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The colourful background to this shot is a (seemingly) Barbarella inspired 'pop-up' make-up store for Huda Beauty that was situated in Covent Garden just before Christmas. More info here : www.coventgarden.london/whats-on/huda-beauty
I waited ages hoping for someone visually interesting to come along and provide some foreground interest but in the end I had to settle for this guy......
I hadn't heard of Huda Beauty but it seems they're quite well known....... Wikipedia states "Huda Beauty is a cosmetics line launched in 2013 by Iraqi-American businesswoman and makeup artist, Huda Kattan. The founder, Kattan, was chosen as one of "The 25 Most Influential People on the Internet" by Time in 2017, listed as one of The Richest Self-Made Women and one of the Top Three Beauty Influencers by Forbes. In the span of 5 years, the brand has built a positive reputation on some of its products, such as fake eyelashes series, a collection of foundation, eyeshadow and some face palettes."
Click here for more colourful shots : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157603588716047
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© D.Godliman
With his seemingly uncomplicated sculptures, Snoeck ultimately wants only one thing: to depict the essence of man. Characteristic of his work are the soft shapes, rounded corners and often primary colours. Another striking feature is that the clay sculptures are always composed of planes with deep-seated lines in between. This clear division of planes is also found in his other work, such as graphics, textiles, ceramic smallware and paintings.
The seated 'Man', now in the Zuiderpark, complies in every respect with this general characterisation of a Snoeck sculpture.
The man's head and body are one, the thick stub nose marks the face and the arms or legs are indicated by a worm-shaped band that is wrapped around the body.
Seemingly in the middle of nowhere just off the single track road that links the A99 south of John O Groats to the A836 near Castletown is Annie's Bakery. A finer bakery you'll struggle to find in the area too. Amazing pies and savoury bakes. Fine cakes and sweets creations plus a cracking range of light lunches and hot and cold drinks. All topped off with the option to sit in or take away and a friendly welcome. Whichever you do it's a quality bakery. Highly recommended if you're in the area.
A seemingly plain cube comes to life on the inside with each surface displaying an incredible garden of organic branching forms. This sculpture explores the concept of Laplacian growth and was created using a numerical model of 3D isotropic dendritic solidification. Laplacian growth is a structure which expands at a rate proportional to the gradient of a laplacian field. It can be seen in a myriad of systems, including crystal growth, dielectric breakdown, corals, Hele-Shaw cells, and random matrix theory.
Process
Form grown in software written by the Nervous System in Processing that simulates dendritic solidification. Printed via SLS.
Taking advantage of a break in the seemingly perennial cloud cover, the other day a fellow photographer and I headed out to Grindstone Creek in the Royal Botanical Gardens of Hamilton and Burlington, Ontario. While walking along the trail, I spotted a small feeder stream leading out into Grindstone Creek. The small stream’s edges were frozen into a jagged border while some running water had developed a nice pattern of ripples as it passed over the stones on the bottom. A nice study in blue. - JW
Date Taken: 2020-01-20
Tech Details:
Taken using a tripod-mounted Nikon D800 fitted with an AF Nikkor 70-210mm 1:4-5.6 lense set to 210mm, ISO100, Daylight WB, Aperture priority, f/8.0, 1/20 sec. PP in free Open Source RAWTherapee from Nikon RAW/NEF source file: crop off a section of the left side to get rid of some distracting brush intrusions, reduce overall brightness slightly by setting exposure compensation to EV-0.15, use the Shadows/Highlights tool to recover highlight detail and slightly boost shadow brightness, slightly increase contrast and Chromaticity in L-A-B mode, shift overall colour balance a bit to the warmer/yellow end, slightly increase Vibrance, sharpening of edges only and then saved. PP in free Open Source GIMP: clone out some remaining bits of twigs projecting into the left side of the frame, slightly reduce the cyan channel saturation, use the dodge/burn tool to brighten the highlights of the in some of the ice points projecting into the stream centre, sharpened and saved, scale image to 6000px wide, save, add fine black-and-white frame, add bar and text on left, save, scale image to 2048 px wide for posting online, sharpen very slightly, save.
It’s seemingly a small thing but really Rex’s recasting as a DJ in the cantina is one of my favorite aspects of Galaxy’s Edge. On our visit we were stood right in front of him, so I was able to get a lot of photos of him. This is one of my favorites.
For drivers on the M25, they know they're between junction 16 and 17 in Buckinghamshire when they spot the seemingly random message "GIVE PEAS A CHANCE" on a motorway bridge.
The person who did it chose a historic bridge. Built between 1902 and 1906, it is the only Edwardian brick bridge on the M25. A historic building report done by Oxford Archaeology says the slogan was painted in two stages. Firstly "PEAS" appeared, then "GIVE" and "A CHANCE" were added later.
It says "PEAS" is the tag of a London graffiti artist and his tag can been seen in many other locations, particularly on bridges. The additional text changing the graffiti to read "GIVE PEAS A CHANCE" is thought to refer to his continual arrests.
The north facing side of the bridge also has some graffiti, saying just "PRIZE FELZ L.B".
The common misinterpretation of the inscription makes the bridge an interesting landmark to users of the M25.
The graffiti is also a tonge in cheek reference to the song "Give Peace a Chance" which was written by John Lennon (originally credited Lennon–McCartney), and performed with Yoko Ono in Montreal, Canada. Released as a single in 1969 by the Plastic Ono Band on Apple Records (catalogue Apple 13 in the United Kingdom, Apple 1809 in the United States), it is the first solo single issued by Lennon, released when he was still a member of the Beatles, and became an anthem of the American anti-war movement during the 1970s. It peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the British singles chart.
This bridge carries the Chiltern Main Line which is an inter-urban, regional and commuter railway and part of the British railway system. It links London and Birmingham, England's two largest cities, by a 112-mile route via High Wycombe, Banbury, and Leamington Spa. It complements the West Coast Main Line, the main InterCity route between London and Birmingham. The name Chiltern Line was invented as a marketing name for the line by Network SouthEast in 1985. In reference to the Chiltern Hills.
The line forms part of the suburban rail networks in both cities. The majority of towns towards the London end of the route are prosperous suburbs or commuter-belt towns, such as Ruislip, here at Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield. These have a journey time of 30 minutes or less to London Marylebone. In the West Midlands it is one of the Snow Hill Lines. Commuter trains run by London Midland run between Birmingham Snow Hill, Solihull and Leamington Spa.
The line is undergoing a major upgrade that will see significant reductions in journey times by 2013. It is not electrified, although electrification is an aspiration. The main operator is Chiltern Railways.
The M25 motorway or London Orbital motorway is a 117-mile (188 km) motorway that almost encircles Greater London, England, in the United Kingdom. A narrower concept was first mooted early in the 20th century as part of the plan to build four ring roads around London. A few sections, based on the abandoned London Ringways plan, were constructed in the early 1970s and it was completed in 1986.
It is one of the busiest of the British motorway network: 196,000 vehicles were recorded on a busy day near London Heathrow Airport (8 miles in the other direction) in 2003 and the western half experienced an average daily flow of 147,000 vehicles in 2007.
Although technically not an entire orbital motorway – a short non-motorway stretch forms the Dartford Crossing (A282) – the M25, at 117 miles (188 km) is Europe's second longest orbital road after the Berliner Ring, which is 122 miles (196 km).
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13524208
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_Peace_a_Chance
Seemingly Wat Po if famous for it's Reclining Buddhas and large collection of smaller Buddha statues. They all look quite similar so it's hard to choose a favourite..........
Click here to see photos from this and a previous trip to Thailand : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157600177340620
From Wikipedia : "Wat Pho (Thai: วัดโพธิ์), also spelt Wat Po, is a Buddhist temple complex in the Phra Nakhon District, Bangkok, Thailand. It is on Rattanakosin Island, directly south of the Grand Palace. Known also as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, its official name is Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklararm Rajwaramahaviharn (Thai: วัดพระเชตุพนวิมลมังคลารามราชวรมหาวิหาร; rtgs: Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimonmangkhlaram Ratchaworamahawihan; The more commonly known name, Wat Pho, is a contraction of its older name Wat Photaram (Thai: วัดโพธาราม; rtgs: Wat Photharam).
The temple is first on the list of six temples in Thailand classed as the highest grade of the first-class royal temples. It is associated with King Rama I who rebuilt the temple complex on an earlier temple site, and became his main temple where some of his ashes are enshrined. The temple was later expanded and extensively renovated by Rama III. The temple complex houses the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand, including a 46 m long reclining Buddha. The temple is considered the earliest centre for public education in Thailand, and the marble illustrations and inscriptions placed in the temple for public instructions has been recognised by UNESCO in its Memory of the World Programme. It houses a school of Thai medicine, and is also known as the birthplace of traditional Thai massage which is still taught and practiced at the temple."
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This seemingly fairly ordinary Texaco site has a relatively unusual pole sign style for a Texaco and indeed any modern petrol station. I can't recall seeing any other one quite like this but happy to be corrected. It was previously a Somerfield site as seen in the earliest Streetview shot.
www.google.com/maps/@51.3143764,0.0333529,3a,75y,43.03h,9...
Seemingly facing an identity crisis between nakedbus.com and ManaBus.com, the 2014 Volvo B11R with Kiwi C55F bodywork (still legally owned by Reesby's of Rotorua) snapped pulling into the Levin regional bus stop in Bath St. outside the Youth Space facility in the Te Takere centre on the N6 service from Napier to Wellington on Friday, 8 July 2016.
Seemingly as high as the planes coming into LGA, a (7) train flies over 111th St station in Queens.
R188 (7) (Kawasaki, 2011-2016)
111th St Station
Flushing Line - IRT
Seemingly miles of glorious taffeta that makes such a delicious rustling sound as she moves about. The taffeta dress, coat with huge puffy sleeves and the matching taffeta gloves shown by model Dorian Leigh in 1953.
There's seemingly only the one year of Streetview here, 2015, and it all looks exactly the same there. Difficult place to get really good photos, so much passing traffic on what is a seriously busy road. This distant view shows the Citroen dealership as well as the BP forecourt.
The garage was Shell branded and Lada dealers back in the last 1980s, see below.
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.1409435,-0.8522861,3a,75y,176.8...
With its days seemingly numbered on the 466, Arriva London ADL Enviro400 T55 (LJ08CYH) is seen in Caterham-on-the-Hill on route 466.
Half of the T's are expected to be replaced with DW's which are transferring from Tottenham following the loss of route 230, with one of them (DW545) lurking behind T55 in this shot. It is unclear which T's are staying and which are going yet however.
This bus eventually moved to Dartford garage as a school extra for route 269
I first became aware -- well, REALLY aware, I should say -- of St. Patrick's Catholic Church a few years ago when my friend, David, and I, for seemingly the millionth time, found ourselves discussing local mid-century architecture. (If you're thinking that we're a couple of geeks to waste our time on such boring topics, I have nothing whatsoever to say in our defense -- dorks, I guess we are).
