven Carrere was born in Rio de Janeiro to American parents of French descent, and educated in Switzerland. He entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1877, studying in several prominent ateliers, including that of Leon Ginain, a proponent of the neo-Grec style of architecture. Thomas Hastings, born in New York, spent a short time at Columbia University before entering the Ecole des Beaux Arts and serving an apprenticeship in the atelier of Jules Andre. After earning their diplomas - Carrere in 1882 and Hastings in 1884 - both men joined the staff of McKim, Mead & White in New York. After establishing their own partnership in 1885, their first major client was Florida real estate developer Henry Flagler, a partner in Standard Oil.

Carrere & Hastings designed the Ponce de Leon and Alcazar Hotels, and several churches in St. Augustine, as well as the "Whitehall," Flagler's estate in Palm Beach, all in the Spanish Renaissance style, using innovative concrete construction. In 1891 the firm of Carrere & Hastings gained prominence for their Renaissance-inspired, second-place-winning design for the competition for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. They were more successful in 1897, winning the competition for the New York Public Library (constructed 1898-1911, adesignated New York City Landmark). This design established Carrere & Hastings as one the country's leading architectural firms.

In addition to monumental public buildings, the firm of Carrere & Hastings was very active in residential design, and also created the designs for fourteen Carnegie-funded Libraries in New York. The approaches and arch of the Manhattan Bridge (1905, a designated New York City Landmark) and Grand Army Plaza (1913, a designated New York City Scenic Landmark) reveal the architects' interest in city planning. The First Church of Christ, Scientist (1899- 1903, a designated New York City Landmark) at 96th Street and Central Park West was designed by the firm and is in the finest tradition of Beaux-Arts classicism. Woolsey and Memorial Halls at Yale University (1906) and the New (Century) Theater (demolished), the Vanderbilt Estate, Long Island, the Frick Mansion (1913-15, a designated New York City Landmark), the Staten Island Borough Hall (1903-06, a designated New York City Landmark), and the Richmond County Courthouse (1913-1919, a designated New York City Landmark) were all designed by the firm.

Carrere and Hastings were both members of the Architectural League of New York and Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. After Carrere's death in 1911, Hastings continued to work under the firm's name, designing large office buildings such as the Standard Oil Building (1926, a designated New York City Landmark), the Macmillan Building (1924), and theCunardBuilding (1919-21, a designated New York City Landmark).

The United States Rubber Company Building

Most of the work of Carrere and Hastings was in the French Renaissance tradition. Thomas Hastings, the primary designer of the firm, believed that architects needed to be educated in one style that would reflect their own time. Rather than imitate past architecture, he believed they should adapt past styles to contemporary needs. Hastings maintained that even after the turn of the twentieth century, American life was still motivated by the same forces that had brought about the Renaissance. Therefore, Hastings chose to adapt French Renaissance precedents because he felt that only in France was architecture "consistently modem."

Hastings also had ideas about skyscraper design and the increasing height of contemporary buildings. Architects of the early skyscrapers held extensive debates about an appropriate design vocabulary for this completely new building type. They questioned whether the building should somehow express its vertical nature, or whether it should illustrate the idea whether the building should somehow express its vertical nature, or whether it should illustrate the idea that it was really just a tall collection of horizontal floors. They also discussed whether there should be any indication of the supporting steel skeleton frame on the exterior, rather than trying to make the building appear as if it were constructed of heavy, solid masonry.

As president of the Architectural League, Hastings and many of his contemporaries advocated height limitations for skyscrapers, and later demonstrated (in the Fisk Building, 1920-22, and the Liggett Building, 1919-20) what could be accomplished under the restrictions of New York's Building Zone Law of 1916. Through his understanding of Beaux-Arts principles, Hastings was one of the first to conceive that the skeleton frame which actually supported the building and the exterior sheathing material were separate entities because of their separate functions. By 1894, he was using the term "curtain wall" for the exterior, non-bearing walls of a building as we know it today, and he began to design his buildings to reflect this dichotomy.

Carrere & Hastings' Blair Building (1902, demolished, located on Broad Street, south of the Stock Exchange) was one of their first and most successful efforts at the design of tall buildings. It was constructed when most architects were still debating the proper visual expression of tall buildings and using a tripartite division on their tall building facades, implying the heaviness of the structure through ground-story rustication and deep window reveals. The Blair Building was recognized immediately as something different, its marble facades clearly expressed the fact that they were veneers, and not weight-bearing.

The United States Rubber Company Building, although built as part of "Automobile Row" with a large showroom on its ground floor, was primarily an early office tower and as such it expresses the office building sensibility in its design. Like the Blair Building, it is faced in marble and there is little sense of depth on either elevation of the structure. Narrow, continuous stone piers extending from the fourth through seventh stories and from the ninth through nineteenth stories help give the impression that the walls are a thin skin stretched over the steel cage. Although the ornament of the window pediments, elaborate iron balcony railings, and carved stonework around some of the windows is derived from the French Renaissance style, this decoration is clearly subordinate to the main organizing system of recessed windows and continuous piers. The two main facades of the U.S. Rubber building are treated similarly to each other, although the building is somewhat wider on 58th Street.

The strongly-articulated, rounded comer connecting the two sides of Broadway and 58th Street helps reinforce the idea that both facades are part of a well-conceived whole and creates an unusual architectural dynamic along the street. The entire composition is crowned emphatically by its broad, copper, bracketed cornice which continues around both main facades. For many years a large neon sign above the cornice declared the building's ownership to the rest of New York.

