This is a LONG one, so don't feel any obligation to read below. It's no big deal, just our friendship hangs in the balance.

 

It started off innocuously enough. A trip to the coast hosted by the Turners had been a much anticipated gem on the calendar for several weeks, and the promise of relatively dry conditions put a little extra spring in my accelerator foot crossing the coastal mountain range. It turned out our buddy Andrew was going to be at the coast as well, so a little coordination was sure to yield some good times. Don't all stories of death and terror start out just so?

 

We settled into our shooting positions around these rocks, and took stock of the ripening conditions, senses tingling with anticipation. If you think this sunset was pretty good, you should have seen it off to the right! Unfortunately, my standard comp scramble to find something in that direction yielded the usual, trash-able results.

 

As I hadn't shot in about a month, I attributed my sunset-panic-flounder to lack of practice. Warmups out of the way, my confidence was swelling the next morning as we tumbled down 101 in the dark to meet Andrew at Yachats, where he had some channels to show us. The slowly brightening world quickly squashed any hopes of a colorful sunrise, but a scramble down the 30 foot, steep, boulder wall was definitely in order. If nothing else, this would be a fantastic opportunity to scout some future locations. After playing "wave dodge" with varying degrees of success, I was taken with the water plumes ripping off the tops of the waves in the strong offshore winds. The better vantage point was definitely above.

 

As I grappled up the rocks, I marveled at the feat of engineering and erosion control that these rather massive boulders represent. I don't know how successful they will be at holding back the unrelenting sea, but it looked like a heck of a try.

 

Finally an opportunity to mount the 70-200! Such a trusty lens.... sharp as a tack, epic build quality. Using it makes me feel manly. Feeling my fingers go numb in the frigid windchill instantly clubs that manly feeling over the head, and after mounting camera, lens, and tripod I went back into my camera bag for my polarizer.

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I detected motion. Instinct and cat-like reflexes took over. Well, at my weight, it's more of a cow-like reflex, but it WAS instantaneous. Unfortunately, that instinct was to flinch, duck, and cover my head, much as I've done in the cockpit when a bird or some poor kid's balloon goes whizzing by the cockpit window at 300 mph. I uncovered my eyes just enough to watch the graceful arc of my camera lifting off like the Space Shuttle and heading out over the cliff in a silent, perfectly parabolic arc.

 

I've seen this before, having watched Kevin McNeal's camera sail off Rowena and smash into a million pieces on the rocks below.

 

A gruesome fact: by far the most common last word recorded on airplane cockpit voice recorders that crash is "SH&T". That cold January morning, I learned what I will say if ever faced with a major crisis. I said three "SH&T"'s, one for each boulder I watched my camera gear bounce off of before coming to rest 25 feet below on the rocks. Andrew heard it bounce.

 

Frantically scrambling down the cliff, I let out a constant gale of expletives at the murderous winds that had taken the life of my Canon 5D II, Canon 70-200L, Gitzo 1325 Tripod, and BRAND NEW RRS BH-55 Ballhead. I don't even want to think about doing the math to calculate how much money we are talking about here.

 

Are you ready for this? It lives. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but my camera gear is in one piece. There are a few scratches and dings, and one scrape on the element of my lens, but somehow the L-Bracket on my camera and my tripod took the brunt of the shock force trauma. If you had witnessed the massacre, you would have bet me $1 Million that it would be in pieces on the rocks below. I'm telling you, it was a religious experience. Talk about a tough camera!! Way to go Canon!!

 

The cynic in me says that the inner workings of my camera are hanging on JUST long enough to get me out to some remote corner of Death Valley before they give me a cackle, a thump, and then die.

 

I guess I'm not supposed to put my website address here, so it's in My Profile if anyone cares.

Little Egret just landed

Bald Eagle nabs at alewife at the fish ladder.

by jonathantcoleman ift.tt/1STaw9m

Italian postcard.

 

Sophia Loren (1934) rose to fame in post-war Italy as a voluptuous sex goddess. Soon after, she became one of the most successful stars of the 20th Century, who won an Oscar for her mother role in La ciociara (Vittorio De Sica, 1960).

 

Sophia Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in the charity ward of a Roman hospital in 1934. She was the illegitimate daughter of construction engineer Riccardo Scicolone and piano teacher and aspiring actress Romilda Villani. Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry Romilda, leaving her without support. Romilda, Sofia, and sister Maria returned to Pozzuoli to live with Sofia's grandmother. Pozzuoli was a small town outside Naples and one of the hardest hit during World War II. The family shared a two-room apartment with the grandmother and several aunts and uncles. The shy, stick-thin girl regularly went hungry and had to flee from bombings. At 14, Sofia had a voluptuous figure and entered a beauty contest. She was selected as one of the finalists but did not win. In 1950, she was one of the contestants in the Miss Italia competition. She earned 2nd place and was awarded ‘Miss Eleganza’. While attending the Miss Rome beauty contest, earlier in 1950, she had met judge Carlo Ponti, an up-and-coming film producer, 22 years her senior. Ponti had helped launch Gina Lollobrigida's career and now began grooming Sofia for stardom. He hired an acting coach to tutor her. At 16 she was in her first film, the Totó comedy Le Sei Mogli di Barbablù/Bluebeard’s Six Wives (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1950) under the name Sofia Lazzaro. She also appeared as an extra in Luci del varietà/Lights of the Variety (Federico Fellini, 1950), the smash hit Anna (Alberto Lattuada, 1951), and Quo Vadis (Mervyn Leroy, 1951). During the early 1950s, she secured work modelling for fumetti magazines. These comic-like magazines used actual photographs. The dialogue bubbles were called 'fumetti' - hence the popular name. At 17, she was cast by Ponti in her first larger role as the commoner who caught the prince's eye in the filmed opera La Favorita/The Favorite (Cesare Barlacchi, 1952). The next year she earned third billing after Silvana Pampanini and Eleanora Rossi-Drago in La Tratta Delle Bianche/The White Slave Trade (Luigi Comencini, 1953) and she played, complete with blackface and an Afro, the lead in another filmed opera, Aida (Clemente Fracassi, 1953) by Giuseppe Verdi. Her singing was dubbed by Renata Tebaldi. Ponti eventually changed her name to Sophia Loren.

 

Sophia Loren appeared for the first time with Marcello Mastroianni in the romantic comedy Peccato che sia una canaglia/Too Bad She's Bad (Alessandro Blasetti, 1954). They would make 13 films together, including Tempi nostri/A Slice of Life (Alessandro Blasetti, Paul Paviot, 1954), La bella mugnaia/The Miller's Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955), and La fortuna di essere donna/What A Woman (Alessandro Blasetti, 1956). L'Oro di Napoli/Gold of Naples (Vittorio de Sica, 1954), an anthology of tales depicting various aspects of Neapolitan life, was distributed internationally. At AllMovie, Jason Ankeny writes that in reviews "Loren was singled out for the strength of her performance as a Neapolitan shopkeeper, surprising many critics who had dismissed her as merely another bombshell". The film established her persona as a sensuous working-class earth mother. It also began a fruitful, career-long collaboration with De Sica. Sophia’s first film to find international success was La Donna del Fiume/The River Girl (Mario Soldati, 1955), in which she danced sensually the Mambo Bacan. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Through it all, Sophia Loren looks like a million lire - and she even gets to sing and dance!". She came to the attention of Stanley Kramer who offered her the female lead in The Pride And The Passion (Stanley Kramer, 1957) opposite Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. Sophia played a Spanish peasant girl involved in an uprising against the French. This was the turning point in her career, and the film proved to be one of the top US box office successes of the year. Her next English-language film was Boy on a Dolphin (Jean Negulesco, 1957) with Alan Ladd, where she was memorable mostly for emerging from the water in a wet, skin-tight, transparent dress. With her va-va-va-voom image, she became an international film star and got a five-picture contract with Paramount Pictures. Among her Paramount films were Desire Under the Elms (Delbert Mann, 1958) with Anthony Perkins and based upon the Eugene O'Neill play, Houseboat (Melville Shavelson, 1958), a romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant, and the Western Heller in Pink Tights (George Cukor, 1960) in which she appeared for the first time with blonde hair (a wig). Most of these films were received lukewarmly at best.

 

In 1960 Sophia Loren returned to Italy to star in the biggest success of her career, La Ciociara/Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960). She played a widow desperately trying to protect her daughter from danger during WW II, only to end up in a destructive love triangle with a young radical (Jean-Paul Belmondo). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "A last-minute replacement for Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren brought hitherto untapped depths of emotion to her performance in Two Women; she later stated that she was utilizing 'sensory recall,' dredging up memories of her own wartime experiences." Loren won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance, and also the Cannes, Venice ánd Berlin Film Festivals' best performance prizes. Next, she played in Spain Samuel Bronston's epic production of El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961) with Charlton Heston, followed by the De Sica episode of the anthology Boccaccio '70 (Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, 1962). On the strength of her Oscar win, she also returned to English-language fare with Five Miles to Midnight (Anatole Litvak, 1963), followed a year later by The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964), for which she received $1 million. Among Loren's other films of this period are The Millionairess (Anthony Asquith, 1960) with Peter Sellers, It Started in Naples (Melville Shavelson, 1960) with Clark Gable, Lady L (Peter Ustinov, 1965) with Paul Newman, Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Gregory Peck, and Charlie Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with Marlon Brando. Despite the failure of many of her films to generate sales at the box office, she invariably turned in a charming performance and she wore some of the most lavish costumes ever created for the cinema. Her best Italian films include the triptych Ieri, oggi, domani/Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow (Vittorio De Sica, 1963), a comedy that poked fun at a Catholic priest and gently mocked the Italian law on birth control, and Matrimonio all' Italiana/Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964) with Loren as the hooker who lures Mastroianni into marriage.

 

After several miscarriages and a highly-publicized struggle to become pregnant, Sophia Loren gave birth to her son Hubert Leoni Carlo Ponti in 1968. She started to work less and moved into her 40s and 50s with roles in films like De Sica's war drama I Girasoli/The Sunflowers (Vittorio De Sica, 1972), Il Viaggio/The Voyage (Vittorio De Sica, 1974) opposite Richard Burton, and reuniting with Marcello Mastroianni in the mob comedy La Pupa del Gangster/Get Rita (Giorgio Capitani, 1975). An artistic highlight was Una giornata particolare/A Special Day (Ettore Scola, 1977) which earned a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Loren played a bored housewife on the day of the first meeting between Mussolini and Hitler. Left alone in her tenement home when her fascist husband runs off to attend the historic event, Loren strikes up a friendship with her homosexual neighbour (Marcello Mastroianni). As the day segues into night, Loren and Mastroianni develop a very special relationship that will radically alter both of their outlooks on life. When a dubbed version of Una giornata particolare/A Special Day found favour with American audiences, Hollywood again came calling, resulting in a pair of thrillers, The Brass Target (John Hough, 1978) and Firepower (Michael Winner, 1979) which offered her a central role as a widow seeking answers in the murder of her chemist husband. In 1980, Loren portrayed herself, as well as her mother, in Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (Mel Stuart, 1980), a made-for-television biopic adaptation of her autobiography. Actresses Ritza Brown and Chiara Ferrari played Loren at younger ages. She made headlines in 1982 when she served an 18-day prison sentence in Italy on tax evasion charges, a fact that didn't damage her career or popularity. In her 60s, Loren ventured into various areas of business, including cookbooks, eyewear, jewellery, and perfume. In honour of her lengthy career, Loren was the recipient of a special Oscar in 1991. She also made well-received appearances in her final film with Mastroianni, Prêt-à-Porter/Ready to Wear (1994), Robert Altman's take on the French fashion scene, and in the comedy hit Grumpier Old Men (Howard Deutch, 1995) playing a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. In 1995 she received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. At the age of 72, she appeared scantily clad in the 2007 edition of the famous calendar of Italian racing tire giant Pirelli. It made her the oldest model in the calendar's history. The photos by Dutch photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin proved that she was still a major international sex symbol. In 2007 Carlo Ponti died. It had been controversial in her native Italy when Sophia Loren had married her mentor Ponti in 1957. Not only was he 45 to her 23, but he had been married previously, and neither the Catholic Church nor the Italian government recognised his Mexican divorce. Ponti was charged with bigamy, but the charges were dropped when they had their marriage annulled. They continued living together - scandalous at the time - and remarried after his legal problems had been cleared. Ponti and Loren made three dozen films together. They had two children, symphony conductor Carlo Ponti Jr. and film director Edoardo Ponti. After four years off the big screen, Sophia Loren co-starred in a film version of the Broadway musical Nine (Rob Marshall, 2009). She played the mother of famous film director Guido Contini, portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis. According to Jason Ankeny at AllMovie, "Loren proved she still had movie star charisma with a role in Chicago director Rob Marshall's Nine - a lavish tribute to all things Italian." Loren made a two-part television biopic of her early life titled La Mia Casa È Piena di Specchi/My House Is Full of Mirrors (Vittorio Sindoni, 2010), based on of the memoir written by her sister Maria Scicolone. At 80, Sophia Loren returned to the screen in Human Voice (2014) directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. At the presentation at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, 'the timeless beauty' stunned the press once again when she walked on the red carpet in a chic red pantsuit hand-in-hand with her 41-year-old son to promote the short film. Human Voice is based on the play by iconic French playwright Jean Cocteau and sees La Loren play a woman in her twilight years facing revelations from her past. In late 2014, she also presented her first memoir, Ieri, oggi, domani. La mia vita/Today and Tomorrow: My Life as a Fairy Tale. It includes old pictures, letters, and notes detailing encounters with Cary Grant and other film partners. In 2020, Sophia Loren returned to cinema after an 11-year absence. At the age of 86, she played a Jewish Holocaust survivor who befriends a 12-year-old Senegalese orphan in the Netflix film La vita davanti a sé/The Life Ahead, directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. The film is based on the novel 'La vie devant soi' by French author Romain Gary.