Since he's an architect with all kinds of formal training and knowledge, I was curious to find out David's favorite local building. When I asked, without a second's hesitation, he decisively blurted, "St. Patrick's, no question."
"What, you mean that windowless concrete slab against the sky on Portland and 23rd?" I replied. Probably like you, I had driven by the monolithic facade tons of times and never gave St. Patrick's a second thought.
Really, I thought, that's the best you can do? Of all of the great buildings in the city, you named THAT one?
With a superior sniff, I mentally derided David for his choice. I mean, there were so many BETTER buildings he could have picked -- The Gold Dome, St. Luke's, even the old State Capitol (now Arvest) Bank that has been so lamely altered in recent years. He could have mentioned my personal favorite (for obvious reasons -- my grandfather designed it), the First Christian Church, or he could have picked one of Goff's amazing homes in the area. He could have gone with something older like the Deco delight that is the First National Bank building or something newer like the sexy Chesapeake Boathouse ... but he went with St. Patrick's?!
David gave my incredulous stare a knowing, confident nod that told me I was obviously and completely clueless.
"Just go check it out," was all he said in an almost-whisper before he got up to get another beer, effectively ending the conversation.
The idea for Oklahoma City's best kept architectural secret was born when the congregation of mostly blue collar families received an enterprising new priest, Monsignor Don J. Kanaly. Before arriving in Oklahoma, Kanaly had studied and travelled throughout Europe and become intrigued with the Medieval tradition of common villagers coming together to construct the great Gothic cathedrals that still dot the landscape centuries later.
The idea of doing the same thing in America fermented in Kanaly's mind for years and finally found fruition when he arrived on the flat, dry plains of Oklahoma and joined the parish that had a school and auditorium but no real sanctuary. If such architectural miracles could be performed in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, surely the same feat could be accomplished here and now, he must have reasoned.
Kanaly decided to conduct a test project to see if his instincts were correct. He and the parish would build a rock wall along Portland to insulate the school from the busy road just a few feet away. If they could build a wall, they could certainly build a church.
So, work began.
The parishioners spent the sweltering summer of 1959 constructing a six-foot high, 50-foot-long stone wall, and with each heavy rock they placed, their confidence in their abilities grew. By the end of the summer, the wall was complete, and since the wall continues to stand strong over 50 years later, I guess you could say the experiment was a grand success.
With work completed on the wall, it was now time to find an architect to design a church that the congregation could work as a community to build. Kanaly and the congregation chose Tulsa architect Robert L. Jones, an Oklahoma native who studied under the great Mies van Der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology and attended the Technical University in Karlsruhe, Germany, on a Fulbright Grant before returning to the Sooner State and setting up shop with brothers David and Lee Murray to form one of the state's great firms, Murray-Jones-Murray.
During the diagnostic phase of the design process, Jones met with the priests and parishioners to determine the needs of the congregation. He learned that, during normal Sunday services, the school's small auditorium could somewhat comfortably accommodate all of the worshippers since there were several services a day. However, on holidays and during special events when the entire congregation gathered together, it was impossible to meet inside, so church members had no option but to erect a platform in the adjacent field to handle the large crowds of people. And, as often happens in zany slapstick comedies and in Oklahoma, the congregation often fell victim to our fickle weather and found themselves attempting to focus on religious celebrations while dealing with torrential downpours, sudden tornado threats, dress-lifting wind, and stifling heat.
Armed with this knowledge, Jones began sketching plans that incorporated the Miesian box he had so successfully used in his firm's designs for the Tulsa Airport, as well as his own, award-winning home in the same city. The church would be made up of 52 pre-cast concrete panels that the parishioners could lift into place, forming the outer, windowless walls of the building. Using concrete and having no exterior windows would allow the congregation to both save money and do most of the construction work themselves.
Also, using a simple box as the basic form allowed Jones to get creative with the interior space, which would be a church within a church ... literally.
Picture those cute Russian matryoshka (or nesting) dolls where a small doll fits into a bigger one that fits into an even larger one, and you get the idea. Jones envisioned a small, glass-encased sanctuary where up to 500 of the congregation could meet for weekly services and feel cozy yet comfortable. Surrounding the glass sanctuary would be a larger concrete building that could be used for overflow when the entire parish gathered for special events. The idea was simple yet brilliant, but in order for the design to work, the glass sanctuary had to be an entirely open space without any kind of internal support.
That's where Felix Candela comes into the story.
Candela, a Spaniard exiled to Mexico after fighting on the losing side in the Spanish Civil War, was one of the first to embrace the use of thin-shell concrete in his incredibly futuristic designs. Lightweight, malleable, and perhaps most importantly, inexpensive, thin-shell concrete allowed post-WWII architects to play with roof designs in a way they were never able to before. Instead of traditional, heavy roofs that had to be supported by several interior beams, which, therefore, dictated the design, the lightness of thin-shell concrete (sometimes only an inch or two thick) removed the need for interior support altogether. Walls could be rearranged or completely removed, and interior space could be opened up and played with. This new freedom allowed for pure, uninhibited creativity to abound for the first time in architectural history.
Already an internationally-known figure in architectural circles, Candela came on board as the project's structural engineer, and the way he solved the problem of creating the glass sanctuary as an open space was to incorporate the thin-shell supporting "umbrellas" he had used so effectively in a previous design, Mexico City's High Life Textile Factory building.
Basically, Jones used 10 of Candela's hyperbolic parabaloid umbrellas as the roof for the glass sanctuary, which enabled it to be an open, free-standing space within the larger building. With Candela's contribution, Jones had his church within a church.
Soon, however, the pleasant working relationship between architect and engineer tensed when Candela expressed his dislike for Jones' Miesian design, saying it didn't look at all like a church. Instead, he suggested that, since the sanctuary was named after St. Patrick, it should be designed like a shamrock. Seriously ... a shamrock.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Jones balked at Candela's whimsical suggestion and told Kanaly, " “Either you have the right architects and the wrong engineer or the wrong engineer and the right architects.” Luckily, Jones' more sophisticated vision prevailed, and no shamrock church was built in Oklahoma City. However, Candela was never happy with the design. When he penned a book about his remarkable career later in life, Candela never mentioned his participation in the St. Patrick's project, and the church is not included in any of his online project lists.
With the basic design complete, it was time to think about more artistic aspects of the church. Kanaly brought in art consultant, Frank Kacmarcik, to help. A true Renaissance man, Kacmarcik was a monk, a gifted writer and artist, and a scholar who was uniquely suited for the job at hand. He had worked with architect Marcel Breuer during the design and building of Breuer's St. John's monastery in Minnesota and was also friends with Bauhaus-trained artist, Josef Albers, who headed Yale's design department at the time.
Kacmarcik's contribution to St. Patrick's is perhaps the church's most dramatic and awe-inspiring feature, the design for the 50 giant, stylized angels symbolizing the "heavenly Jerusalem," which would be imbedded in the interior concrete panels and protectively surround the glass sanctuary. He also asked his friend, Albers, to design the embellishments for the alter -- a gold brick wall and abstract, Bertoia-inspired hanging sculpture.
The final adornment would be the elegant and ultra-modern bell tower dramatically jutting up from the earth in an elongated vertical sweep, dwarfing the horizontal line of the church and making the combination of the two very cross-like in appearance. Made of concrete pillars and topped by a redwood cross, the bell tower would house three bells symbolizing Mary, St. Joseph, and St. Patrick.
With the design complete, it was now time for the true hard work to begin. Ever the motivator, Kanaly rallied his congregation, and they all rolled up their collective sleeves and began the task of building their own modern-day cathedral right here in the heart of Oklahoma. During the next two years, over 500 parishioners spent most of their spare time hammering, pouring, sanding, cutting, and carving Jones' blueprints into reality. They excavated the site and poured the foundation, cut the stone floor, built the wooden forms used to cast the angels, carved the long, wooden pews, applied gold leaf to Albers dramatic brick alter screen, and finished out the walls. At the end of the day, only the steel, concrete, and electrical work was outsourced to professionals.
Finally, many calloused hands, hammered fingernails, and long work weekends later, St. Patrick's was finished, and "the church the people built," as it came to be known, opened for its first service on September 23, 1962. Jones' only Oklahoma City building was a masterpiece and was immediately recognized as such by the North American Liturgical Conference, who awarded the building the Cardinal Lercaro Gold Medal, the first of 28 architectural awards the building would receive.
St. Patrick's also appeared in many national magazines in the ensuing months and received a coveted cover shot in Progressive Architecture by famed architectural photographer, Julius Shulman. When he came to OKC to photograph St. Patrick's, Shulman was particularly taken with how beautifully the natural light filtered into the building, giving it a peaceful, serene "glow." He wanted to capture that glow in Kacmarcik's angels and patiently waited hour after hour until the sun perfectly glinted in an angel's eye behind the alter, then he clicked one time and had the perfect shot.
When I met him years later, Shulman told me how impressed he was with the simple elegance of St. Patrick's (and with Jones' work in general). When I told him the church hadn't changed a bit since he first saw it nearly 50 years before, Shulman smiled and said, "There's no need to tamper with perfection."
Indeed.
So, after my conversation with David, I was still skeptical but even more curious. One crisp-but-cloudless fall afternoon, I decided to take his advice and stop and have a look at what lies behind that huge, almost fortress-like concrete facade on Portland. I entered the church and walked through Monsignor Don Kanaly's glorious brainchild, taking in Bob Jones' masterful vision, protected by Felix Candela's graceful umbrellas and watched over by Frank Kacmarcik's stunning angels.
Damn, David was right! This place is AMAZING!
Instead of force feeding you details of my impressions of this architectural marvel, I'm going to follow David's lead, offer up a knowing, confident nod, and gently whisper to you ...
"Just go check it out."
The seemingly endless expansion of GHA Coaches came to a resounding if not surprising crash with its descent into administration.
Seen just a few months earlier was SN15ETD, a TrawsCymru liveried and specified e400 on the T3, the successor to the long established D94 service
Seemingly walking away in disgust at the arrival of 68 019 Brutus this spotter must have been hoping for a 37 or two.
Despite the seemingly sunny, cheerful weather, it was actually insanely windy and cold. Winds coming out of the NW with gusts up to 40-50 mph. Believe it or not, but that little spec on the rail closest to me is actually a snowflake my camera miraculously happened to capture. The remainder of train passing me was spent by holding down my tripod from the crazy wind all while having snow and leaves being kicked up from the speed of the train blown into my face. What a day this was. Taken in Prairie du Chien, WI on 10/20/18.
Bounce For Glory at Burning Man on the Esplanade by night.