The twenty-story building originally had large arched window openings in the lower two stories, that housed retail stores of the United States Tire Company. Ten of the upper floors were used by the U. S. Rubber Company for their offices, while the rest were rented to other businesses.

Subsequent History

In 1911, the U.S. Rubber Company took a twenty- one year lease on this land from Mary Fitzgerald, who had started purchasing numerous lots on this block in 1876. The company was able to purchase the land in 1932. They sold it to a holding company in 1940, remaining in this building until 1951 when they moved to a newer headquarters in Rockefeller Center.

At this time die building was sold to the West Side Federal Savings Bank which wanted a more modem look. They hired architect Herbert Tannenbaum who added an awning over the Broadway entrance to the banking offices. In 1959, at the bank's request, Mr. Tannenbaum completely reconfigured the first two stories of the building, cladding them with a glass and polished gray marble facade. Early in 2000, additional windows were installed at the second story level. The building is still used for offices with a bank in the ground floor.

Description

The United States Rubber Company Building is a twenty-story, Beaux-arts style structure located on the southeast comer of Broadway and 58th Street, with main facades facing both streets. A rounded comer faced in rusticated stone connects the two facades, and the entire structure is capped by a broad copper cornice. Above the two lowest stories, the building is clad in marble, with original metal-sash windows. The two lowest stories are faced with polished gray marble with large modem display windows at the ground floor. The second story has newly-installed, metal casement windows.

Broadway Facade

Floors 1-2: The main entrance to the lobby and elevators which serve the upper stories of this building is in the southernmost bay on the Broadway facade. This entrance and the connecting lobby (which is not part of this designation) were renovated in 1988. The entrance consists of an exterior and interior set of double bronze-and-glass doors (installed during the renovation) topped by a plain glass transom. Outside the doorway, to the south, a small vertical sign is, attached to the comer of the building, with the numbers "1790." The rest of the ground story has double-height, plate-glass display windows. The entrance to the bank, which occupies the ground floor commercial space, is located near the corner lot line. It consists of revolving doors recessed slightly behind two comer columns clad in metal. The second story is clad in polished gray marble panels, with seven bays along Broadway. The windows in the two end bays have two sections while all the others have three.

Floors 3-7: Stone bandcourses above the second and seventh stories distinguish this section from those above and below it. Horizontally, the facade is divided into five bays in the center section with one bay on each side. The side bays are faced with rusticated stone, and each has a single, smaller window with original two-over-two metal sash. Each of these side windows is topped by stone voussoirs which merge with the curved spandrel of the floor above. The seventh story is an exception. Here the two windows of the side bays are topped by elaborate carvings including lions' heads, shields, and feathers, which support the small balconies fronting the side windows on the eighth story.

The third story is transitional, with elaborate stone surrounds on each window of the central section. Rounded and triangular pediments alternate above these windows, with flat stone pilasters between each bay. The windows have three-over-three metal sash.

The five center bays of floors four through seven have one-over-one, metal sash windows with metal spandrels, and ornate balcony railings. Continuous, flat stone piers edged with moldings rise between each of the center windows, joining together in segmental arches above the seventh story windows. 8th Floor. This is another transitional story, set off by wide bandcourses above and below it. Each window has three-over-three, metal-framed sash, with engaged pilasters between each bay. The windows in each side bay are capped by rounded pediments which form part of the upper bandcourse.

Floors 9-19: Above the bandcourse is a continuous stone balustrade which extends across the entire facade. On these floors the two end bays are distinct from the five bays in the center. They have smaller, square-headed windows with two-over-two metal sash. In the side bays the windows of each two stories are joined vertically by metal spandrel panels and omate metal balcony railings. Within the center section, all the windows have one-over-one metal sash. Continuous, flat stone piers with moldings rise between each bay and join together above the windows of the nineteenth story. Floors nine and ten are joined vertically, as are floors 11 through 16 and floors 17 through 19, by metal spandrel panels and omate iron balcony railings in front of the windows. The windows of the tenth and sixteenth stories have segmentally-arched tops.

Floor 20: The twentieth story is set off by another prominent bandcourse. Twelve windows are evenly spaced across the facade at this level, each with two- over-two metal sash. Each end bay has elaborately carved window surrounds comprised of carved panels with classical ornament.

Cornice: A very broad, projecting copper cornice featuring moldings and brackets tops the building. Roof: A modern penthouse and a chimney are visible from Broadway and Central Park South. 58th Street Facade

The design of this facade is the same as that on Broadway with the following minor exceptions. On the ground story, there are a freight entrance and a vehicular entrance in the two eastern bays. This facade is slightly wider than that on Broadway, and there are eight rather than seven bays on the second story, while the floors above have six bays in the center section. Along the entire height of the building, the easternmost corner has been refaced with shallow indications of rustication.

The eastern facade of the building is visible over the low building to the east. It is faced in unarticulated brick, with one, square-headed window on each floor, containing three-over-three metal sash.

The southern facade is also visible above the neighboring building to the south. It is also faced with unarticulated brick, pierced by numerous unadorned, square-headed windows.

- From the 2000 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

I know I can't get this cuz I have no job to get the $7000 from and gas and everything like that. Although I'd love to drive around I'm something like this it's just not possible at the moment 😞

Link if anyone is interested: tucson.craigslist.org/cto/d/1972-four-door-chevy-impala/6...