 

Sources: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Shyam Dodge (Daily Mail), Jenny (IMDb), Wikipedia, NNDB, TCM, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

The two research rockets in the mission launched two minutes apart, and the first lift-off occurred Nov 10, at 21:36:00 UTC, reaching a apogee of 358 kilometers, while the second launch vehicle reached 144 kilometers

Aymeline Spring 2020 wearing Jason Wu's Successful Journey fashion.

Formerly homeless and in the grip of heroin addiction, John has gone on to become a successful artist with an exhibition in Los Angeles taking place later this year (2015).

The variety of waterfowl and wading birds in Oregon is phenomenal. This set represents a fraction of what can be found there.

This substantial, two-storeyed brick residence was erected in 1902-03 for John Lamb, co-proprietor of the successful Queen Street drapery establishment of Edwards & Lamb, and a businessman with enlightened attitudes toward his employees. Named ‘Home’, (also known as Lamb House) the house has remained in the sole ownership of the Lamb family since its construction. Designed by eminent architect Alexander B Wilson, the residence embraced the Federation Queen Anne style and is recognised as one of Wilson’s greatest domestic works.

 

Kangaroo Point, originally part of the land of the Jagera and Turrbul people, was one of the earliest localities used for colonial purposes following the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement. The Kangaroo Point Cliffs were quarried for their Brisbane tuff, used in building works for the colony, and the area was farmed from 1837. Following the opening of the colony for free settlement in the 1840s, land along the peninsula was offered for sale. Industry and shipping was established along the river front, with modest working-class dwellings dotting the lower-lying areas. By the 1850s, the higher land at Kangaroo Point was attracting wealthy residents who erected substantial homes overlooking the Brisbane River.

 

The highest part of Kangaroo Point was River Terrace, running atop the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. By 1875 the terrace was recognised as ‘beauteous… with its unrivalled coup d’oeil of the great city’, and recommended to visitors for sightseeing. Subdivisions along the east side of the terrace were offered for sale from the 1850s, but the western side was reserved for public purposes, providing a dramatic clifftop promenade between the Kangaroo Point State School and St Mary’s church, at the Main Street intersection, and Leopard Street, a continuation of River Terrace.

 

By the turn of the 20th century Kangaroo Point was a highly appealing residential area, both for its quiet, leafy nature and for its proximity to the city, with ferry and bus services linking the area to the central business district. In 1901, a parcel of eight undeveloped subdivisions on Leopard and Wild streets, at the highest elevation overlooking the Gardens Point, were sold by the mortgagee. The subdivisions surrounded an older residence, ‘Rockfield’, built on the corner of Leopard and Wild streets, circa 1890, for Captain Daniel McGregor. The undeveloped sites had first been offered for sale in October 1852 and granted to John McCabe in 1855. They were transferred to land agent GT Lang in 1882, before they were purchased in August 1901 by John Lamb.

 

English-born John Lamb and his business partner to-be Thomas Edwards arrived in Australia on the ship Cuzco in 1881. After settling briefly in New South Wales, they established a drapery and clothier business in Brisbane’s premier shopping district, Queen Street, in 1884. Edwards and Lamb was one of a number of locally-established drapery firms opened between the 1860s and 1890s, which were the forerunners of Brisbane’s major department stores. By 1888, Edwards and Lamb had made ‘such rapid strides that… it is one of the representative mercantile house of the kind in the colony.’ The firm openly supported workers’ rights, and was actively engaged in the Early Closing Association movement, which campaigned for shorter working hours for retail workers. The movement’s first chair and secretary were both recruited from Edwards and Lamb, and in the 1890s the firm employed Frank McDonnell as a manager-cum-union organiser until McDonnell’s elevation to Queensland Parliament in 1896. This was quickly followed by the passage of the Factories and Shops Act 1896, and the introduction of early closing in its 1900 replacement. McDonnell credited Edwards and Lamb for his success.

 

Following the death of Thomas Edwards in 1897, John Lamb purchased Edwards’ share in the business, and continued it on his own. In 1899, Lamb married Sarah Jeane Stephens in Maryborough, and by 1901 the couple had two children, with a third due in 1902. With his family growing, and his business on firm footing, Lamb purchased the Kangaroo Point sites and moved into temporary accommodation in Leopard Street, pending the construction of a new family residence.

 

Lamb’s timing coincided with a period of steady residential growth in Brisbane. The city had suffered in the 1890s from the combined effects of an economic depression and extensive flooding, and commissions for substantial houses had fallen off. By 1900, the economy was recovering, and businessmen and retailers engaged Brisbane’s prominent architects to design a number of large residences in the inner-city and suburban areas, from Waterton, at Chelmer, circa 1900, for insurance agent Thomas Beevor Steele (architect unknown) (QHR 602340); Drysllwyn, in Auchenflower, c1905, by architect Claude William Chambers, for mining entrepreneur William Davies (QHR 600051); Endrim, at Toowong, 1906, by unknown architect, for tram company director JS Badger (QHR 650071); Turrawan, at Clayfield, 1906, by Hall and Dods, for doctor Arthur Halford (combined surgery/house)(QHR 602452); Cremorne, at Hamilton, circa 1906, by Eaton and Bates, for publican James O'Connor (QHR 600218); Feniton, at New Farm, 1906, by RS Dods, for the Trude family (QHR 650078); to Weemalla, at Corinda, 1909, by RS Dods, for insurance company manager RM Steele (QHR 602820).

 

Lamb engaged architect Alexander Brown Wilson to design his new Kangaroo Point house. Wilson was by then a well-established Brisbane architect, having commenced work with the Queensland Public Works Department in 1875 at the age of 16. From 1882 he was employed as architect FDG Stanley’s principal draftsman, before beginning his architectural training in Brisbane and Europe. He became the first Queensland-trained associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, returning to Brisbane to open his own architectural practice in 1884. He also helped found the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1888, and served four terms as its president. Wilson’s practice quickly developed into a substantial firm, particularly renowned for its church and domestic designs. Prominent examples of Wilson’s domestic work survive in Brisbane, including Leckhampton (1890, QHR 600246), Kinauld (1888, QHR 600225) and Como (1890, QHR 601474), but his most recognised domestic work was his design for John Lamb.

 

In designing Lamb’s house, Wilson put his personal interpretation on the Queen Anne style. Imported from Britain and the United States, Federation ‘Queen Anne’ was the dominant style in Australian domestic architecture for substantial houses at the turn of the 20th century. Popularised by the influential British architect Richard Norman Shaw, who in the 1870s began designing country houses in an eclectic style combining elements from many periods of traditional English rural building, the style was labelled ‘Queen Anne’ after it became popular in America. In Australia, the style was characterised by: red facebrick walls, often with contrasting white painted ornamentation or timber joinery; complex roof forms with towers and multiple gables; Tudor-style half-timber panelling in gable ends; tall brick chimneys; terracotta detailing; and picturesque asymmetry. Roofs were often French Marseilles tile with a detailed ridge or apex. Verandahs featured ornamental posts, brackets, balustrades and valances. Patterns in leadlight windows, doors and fanlights tended to echo the free curves found in nature as the influence of Art Nouveau on the Queen Anne design became increasingly apparent after the 1900s. Although not as popular or extensively used as in Victoria and New South Wales, the Federation Queen Anne style spread to Queensland and was incorporated into designs from the 1890s until the 1940s. In Queensland the style was often applied to traditional timber houses, influencing their roof forms, timber verandah detailing and other ornamentation.

 

Notable Queen Anne features of the Lamb residence include its red brick composition, terracotta shingle tiles, chimney post, turned timber posts, gables of suggested half-timbering and Classical motifs on the three-storey tower.

 

Wilson drew plans for Lamb’s house, and a specification was detailed in September 1901. Wilson’s design for the residence set out a ground and first floor, with a protruding observation tower. It was of brick construction, with a tiled roof featuring half-timbered detailing to gable-ends; and a concrete-finished entrance porch aligned vertically with the observation tower. The front door, accessed by the porch, led to the central staircase via a vestibule, which had a lavatory to one side. On the river (northern) side of the residence was an eastern drawing room and connected western dining room that both featured fireplaces, architraves, large windows, skirting boards and ‘wainscoting’ (dado panelling). On the southern side of the residence was a morning (breakfast) room to the east, which opened onto the front verandah; with the kitchen, scullery and connected service wing to the west. Upstairs, there were six bedrooms, each of a different size; a small housemaid’s store and press; and a bathroom behind the central staircase. An additional stair climbed the observation tower, which had a viewing platform in response to the house’s prominent position atop the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. Externally, there were two water tanks, a service wing, including a washhouse with fuel store and earth closet, and a full-sized tennis court (56 x 17m).[14] Early photographs from the Leopard Street entrance driveway show various concrete render mouldings, including the residence’s name, Home, above the pediment to the entrance porch; and iron entrance gates set within a front fence with polychromatic brickwork and concrete capping.

 

The specifications also clearly distinguished between the primary and other rooms, requiring cedar and ‘fancy wood’ of a wider profile for timber joinery in the public rooms (including drawing, dining and morning rooms, staircase, vestibule and lavatory) and four principal bedrooms; with pine in the two back bedrooms and kitchen. Pressed metal ceilings and / or ceiling roses were to be located in public rooms and principal bedrooms, with leadlight glazing specified for use in a skylight, the front door, vestibule door, cloak-room (potentially describing the lavatory) window, small windows to dining room fireplace, bathroom windows, some verandah doors, and fanlights over dining room and drawing room windows. The drawing room and main bedroom featured bay windows.

 

Wilson called for tenders for the brick villa in March 1902. The house was constructed over a twelve month period by builder William Anthony at a contract price of £3,250. Work was underway by June 1902, when the ‘fine two-storied residence… commanding a beautiful prospect’ was described in the Brisbane Courier as the main work occupying Wilson’s ‘architectural skill’.