The moving shadows cast by the art cars ' headlights on the machine were surreal, seemingly 1,000 feet long, the throbbing of the rear tire's shadow, forth and back, close and far, from the front tire's shadow, weirdly primal, yet eerie and playful...]
Various paint jobs to date: trottinette.eklablog.com/bounce-for-glory-la-trottinette-... a interpreted byb French fans!
Photo By Geoffff
Maker Faire 2011 www.youtube.com/watch?v=83HICCME4Wc
A few words and pix of other beasts and the builder.. vimeo.com/34417435
Here she is in action @ 2006 Ventura..Kinetic Race...:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKVYJopugsY&eurl=http://www.k...
ditto in 2010: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oFSv-M4Grk
And a wee interview re: a similar beast and mechanical siblings..
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR9lbgUC2tk&feature=related
Inside the tire, at 2:30... www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwBeH4UF_ns&t=103s
A seemingly bootleg and very cheaply made Wednesday Addams from the Netflix series. This version was on Amazon and a different version with a choice of three dresses and a different head is sold on Ebay.
This appears to a bootleg China made item (i.e. they didn't pay for the license). No real info on the box other than some warnings for the US and writing in Chinese.
A seemingly turbulent autumnal sky to a painting bought by A.T. of Hartlepool to serve him as a nostalgic reminder of his home town.
River God Tyne
Statue In Newcastle City Centre, Tyne And Wear
A bronze sculpture of the River God Tyne found on the side of the Civic Centre building.
The River God Tyne can be found on the side of the Civic Centre, Newcastle. Newcastle City Council commissioned the sculpture and David Wynne completed it in 1968. It is cast from bronze and was originally a darker colour, though the running water has now turned the sculpture green and brown. Originally a stream of water was supposed to trickle downwards from his raised right arm, but that has seemingly been stopped. With a height of 4.8m and a weight of 2880kg, the sculpture was said to be the largest bronze figure in the UK at the time of installation.
He is not the first representation of the Tyne as a River God. When Somerset House in London was rebuilt in 1786, nine 'masks' were placed along the Strand front. Sir William Chamber designed them to represent the Sea and eight English rivers. One of these was the Tyne, and the mask featured mining motifs which link to the north-east being a powerhouse for coal mining at the time. The importance of the Tyne to the coal industry explains its inclusion on Somerset House. At the time, Somerset House contained the tax office, stamp office, and many more public offices.
The mining associations are missing from the 1960s sculpture on the Civic Centre. Instead, it draws more clearly from the wilder, more mythical history of the region.
The River God Tyne sculpture oddly hides the face, the sculptor covering it with the hair that falls forward around his head. David Wynne felt that his twisting pose should contrast with the modern architecture of the Civic Centre.
The Romans believed that all rivers were home to a deity that blessed the local community and they had altars to Neptune and Oceanus on the bridge connecting their Pons Aelius (the Roman name for Newcastle) settlement with the south.
The Romans called such deities a genius loci, or protective spirit of a place. The Romans of the Western Empire dedicated many altars to specific genii loci. In some places, these genii loci even received sacrifices. Over the centuries, the meaning of the word changed. Alexander Pope even introduced the concept of the genius loci into landscape design. Some now consider it to be the atmosphere of a place, rather than a specific spirit.
David Wynne OBE (25 May 1926 – 4 September 2014) was a British sculptor of figures, animals, and portraits.
Biography
Born in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, son of Commander Charles Edward Wynne and Millicent (née Beyts), Wynne was educated at Stowe School and then served in the Royal Navy during World War II and read Zoology at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking up sculpture professionally in 1950. He married Gillian Grant, daughter of the writer Joan Grant, in 1959 and had two sons, Edward and Roland, who formed psychedelic rock band Ozric Tentacles.
He did a bronze sculpture of The Beatles in 1964 and subsequently introduced them to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (of whom he also did a sculpture).
He was awarded the OBE in 1994.
Works
Wynne's sculptures include:
Bird Fountains (1967) – Ambassador College, Pasadena, California
Blessed Virgin Mary (2000) – Ely Cathedral
The Breath of Life Column (1962) – location unknown (was Hammersmith)
Boy with a Dolphin (1974) – Cheyne Walk
Christ and Mary Magdalene (1963) – Ely Cathedral and Magdalen College, Oxford
Cresta Rider (1985) – Saint Moritz
Dancer with a Bird (1975) – Cadogan Square Gardens
The Dancers (1971) – Cadogan Square Gardens
Embracing Lovers (1973) – Guildhall, London
Five Swimmers Fountain (1980) – Staines
Fred Perry (1984) – Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club, Southfields, London[6]
Gaia and Tresco Children (1990) – Tresco Abbey Gardens
Girl on a Horse – Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens, Purchase, New York
Girl with a Dolphin (1973) – by Tower Bridge, a bronze fountain "full of joy and life" posed by Virginia Wade[3]
Girl with Doves (1970) – University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
Goddess of the Woods (1991) – Highgrove House
Gorilla (sculpture) (1961) – Crystal Palace Park, south London, a sculpture of Guy the Gorilla
Grizzly Bear – Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens, Purchase, New York
Leaping Salmon (1980) – Kingston upon Thames
The Messenger (1981) – Sutton, London
Queen Elizabeth Gate (1992) – Hyde Park Corner
Risen Christ and Seraphim (1985) – Wells Cathedral
River God Tyne (1968) – Newcastle Civic Centre
The Spirit of Fire (1963) – originally Lewis's, later Debenhams, Hanley, Staffordshire
Swans in Flight (1968) – Swans In Flight, Armstrong Auditorium, Edmond, Oklahoma
Teamwork (1958) – for Taylor Woodrow headquarters, London and later Solihull; now at Taywood Road, Northolt, London
UK 50 Pence Coin Archived 11 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine (1973) – Commemoration of the United Kingdom joining the European Economic Community
″Christ on the Ass″ (1954) Maquette III for The Entry into Jerusalem. CuratorsEye.com
Portraits include:
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1962)
Charles, Prince of Wales (1970)
Joan Baez (1965)
John Gielgud (1962) – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Oskar Kokoschka (1965) – Tate
Queen Elizabeth II
The Beatles (1964)
Thomas Beecham (1956) – Royal Festival Hall, National Portrait Gallery, London, etc.
Yehudi Menuhin (1963)
Newcastle Civic Centre is a municipal building in the Haymarket area of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Designed by George Kenyon, the centre was built for Newcastle City Council in 1967 and formally opened by King Olav V of Norway on 14 November 1968. It is a listed building with Grade II* status and is the joint-eighth tallest building in the city, standing at a total of 200 feet (61 m).
History
Plans to build a new city hall on the site at Barras Bridge had been proposed prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, to the point of holding an architectural competition, although these were halted by the war; and due to post-war restrictions on capital expenditure, it was not until August 1956 that authorisation to begin construction was granted. During the interim period, the demolition of houses and a former Eye Hospital on the intended site was implemented. The building was designed by the city architect, George Kenyon.
The construction work, which was undertaken by Sir Robert McAlpine, commenced on the building in May 1960, and the foundation stone was laid by the Lord Mayor, Alderman Mrs Gladys Robson, on 30 November 1960. The total construction cost was £4,855,000. The building was completed in 1967 and was formally opened by King Olav V of Norway on 14 November 1968. Newcastle's Victorian Town Hall which stood in St Nicholas Square (between the Bigg Market and the Cloth Market) was demolished in 1973. On 6 May 1977, the Civic Centre was visited by the 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter, who delivered a speech famously containing the Geordie phrase "Howay the lads!" A stone commemorating the event was placed in the Civic Centre grounds.
The council leader's office was used as a filming location by a Japanese production team in 2014 for a drama set in 1960s Tokyo.
Sculpture and art works
The Civic Centre is also notable for its modern sculptures, in particular the "River God Tyne" and "Swans in Flight", both by David Wynne and the seahorses on the top of the tower by John Robert Murray McCheyne. The cashiers reception of the former rates hall, now the Customer Service Centre, has two abstract murals by Victor Pasmore.
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.
Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.
The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.
Roman settlement
The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.
The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.
Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.
Anglo-Saxon development
The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led an army that attacked and pillaged various monasteries in the area, and it is thought that Monkchester was also pillaged at this time. Little more was heard of it until the coming of the Normans.
Norman period
After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, the whole of England was quickly subjected to Norman rule. However, in Northumbria there was great resistance to the Normans, and in 1069 the newly appointed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines and 700 of his men were killed by the local population at Durham. The Northumbrians then marched on York, but William was able to suppress the uprising. That same year, a second uprising occurred when a Danish fleet landed in the Humber. The Northumbrians again attacked York and destroyed the garrison there. William was again able to suppress the uprising, but this time he took revenge. He laid waste to the whole of the Midlands and the land from York to the Tees. In 1080, William Walcher, the Norman bishop of Durham and his followers were brutally murdered at Gateshead. This time Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's half brother, devastated the land between the Tees and the Tweed. This was known as the 'Harrying of the North'. This devastation is reflected in the Domesday Book. The destruction had such an effect that the North remained poor and backward at least until Tudor times and perhaps until the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle suffered in this respect with the rest of the North.
In 1080 William sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots. After his campaign, he moved to Monkchester and began the building of a 'New Castle'. This was of the "motte-and-bailey" type of construction, a wooden tower on top of an earthen mound (motte), surrounded by a moat and wooden stockade (bailey). It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. In 1095 the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, rose up against the king, William Rufus, and Rufus sent an army north to recapture the castle. From then on the castle became crown property and was an important base from which the king could control the northern barons. The Northumbrian earldom was abolished and a Sheriff of Northumberland was appointed to administer the region. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated on the site of the present Anglican cathedral, close by the bailey of the new castle. The church is believed to have been a wooden building on stone footings.
Not a trace of the tower or mound of the motte and bailey castle remains now. Henry II replaced it with a rectangular stone keep, which was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. A stone bailey, in the form of a triangle, replaced the previous wooden one. The great outer gateway to the castle, called 'the Black Gate', was built later, between 1247 and 1250, in the reign of Henry III. There were at that time no town walls and when attacked by the Scots, the townspeople had to crowd into the bailey for safety. It is probable that the new castle acted as a magnet for local merchants because of the safety it provided. This in turn would help to expand trade in the town. At this time wool, skins and lead were being exported, whilst alum, pepper and ginger were being imported from France and Flanders.
Middle Ages
Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was England's northern fortress, the centre for assembled armies. The Border war against Scotland lasted intermittently for several centuries – possibly the longest border war ever waged. During the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, David 1st of Scotland and his son were granted Cumbria and Northumberland respectively, so that for a period from 1139 to 1157, Newcastle was effectively in Scottish hands. It is believed that during this period, King David may have built the church of St Andrew and the Benedictine nunnery in Newcastle. However, King Stephen's successor, Henry II was strong enough to take back the Earldom of Northumbria from Malcolm IV.
The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle, in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick. Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town and Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times during the 14th century.
Around 1200, stone-faced, clay-filled jetties were starting to project into the river, an indication that trade was increasing in Newcastle. As the Roman roads continued to deteriorate, sea travel was gaining in importance. By 1275 Newcastle was the sixth largest wool exporting port in England. The principal exports at this time were wool, timber, coal, millstones, dairy produce, fish, salt and hides. Much of the developing trade was with the Baltic countries and Germany. Most of the Newcastle merchants were situated near the river, below the Castle. The earliest known charter was dated 1175 in the reign of Henry II, giving the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor[8] and also allowed the formation of guilds (known as Mysteries). These were cartels formed within different trades, which restricted trade to guild members. There were initially twelve guilds. Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1350 the burgesses received a royal licence to export coal. This licence to export coal was jealously guarded by the Newcastle burgesses, and they tried to prevent any one else on the Tyne from exporting coal except through Newcastle. The burgesses similarly tried to prevent fish from being sold anywhere else on the Tyne except Newcastle. This led to conflicts with Gateshead and South Shields.
In 1265, the town was granted permission to impose a 'Wall Tax' or Murage, to pay for the construction of a fortified wall to enclose the town and protect it from Scottish invaders. The town walls were not completed until early in the 14th century. They were two miles (3 km) long, 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and 25 feet (7.6 m) high. They had six main gates, as well as some smaller gates, and had 17 towers. The land within the walls was divided almost equally by the Lort Burn, which flowed southwards and joined the Tyne to the east of the Castle. The town began to expand north of the Castle and west of the Lort Burn with various markets being set up within the walls.
In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter, creating a County corporate which separated the town, but not the Castle, from the county of Northumberland and recognised it as a "county of itself" with a right to have a sheriff of its own. The burgesses were now allowed to choose six aldermen who, with the mayor would be justices of the peace. The mayor and sheriff were allowed to hold borough courts in the Guildhall.
Religious houses
During the Middle Ages a number of religious houses were established within the walls: the first of these was the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew founded in 1086 near the present-day Nun Street. Both David I of Scotland and Henry I of England were benefactors of the religious house. Nothing of the nunnery remains now.
The friary of Blackfriars, Newcastle (Dominican) was established in 1239. These were also known as the Preaching Friars or Shod Friars, because they wore sandals, as opposed to other orders. The friary was situated in the present-day Friars Street. In 1280 the order was granted royal permission to make a postern in the town walls to communicate with their gardens outside the walls. On 19 June 1334, Edward Balliol, claimant to be King of Scotland, did homage to King Edward III, on behalf of the kingdom of Scotland, in the church of the friary. Much of the original buildings of the friary still exist, mainly because, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friary of Blackfriars was rented out by the corporation to nine of the local trade guilds.
The friary of Whitefriars (Carmelite) was established in 1262. The order was originally housed on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, but in 1307 it took over the buildings of another order, which went out of existence, the Friars of the Sac. The land, which had originally been given by Robert the Bruce, was situated in the present-day Hanover Square, behind the Central station. Nothing of the friary remains now.
The friary of Austinfriars (Augustinian) was established in 1290. The friary was on the site where the Holy Jesus Hospital was built in 1682. The friary was traditionally the lodging place of English kings whenever they visited or passed through Newcastle. In 1503 Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, stayed two days at the friary on her way to join her new husband James IV of Scotland.
The friary of Greyfriars (Franciscans) was established in 1274. The friary was in the present-day area between Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Market Street and High Chare. Nothing of the original buildings remains.
The friary of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarians, was established in 1360. The order devoted a third of its income to buying back captives of the Saracens, during the Crusades. Their house was on the Wall Knoll, in Pandon, to the east of the city, but within the walls. Wall Knoll had previously been occupied by the White Friars until they moved to new premises in 1307.
All of the above religious houses were closed in about 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.
An important street running through Newcastle at the time was Pilgrim Street, running northwards inside the walls and leading to the Pilgrim Gate on the north wall. The street still exists today as arguably Newcastle's main shopping street.
Tudor period
The Scottish border wars continued for much of the 16th century, so that during that time, Newcastle was often threatened with invasion by the Scots, but also remained important as a border stronghold against them.
During the Reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1536, the five Newcastle friaries and the single nunnery were dissolved and the land was sold to the Corporation and to rich merchants. At this time there were fewer than 60 inmates of the religious houses in Newcastle. The convent of Blackfriars was leased to nine craft guilds to be used as their headquarters. This probably explains why it is the only one of the religious houses whose building survives to the present day. The priories at Tynemouth and Durham were also dissolved, thus ending the long-running rivalry between Newcastle and the church for control of trade on the Tyne. A little later, the property of the nunnery of St Bartholomew and of Grey Friars were bought by Robert Anderson, who had the buildings demolished to build his grand Newe House (also known as Anderson Place).
With the gradual decline of the Scottish border wars the town walls were allowed to decline as well as the castle. By 1547, about 10,000 people were living in Newcastle. At the beginning of the 16th century exports of wool from Newcastle were more than twice the value of exports of coal, but during the century coal exports continued to increase.
Under Edward VI, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sponsored an act allowing Newcastle to annexe Gateshead as its suburb. The main reason for this was to allow the Newcastle Hostmen, who controlled the export of Tyne coal, to get their hands on the Gateshead coal mines, previously controlled by the Bishop of Durham. However, when Mary I came to power, Dudley met his downfall and the decision was reversed. The Reformation allowed private access to coal mines previously owned by Tynemouth and Durham priories and as a result coal exports increase dramatically, from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and to 400,000 tons in 1625.
The plague visited Newcastle four times during the 16th century, in 1579 when 2,000 people died, in 1589 when 1700 died, in 1595 and finally in 1597.
In 1600 Elizabeth I granted Newcastle a charter for an exclusive body of electors, the right to elect the mayor and burgesses. The charter also gave the Hostmen exclusive rights to load coal at any point on the Tyne. The Hostmen developed as an exclusive group within the Merchant Adventurers who had been incorporated by a charter in 1547.
Stuart period
In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. There had been several previous outbreaks of the disease over the years, but this was the most serious. It is thought to have arrived from the Netherlands via ships that were trading between the Tyne and that country. It first appeared in the lower part of the town near the docks but gradually spread to all parts of the town. As the disease gained hold the authorities took measures to control it by boarding up any properties that contained infected persons, meaning that whole families were locked up together with the infected family members. Other infected persons were put in huts outside the town walls and left to die. Plague pits were dug next to the town's four churches and outside the town walls to receive the bodies in mass burials. Over the course of the outbreak 5,631 deaths were recorded out of an estimated population of 12,000, a death rate of 47%.
In 1637 Charles I tried to raise money by doubling the 'voluntary' tax on coal in return for allowing the Newcastle Hostmen to regulate production and fix prices. This caused outrage amongst the London importers and the East Anglian shippers. Both groups decided to boycott Tyne coal and as a result forced Charles to reverse his decision in 1638.
In 1640 during the Second Bishops' War, the Scots successfully invaded Newcastle. The occupying army demanded £850 per day from the Corporation to billet the Scottish troops. Trade from the Tyne ground to a halt during the occupation. The Scots left in 1641 after receiving a Parliamentary pardon and a £4,000,000 loan from the town.
In 1642 the English Civil War began. King Charles realised the value of the Tyne coal trade and therefore garrisoned Newcastle. A Royalist was appointed as governor. At that time, Newcastle and King's Lynn were the only important seaports to support the crown. In 1644 Parliament blockaded the Tyne to prevent the king from receiving revenue from the Tyne coal trade. Coal exports fell from 450,000 to 3,000 tons and London suffered a hard winter without fuel. Parliament encouraged the coal trade from the Wear to try to replace that lost from Newcastle but that was not enough to make up for the lost Tyneside tonnage.
In 1644 the Scots crossed the border. Newcastle strengthened its defences in preparation. The Scottish army, with 40,000 troops, besieged Newcastle for three months until the garrison of 1,500 surrendered. During the siege, the Scots bombarded the walls with their artillery, situated in Gateshead and Castle Leazes. The Scottish commander threatened to destroy the steeple of St Nicholas's Church by gunfire if the mayor, Sir John Marley, did not surrender the town. The mayor responded by placing Scottish prisoners that they had captured in the steeple, so saving it from destruction. The town walls were finally breached by a combination of artillery and sapping. In gratitude for this defence, Charles gave Newcastle the motto 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans' to be added to its coat of arms. The Scottish army occupied Northumberland and Durham for two years. The coal taxes had to pay for the Scottish occupation. In 1645 Charles surrendered to the Scots and was imprisoned in Newcastle for nine months. After the Civil War the coal trade on the Tyne soon picked up and exceeded its pre-war levels.
A new Guildhall was completed on the Sandhill next to the river in 1655, replacing an earlier facility damaged by fire in 1639, and became the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council. In 1681 the Hospital of the Holy Jesus was built partly on the site of the Austin Friars. The Guildhall and Holy Jesus Hospital still exist.
Charles II tried to impose a charter on Newcastle to give the king the right to appoint the mayor, sheriff, recorder and town clerk. Charles died before the charter came into effect. In 1685, James II tried to replace Corporation members with named Catholics. However, James' mandate was suspended in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution welcoming William of Orange. In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze equestrian statue in Sandhill and tossed it into the Tyne. The bronze was later used to make bells for All Saints Church.
In 1689 the Lort Burn was covered over. At this time it was an open sewer. The channel followed by the Lort Burn became the present day Dean Street. At that time, the centre of Newcastle was still the Sandhill area, with many merchants living along the Close or on the Side. The path of the main road through Newcastle ran from the single Tyne bridge, through Sandhill to the Side, a narrow street which climbed steeply on the north-east side of the castle hill until it reached the higher ground alongside St Nicholas' Church. As Newcastle developed, the Side became lined with buildings with projecting upper stories, so that the main street through Newcastle was a narrow, congested, steep thoroughfare.
In 1701 the Keelmen's Hospital was built in the Sandgate area of the city, using funds provided by the keelmen. The building still stands today.
Eighteenth century
In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages predated the London Library by half a century.
In 1715, during the Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender, an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Many of the Northumbrian gentry joined the rebels. The citizens prepared for its arrival by arresting Jacobite supporters and accepting 700 extra recruits into the local militia. The gates of the city were closed against the rebels. This proved enough to delay an attack until reinforcements arrived forcing the rebel army to move across to the west coast. The rebels finally surrendered at Preston.
In 1745, during a second Jacobite rising in favour of the Young Pretender, a Scottish army crossed the border led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared by arresting Jacobite supporters and inducting 800 volunteers into the local militia. The town walls were strengthened, most of the gates were blocked up and some 200 cannon were deployed. 20,000 regulars were billeted on the Town Moor. These preparations were enough to force the rebel army to travel south via the west coast. They were eventually defeated at Culloden in 1746.