 

The eight subdivisions provided a generous 3133m2 site for the house and its features. The house was positioned near the back of the site, taking advantage of the extensive views, with a driveway from Leopard Street curving around the tennis court. The Leopard Street frontage was lined by a polychromatic brick wall and ornate driveway gates, also designed by Wilson. Fig trees were planted along the Leopard Street frontage to the property, with additional trees and gardens along the northern boundary, the tennis court fence and the circular driveway, which terminated in front of the house. A service entrance ran from Wild Street to the kitchen and service wing.

 

The Lamb family house was completed by April 1903, when Mrs Lamb advertised for a general servant from ‘Home, River terrace’. The youngest of the Lambs’ four children was born in 1905; by 1910, Mrs Lamb, with two servants and a children’s nursemaid, advertised for additional help.

 

The attraction of Kangaroo Point as a quiet but centrally located suburb for the well-to-do continued well into the 1920s. Its reputation as a leafy garden suburb was enhanced in the 1910s when River Terrace was planted with a line of fig trees and garden beds, improving the clifftop promenade. A photograph taken of the River Terrace promenade in 1919 displayed both the vegetation improvements and the view, which terminated in Home and its neighbouring house, Edgecliffe. In 1928 the suburb was recognised as one of the ‘garden suburbs of Brisbane’, with ‘handsome residences, well-kept gardens, wide-streets, and tree-lined avenues.’ From the 1930s, however, houses along the peninsula (including a number of historic homes) were removed for the construction of the Story Bridge (1940) [QHR 600240], and the suburb became increasingly busy.

 

Few changes appear to have been made to Home after its construction. Architect Wilson undertook minor repairs to the property in 1911, and a brick garage was added at the Wild Street boundary by 1925, with the circular driveway removed and extended to the garage. A pavilion was later added to the tennis court (extant by 1942). The trees, which had become substantial by the 1940s, were cut back in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

 

John Lamb senior died in 1920, passing the Edwards and Lamb business to his two sons, John and Frank, and the house to his widow, Sarah. Home was mortgaged in 1922 for the sum of £8,000. Three of the Lamb children did not marry, and continued to reside in the large family residence. Both sons worked for the retail firm, while Sarah and her daughters hosted a number of social and fundraising events at the house in the 1920s and 30s, particularly in aid of the nearby St Mary’s Anglican Church. The three unmarried children also purchased the neighbouring Rockfield in 1941. Following Sarah’s death in 1956, ownership of Home passed to her daughters, who remained resident at the house.

 

The Lamb family business – known both as Edwards and Lambs and simply Lamb’s – operated successfully into the mid-20th century, as one of the renowned Queensland draperies which dominated the state’s retailing market until the 1950s. From the small Queen Street store, it expanded to a large commercial operation with a mail order business for country customers, and was ‘always assured of patronage, especially from country people, who know they are dealing with a reputable establishment’. Until 1921 it relied on word-of-mouth, rather than advertising, for its business. Edwards and Lambs’ premises were extended in 1932 and 1938, doubling the floor size and improving the layout, until it developed a ‘world-wide reputation’ by 1949. A Victory Farm was established at Holland Park during WWII, changing to flowers after the war to decorate the business premises. The Lamb brothers also continued to operate Edwards and Lamb with attention to the welfare of its employees, providing a superannuation scheme and mutual benefits society; additional Christmas holidays; and an extra week’s pay on the firm’s 60th anniversary. As neither a private nor public company, the business was the responsibility of the Lamb brothers, and after both passed away, the firm was sold to Factors Ltd. The sale coincided with the demise of the Queensland-based retailers in the 1960s, when they were superseded by drive-in suburban shopping centres, and sold to large southern retailers.

 

Home’s prominent position and striking style have made it a Brisbane landmark. As early as 1906 the ‘fine residence’ was considered worthy of note amongst the ‘suburban beauties’ of Kangaroo Point, and the ‘stately home’ featured as one of Brisbane’s newer homes photographed for the Queenslander in 1927. Home has featured in numerous publications, including Salon, the Architectural Journal of New South Wales; Towards the Dawn; 150 years of Brisbane River Housing; architectural sketches; blog posts and tourism websites; and picture postcards of the city. Visible along two stretches of the Brisbane River, as well as from the Botanic Gardens, Kangaroo Point Cliffs and South Bank, it has attracted the attention of tourists, and the house was dramatically floodlit for the Royal Visit in 1954. In 2010, Home was recognised by the Australian Institute of Architects as a nationally significant work, as an important landmark, the best known residential work of Wilson, and arguably Brisbane’s most distinguished Queen Anne styled mansion.

 

**Queensland Heritage Register**

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The Avro Lancaster is the most famous and successful RAF heavy bomber of World War II A total of 7,377 were built between 1941 and early 1946. Of these, some 3,500 were lost on operations and another 200 or so were destroyed or written off in crashes.

 

The performance of the Lancaster was simply outstanding. It could carry a maximum bomb load of 22,000 lb, its maximum level speed with a full load at 15,000 feet was 275 mph and it could cruise routinely at altitudes above 20,000ft at a range speed of 200 mph. With a full bomb load the aircraft had a range in excess of 1,500 miles.

 

PA474 is one of only two Lancaster aircraft remaining in airworthy condition, the other is in Canada with the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Hamilton, Ontario. PA474 rolled off the production line at the Vickers Armstrong Broughton factory at Hawarden Airfield, Chester on 31 May 1945, just after the war in Europe came to an end, so she was prepared for use against the Japanese as part of the ‘Tiger Force’. However, the war in the Far East also ended before she was deployed and she did not take part in any hostilities.

 

After a period in storage, PA474 was converted for photo-reconnaissance work; modifications for these duties included being stripped back to a bare metal (silver) finish and the removal of all her gun turrets. She was then assigned to aerial survey duties with No 82 Squadron in East and South Africa from September 1948 until February 1952.

 

On return to the UK, PA474 was loaned to Flight Refuelling Ltd at Tarrant Rushton to be used as a pilotless drone, an uncertain future, which would likely have led to her loss. Fortunately, before the conversion started, the Air Ministry decided to use a Lincoln for the drone programme and PA474 was reprieved. She was then transferred to the Royal College of Aeronautics at Cranfield where she was used as a trial platform for the testing of various experimental aerofoil sections between 1954 and 1964; the trial wings being mounted vertically on the upper rear fuselage.

 

In 1964 PA474 was adopted by the Air Historical Branch with a view to putting the aircraft on display as a static exhibit in the proposed RAF Museum at Hendon. She was flown to Wroughton where she was painted in a camouflage paint scheme, though without squadron markings, and it was during this period that the aircraft took part in two films, ‘Operation Crossbow’ and ‘The Guns of Navarone’.

 

Later in 1964, she was moved to RAF Henlow and grounded in preparation for display at the RAF Museum. In 1965, Wg Cdr D’Arcy, the CO of 44 Squadron (then flying Vulcans at RAF Waddington) asked permission for PA474 to be transferred into the care of the Squadron. An inspection found that the aircraft was structurally sound so permission was granted for PA474 to make a single flight from Henlow to Waddington, which it completed in August 1965.

 

At Waddington a restoration programme began on the Lancaster and by 1966 work was progressing well with both the front and rear turrets in place. Permission to fly PA474 regularly was granted in 1967, whilst restoration continued.

 

The Lancaster joined the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in November 1973 and restoration work on various parts of the aircraft has continued ever since. A mid-upper turret was discovered in Argentina and was brought to Britain aboard HMS Hampshire; it was fitted to PA474 in 1975. In the same year, the aircraft was adopted by the City of Lincoln, permission being granted for her to display the City’s coat of arms, which will always be displayed on PA474 regardless of what colour scheme she wears.

 

For a period PA474 wore the markings of Lancaster EE139 the ‘Phantom of the Ruhr’, with the aircraft’s No 100 Squadron code letters ’HW-R’ on the port side, and the 550 Squadron codes ‘BQ-B on the starboard side. EE139 was one of only 35 Lancasters that completed more than 100 operational missions – the ‘Centurions’ or ‘Ton-up Lancs’ – most were lost long before achieving such a milestone.

 

However, here she is seen wearing the KC-A markings of 617 Squadron and the Thumper Mk III nose art, originally painted by Flt Lt Bob Knights upon his posting to 617 Squadron. She displays the markings of bombs for operations over Germany, ice-cream cones for operations over Italy, and poppies for when she has released poppies during exhibition flights.

 

Seen whilst conducting a fly-past during the Shuttleworth Collection's 50th Anniversary Air Show in 2013.

Invasion successful - proceed with the attack

Lower Rhine

A very successful post war French electric design was the BB 8100 class which saw exports of the type to other countries most notably the Netherlands which had a fleet of 60 as NS class 1100. French Railways had 171 built between 1949-55 and in the latter years of their service were largely restricted to freight use being rated at 105km/h maximum. By the late 1980's the class was concentrated on two depots Dijon Perrigny and Avignon but they still saw use over a wide area of the SNCF Sud-Est division.

Here BB 8207 approaches Lyon Part Dieu with a southbound freight soon after midday.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

More successful than last time - EWS-liveried 66161 nears it's final destination with 6L47 0818 Mountsorrel Sidings to Trowse Yard - the last time this service ran, on 15th April, 66186 failed at Lakenheath, with the service being turned in Brandon loop and later returned to Mountsorrel. The ensemble is pictured at the confluence of the Rivers Yare at Tas, in Lakenham, South Norwich.

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. David Brinkley

Photographing in the dark woods, in shadows, makes exposure niceties problematic. Subject trumps (er...maybe I need a different word there) exposure. Catching this Robin with a beak full of food was very fortunate.

 

The Wager..

 

…..

Prologue

“Sigh, Here goes it then, “he probably is still at that bar” …… I said with a slight hesitation, but with no whine in me voice ( for the record). I then promptly turned away and moved off , wading my way back inside…

……

The tale

Ten minutes later …

 

I finally was able to make an approach up to the long scarred oaken bar, after weaving my way amongst the countless numbers of mingling guests, all dolled up for the evening. So I guess that is why I was not quite successfully keeping my focus on the task at hand that was inadvertently before to me..

 

Finally reaching me destination, I Ordered an old fashion (with rye ) and sat down next to him and said pleasantly.” how is it going Mate?”

 

He had been studying the dance floor, but at my greeting sighed and pulled himself away to look me up an down with a rather suspicious eye.

 

I met his gaze squarely, still smiling, avoiding the impulse to stare at the lit cigarette dangling from his lip. Being a pipe man meself ,I was a wee bit opinioned when it came to sloppy cigarettes smokers, especially those who left the bloody things cheekily in their mouths at all times.

 

“Wotcher” he said, a bit snidely I thought, since I was just trying to be friendly.

“Do I know you Guv?” He quizzically added.

 

“ Sorry.” I admitted, “ Thought you looked like a bloke I knew up Manchester way.”

 

“Not from there am I , guv !” He stated rather dismissively.

 

I ploughed on… “Well, one can’t always be right, can one?”

 

“Just getting a drink” I continued,” I see yours is out, whatcha be having ?”

 

“Highball” he said smartly, and turned back away. For some reason I was not surprised at the blokes drink of choice.

 

He certainly was most interested in the goings on the ballroom dance floor! I caught the Keeps eye and indicated a refill was in order for my new found ‘mate’.

  

By then I had mine and I took a long, gloriously settling, sip. “That’s better” I sighed, a bit too deeply probably, but my new acquaintance, with full attention back on the ballroom dance floor, paid my comments no heed.

  

He hadn’t asked me name, which was fine by me, kept me from having to remember the one I would have had to ‘ave made up. Nor did I care to know this blokes name either, though I was harboring a pretty good guess that it would be a rather recognizable one, either mentopned from the telly or tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappers.

  

But I could see I had lost the chaps attention….

  

“Pretty” I said following his gaze.

  

“What ‘s pretty ?!” he stated sharply, not diverting his watchful eyes.

  

I noticed that they were a bit shifty, his eyes, like a sly, watchful fox, and that they moved with a rapid constancy. Think a young Trevor Howard with Peter Lorre’s eyes, and you have the chap to a T!