Newcastle's actions during the 1715 rising in resisting the rebels and declaring for George I, in contrast to the rest of the region, is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie', applied to people from Tyneside, or more accurately Newcastle. Another theory, however, is that the name 'Geordie' came from the inventor of the Geordie lamp, George Stephenson. It was a type of safety lamp used in mining, but was not invented until 1815. Apparently the term 'German Geordie' was in common use during the 18th century.
The city's first hospital, Newcastle Infirmary opened in 1753; it was funded by public subscription. A lying-in hospital was established in Newcastle in 1760. The city's first public hospital for mentally ill patients, Wardens Close Lunatic Hospital was opened in October 1767.
In 1771 a flood swept away much of the bridge at Newcastle. The bridge had been built in 1250 and repaired after a flood in 1339. The bridge supported various houses and three towers and an old chapel. A blue stone was placed in the middle of the bridge to mark the boundary between Newcastle and the Palatinate of Durham. A temporary wooden bridge had to be built, and this remained in use until 1781, when a new stone bridge was completed. The new bridge consisted of nine arches. In 1801, because of the pressure of traffic, the bridge had to be widened.
A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806. The facilities at the Castle for holding assizes, which had been condemned for their inconvenience and unhealthiness, were replaced when the Moot Hall opened in August 1812.
Victorian period
Present-day Newcastle owes much of its architecture to the work of the builder Richard Grainger, aided by architects John Dobson, Thomas Oliver, John and Benjamin Green and others. In 1834 Grainger won a competition to produce a new plan for central Newcastle. He put this plan into effect using the above architects as well as architects employed in his own office. Grainger and Oliver had already built Leazes Terrace, Leazes Crescent and Leazes Place between 1829 and 1834. Grainger and Dobson had also built the Royal Arcade at the foot of Pilgrim Street between 1830 and 1832. The most ambitious project covered 12 acres 12 acres (49,000 m2) in central Newcastle, on the site of Newe House (also called Anderson Place). Grainger built three new thoroughfares, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Clayton Street with many connecting streets, as well as the Central Exchange and the Grainger Market. John Wardle and George Walker, working in Grainger's office, designed Clayton Street, Grainger Street and most of Grey Street. Dobson designed the Grainger Market and much of the east side of Grey Street. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal at the top of Grey Street, where Grainger placed the column of Grey's Monument as a focus for the whole scheme. Grey Street is considered to be one of the finest streets in the country, with its elegant curve. Unfortunately most of old Eldon Square was demolished in the 1960s in the name of progress. The Royal Arcade met a similar fate.
In 1849 a new bridge was built across the river at Newcastle. This was the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, and slightly up river from the existing bridge. The bridge was designed to carry road and rail traffic across the Tyne Gorge on two decks with rail traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower. The new bridge meant that traffic could pass through Newcastle without having to negotiate the steep, narrow Side, as had been necessary for centuries. The bridge was opened by Queen Victoria, who one year later opened the new Central Station, designed by John Dobson. Trains were now able to cross the river, directly into the centre of Newcastle and carry on up to Scotland. The Army Riding School was also completed in 1849.
In 1854 a large fire started on the Gateshead quayside and an explosion caused it to spread across the river to the Newcastle quayside. A huge conflagration amongst the narrow alleys, or 'chares', destroyed the homes of 800 families as well as many business premises. The narrow alleys that had been destroyed were replaced by streets containing blocks of modern offices.
In 1863 the Town Hall in St Nicholas Square replaced the Guildhall as the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council.
In 1876 the low level bridge was replaced by a new bridge known as the Swing Bridge, so called because the bridge was able to swing horizontally on a central axis and allow ships to pass on either side. This meant that for the first time sizeable ships could pass up-river beyond Newcastle. The bridge was built and paid for by William Armstrong, a local arms manufacturer, who needed to have warships access his Elswick arms factory to fit armaments to them. The Swing Bridge's rotating mechanism is adapted from the cannon mounts developed in Armstrong's arms works. In 1882 the Elswick works began to build ships as well as to arm them. The Barrack Road drill hall was completed in 1890.
Industrialisation
In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle's development as a major city owed most to its central role in the production and export of coal. The phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was first recorded in 1538; it proverbially denotes bringing a particular commodity to a place that has more than enough of it already.
Innovation in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the following:
George Stephenson developed a miner's safety lamp at the same time that Humphry Davy developed a rival design. The lamp made possible the opening up of ever deeper mines to provide the coal that powered the industrial revolution.
George and his son Robert Stephenson were hugely influential figures in the development of the early railways. George developed Blücher, a locomotive working at Killingworth colliery in 1814, whilst Robert was instrumental in the design of Rocket, a revolutionary design that was the forerunner of modern locomotives. Both men were involved in planning and building railway lines, all over this country and abroad.
Joseph Swan demonstrated a working electric light bulb about a year before Thomas Edison did the same in the USA. This led to a dispute as to who had actually invented the light bulb. Eventually the two rivals agreed to form a mutual company between them, the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, known as Ediswan.
Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, for marine use and for power generation. He used Turbinia, a small, turbine-powered ship, to demonstrate the speed that a steam turbine could generate. Turbinia literally ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead in 1897.
William Armstrong invented a hydraulic crane that was installed in dockyards up and down the country. He then began to design light, accurate field guns for the British army. These were a vast improvement on the existing guns that were then in use.
The following major industries developed in Newcastle or its surrounding area:
Glassmaking
A small glass industry existed in Newcastle from the mid-15th century. In 1615 restrictions were put on the use of wood for manufacturing glass. It was found that glass could be manufactured using the local coal, and so a glassmaking industry grew up on Tyneside. Huguenot glassmakers came over from France as refugees from persecution and set up glasshouses in the Skinnerburn area of Newcastle. Eventually, glass production moved to the Ouseburn area of Newcastle. In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, arrived in Newcastle from Stourbridge and established glasshouses along the Close, to manufacture high quality flint glass. The glass manufacturers used sand ballast from the boats arriving in the river as the main raw material. The glassware was then exported in collier brigs. The period from 1730 to 1785 was the highpoint of Newcastle glass manufacture, when the local glassmakers produced the 'Newcastle Light Baluster'. The glassmaking industry still exists in the west end of the city with local Artist and Glassmaker Jane Charles carrying on over four hundred years of hot glass blowing in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Locomotive manufacture
In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert established the world's first locomotive factory near Forth Street in Newcastle. Here they built locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as many others. It was here that the famous locomotive Rocket was designed and manufactured in preparation for the Rainhill Trials. Apart from building locomotives for the British market, the Newcastle works also produced locomotives for Europe and America. The Forth Street works continued to build locomotives until 1960.
Shipbuilding
In 1296 a wooden, 135 ft (41 m) long galley was constructed at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of a twenty-ship order from the king. The ship cost £205, and is the earliest record of shipbuilding in Newcastle. However the rise of the Tyne as a shipbuilding area was due to the need for collier brigs for the coal export trade. These wooden sailing ships were usually built locally, establishing local expertise in building ships. As ships changed from wood to steel, and from sail to steam, the local shipbuilding industry changed to build the new ships. Although shipbuilding was carried out up and down both sides of the river, the two main areas for building ships in Newcastle were Elswick, to the west, and Walker, to the east. By 1800 Tyneside was the third largest producer of ships in Britain. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, lack of modernisation and competition from abroad gradually caused the local industry to decline and die.
Armaments
In 1847 William Armstrong established a huge factory in Elswick, west of Newcastle. This was initially used to produce hydraulic cranes but subsequently began also to produce guns for both the army and the navy. After the Swing Bridge was built in 1876 allowing ships to pass up river, warships could have their armaments fitted alongside the Elswick works. Armstrong's company took over its industrial rival, Joseph Whitworth of Manchester in 1897.
Steam turbines
Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine and, in 1889, founded his own company C. A. Parsons and Company in Heaton, Newcastle to make steam turbines. Shortly after this, he realised that steam turbines could be used to propel ships and, in 1897, he founded a second company, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. It is there that he designed and manufactured Turbinia. Parsons turbines were initially used in warships but soon came to be used in merchant and passenger vessels, including the liner Mauretania which held the blue riband for the Atlantic crossing until 1929. Parsons' company in Heaton began to make turbo-generators for power stations and supplied power stations all over the world. The Heaton works, reduced in size, remains as part of the Siemens AG industrial giant.
Pottery
In 1762 the Maling pottery was founded in Sunderland by French Huguenots, but transferred to Newcastle in 1817. A factory was built in the Ouseburn area of the city. The factory was rebuilt twice, finally occupying a 14-acre (57,000 m2) site that was claimed to be the biggest pottery in the world and which had its own railway station. The pottery pioneered use of machines in making potteries as opposed to hand production. In the 1890s the company went up-market and employed in-house designers. The period up to the Second World War was the most profitable with a constant stream of new designs being introduced. However, after the war, production gradually declined and the company closed in 1963.
Expansion of the city
Newcastle was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835: the reformed municipal borough included the parishes of Byker, Elswick, Heaton, Jesmond, Newcastle All Saints, Newcastle St Andrew, Newcastle St John, Newcastle St Nicholas, and Westgate. The urban districts of Benwell and Fenham and Walker were added in 1904. In 1935, Newcastle gained Kenton and parts of the parishes of West Brunton, East Denton, Fawdon, Longbenton. The most recent expansion in Newcastle's boundaries took place under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, when Newcastle became a metropolitan borough, also including the urban districts of Gosforth and Newburn, and the parishes of Brunswick, Dinnington, Hazlerigg, North Gosforth and Woolsington from the Castle Ward Rural District, and the village of Westerhope.
Meanwhile Northumberland County Council was formed under the Local Government Act 1888 and benefited from a dedicated meeting place when County Hall was completed in the Castle Garth area of Newcastle in 1910. Following the Local Government Act 1972 County Hall relocated to Morpeth in April 1981.
Twentieth century
In 1925 work began on a new high-level road bridge to span the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. The capacity of the existing High-Level Bridge and Swing Bridge were being strained to the limit, and an additional bridge had been discussed for a long time. The contract was awarded to the Dorman Long Company and the bridge was finally opened by King George V in 1928. The road deck was 84 feet (26 m) above the river and was supported by a 531 feet (162 m) steel arch. The new Tyne Bridge quickly became a symbol for Newcastle and Tyneside, and remains so today.
During the Second World War, Newcastle was largely spared the horrors inflicted upon other British cities bombed during the Blitz. Although the armaments factories and shipyards along the River Tyne were targeted by the Luftwaffe, they largely escaped unscathed. Manors goods yard and railway terminal, to the east of the city centre, and the suburbs of Jesmond and Heaton suffered bombing during 1941. There were 141 deaths and 587 injuries, a relatively small figure compared to the casualties in other industrial centres of Britain.