  

“The dancers, mate” I said, “this lot is dressed rather elegantly tonight!.”

  

He peeled his eyes off the dancers twirling and swishing about, and turned slowly to me, a bit scornfully , “what did you expect guv, its full dress tonight, that’s why you and I have these monkey suits on, taint it?”

  

“Indeed sir” , I said agreeably with what I hoped was a winningly sincere voice, though down deep, to meself, I felt this prig deserved anything but politeness. Still I carried on, trying to be friendly.

  

“That lass in the green is pretty” I remarked, nodding in a direction by the far corner of the floor to where a rather petite lady with black hair, prettily clad in a shiny bit of a green gown, black glasses owlishly perched on her nose, and displaying a rather nice little set of shimmering emeralds, was dancing with a bird like bloke wearin ,of all things, a scarlet red vest.

  

“Personally, I like the way her emerald jewelry sets off against her gown!”, I added whilst pointed her out…

  

He had gotten his drink, and I noticed he had half drained it in one gulp, and set it down without a kind word, like say, thank you..! He was on his way to a real bender if he kept up with that pace I thought, eyeing the two other, empty glasses, collected at his elbow on the bar top!

  

He had gone back to his eyeing of the ballroom’s inhabitants, I could see his eyes flitting about.

  

“Whasat” he finally said, “The gangly bird dancing with cock robin? Yah,I suppose so.” He snorted at his own remark.

  

Then looking at me for a long second, he continued on.. “Like her jewels do ya than mate?” he said not bothering to hide the snideness in his comment .. “ Meself, Guv, I notice more than a sweetie’s bloody jewels !” He again chuckled dryly at his presumed wit, I did not choose to join in..

  

“Occupational hazard I guess, noticing jewelery .” ,I admitted, choosing not to expound on my drinking partner’s opinion, “I own a small jewelry shoppe on the village green.” “Nothing much, but it pays one’s rent.”

  

That opened him up a bit….

“I guess than a gent like you would prattle on about jewels” “Is that what brings you alone here these evening?” “I aint seen you out dancing with anyone.” There was definitely insinuation behind his words, but, therin, laid a delicate path I dared not explore, lest my incipient plan blew up in my face.

  

I gave no reply, and after the observation was spoken, let him continue on in his dry, sniping tone that I was beginning to realize was his normal manner of speech!

  

“So you just want a bit of a peek at what you sell guv?” “ Me, I just like lookin at the whole bleedin package, iffin you get my drift !!”

  

And giving me a weaselly little grin, he nudged me with his elbow with a mirthless cackling laugh , then turned his attention raptly back onto the thronging occupants of the dance floor..

  

Spotting a possible opening, I delved into the breach. Sink or swim time.

  

“So what do you do when you are not attending these rather posh affairs?” I asked, trying to keep a wedge in our conversation. Even though the answer was pretty obvious from the blighters manner of dress, and baby smooth manicured fingers!

  

“Nuttin” he said through gritted teeth, never diverting his gaze to me, “Don’t hafta work like a regular Git, gets a small allowance from me father don’t I! Not much though, old parental gents are too cheap by half if you ask me, livin in the stone age where moneys concerned!!” He literally spat out the last few words.

  

“Shame” I sympathetically pretended to agree , “but still”, and raisin my glass, said “cheers to being able to keep a roof over one’s head.”

  

We both drained our glasses in salute and I ordered another round.

  

After we were served, my new ‘friend’ , out of the side of his mouth since his eyes were glued back on the ballroom dancers stated wryly, “You like’n them emeralds? Guv ” , and I could see his eyes were again stuck on watching the lady elegantly wearing,( in me own humble opinion), the green satin offset with her brite glittering emeralds. “A bit too mousey for my taste”, He continued, “ole 4 eyes there, still, I wouldn’t say no to admire’in what she has under that shiny dress!” And he let out another little snort at his crude witticism.

  

Crude apparently being a trademark of all this Bloke’s remarks!

  

I choose to ignore his rather rude comment, and went on, trying to remain unruffled by my new friends rather blunt outlook on the fairer sex !

  

“I admire any gemstones that I can sell my dear sir.” I said causally, delicately, “ but there are other things that I will also allow to command my interest.”

  

“ Wjats you on about then?” He asked, reluctantly taking his eyes from the dance floor and placing his attention fully back onto me, as he looked me over like he had just now noticed I was there!.

  

I remembered thinking, yeah ya bleedin prig, two free drinks and not a thank you in sight. Picked a winner here, I did! But when I spoke, my words and manner of speech did not betray any of me thoughts.

  

“Well”, I admitted rather sheepishly, “In my line of work I come across many alerts from the constabulary about ladies who have had jewels come up missing, and asked to keep an open eye out.”

  

He looked suspiciously at me.. “The bobbies ask YOU about it?” he questioned.

  

“No” I admitted, “all jewelers receive the same circulars.” “But you see, the thing that peaks my curiosity at these events is to try and catch one in action!”

  

“Catch one what guv ?” he asked quizzically.

  

“Thief !“ I announced in a ‘everyone one knows’ tone of voice’,..

  

“You see lad, a good many circulars describe how ladies lose a bit of their jewelry at functions like these from time to time. It is assumed that the expensive pieces just had bad clasps, but me, I am not so sure that is the case, for it appears to happen far too frequently in these parts!”

  

“What else would it be guv?” He asked, his sluggish curiosity, finally, peaking !

  

“Well” I said, leaning in to him rather conspiratorially, “ I have come to a conclusion that there is a fraction of thieves out there that are able to lift jewels being worn by ladies, like these being worn here tonight, without being caught in the act! And I attend functions like these on the off chance to see if my thesis is correct.”

  

“Thesis?” my rather cheeky friend asked, not getting the drift. “

  

I sighed inwardly, thinkin entirely to me self that we will be here all evening if I have to explain everything to this most likely privately schooled, but still uneducated Git! I decided to go easy on the verbage with him from now on !

  

“Theory lad, a belief that, say, our lady yonder in the green frock could possibly be parted from her emeralds by one of her dance partners, if the bloke was of the mindset to acquire them in that manner.”

“And since she wouldn’t be suspecting it, said dance partner may have an eye for her necklace, and slip the emeralds away from around her very throat without her even noticing, until he was either long gone, or the emeralds returned to her !” I explained calmly.

  

“ You sayin guv?” “ that that swarmy cock robin bloke dancin with that skrawny 4 eyed bird, may be after her necklace?”

“Rot!” he smirked , taking his eyes off of the couple and onto me , “nigh impossible to do such a thing!”

“Besides”, he continued on, “ If someone was that interested in her jewels, why not just follow her out and do a complete job of it !?”

  

“A lot more risk involved being caught doin it that way Mate, not to mention it being rather obvious that she is being robbed! No, to do it this way a thief could come away scot free with the goods without any suspicions falling upon himself.” I stated in a quite logical tone of voice.

  

“But, a bloke would have to be a rather quick fingered one, like a pickpocket wouldn’t he now?” He questioned, his eyes back on the dancing couple.

  

And have someone to practice on, I thought to meself before answering…

 

“Nay my good sir,” I assured, “I think it could be done by the most common of thieves, I bet even non-thieves like you or I could do it with some success!”

  

“Blimey mate, your still half cracked barmy for even thinking that way!”

  

He sneered, but I saw him take a long, speculative look at the green satin clad lady, being waltzed merrily along the dance floor, completely unawares that she and her nicely shimmering emeralds had become such a rather unscrupulous topic line of speculation!

  

“Ten quid lad!” I said quietly under my breath.

  

“Whots that then mate?” He perked up while addressing me quizzically, “Tenner for what?”

  

“Ten quid Says I could lift that particular lady’s pretty necklace straight away, and not be caught out in the process?”

  

He thought about it for one long minute, finishing his drink in the meantime. “Don’t know guv, Bobbies may frown upon that!”

  

I countered, trying to set the hook in deep, figuring a bit of creative lying would be in good order to ease away his concerns.

  

“Not if I don’t get caught lad, and that necklace is only a cheap imitation. She probably got it out of a cracker jack box ,and being chintzy, she wouldn’t be surprised at the clasp breaking away an it falling as she danced, if sayin she would happen to noticed my amateur attempt, would she now?”

  

I could see he was mulling something over as I spoke, as his limp cigarette was bobbing up and down still clamped in his pursed lips. It was certainly a long time coming together, this blokes imaginary skills!

  

He finally nodded towards the lady in green, happily being swished around the dance floor in all of her innocence bliss, her emeralds making a nice show of it, sparkling on like they were , just crying out to be noticed and admired, which they were, and perhaps soon that sparkling cry would be hushed by an admirer !

  

“Suppose that gangly 4 eyed bird looks gullible enough to try it out on. Probably too shy, so won’t make too much fuss when she catches you trying!” He looked at me. “ And make no mistake bloke , you will be caught… and then I wouldn’t know you from Adam ! Make it two for one guv, and you are on a bet!” He snarked..

  

And like that, the hook was set ! Though, blimey, I had seen carp from the ‘Myths’ finally taking bait with less subtly!!

  

“Capital!” I acknowledged, “I like a good challenge!”

  

I arose, straightening my jacket and tie, and looking at the lady wearing the green gown, I commented, half encouraging to meself, “You are on lad!” And marched myself off to the dance floor.

  

The current song was ending and I caught up with my quarry as she began nicely swishing her way off the dance floor.

  

I had observed she had been dancing with several different partners , making that note after she had first attracted my interest, and saw she was now, once again, alone.

  

Laying fingers gently upon a green satin clad shoulder, I gently touched her from behind. She turned and with a rather fetching demure look ,caste me a pair of questioning hazel coloured eyes. Said eyes were rather enticingly enlarged by being behind the thick lensed black glasses she was wearing.

  

“Care to dance?” I asked, with some earnest, after all ten quid is ten quid!

  

She smiled, laying upon me an aire of innocence that rather took me aback for an instance…,then said sweetly “I am a bit worn out just now sir”

  

My heart dropped down to my feet at that!

  

Seeing my disappointment, then she continued with a perked smile, placing a gloved hand to her throat and playing with the very necklace, one which decidedly, despite my earlier comments, would not have come from a crackerjack box!

  

“I be guess ‘in that I can’t see what harm one more dance could do, would it then ?”

  

She spoke with a rather soft sort of Irish brogue, that was second generation at best, but had me hooked with its lyrical lilt! “Brilliant!” I said with heartfelt meaning, and led her back to the wooden dance floor as the orchestra was getting ready to start playing again.

  

A slow dance started up and I took her in my arms, keeping a discreet, friendly distance between us.

  

We made small talk, though I avoided talking anything about jewelry. Trying to think like a thief, I was figuring in me mind that if the plan was to be carried out with success, I, and my victim, needed to stay well away off the subject of the jewels she was wearing!.

  

I did, however, manage to steal several discreet glances at her necklace, a pretty thing, thin gold chain, set with a single row of emeralds divided by small sparkly chips of diamonds. It had a loose lay around her neck, bouncing easily along their perch, which was just nicely above the girl’s tightly satin clad chest. By the manner in which the necklace was moving about, It should slip off rather easily, if I was to now be judge of such matters!

  

After a few random comments concerning the evening’s doings, I complimented her on her pretty hair.

  

Which it was, pretty I mean, strikingly black, falling softly down to her shoulders where its curled ends swayed with a most delighting motion, not to mention the long emerald earrings that kept peeking in and out as they swung merrily from her hair.

  

I removed my hand from round her waist and lifted a lock with my left hand in emphasis, taking the opened opportunity to study her necklaces clasp, and to re-set my hand upon her rather sensuous feeling back side, gently laying it nonchalantly just below her shoulder. She appeared not to notice the change.

  

She ate it up, giggling with pleasure, flicking her hair back, sending the pair of those lovely ,longish earrings sparkling alongside her enchanting face, the whole effect made even more lively with those eyeglass magnified, doe like wide eyes!

   

She was quite a vexing, most charming thing, my dance partner, and the conversation flowed easily between us. She appeared to be an absolutely sweetly trusting soul, and I, with some slight reservation, made the most of it!

  

My hand twas still rested upon her back, and I slowly allowed it to travel upwards, watching for any sign of skittishness from my dance partner.

  

But she continued on chatting away, accepting smiles from me as silent answers , which was just as well, for my mind was set on other things, and any conversation requiring me too think out an answer would have intruded on my concentration, hampering me on the way of acquiring her necklace, and winning the ten quid wager!

  

Her long satin gown felt like heaven under my fingertips, and I was beginning to become pleasantly mesmerized by the manner in which it fluidly swished and fluttered around us as we danced. I had been waiting for an opening, when I realized that the dance music was in its final chords..

  

I decided I had go for it now! So I forced out a comment about one of the blokes sitting at the bar ( far from my fellow conspirator!), her eyes sought and found the gent out, then she fetchingly giggled in agreement to my observation.

  

Meanwhile my fingers had deftly reached up to the end of the gold chain hanging down from her necklaces clasp.

  

Ever so slowly I had been pulling it down, like one would a lampshade chain, and the whole affair obligingly slithered quite willingly descended on the slick backside of the smooth surface of its’ mistresses conveniently chosen gown, soon placing the clasp in my grasping fingers.

  

At the same time I was watching the necklace with its flickering emeralds and diamonds, from the front, as her head had been turned towards the bar. I noticed how the necklace was moving up, smoothly slithering along the sleek material of her pretty gown, praying it would not catch and draw her attention! The sparkling little beauty behaved, and gave its’ unawares mistress no fair warning!!

  

We twirled around and I led her to a far corner where a group of fake trees were clustered, giving me a bit of haven from the possibility of being seen making my final move!

  

My earlier peek had showed me that I knew the type of her necklaces’ clasp, now wedged in my fingertips, and having worked on many like it, believed this one presented no problem.

  

So it twas, with surprising ease given me nervousness, the out of sight clasp nicely popped opened, leaving one end of the expensive necklace laying over her shoulder, resting like a shimmery snake in the green grass, as it laid out upon her shiny green gown.

  

Then, in quick fashion, timing it perfectly as the song ended, I bought her willingly into a friendly hug thanking her, whilst at the same moment whisked away her necklace from around the high neckline of her satin gown, smooth as sliding a melting ice cube across the surface of a piping hot griddle! It easily slipped off, then fell safely away and was securely stowed away into a tux pocket before we had fully broke apart.

  

Shamelessly I smiled into her eyes. “Thank you luv, that was rather nice of you !” I told her in all sincerity. Removing my left hand from me pocket, and delicately took her green gloved one up to shake!

  

She looked down at our hands for one brief second, and I eyed the quite glaringly empty spot where her rather fine necklace of emeralds and diamonds had until so very recently had been dangling. Could it really be that easy I thought curiously to meself over it , briefly wondering also what would be in a real thief’s mind at successfully reaching this point!

  

She looked back up and smiled winningly at me as I innocently looked into her eyes. I could a bit guiltily tell she was truly clueless as to what had just transpired. She chirped back with her rich Irish brogue…” Pleasure was all mine, to be sure, kind sir, thank ye for the quite lovely dance, but now its time for a restin of weary feet ya know.” She slipped her hand, hesitantly I thought, from mine.

  

And with that she turned and I watched for a rather few elongated seconds as she swished her way off, almost wishing to meself that at the last minute she would notice the necklaces’ absence.

  

And in me mind I imagined be given a second dance as a reward for finding her lost necklace, or perhaps something even better may come of it …!

  

But she didn’t notice and was gone, soon melting in with the crowd on the opposite fringe of the wooden dance floor. And all my imaginings evaporated with her…

  

I found me heart was pounding, and I forced meself to turn away, and head back before any undue attention was given to me, THERE standing there like a loon with the lady’s still warm necklace in me jackets’ pocket! Some thief! We hadn’t even exchanged names, which would have been a quite natural thing to do if one was trying not to appear doing anything out of the ordinary! It’s a wonder she hadn’t noticed and start to wonder… Maybe she was? And I pictured how she had played with the necklace as I had asked her to dance. Blimey, I wasn’t out of the woods yet, was I!.

  

I made me way quickly to my newly made mate at the bar , intending to collect me winnings.

  

“That was easy!” I lied as I regained my seat and took a long sip of me drink, trying to appear calm..

  

“Codswallop” He said unhappily, not bothering to reach for his billfold! “ Knew the twit was gullible, but not that stupid, she never cought on , did she now?”

  

“Apparently not.” I admitted. “ But it does prove true what I was saying earlier, and if a rank armature like me could pull it off, then just think about what a regular thief could do, rather proved me point, don’t it now!”

  

“Its not Cricket guv.” Was his response, and he drained his glass and set it down sharply

  

He singled to the Barkeep by fidgeting with his empty glass, ordering another. Just for himself, apparently buying others a drink was not in this Blokes mindset, as well as paying off his depts.!

  

“Bye the bye, what do you do now with her necklace guv?” He asked accusingly, looking down at his fresh drink. “Or are you one of them thieves…!?”

  

“Not hardly sir, I’ll turn it over to security at the door, found it just laying here on the floor don’tcha know sir…” I mimicked.

  

Then ,with a co-conspirator’s smile, I lied again.. “Like I said me lad, it’s a cheap bit of rhinestones! Otherwise I probably would have been too nervous to accomplish it!”

  

He hesitated, I could see he was stalling about something, and I rather guessed it was over paying out , on the wager he had lost, which I had hinted at!

  

Not surprisingly, he avoided my hint, by asking one of his own..“ You think anyone can do what you just did guv?”

  

“Certainly mate” I said, “Look, she hasn’t even caught on!”

  

We both looked over at the lady in green. She had reappeared, joining a group at the far end, and no one being actually aware of anything amiss, let alone her own innocent self! Though I had to admit that I found the necklace’s absence from around her throat quite a glaring concern… But I remained calm about it ! The longer she took to notice, the less likely she would connect its loss with our dance, I reasoned with meself, almost feeling into the part of a suave jewel thief one see’s acting out on the telly…!

  

Turning to my co-conspirator, I said, half to convince me self, “I tell you lad, women think their jewels are safe whilst being worn. The last thought any of em would suspect is that someone can lift their jewels off and be away..! That’s my theory on how thieves with light fingers could operate on in my humble, uneducated opinion, and manage to get away jewels for keeps, not just to win ten quid on a bet!”.

  

I could tell that something was churning about in my now, quite liquored, friend’s narrow mind.

  

He turned his eyes away from the lady in shiny green gown, .. “Okay guv, You got away with it, but would youn be willing to double your winnings that It could be done again by you, say what?”

  

“Tell you what lad” I said turning the heat up on the situation. “ Lets make it more interesting, raise the ante to fifty on you trying it yourself next, victim of your choosing, and I will double it if you come clean away?!”

  

He picked up his drink, taking thoughtful sips, still studying my face, as his mind continued churning things about… “Actually guv, 100, two to one , that how sure you are I could do it? “

  

I whistled softly under me breath for emphasis, ”That’s about all I have !” I replied, appearing a bit hesitant.

  

“Com’on Guv, a rich jeweler like yourself!” He nudged me again, and let out a snide cackle, the cigarette still dangling from a sneering lip.

  

“Anyting but rich mate, but you are on!” I pulled out my notecase and counted out £ 100 in a pile, letting him see the thick wad of notes remaining ! “ Yours I said, if you dare try and are successful!”

  

And I shook is hand, watching a rather foxy grin spread all over his weasley face ,he openly drooled over the healthy pile of pound notes, his sodden cigarette bouncing up and down quite vigorously in his pursed lips.

  

Not a good poker player, are ye lad I thought to meself, keeping my face in an easy grin that no way betrayed what I was thinking !

  

I continued on..

“Whom do you have in mind?” I asked looking around with a conspirator’s aire?”

  

Soon I spied a rather easy mark of a gangly young lass, admirably wearin a tawny coloured taffeta gown, her tightly worn frock appearing as slick an easy a material to slip away jewelry off of as the green gown my victim was wearing so winningly! And this lass was wearing a simple, longish string of polished pearls, fastened with an uncomplicated hook –in-eye clasp!

  

I nodded his attention over in her direction, drawing his eyes from the money pile! “That fetchin lass over there in brown, one with them pearls, looks to be an easy enough one, dontcha think?”

  

He shook his head no, “ Nah, I think that blokes ‘er husband , and he looks a rather nasty git!” As he said this, his now drooping eyes had sought out and been staring at someone else.

  

“There, that lass in blue near to her!” he smirked, “the one dancing with the prat in white!”

  

I looked over, and acted as if I had just noticed her, though it had been pretty obvious that she was the one my ‘friend’ had had his watchful eye on all evening. I had just wrote it down to a rather jealous infatuation of a stranger .

  

She was a diminutive lass, rather provocatively wearin a short sky brite blue dress of sleeky silk, tightly outlining her not too un eye pleasing figure.

  

She was also openly sporting a nice collection of diamonds!

  

Authentic diamonds consisting, of a rather eye catching bib like, 3 tiered blazingly rippling necklace with matching earrings and bracelet, all glittering and sparkling with priceless prickles of colourful fire as she moved about. She also was wearing a vulgarly large diamond on her pinky, but all her other fingers were bare.

  

I kept mum about her jewels being risky real, and I wished him good luck, whilst appearing somewhat doubtful he could pull it off.

  

Because, for one, mine at least obligingly had her necklace laid entirely along the collar of her gown, but this one in blue had a ruffled scooped collar, her necklace laid out above totally on the bare skin of her throat!

  

Granted the skin glistened with a bit of sweat, which may make it a bit more doable, but mine had been entirely resting upon her green gown, never touching her warm flesh with it’s cooler gems!

  

This one, I wouldn’t have picked her for a first attempt! Not even a second or third attempt. It would take a master thief ( if they actually existed) to lift away that necklace off from a girl dressed as such! And in spite of all my assurances to my drinking mate, he was no master at anything, even sober, the caddish prig..!

  

That money may be as good as mine, if I could pry his hands from it!!

  

But, in the seconds that me mind played this out, he had quickly gotten up and beelined to her, cutting in abruptly and sending her dance partner wearing the unfortunate white tux, scuttling off.

  

Subtly , not! I thought, bull in a china shop that one!

  

I watched with wonder as they danced, the smoke from his limp dangling cigarette blowing hazy smoke into her face, and she scrunched her nose unhappily each time he did so.

  

He made her dance close, and had wrapped one hand, snake like, up and around her bare shoulder, his lips whispering close in her ears. She looked rather like a skittish colt, but surprisingly appeared accepting of her unfortunate fate of a dance partner.

  

But, by Jove, despite all his cheekiness , lack of sophistication and his victims unease, the twit actually started to pull it off!

  

His hand travelled up along her backside until it reached flesh and gruffly trying to pry open her necklaces jeweled clasp.

  

I really don’t know how she never felt it.

  

But, apparently, she didn’t and before one could blink (or wince), he had the jeweled clasp worked opened and had pulled the glittering necklace of diamonds up and over her shoulder!

  

His backside was now to me, and I watched the necklace, like a shimmering waterfall, drip dangling down from his fist behind her, its glittering diamonds back-dropped nicely by the blue coloured slick material of her dress.. Surprisingly, no one else saw it in the seconds before he managed to stow it roughly away in a side jacket pocket !

  

I watched him turn her around in his arms until he was able to make eye contact with me, and I saw him give me quite the ‘thumbs up’ look of triumph.

  

He then abruptly left her ,not even botherin to finish the song even, the twit was that much in haste!

  

And in that haste to make it back to the money pile, pretty much plowed over the green gowned lass, whose purloined necklace was now residing in my pocket! I reached into that pocket and reassuringly felt that necklace with me fingers as I watched.