In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, by act of parliament. A School of Medicine and Surgery had been established in Newcastle in 1834. This eventually developed into a college of medicine attached to Durham University. A college of physical science was also founded and became Armstrong College in 1904. In 1934 the two colleges merged to become King's College, Durham. This remained as part of Durham University until the new university was created in 1963. In 1992 the city gained its second university when Newcastle Polytechnic was granted university status as Northumbria University.
Newcastle City Council moved to the new Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968.
As heavy industries declined in the second half of the 20th century, large sections of the city centre were demolished along with many areas of slum housing. The leading political figure in the city during the 1960s was T. Dan Smith who oversaw a massive building programme of highrise housing estates and authorised the demolition of a quarter of the Georgian Grainger Town to make way for Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Smith's control in Newcastle collapsed when it was exposed that he had used public contracts to advantage himself and his business associates and for a time Newcastle became a byword for civic corruption as depicted in the films Get Carter and Stormy Monday and in the television series Our Friends in the North. However, much of the historic Grainger Town area survived and was, for the most part, fully restored in the late 1990s. Northumberland Street, initially the A1, was gradually closed to traffic from the 1970s and completely pedestrianised by 1998.
In 1978 a new rapid transport system, the Metro, was built, linking the Tyneside area. The system opened in August 1980. A new bridge was built to carry the Metro across the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. This was the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, commonly known as the Metro Bridge. Eventually the Metro system was extended to reach Newcastle Airport in 1991, and in 2002 the Metro system was extended to the nearby city of Sunderland.
As the 20th century progressed, trade on the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides gradually declined, until by the 1980s both sides of the river were looking rather derelict. Shipping company offices had closed along with offices of firms related to shipping. There were also derelict warehouses lining the riverbank. Local government produced a master plan to re-develop the Newcastle quayside and this was begun in the 1990s. New offices, restaurants, bars and residential accommodation were built and the area has changed in the space of a few years into a vibrant area, partially returning the focus of Newcastle to the riverside, where it was in medieval times.
The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge, 26 feet (7.9 m) wide and 413 feet (126 m) long, was completed in 2001. The road deck is in the form of a curve and is supported by a steel arch. To allow ships to pass, the whole structure, both arch and road-deck, rotates on huge bearings at either end so that the road deck is lifted. The bridge can be said to open and shut like a human eye. It is an important addition to the re-developed quayside area, providing a vital link between the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides.
Recent developments
Today the city is a vibrant centre for office and retail employment, but just a short distance away there are impoverished inner-city housing estates, in areas originally built to provide affordable housing for employees of the shipyards and other heavy industries that lined the River Tyne. In the 2010s Newcastle City Council began implementing plans to regenerate these depressed areas, such as those along the Ouseburn Valley.
Seemingly abandoned in the middle of central Croydon, Arriva London DAF DB300/Wright Gemini 2 DW307 (LJ10CVP) is seen parked near the Croydon Flyover. The bus was on route 403 but route 403 goes round the back of South Croydon so I have no idea what this bus was doing here.
A seemingly derelict building in Minatare, NEbraska, with a sign in the window that says S-V Building. A ghost sign on the facade is very faded, but I can make out the words "Lumber" and "Paint".
Seemingly unrelated photograph but over a year ago before we were dating, my partner and I were working on a project to listen to every album released in 2020 (according to a Wikipedia article). Today on a car ride, we finished 2020 albums!
10.05.88
Seemingly crept into the show, did this. It didn't hang about, arriving later and leaving early. Myself nor those I spoke to ever did see the owner of this Stellar, but it drew in an enthusiastic crowd.
The first example I've ever knowingly seen, I thought the wide-and-flat appearance made the car look quite American.
The Gold Medal special edition trim was offered at the time of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, based on a top-spec GSL, I'm not too sure what additional spec was included bar a lot of stick-on vinyl.
How many left: Hyundai Stellar 1600 GSL, 6 taxed & 10 SORN, though how many of these bear Gold Medal stickers is unknown!
The Stellar 1600 GSL is also the most 'common' trim of Stellar remaining.
I photographed this seemingly abandoned horse near the Glassamucky Brakes in the Dublin Mountains about a year ago.
Recently I was driving off the mountains near dusk and became aware of some large shapes in the road in the half light which turned out to be this horse and a group of others including two foals. I am not really sure if they are living wild or just being grazed (I have never seen horses grazed in this area before) but they are a nice addition to the landscape.
If they are living wild then I am pleased she got through the Winter and seems to be thriving living free.
The seemingly stinky great blue heron (seen here checking out his "wing"pit--no arms on this guy ) and I wish you all a great week-end :-)
I will be away from internet from Friday afternoon to late Sunday night, so I'll catch up with you the first of the week.
I'm always amazed at how (seemingly) easy is is for heavy trains to restart on the steep and curving line through Tehachapi Pass.
After taking a picture of this stack train exiting Tunnel three, I ambled down to track level with the intention of crossing over to the car after the train had passed me by. But as the lead locos swung around the curve at Cliff, the horn sounded and the train abruptly came to a stop.
Great. I don't want to clamber over doublestack cars to get to the other side, and climbing back over tunnel three would be an effort, so decide to lazily wait and see what happens.
Soon enough, a pair of horn toots indicate that something is about to happen. Brakes hiss off, and with a little creaking, the train, probably close to a mile long and at a guess 6000 tons or more(?) smoothly ups and leaves. I can't hear the lead engines, so to me it seems as if this massive steel snake is silently and effortlessly walking up the 2.2% (1 in 45) grade while strung around two horseshoe curves and through two tunnels, with no drama and just the sound of heavy metal rolling by.
I start taking pictures of the passing freight car trucks as they accelerate to the speed of a runner before a deep booming reveals the train has helpers at the back about to pop through the tunnel.
And what a sight, sound and vibration as two big GEs wheel out of tunnel three, surefootedly shoving their train up to track speed, gently squealing wheels clawing for grip through clouds of pulverised sand.
These seconds will remain lodged in my memory for a long time.
BNSF remote helper pair Dash 9 5618 and C4 6776 push hard on their doubestacks as they pass between tunnels three and four on Tehachapi Pass, California. 18 April 2018
This is a photograph from my personal collection.
In spite of having a misshapen hoof, Assault went on to win all three jewels of the Triple Crown and become the 1946 Horse of the Year, the most prestigious honor in American thoroughbred racing. You gotta love those underdogs!
Foaled on March 26, 1943, on Robert Kleberg, Jr.'s King Ranch in Texas, Assault could boast of an impressive pedigree. His sire, Bold Venture had won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in 1936, and his dam, Igual, was an unraced mare by the two-time Horse of the Year, Equipose. Igual's dam was out of Masda, the full sister of the great Man o' War. The chestnut colt was named Assault in honor of the fact that his sire was a descendant of Commando, the 1901 Horse of the Year and sire of the unbeaten Colin.
As a weanling, Assault stepped on a surveyor's stake, permanently crippling himself and giving rise to his future nickname, "The Club Footed Comet." When the oddly-gaited horse first walked and trotted before Max Hirsch, the famous racehorse trainer doubted that he would ever make it to the post, let alone the winner's circle But something told Hirsch to give it a shot.
Assault's racing career got off to a decidedly lackluster start. After scoring only two wins in nine times out of the gate, he was sent to winter in South Carolina.
By the time racing season opened 1946, however, the young horse had his act together, starting the season by winning the Experimental Handicap and going on to win the Wood Memorial Stakes. But then he faltered.
Shipped to Kentucky for the first jewel of the Triple Crown, he ran a badly beaten fourth behind Rippey, Spy Song, and With Pleasure in the Derby Trial Stakes, casting a long shadow of doubt upon his already seemingly slim Kentucky Derby chances.
On the day of the Kentucky Derby, Lord Boswell was the betting favorite, with Assault listed as fourth choice. Spy Song was the early leader in the race, and Assault, with jockey Warren Mehrtens in the saddle, merely ran with the pack. But then the colt caught fire, pulling away from the herd in a burst of speed and thundering down the track for a breathtaking eight-length victory, which equaled the longest winning margin in Derby history.
On May 11 the crowd at Pimlico became the first to make Assault a post-time favorite when he met Lord Boswell and eight others in the Preakness Stakes for the second jewel of the Triple Crown. Caught up in a mob of horses, jockey Warren Mehrtens was forced to press his mount early in the race, and Assault was compelled to spend precious energy reserves as he passed Natchez in the backstretch. When the horses reached the top of the stretch, Assault was in front, with Lord Boswell four lengths behind, but running powerfully and narrowing the gap. Assault hung gamely on despite his fatigue, and although Lord Boswell closed strongly, Assault won by a neck.
Because of Assault's narrow victory at Pimlico and the fact that the track of the third jewel in the Triple Crown is the longest, Lord Boswell went to post as the favorite in the Belmont Stakes. His impressive stretch drive in the Preakness seemed to indicate that he could handle the Belmont's mile and a half more easily than could Assault, who this time was deemed second choice in the wagering.
Assault stumbled at the start, leaving Hampden to claim the early lead. At the head of the stretch, Assault was trailing by a sickening eight lengths when Jockey Warren Mehrtens moved to the outside and asked his horse to give it all he had. Assault responded with a powerful surge down the strech, catching Natchez to win by three lengths for the climax of an exciting race.
Before the end of 1946, trainer Max Hirsch became disatisfied with Warren Mehrtens as jockey when the best that Assault could score was a disappointing string of seconds, thirds, and fourths. Mehrtens was replaced by Eddie Arcaro. As if to reward Hirsch's judgment, Assault trounced his competitors in both the Pimlico Special and Westchester Handicap with Arcaro aboard, as well being voted 1946 Horse of the Year honors.
Assault retired in early 1948, but his history of physical problems reared up again when it was disclosed that he was sterile. (Note: He never succeeded in getting a Thouroughbred offspring. It is possible, however, that he did pasture breed some Quarterhorse mares who foaled.) With little else to do but return to racing, Assault competed until he was seven, completing his career with 18 victories in 42 starts. He then lived out a quiet, peaceful existence at the King Ranch until he was put down at the age of 28 in 1971 after fracturing a leg.
Despite being named Horse of the Year in 1946, many racing authorities of the day discounted Assault because he never turned in a spectacular time. They averred Assault won the honor only because he was the best in a rather average lot of horses that year.
It is true that Assault never was the all-time fastest. (His Kentucky Derby time of 2:06 3/5 was comparatively slow, missing Whirlaway's track record by more than five seconds.) Yet not only did Assault run his entire career on a crippled foot but he battled kidney, splint bone, ankle, knee, and bleeding problems as well. Few horses could have performed at all under such conditions, let alone racked up such an impressive career. Warren Mehrtens summed it up best when he said Assault "was all heart."