  

Now, so abrupt was the encounter on the dance floor, that the poor lass’s glasses were knocked off, and she stumbled against him as she bent down to retrieve them.. He pushed her unsteady figure aside, as she looked up to him for unoffered assistance, causing her to fall onto her knees. As others came to her rescue, he walked away without a backwards glance, and came over to me, smirking widely with a pouncy, self-satisfied look upon his ( rather punch able at that point ) smug face.

  

Pay it up lad he said with a rather churlish grin… and I uneasily picked up the thick pile of notes and handed it to him. Than pulling out my notecase, extracted another £ 100 and handed it over also.

  

Apparently, he had all but forgotten the tenner he owed me for my venturous efforts earlier, but I let that sleeping dog lay quiet like.

  

“Nicely done.” old chap I freely lied , “Don’t forget to turn it in, im sure the lady will eventually be a missing that pretty piece.”

  

“No worries guv, she’ll get it back in due course!” and he slapped me on the backside as he gleefully counted my £ 200 worth of pound notes, looking all the world like a crafty cat who had eaten the gilded canary!

  

He was so sure of imself during the whole endeavor that I suppose warning bells should have been going off like gangbusters , but I gave no outward sign, my demeanor remaining icy calm, not an easy trick I will say at that place and time!.

  

I Just causally rose, and shaking his greasy, sweaty palm ( the one not tightly holding me money), lied again by sayin “ Smartly played”, and in turning, Saw that the diminutive lass in blue was gone from the scene, and so also missing appeared to be my lass in green with the thick glasses.

  

“Pity.” , I said to meself, would have liked to have ad a final look over at her, and her fine green clad figure , lit under those dance floor lights one last time…!

  

So, I just continued slinking on me way, walked dispassionately off to the far side of the enormous chamber, losing me self in quick fashion back amongst the throngs of gaily dressed, well liquored, unkowin partiers!

  

I was meaning to leave the premises via a back exit with its patio that led into the hedges surrounding the gardens.

  

As I went , I passed a non-caring security type on me way.

  

I did not bother to shatter his bliss him by stopping to hand over a lady’s emerald necklace and taking the time trying to explain how It happened to be in my possession. So with a nod, I just walked casually by, a bloke with nothing to hide by all outward appearances. That was me..

  

As I went outside, I felt the fresh breeze hit me face, and I breathed it deeply in, finally feeling free of all worries.

  

The end

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

Epilogue ( For clarity ) ….

  

I headed directly through the gated opening in the hedges, my final objective was reaching to the far side exit of the lengthy garden that led off to the place where my red touring auto was parked.

  

A bit of a walk, but amongst other things, I always liked my bit of exercise.

  

I made my way, slowing down a tad and admiring the flowers and rather ornate fountains that made up this hedged in, proper little English garden.

  

I had one at home behind the cottage, but nothing on this scale, just a brick path amongst some moss rose and lilies, with a rather ancient wrought iron bench overlooking a small stone built pond in its centre.

  

I found meself automatically reaching for me pipe and pouch, figuring to contemplate with a long smoke as I walked. But immediately though the better of it, time was, after all, still decidedly of the essence.

  

Soon after I reached my objective, an turned to look behind me, no one else was about! I breathed a sigh of relief, it really was over !

  

I turned and exited through the back gate,

  

Suddenly, I was made aware of the sound of a quick swish of something silky, and before I could turn about, a very feminine set of fingers gently grasped my arm. For the briefest parts of a second my mind pictures the young lass in sky blue.

  

“Ta, my love, I’m here!” a soft voice with a lilting accent whispered cheerily behind me.

  

I turned and looked again into those rapturing hazel eyes, prettily magnified by her heavy black glasses.

  

“Ta, here you are indeed !” I enthusiastically agreed, and pulled her up against me, hugging again into her sweet figure, my hands , openly this time, relishing in the splendid feel of her luxuriously soft, shimmery green satin gown, and the warm cuddling figure it encased!!

  

“Apparently, some turd stole me necklace !” she whispered playfully in my ear, “ ‘ere now! By chance would ya know who the jester is laddie?!”

  

We broke apart, and as she stood there facing me with a rather smugly coy look about her, one hand on her chest, the other playing along her gowns barren neckline. I gave her ravishing figure a quick once over before my eyes finally coming to rest once again on the empty neckline of her shiny green coloured gown.

  

“Indeed, I do “ I admitted, patting me tux outer pocket!

  

She gazed at me as I admitted my sin, a rather lusting look I knew, and melted for over oh so many times past.

  

Nice to know that feelings were still strong between us after a five year partnership before being married, and now a full 10 years strongly lost in a wedded bliss. And what a lovely bride she had been… and still is for all that matters….!

  

I think her thoughts were going on about the same lines as mine, and may have led to us being rather a bit naughty right there an then…. But!

  

But, shaking our heads clear, we both peeked back at the empty gardens, then we looked each other directly in the eyes, and chuckling out loud together , proclaimed in unison, “Let’s get going!”

  

We forthwith went to the auto, and I helped her in being seated inside our small red coloured touring convertible.

  

Once she had slithered down, pulled in the loose ends of her long green gown, and nestled into the warm black leather of the seat, I closed her door. I than promptly got in on the right, and fired up the engine into life , and pulled off, leaving the place agreeably, as they say in the olde movies, in our dust..

  

About a mile down the road I looked up in the rear mirror, no one was following, but then, really why should they?

  

“Luv, we may actually have gotten away with this one!” I said cheekily.

  

I turned to my wife and she pulled herself from deep thoughts and smiled winningly, not breaking her gaze from the curving road ahead.

  

Hush lad, don’t go an spoil this luck.” She tenderly chided.

  

Her green gloved hands, which had been clasped upon her gown’s shiny lap , opened a little and I peaked at the wild glistening of the 3 tiered bibbed necklace of quite genuine diamonds that lay nestled in her gloved palms.

  

Whistling, I asked…“I assume that these are from the gents tux pocket ?”

  

“ Quite she said, and a rather easy pick it twas !”, “ Rather a rude ‘un wasn’t he!” She added, straightening her glasses in remembrance..

  

“ Yes, most certaintly, the self-centered wealthy young twit ! I said, then added “Absolutely agree on that subject !!”

  

“It was a good plan!” I continued, “Played out just as you said it would, dearest !”

  

“Happy out!” My wife agreed, “ when you pointed out her diamonds, I knew that the spoiled missey’s necklace was the best take there by far of the jewels stinglingly being worn by any of the other ladies! And Bob’s me uncle if those weren’t her maters anyways!“

  

“ Umm I said , possibly a bit too modern a setting for her mother, maybe a filthy rich admirer behind the curtains, so to speak..?”

  

“Could be luv” she answered studying the brite necklace as it lay piled in her palm, “ but moer’in ah disgustingly rich one than filthy he would be at that !”

  

Me pretty wife went on… “But, of course the fly in the ointment, was missey’s shadowing brother watching her like a hawk from that barstool! The poor thing couldn’t enjoy herself properly, let alone wander off anywhere alone where a person like m’self could be expected to acquire a bit of them jewels in a proper fashion!!”

  

Yes I agreed, and she wasn’t drinking, and didn’t appear to be needin to use a powder room, I sighed, so it was all up to me!”

  

She looked at me, rather meekly.. “So, what better way than to have her brother take them, and obligingly deliver them to us?”

  

“ I know luv…” I replied … “ at first I was against the idea, especially since it placed me in the spot light!” . I gave her a brief glance…”You, after all my lovely one, are the actress in the family !”

  

My wife laid a hand upon my shoulder, with a gentle squeeze… “ I was knowin you could do it luv, and the gambit was well worth its outcome if successful, which so far, it has!” She said, basically apologizing for placing me in such unfamiliar waters…

  

“And it only cost did a mere 200 quid I added triumphantly, for we both knew what the value of those diamonds would mean to the year’s family income!” Letting her also know at the same time there were no hard feelings over anything.. For, as I was to admit to her later in the sanctity of our lovers tryst, it had been rather a fresh spot of thrilling fun!!

  

My wife squeezed my shoulder quite in happy fashion.. “I think we are done for the weekend my luv, perhaps we should head on towards for home now ?“

  

“What about the black tie tomorrow night at the regents’castle then Luv?” I asked half curious, referring to the rest of our plans for the outing. “Could do with a few gems other than diamonds to work with.?

“And I thought you still were a wanting the opportunity to play out the ‘Damsel in Distress’ routine we’ve been working on ?”

 

I stole over a glance as I said this, half hoping I could change her mind and be game for it.

  

She slipped her arm in mine and drawing her sweet self close to me murmuring, purposefully deepening her rich Irish brogue, purrngly said ..”I think we have done a rather good bit of business for this trip laddie!”

 

“Not often we have a big score this early! And its more’in enough laddy of mine, that we can afford to skip over the other things for now? New routines can wait, Dontcha agree wit me now m’ lad?” She ended with a hopeful beckoning sorta look , a winning weapon that most wives are quite adept at using from their wily arsenal of emotional tugs….

  

As me wife looked up into my eyes before continuing , I automatically smiled, never being one to resist that type of bait….

  

“That’s it than, I can see you agree, Darling, On Home to Badger’s Drift it is now!”

“And If you be wanint any more jewels stolen, you can continue to practice on me!” she had leaned up and over, as she whispered cheekily, her lustily breath tickling my ear as a long jeweled earring intentionally was allowed to hit me alongside a cheek.…!!!

  

“ OK, Let’s not press our luck on , correct me fine lass!” I stated in agreement…and , feeling a familiar tingling start down between me legs, responded by letting my foot push the accelerator, causing the purring old engine to rev it up and add a bit of speed to our journey!

  

I stole a glance upon the glistening gems piled up in her lap, as they rested majestically upon thier sleek bed of green. The taunting little darlings !

  

“Some nice dimonded set rings and earrings coming out of that lot, and that’s pure silver they’re setting in if I’m guessin right, when all has been said and done, we should find a right nice little nest egg ,my sweet!” I appraisingly observed.

  

“And a wee diamond bracelet for me efforts, luv?” Asked meekly the sole apple of my eye with a pleasingly euphoric grin… “ I can use it as part of the Damsel in Distress act you are so eager to get on with!” She promised eagerly to seal the deal.

 

I happily nodded my acquiesce.

 

I then heard me wife beside me exhale a long , deep breath while reaching up and pulling down the visor and glanced at herself into the mirror.

 

I than heard her say..” Have a watch for passer byes willa luv?”

 

From the corner of me eye I saw her gently lift up the diamonded necklace and fasten it around her throat, letting it dangle down whilst admiring the rather dazzling, quite eye catching results.

 

In a far off, wistful voice she said, “I guess I do now feel it’s a bit of a waste to have bothered being this dressed up for an evening and not stopping anywhere else?”

  

I felt a sudden rise as I anticipated where her thoughts may be leading upon at the moment “

  

“ Ya know mw love, we are going to be passing that muggy little bar on the wharf, the one we had a stop in on our last excursion, and…” She let her voice trail off, and I knew it was for me to continue.

  

“Care to stop in again for a final drink an our way home ?” I asked hoping I was right on the subject. “ And you can minx the natives with your finery..? Sounds like a plan me dearest!” I added, with a wholehearted voice of agreement

  

“Indeed sir, stop in for a bit of sup, a nip , then you can have a pull at your pipe and tell me how pretty I look!” She said all this whilst still watching the reflection of the diamonds in the newly acquired necklace screaming out their flickering brilliance in the mirror....

  

“A Jewel in the rough indeed you will be in there amongst the rather dicey patrons at the Poet and the Peasant Pub.” I said.

  

Brilliant she said, leaning into me, giving me an eyeful down the front of her rather perked features, now again tightly outlined the green satin gown as she grasped me arm!

  

My eyes also took in the emblazoned diamonds dripping down from her throat , my eyes winced at the brilliant fiery sparkles of the magnificent necklace! From a distance they had stood out exquisitely from around the lass in blue’s throat, but up this close they were almost too bloody dazzling !

  

I knew full well along what lines my wife was half fancifully conniving about deep in her desires… And wearing that squinty necklace out was at the center of them !!

  

I chuckled , knowing we both knew it would be a folly on, oh so many levels, to flaunt about any jewels my wife and I had managed ‘acquiring’ in such devious ways whilst out and about on our occasional jaunts we made into the publics realm for such related purposes..!”

  

But I decided to make sure by saying… “But you know my sweet , best not wear those diamonds…

  

“Righto party pooper!” she teased, “I really wasn’t planning on bragging them about….You recall why dontcha now.!”

  

Breaking away she slipped back into her seat, with a deep sigh of rememberance, before contemplating somberly with a shiver..

  

“But then, ending an evening in me pretty dress by being lured out and waylaid in a back alleyway by those thievin ruffians once in me life was enough, a second time may spoil the currant mood a bit anyhow, not to mention the loss of these pretties you worked so hard for, husband of mine!!”

  

Out of the corner of an eye I had watched her unhappily undo the fiery necklace and place it back into her smooth lap, and then, as she spoke, opening the cars glove case.

  

My wife reached in and popped open a small secret panel in the back. Pulling out a small black velvet pouch, she carefully poured the sparkling necklace inside, then placed the plump pouch back inside the hidden niche, and securely closed the secret panel. I heard her sigh unhappily as she did so….. and knew her mind was heading into a darker corner of past experiences…

  

“Tell you what me luv, how bouts I make a close copy in emerald rhinestone of that necklace and matching earrings, if you wish, and we can add it to your Damsel In Distress props, along with your new bracelet?”

  

“Oh My Good Lord Luv, would you!” she practically shrieked grasping my arm in delight. “ Then once you have ready I will show you some new ideas to the damsel routine I thought off during tonight’s adventure !!”

  

“Capital!” I said grinning , knowing I had made some rather nice pointers with me lass , and it was always a lark working the bugs out of our routines together!

  

Finally Letting go of me arm, she sighed with deep heart felt enjoyment , and nestled blithely back in the leather seat, her gown rustling its song sweetly into my ears. She turned her head smiling mischievously at me, as, reaching down beside her, she brought up her emerald necklace that I had originally held hidden in me pocket.

  

“These will do the trick just as well anyways. “ she said, looking into the mirror with a smirk as she put them back on in the position they had started out the day place there by me.. “ Shouldn’t have married a pickpocket luv, let it be a lesson to ya, she smirked as she adjusted and admired the effect glittering emeralds draped around her neck.

 

Then my wife flipped back up the vanity mirror and turned happily to face me.

  

“So tis agreed all around then! Stopping at the Poet and the Peasant pub for supper and a nipper, than its off home to the Drift we go !“ She exclaimed this merrily, and with that she happily pulled off from their perch, the owlish glasses she had been disguisedly wearing and carelessly flipped them into the back jump seat.

  

Then,reaching up into her hair , undid her matching twin emerald clips (placing them with a smirk into my now empty tux jackets pocket),and pulled off her shoulder length black wig, allowing her longish hair, the natural colour of sunset cerise, to freely cascade down from its long held ,tight bindings of a bun… The wig soon joined in with the discarded glasses.

  

Again exhaling a proper sigh of satisfaction, I heard her promise , while watching the road ahead, “Once home We can then have a proper dance in celebration!”

  

“In the garden I asked hopefully?”

  

“ Yes you turd, in the garden…then ! But I stay fully dressed in me gown, this time right lad!? It’ll still possibly be twilight and passing neighbors may well see me prancing about in nuthin but a slinky whisp of a slip if you had your way !”

  

“Not daylight forever my sweet I said with conviction, and I feel a long dance… and snifter of brandy are in order.…!”

  

“And a bit more practice lifting me necklace, after your rather amateurish attempt tonight You could use it!” she sweetly chided, her hand reaching up and squeezing my arm. “But no worries, with my training I will make a proper thief of you yet luv! Just think of the possibilities…. !”

 

I could tell her mind was going somewhere with and I just waited for it…..

 

She turned towards the passenger’s window, looking out at the passing countryside….

“Remember Luv, later that same frightful night, the blonde tart in the green and black with the randy boyfriend? I sweetly lifted her pretty bracelet, but I still remember how close I twas to that rather decadent pendent she was flaunting about in everyone’s mug that night. What I would have given to ave had the opportunity to take it away with us! But what if you could have ad a dance wit her, with my skills. That necklace would have been peeled off that sully miss’s shiny blouse with no bother atoll!”

  

“I don’t know about that, my lover, after all being a plain shoppe jeweler is quite exciting in itself, wouldn’t you agree!” I wryly retorted, teasingly…..

Than added an afterthought….

“But than again , why should you always be the one havin all the fun my lass!”

“Always the spotter and never the Grooms man probably could make one a bit of a bore “

 

I stole a grinning glance at her, and she turned to face me while playfully sticking out her tongue at me …. “

Words well-spoken my kind, thievin sir !” she then brightly teased, subtly poking me in the ribs, while giving me the most wicked of instigative winks!!

 

“We’ll have you slippin off me necklaces, bracelet , brooches and such in no time, won’t we now.!” She said britley into the mirror . She had retrieved an old camels hair brush from the autos compartment and was working on her longish red hair, bathed as it was caught the sunlight, making things ready.

  

I steadfastly put my eyes fully back on the road. “ I assume you don’t mean just slipping ‘em off while dancing?” I said mysteriously, not bothering at that time to explain the rather interestingly enticing paths of thoughts her statement had thrust in me imagination.”

 

A long ,knowingly enduring sigh, was all I received in form of an answer from my pretty lass , blissfully squirming about in the seat beside me, her long gown whispering its silken murmer!

  

We sped off, soon putting many miles between us and the soon to be quite surprised, rather mangy cigarette slobbering, empty pocketed blighter !

 

The snarky brother to the now strikingly bare necked lass in the blue silk dress , whose extravagant necklace would soon appear on a flyer announcing yet another mysterious vanishing of a ladies jewels!!! ….

  

Good riddance to ‘em, I said under me breath and turning off the main road, drove on down towards the harbor front.

 

Fini….

For now

 

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

Always looking for fresh plots to place my characters in. If an idea comes to mind using this husband and wife team, by all means , drop a line. Or better yet, every permission given to steal them for a story and photo op of your own!

All that is asked is that any efforts be placed in our group to receive proper acknowledgements !

 

Barred owl successfully hunting a wood-duck baby .

Aymeline Spring 2020 wearing Jason Wu's Successful Journey fashion.

Former Yugoslavian (Croatian) postcard. 3 K, No. 3845, mailed on 18-7-1963. Harry Belafonte in Carmen Jones (Otto Preminger, 1954).

 

Singer, actor, composer, author, and producer Harry Belafonte (1927-2023) was one of the most successful African-American artists in history. As the 'King of Calypso', he popularized the Caribbean musical style internationally in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) is the first million-selling album by a single artist and his hit The Banana Boat Song has become an evergreen. He also starred in several films, most notably in Otto Preminger's hit musical Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), Odds Against Tomorrow (Robert Wise, 1959), Robert Altman's Kansas City (1996) and Bobby (Emilio Estevez, 2006). Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for humanitarian causes, such as the anti-apartheid movement and USA for Africa.

 

Harry Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. at Lying-in Hospital in 1927, in Harlem, New York. He was the son of Melvine (née Love), a housekeeper, and Harold George Bellanfanti Sr., who worked as a chef. His mother was born in Jamaica, the child of a Scottish white mother and a black father. His father also was born in Jamaica, the child of a black mother and Dutch Jewish father of Sephardi origins. From 1932 to 1940, he lived with one of his grandmothers in her native country of Jamaica, where he attended Wolmer's Schools. When he returned to New York City, he attended George Washington High School after which he joined the Navy and served during World War II. In the 1940s, he was working as a janitor's assistant in NYC when a tenant gave him, as a gratuity, two tickets to see the American Negro Theater. He fell in love with the art form and also met Sidney Poitier. The financially struggling pair regularly purchased a single seat to local plays, trading places in between acts, after informing the other about the progression of the play. At the end of the 1940s, he took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator alongside Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur, and Sidney Poitier, while performing with the American Negro Theatre in such plays as 'Days of Our Youth' (1946). In 1954, he would receive a Tony Award for his participation in the Broadway revue 'John Murray Anderson's Almanac'.

 

Belafonte started his career in music as a club singer in New York to pay for his acting classes. The first time he appeared in front of an audience at the Village Vanguard in New York, he was backed by the Charlie Parker band, which included Charlie Parker himself, Max Roach, and Miles Davis, among others. At first, he was a pop singer, launching his recording career on the Roost label in 1949, but later he developed a keen interest in folk music, learning material through the Library of Congress' American folk songs archives. With guitarist and friend Millard Thomas, Belafonte soon made his debut at the legendary jazz club The Village Vanguard. In 1952, he received a contract with RCA Victor. His first widely released single, which went on to become his 'signature' song with audience participation in virtually all his live performances, was 'Matilda' (1953). His breakthrough album 'Calypso' (1956) became the first LP in the world to sell over 1 million copies within a year. It spent 31 weeks at number 1, 58 weeks in the top ten, and 99 weeks on the U.S. charts. The album introduced American audiences to calypso music, which had originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 20th century. Belafonte was dubbed the 'King of Calypso', a title he wore with reservations since he had no claims to any Calypso Monarch titles. One of the songs included in the album is the now famous 'Banana Boat Song' (listed as 'Day O' on the original release), which reached number five on the pop charts. His other smash hit was 'Jump in the Line'. Many of the compositions recorded for Calypso, including 'Banana Boat Song', gave songwriting credit to Irving Burgie. His triumphant success as an entertainer in the arts did not protect Belafonte from racial discrimination, particularly in the South. As a result, he refused to perform in the southern region of the United States from 1954 until 1961.

 

Belafonte's first film role was in Bright Road (Gerald Mayer, 1953), in which he appeared alongside Dorothy Dandridge. In this low-budget film adapted from the Christopher Award-winning short story 'See How They Run' by Mary Elizabeth Vroman, Dandridge starred as an idealistic first-year elementary school teacher trying to reach out to a problem student. Belafonte played the principal of the school. The two subsequently starred in Otto Preminger's hit musical Carmen Jones (1954). The screenplay by Harry Kleiner was based on the lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II, from the 1943 stage musical of the same name, set to the music of Georges Bizet's 1875 opera 'Carmen'. Ironically, Belafonte's singing in the film was dubbed by an opera singer, as Belafonte's own singing voice was seen as unsuitable for the role. Using his star clout, Belafonte was subsequently able to realise several then-controversial film roles. Island in the Sun (Robert Rossen, 1957) is about race relations and interracial romance set on the fictitious island of Santa Marta. The film was controversial at the time of its release for its hints of an affair between Belafonte's character and the character played by Joan Fontaine. The film also starred James Mason, Dorothy Dandridge, and Joan Collins. In 1959, he starred in and produced the Film Noir Odds Against Tomorrow (Robert Wise, 1959), in which he played a bank robber uncomfortably teamed with a racist partner (Robert Ryan). He also co-starred with Inger Stevens in the Science-Fiction doomsday film The World, the Flesh and the Devil (Ranald MacDougall, 1959). Belafonte was offered the role of Porgy in Porgy and Bess (Otto Preminger, 1959), based on the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, and Ira Gershwin. Here he would have once again starred opposite Dorothy Dandridge, but he refused the role because he objected to its racial stereotyping. Sidney Poitier would play the role in the film. Dissatisfied with the film roles available to him, Belafonte returned to music during the 1960s.