In his lifetime, he did set one record, however, that has not been broken to this date. Assault remains the only Texas-bred horse to win the Triple Crown.
In 1964, Assault was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Eddie Arcaro (arguably history's all-time greatest jockey) ranked Assault second only to Citation, and Max Hirsch stated simply "I never trained a better horse."
Assault's Race Record:
Year Starts - 42
Wins - 18
Seconds - 6
Thirds - 7
Lifetime Earnings - $675,400 (over $5 million in today's money)
Major Racing Wins:
Wood Memorial (1946)
Kentucky Derby (1946)
Preakness Stakes (1946)
Belmont Stakes (1946)
Pimlico Special (1946)
Suburban Handicap (1947)
Racing Awards:
7th U.S. Triple Crown Champion (1946)
U.S. Champion 3-Year-Old Colt (1946)
United States Horse of the Year (1946)
Honors:
United States Racing Hall of Fame (1964)
#33 - Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century
Seemingly it used to be common for trainee officers at Sandhurst to carve their names into the brickwork of Camberley's obelisk. Including a certain W. Churchill, whose name can be seen in this photo - I've looked for it before without success, but it was easy to spot today...
These extraordinary, seemingly prehistoric insects belong to the same order of insects as lacewings and owlflies. They get their name from their mantis-like appearance, as their spiny "raptorial" front legs are modified to catch small insect prey and are very similar to the front legs of mantids. The adults are predatory insects that are often nocturnal.
This is a very tiny species of mantisfly. Others are quite large.
Pu'er, Yunnan, China
see comments for additional image (different individual).....
On January 18 a tantalizing sunset was captured in this snapshot. Seemingly sliced into many horizontal layers the Sun shimmered moments before it touched the horizon, setting over the Pacific Ocean as seen from the mountaintop Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Pink hues of filtered sunlight were created by the long sight-line through the hazy atmosphere. But the remarkable layers correspond to low atmospheric layers of sharply different temperature and density also along the line of sight. Over a long path through each layer the rays of sunlight are refracted strongly and create different images or mirages of sections of the setting Sun. via NASA ift.tt/2j1W42F
After seemingly years of missing out on the CSX business train, I finally was able to pull off a shot! CSX F40PH 9998 leads the train south through Glenwood, IL
Above: Vultan shrewdly bargains with Ming.
Starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Priscilla Lawson, Frank Shannon, Richard Alexander, James Pierce, John Lipson.
Flash Gordon begins with the strange planet Mongo hurtling towards Earth on a collision course. People across the world, from London to darkest Africa, are panicking as their seemingly certain doom draws near. One of the doomed Earthlings, polo player and all-around athlete Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe) is flying home from college to be with his scientist father (Richard Tucker) at the end. A meteor shower, one of the side effects of Mongo’s ever-nearer approach to the Earth, begins to fall around the plane, and the passengers are forced to bail out. Flash assists pretty fellow passenger Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) with her parachute, and the two land together near a remote laboratory–the lab of brilliant scientist Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon). Zarkov, a former colleague of Flash’s father who is regarded as a loony by other members of the scientific community, has been working on a rocket ship in which he intends to fly to Mongo and attempt to find a way to stop the planet’s impending collision with Earth. Zarkov confronts Flash and Dale, and after overcoming his initial suspicion that Flash has been sent to sabotage his project, Zarkov asks Flash to accompany him on the flight, taking the place of Zarkov’s assistant, who has fled rather than assist Zarkov on what seems a fool’s errand. Flash agrees to go along, and Dale (after some objections from Zarkov) comes along too.
Arriving on Mongo, our heroes are shortly taken prisoner by the soldiers of an Emperor Ming, who is the supreme ruler of the universe (at least according to the captain of Ming’s soldiers). The trio is brought before Ming (Charles Middleton) in his enormous castle, and the sinister ruler reveals that he is deliberately directing Mongo towards the Earth, planning to wipe out the planet (apparently from sheer maliciousness). Zarkov, as a delaying tactic, manages to convince Ming to eschew the destruction of Earth and plan a conquest of it instead, but new trouble instant erupts when Ming gets a look at Dale. He promptly decides to marry her, but the Emperor is so unwise as to clutch Dale’s arm, leading Flash to rough Ming up. Ming promptly orders Flash thrown into the Arena of Death, where our hero must fight three humanoid ape-like creatures. Winning the struggle, he is dropped down a trap door by the enraged Ming, but is rescued through the intervention of Ming’s daughter Princess Aura (Priscilla Lawson), who has almost immediately fallen in love with Flash. This is simply the prelude to thirteen chapters’ worth of high adventure on Mongo, as Flash attempts to keep Dale out of Ming’s clutches and Zarkov, slyly maneuvering against Ming even while working in the despot’s laboratories, attempts to figure out a way to block Ming’s ambitions and safely return himself and his friends to Earth. Along the way, our heroes will encounter Lion Men, Shark Men, and Hawk Men, as well as Fire Dragons, giant lizards, Orangopoids, Tigrons, and Octosacs.
Flash Gordon is probably the most popular and certainly the best-known of all movie serials, and both its popularity and its fame are well-deserved. Flash has all the strengths of the other good 1930s Universal serials–strong performances, unabashedly emotional moments, colorful characters, and expansive sets. Add to those strengths fantastic and imaginative props, locales, and creatures, the likes of which are not to be found in any other cliffhanger, and you begin to see why Flash Gordon has remained the best-remembered chapterplay of all. The serial throws one villain, monster or gadget after another at its protagonists, but is so well-paced as never to seem frantic or overcrowded; even its few slow spots are made interesting by the actors, their characters, and the fantastic world that surrounds them.
Flash Gordon was reportedly budgeted at over $300,000, a practically unequalled budget for a serial, and this alone sets it apart from its competition. The serial’s costumes, props, and miniatures are all on a far more impressive scale than those of other 1930s serials (although the miniatures are not quite as convincing as those at Republic Pictures). The serial also makes good use of some impressive re-decorated sets from Universal’s bigger-budgeted films (among them the Frankenstein and Dracula films and the silent Hunchback of Notre Dame). This lavish–for a serial–deployment of resources gives Flash more atmosphere than any other cliffhanger, helping to make the many weird locales of Mongo–Ming’s gadgetry-filed laboratory and enormous throne room, King Vultan’s floating sky palace with its gigantic atom-furnace room, the Shark Men’s underwater citadel, the monster-haunted tunnels beneath Ming’s fortress–convincingly otherworldly.
The cinematography of Flash Gordon futher augments the serial’s atmosphere with some strikingly stylish camera angles, particularly in Flash’s fight with the “monkey-men” in the first chapter, Zarkov and Ming’s first laboratory conversation, sequences of various characters hurrying through the tunnels, and Ming’s dramatic entrance into the Fire Tunnel in the final chapter. I’d hazard a guess that these unusual shots are the work of director Frederick Stephani, a German-born director whose only chapterplay was Flash; the serial’s cinematographers, Richard Fryer and Jerry Ash, are two cliffhanger regulars whose other entries in the genre never looked like this.
Supposedly Ray Taylor directed many portions of this serial, though he’s uncredited on screen; perhaps Taylor was needed to assist Stephani, who presumably was unfamiliar with the serial format. If Stephani is behind the more artistic-looking moments in Flash Gordon, we probably have Taylor to thank for the serial’s swift pace and for its well-done action sequences. While the serial contains no elaborate fistfights, it is not lacking in derring-do; Flash’s battle with the monkey-men is quite lengthy and exciting, as is a later fight in the water with a group of Shark Men and Flash’s wrestling match with the Shark Men’s King Kala. Flash’s big swordfight with the Masked Champion of Mongo and his subsequent battle with the Orangopoid are also played for all they’re worth, while Flash’s fight with the Sacred Tigron (a very large tiger) is memorable as well, though it’s hard to believe that our hero can emerge from the struggle without even a scratch. The sequence where an invisible Flash, with the help of King Vultan of the Hawk Men, takes on a squad of Ming’s guards is also exciting and rather amusing as well, with the boisterous Vultan laughs heartily while the unseen Flash wreaks havoc among the guards. Some of the stunt work seems to be handled by Crabbe himself, while he is doubled in other scenes by Eddie Parker; Tom Steele, Lane Chandler, and Jerry Frank also participate in the action scenes, while Ray Corrigan turns in another one of his delightful ape portrayals as the Sacred Orangopoid that Flash must fight.
One shouldn’t forget to give the screenwriters–director Stephani and the more experienced Basil Dickey, George Plympton, and Ella O’Neill–credit for the many good things in Flash Gordon. Occasionally the dialogue sounds rather pompous and unnatural, particularly Flash’s challenge to King Kala (“If I could not defeat a weakling like you, I would gladly welcome death!”); such lines sound like attempts to emulate the style of the beautifully-drawn but clunkily-written Flash Gordon comic strip. However, the grandiose dialogue, though it sounds inappropriate for Flash, seems just right and adds to the larger-than-life feel of the serial, when spoken by more baroque characters like Ming, Dr. Zarkov, the High Priest of Tao, or King Vultan. There are some funny lines among the grandiose ones as well, mainly spoken by the roistering King Vultan and occasionally by the sardonic Ming (when he learns that Dale has been carried off by Vultan’s Hawk Men, Ming dryly comments that Vultan will “undoubtedly compel the Earth girl to marry him. He makes a habit of it.”)
Again following the Gordon comic strip, the serial incorporates romance into its plot far more than any other sound chapterplay does. Ming’s interest in Dale, Flash and Dale’s mutual attachment, Aura’s attraction to Flash, and Barin’s love for Aura, all play important parts in the plot and allow for some unusually emotional moments, particularly in the scene in which a practically hysterical Princess Aura threatens to put out Flash’s eyes with a blowtorch unless he renounces Dale, only to drop the torch in tears when Flash remains unmoved by the threat. Most plot summaries of Flash risk making it sound like an outer-space soap opera at times, but its romantic elements remain muted, bringing added interest to the action but never stifling it.
The serial’s chapter endings are a memorable and varied lot, with Flash being, at different times, apparently drowned by an Octosac, electrocuted in King Vultan’s “sonic room,” crushed by a Gocko (a lobster-like dragon) and fried by a Fire Dragon, among other perils. The Gocko and the Fire Dragon, who seem to bear a family resemblance though they are clearly not identical species, are fairly impressive “suitimation” creatures (to borrow a term from Dave Sindelar of the Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings site). Both look a bit unwieldy but genuinely scary (particularly their heads); both were played by Glenn Strange, and both are skillfully made to look bigger than they are through well-done miniature work.
The giant “slurposaurs” (to borrow another Sindelar term)–in other words, iguanas photographed in miniature sets–are also pretty well-done for low-budget effects and are far more effectively integrated into the action than the “slurposaurs” in bigger-budgeted films like Irwin Allen’s The Lost World. The space-ship miniatures, though a bit toylike in appearance at times, are good, and I appreciate the special effects department’s effort to make the ships of the various planets and countries distinct from each other–Zarkov’s Earth space-ship, Ming’s rocket fleet, and the Lion Men’s “gyro-tops” are all differentiated in appearance. The Shark Men’s city too much like what it is, a table-top set (particularly in the shots of its partial destruction by flood), but King Vultan’s floating city is a memorable visual effect.
Although, as mentioned above, Buster Crabbe is occasionally saddled with some difficult dialogue, his Flash is one of the most likable serial heroes of all time. Unlike most cliffhanger protagonists, Flash, though stronger, braver, and nobler than most people, doesn’t seem much smarter or more level-headed than the average fellow, which makes him a lot easier to identify with. He continually rushes into danger head-first, and gets out of trouble either by sheer pluck or through the assistance of Dr. Zarkov or Princess Aura. His good-natured and casual acceptance of danger is also very appealing, as when he cheerily agrees to accompany Zarkov on his possibly suicidal space mission, or when he nonchalantly reassures Dale before asking Zarkov to turn him invisible for a foray into Ming’s throne room. And, of course, Crabbe the champion swimmer can handle the various athletics and acrobatics required of a serial hero quite convincingly.
Jean Rogers’ Dale Arden is a pleasure to watch; her stunning beauty has never been seen to better advantage. Her acting is also excellent, particularly in her reactions to the bizarre terrors of Mongo; critics have always seemed compelled to make silly comments about her propensity to scream and faint in times of danger or emotional stress, but one can hardly blame Dale for reacting with horror to some of the sights she sees (among them giant lizards, the Tigron, and King Vultan’s pet bear). Rogers’ Dale is so sweet and lovable right from the start, and has so much feminine warmth and charm, that I’m left scratching my head over those commentators who have treated her as an annoyance or an irritant. She’s as fully appealing a heroine as Flash is a hero.
Many serials divide the villainy between a “brains” heavy and an “action” heavy; Flash Gordon is one of the only cliffhangers that features what could be called a brains hero/action hero team. While it’s Flash that always handles the physical challenges, it’s Frank Shannon’s Zarkov who continually handles the mental challenges, whether it be creating various scientific devices to save a situation or formulating a plan to rescue his friends from various dangers. Shannon’s kindly but dignified countenance and his intense, serious delivery help him to bring real credence to the most impossible-sounding technical dialogue and help him to deliver fatalistically determined dialogue and stern, confident commands–like his ultimatum to King Vultan when the Hawk Men’s city is about to fall to Earth–in suitably impressive style.
The serial’s heavy is fully as remarkable as its protagonists. Whether sitting on his throne or stalking about in his flowing robes, always with a perpetual scowl and a hint of a cruel sneer, Charles Middleton’s Ming the Merciless is justly the most legendary villain in serials. Middleton makes Ming properly irritable and domineering, and at the same time very sly and subtle; he seems equally willing to use brute power or craft and misrepresentation to gain his ends. The sardonic “heh” with which Middleton punctuates his lines is priceless, as are the arrogant assertions of supreme power that he hurls at his enemies and his displays of autocratic temper, as when he irritatedly orders his High Priest, who has been badgering him about propitiating the Great God Tao, to the dungeon (“Take this babbling idiot away!”).
Priscilla Lawson is also very good as Ming’s daughter, and conveys as much conviction and believability as it is possible to give to such an oscillating character. Aura can be very unpleasantly aggressive, which is what one would expect of the daughter of a tyrant like Ming, but Lawson does not make the character so hard and mean that her occasional moments of softness–and her ultimate conversion to the side of the good guys–seem out of character.
Richard Alexander has one of the most unusual roles of his career as Prince Barin, the rightful heir to the throne of Mongo who allies with Flash against the usurping Ming. Alexander, usually a rough and tough action heavy (see Zorro Rides Again), handles his atypical part quite well, giving his character a proper air of royal dignity and command. He’s more effective when uttering terse lines, however, since he does seem to stumble over his more high-flown pieces of dialogue at times,. James Pierce, a silent screen Tarzan, is Flash’s other principal ally, Prince Thun of the Lion Men, also an antagonist of Ming. Pierce is likably rough-hewn and not particularly regal in manner–but that seems to fit with his character, since the Lion Men appear to be a more primitive people, “barbarian” holdouts against the technocrat Ming.
As interesting as all these characters are, however, John Lipson’s King Vultan of the Hawk Men nearly succeeds in stealing the serial whenever he’s onscreen. An enormously fat and muscular man, even bigger than Richard Alexander, complete with a huge pair of wings, Vultan’s charisma is equal to his physical presence. The character initially seems to be a villain, terrorizing Dale Arden and forcing Flash and Thun to slave in his atom furnaces, but he’s so jovial and boisterous (with an incredibly hearty laugh) that we rather like him in spite of his actions. The sequence where he treats Dale and Aura to dinner and seems to find it hard to believe that Dale is not interested in food is hilarious, as is his subsequent comment when Dale faints at the sight of Flash in the atom furnace (“Hmm! She is weak; she did not eat enough food!”) Also not to be missed are his impudent defiance of his ostensible overlord Ming and his attempt to entertain the dispirited Dale by making shadow pictures on the wall. Vultan, if a bit of a scoundrel, subsequently proves to be fair-minded where his word of honor is concerned, becoming the Earth people’s champion after Ming cheats on a promise to free them and finally helping our heroes in the defeat of Ming. It’s easy to accept Vultan’s joining the side of good, since we’ve liked him so much even when he was being bad.
Duke York Jr. only appears in three episodes, but is quite good as the smirking, hot-tempered King Kala of the Shark Men, who seems to be a once-powerful ruler reduced to dependence on Ming and determined to forget his reduced circumstances by being as nasty as possible to anyone who crosses his path. Theodore Lorch (who oddly takes over the part from the mild-mannered Lon Poff halfway through the serial) is incredibly but enjoyable hammy as the sly High Priest of Tao, rolling his eyes, leeringly double-crossing everyone, and laughing insanely. The dignified but rather elderly Earl Askam is the long-suffering Officer Torch, Ming’s right-hand man, and distinguished Richard Tucker plays Flash’s father, who makes appearances throughout the serial. George Cleveland also appears as one of Professor Gordon’s colleagues. William Desmond plays King Vultan’s second-in-command and minor B-western star Fred Scott is one of Ming’s guards, while Lane Chandler, Jerry Frank, and House Peters Jr. play Shark Men and Fred Kohler Jr., Glenn Strange, and Eddie Parker can be seen as Ming soldiers, John Bagni is a Hawk Man, Constantine Romanoff and Bull Montana are two of the grotesque “monkey-men,” and Al Ferguson is a laboratory worker of Ming’s.
Flash Gordon represents a near-perfect convergence of superior production values, imaginative scripting, and strong acting, and it’s easy to see how it sparked a tremendous upsurge in serial popularity when it was first released–and how it again led to revived interest in the serials when it appeared on TV in the 1950s, helping to keep the genre fresh in the minds of succeeding generations. Of all cliffhangers, it is easily the most famous and the most historically important, as well as being one of the greatest.
Seemingly analogous to the well known saying 'taking coals to Newcastle', 66512 is seen here at Pilning taking coal into South Wales via the Severn Tunnel. The train is (I believe) the 0925 Avonmouth to Aberthaw Power Station.
A seemingly holy light catches the gold leaf frame surrounding 'The Glory of Christ'; painted by expressionist artist Stephen B Whatley.
The artist is pictured here with Mrs Helen Howley, Parish Secretary of St Thomas More RC Church, in Eastcote, Middlesex, UK; at the opening of the newly refurbished Church Hall, by Archbishop Vincent Nichols, in May 2012.
'The Glory of Christ' is now on loan at the church; awaiting donations to acquire the work of art, as part of the church's collection.
Photograph: courtesy of Helen's husband, Mr Steve Howley
The Glory of Christ - Easter Day 2008 by Stephen B Whatley
Oil on canvas
30 x 24in/76 x 61cm
While out on State after a seemingly long shift at work, I was graced with the sounds of a violin coming from somewhere on the street. As I walked, the sound grew louder and coming around the corner near the historical society I found the source. I reached into my camera bag for a handful of coins to give to the busker, after dropping the coins in his case he stopped playing to inform me that he was performing a piece from "Madama Butterfly." While it was a tranquil work, unfortunately the story is not as it may seem. Briefly shaking hands, he introduced himself to me as Texas Fred, "the best stand up comedian in Chicago," descending from a lineage of teachers and preachers.
I was inquisitive to know when he had started playing the violin. As it turns out, his father was an orchestra conductor and he has been playing since 6th grade (1957-58). Quite a length of time to be involved with music, and not only does he play a violin; he can play saxophone (money maker) and the guitar. While he had the sax with him, I was honored to hear him play his original instrument that got him started with music.
Upon pulling out my notebook to take notes of our encounter, Fred asked me if I was a reporter. I answered a yes/no explaining that I run a photo blog of the people/places/things that make up the Isthmus. At this point I knew in the back of my head I was hoping to include him as stranger number 106 in my 608 strangers project. He agreed to let me take his photo, as most buskers do, and as we worked with a few different angles he told me that the Atlantic Monthly had just written a blurb about him; "Life With Legal Weed," so I am not the first (nor likely the last) to find Texas Fred to be a unique individual.
The reason for his visit to Madison was simple, as his daughter "DJ Cleo" had a gig at the Inferno and he came up to support her. His current home is in Hammond, Indiana (just outside of Chicago) without having the high cost of living that the Windy City does he enjoys it. Aside from the preachers and teachers lineage he did also explain that he is an American Indian, as he dislikes the term of "Native American." Before parting ways, he led me to his car and gave me a few of writings (carried in an old fashioned briefcase). We parted knowing we may never cross paths again, but we knew that we no longer were strangers.
I suggest anyone who is looking for a fun project to expand their photography, check out the 100 strangers group here on Flickr. While I took photos of strangers before, joining the group really helped me venture outside my comfort zone. It's also full of really talented people whom I am honored to know, so check it out (there is no deadline for reaching 100, so you can go at your own pace)
106/100
A bee is seemingly very happy collecting pollen from this tulip in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
The image is seen best when viewed large, on black. Press "L" on your keyboard to view large on black.
More of my images can be viewed (and purchased!) at Gary Grossman Photography - www.garygrossmanphotography.com or www.zenfolio.com/ggman.
Seemingly tired enough, the man is getting rest -regardless where he is lying on....!!
Few images have been taken at the Karachi Cantt. Railway Station...!!
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