 

While primarily known for calypso, Harry Belafonte has recorded in many different genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. His second-most popular hit, which came immediately after 'The Banana Boat Song', was the comedic tune 'Mama Look at Bubu', also known as 'Mama Look a Boo-Boo' (originally recorded by Lord Melody in 1955), in which he sings humorously about misbehaving and disrespectful children. It reached number eleven on the pop chart. In 1959, he starred in Tonight With Belafonte, a nationally televised special that featured Odetta. Belafonte was the first Jamaican American to win an Emmy, for Revlon Revue: Tonight with Belafonte (1959). Belafonte recorded for RCA Victor from 1953 to 1974. Two live albums, both recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1959 and 1960, enjoyed critical and commercial success. From his 1959 album, 'Hava Nagila' became part of his regular routine and one of his signature songs. He was one of many entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the inaugural gala of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. That same year he released his second calypso album, 'Jump Up Calypso', which went on to become another million-seller. During the 1960s he introduced several artists to American audiences, most notably South African singer Miriam Makeba and Greek singer Nana Mouskouri. His album 'Midnight Special' (1962) included a young harmonica player named Bob Dylan. As The Beatles and other stars from Britain began to dominate the pop charts, Belafonte's commercial success diminished. His 'Belafonte at The Greek Theatre' was his last album to appear in Billboard's Top 40. His last hit single, 'A Strange Song', was released in 1967 and peaked at number 5 on the charts. Belafonte has received Grammy Awards for the albums 'Swing Dat Hammer' (1960) and 'An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba' (1965). The latter album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid. In 1967, Belafonte was the first non-classical artist to perform at the prestigious Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in Upstate New York, soon to be followed by concerts there by The Doors, The 5th Dimension, The Who, and Janis Joplin. In February 1968, Belafonte guest-hosted The Tonight Show substituting for Johnny Carson. Among his interview guests were Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. During the 1960s, he appeared on TV specials alongside such artists as Julie Andrews, Petula Clark, Lena Horne, and Nana Mouskouri. In 1968, Belafonte appeared on a Petula Clark TV special on NBC. In the middle of a song, Clark smiled and briefly touched Belafonte's arm. The show's sponsor, Plymouth Motors, wanted to cut out the segment, but Clark, who had ownership of the special, told NBC that the performance would be shown intact or not at all. American newspapers published articles reporting the controversy and, when the special aired, it grabbed huge ratings.

 

In the early 1970s, Belafonte returned to the cinema in two films with Sidney Poitier. The Western Buck and the Preacher (Sidney Poitier, 1972) broke Hollywood Western traditions by casting blacks as central characters and portraying both tension and solidarity between African Americans and Native Americans in the late 19th century. Buck and the Preacher was one of the first films directed by an African American and to be based on a band of African Americans fighting against the White majority. The film was produced by Belafonte Enterprises, Columbia Pictures Corporation, and E & R Productions Corp. Uptown Saturday Night (Sidney Poitier, 1974) is an action-comedy crime film written by Richard Wesley and starring Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, and Harry Belafonte. Although the film received mixed reviews, it was a commercial success and was part of the Blaxploitation wave. Later, Cosby and Poitier teamed up again, without Belafonte, for the sequels Let's Do It Again (Sidney Poitier, 1975) and A Piece of the Action (Sidney Poitier, 1977).

 

Harry Belafonte's recording activity slowed after he left RCA in the mid-1970s. RCA released his fifth and final Calypso album, 'Calypso Carnival' in 1971. From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, Belafonte spent the greater part of his time touring Japan, Europe, Cuba, and elsewhere. In 1977, he released the album 'Turn the World Around' at Columbia Records. The album, with a strong focus on world music, was never issued in the United States. He subsequently was a guest star on a memorable episode of The Muppet Show (1978), in which he performed his signature song 'Day-O' on television for the first time. However, the episode is best known for Belafonte's rendition of the spiritual song 'Turn the World Around', from the album of the same name, which he performed with specially made Muppets that resembled African tribal masks. Belafonte reprised the song at John Henson's memorial in 1990. In 1984, Belafonte produced and scored the musical film Beat Street (Stan Lathan, 1984). Set in the South Bronx, the film follows the lives of a pair of brothers and their group of friends, all of whom are devoted to various elements of early hip hop culture. The cast included Rae Dawn Chong and Guy Davis. Together with Arthur Baker, Belafonte produced the gold-certified soundtrack of the same name. Beat Street's impact was felt internationally as well as throughout the United States. In Germany, for example, films as Beat Street are credited with introducing the hip-hop movement to the country.

 

In 1985, Belafonte was one of the organisers behind the Grammy Award-winning song 'We Are the World', a multi-artist effort to raise funds for Africa, and performed in the Live Aid concert that same year. Belafonte's involvement in 'USA for Africa' resulted in renewed interest in his music, culminating in a record deal with EMI. He subsequently released his first album of original material in over a decade, 'Paradise in Gazankulu', (1988). The album contains ten protest songs against the South African former Apartheid policy and is his last studio album. As UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Belafonte attended in 1988 a symposium in Harare, Zimbabwe, to focus attention on child survival and development in Southern African countries. As part of the symposium, he performed a concert for UNICEF. A Kodak video crew filmed the concert, which was released as a 60-minute concert video titled Global Carnival. Also in 1988, Tim Burton used 'The Banana Boat Song' and 'Jump in the Line' in his film Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988). Belafonte appeared with John Travolta in the film drama White Man's Burden (1995), about racism in an alternative America where black and white Americans have reversed cultural roles. The film was written and directed by Desmond Nakano. The film revolves around Louis Pinnock (Travolta), a white factory worker, who kidnaps Thaddeus Thomas (Belafonte), a black factory owner for firing him over a perceived slight. The film gained a negative reception from the critics and was not a box office success. For Robert Altman's jazz age drama Kansas City (1996), he won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. Kansas City, which stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Miranda Richardson, is also notable for its musical score being integrated into the film, with modern-day musicians recreating the Kansas City jazz of 1930s. For instance, Craig Handy played the role of Coleman Hawkins, Geri Allen played Mary Lou Williams, and James Carter played Ben Webster.

 

Following a lengthy recording hiatus, 'An Evening with Harry Belafonte and Friends' (1997), a soundtrack and video of a televised concert, were released by Island Records. 'The Long Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music', a huge multi-artist project recorded by RCA during the 1960s and 1970s, was finally released by the label in 2001. Belafonte went on the Today Show to promote the album on 11 September 2001 and was interviewed by Katie Couric just minutes before the first plane hit the World Trade Center. The album was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Awards for Best Boxed Recording Package, for Best Album Notes, and for Best Historical Album. On television, Harry Belafonte starred as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in the TV drama Swing Vote (David Anspaugh, 1999) with Andy Garcia. In 2006, Belafonte appeared in the film Bobby, Emilio Estevez's ensemble drama about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Belafonte played Nelson, a friend of an employee of the Ambassador Hotel (Anthony Hopkins). Belafonte received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1989. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994 and he won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. He performed sold-out concerts globally through the 1950s to the 2000s. Owing to illness, he was forced to cancel a reunion tour with Nana Mouskouri planned for the spring and summer of 2003 following a tour in Europe. His last concert was a benefit concert for the Atlanta Opera on 25 October 2003. In a 2007 interview, he stated that he had since retired from performing.

 

In 2017 Harry Belafonte released 'When Colors Come Together', an anthology of his music for Sony Legends produced by his son David Belafonte. David wrote a remake of 'Island In The Sun', arranged by longtime Belafonte musical director Richard Cummings featuring Harry Belafonte's grandchildren Sarafina and Amadeus and a children's choir. Always outspoken in his beliefs, Belafonte achieved widespread attention for his political views in 2002 when he began making a series of negative comments about President George W. Bush and the Iraq War. Belafonte created controversy in October 2002 when he made disparaging remarks about Secretary of State Colin Powell. Far from being upset, Powell reportedly took the remarks good-humoured, refusing to inflame the situation any further. Belafonte's other controversial political statements on U.S. foreign policy have included opposing the U.S. embargo on Cuba, praising Soviet peace initiatives, attacking the U.S. invasion of Grenada, praising the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, honouring Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and praising Fidel Castro. On a Martin Luther King Day speech at Duke University in 2006, Belafonte compared the American government to the 9/11 terrorists.

 

Belafonte and his first wife Marguerite Byrd were married from 1948 to 1957. They have two daughters: Adrienne and Shari, who also worked as an actress. In 1957, Belafonte married his second wife Julie Robinson, a former dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company who was of Jewish descent. They had two children, David and Gina. David, the only son of Harry Belafonte, is a former model and actor and is an Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated music producer and the executive director of the family-held company Belafonte Enterprises Inc. As a music producer, David has been involved in most of Belafonte's albums and tours and productions. After 47 years of marriage, Belafonte and Robinson got a divorce. In April 2008, Harry Belafonte married photographer Pamela Frank. Recently, Belafonte returned to the cinema in Spike Lee's biographical crime film BlacKkKlansman (2018) as an elderly civil rights pioneer. Set in 1970s Colorado Springs, the plot follows the first African-American detective in the city's police department as he sets out to infiltrate and expose the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. BlacKkKlansman premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. Belafonte appears in the film recounting the lynching of Jesse Washington, a black teenage farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on 15 May 1916, in what became a well-known example of racially motivated lynching. In 2019, the film won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was written by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee.

 

Harry Belafonte died in New York on 25 April 2023, due to congestive heart failure. He was 96.

 

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Spike just had to get it out and looks so content at the end.

SONY DSC

A successful day of viewing migratory birds across Butte County has to include at least one fly up of Snow Geese. There must have been tens of thousands of geese down in the flooded checks when suddenly they were UP! Watching these geese rise in waves across the rice checks and listening to their chaotic chorus is an inspiring sight!

I was stuck behind an accident and took advantage of the lack of traffic to go hunting with my camera. This one was actually at a spot where to was safe to pullover and observe for quite some time.

To see my complete collection of Bears, please go to www.flickr.com/photos/40800216@N08/albums/72157633262015335

 

All comments are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Pin-Holga 1 (f/192) with Kodak Ektar 100 film, Exposure 3 m 7 sec

 

The first Pin-Holga conversion: A Holga CFN that leaked when the flash was fired. I cut the barrel and added a lens cap shutter. I ended up with f/192 which is the same as their factory 120PC although this aperture is cut in metal and not plastic.

Flickr Friend David – (www.flickr.com/photos/birdsaspoetry) - has identified this bird as a Great Egret, but notes that in New Zealand, it is known as a Kotuku / White Heron.

 

"Te Ara – The Encyclopaedia Of New Zealand" states that Kotuku / White Herons “…are rare in New Zealand, with a population of just 100–120 birds, but the elegant White Heron / Kōtuku (Ardea modesta) is nevertheless common in India, Japan, China and Australia, where it is known as the Great Egret.” ***

 

In this instance (above) the bird had flown to the extreme northern end of the waterway, and was standing absolutely still, watching…, watching…, watching…!

 

And then, quick as a flash, it’s head was in the water (above) as it attempted to catch its prey...

 

BUT: was it successful…???

 

*** teara.govt.nz/en/herons/page-1

  

Thanks so much for the very kind and encouraging comments beneath this photo...! Your support is always greatly appreciated...!

Successful 150m hop by SpaceX's Hopper

This is my English Pointer "Cowboy" after a successfull Utah pheasant hunt.

Kingfisher returning to the perch with trout

Successful cicadas

The News Chronicle's "I-Spy Tribe", complete with Big Chief I-Spy awards certificates and orders of merit for successfully completed I-Spy books, was a popular past time for many children in post-WW2 years. In many ways it was books such as these that helped foster my childhood inquisitiveness! Although the books and name changed hands on many occassions, including the transfer of the Chronicle to the Daily Mail, the actual premise and books of the title carried on into this century, latterly published by Michelin.

 

This book, number 9, was issued just after the Daily Mail's acquisition of the Chronicle in 1961. "I-Spy in the street" has a fabulous cover complete with a fire tender, road signs of the style adopted by several central London boroughs, and a Policeman with a very early 'walkie-talkie' radio!

 

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/cemlyni...

  

Introduction to Cemlyn

  

Cemlyn is one of North Wales Wildlife Trust’s star reserves and regarded by the Anglesey County Council as the “jewel in the crown” of its Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

It is valued both for its scenic qualities and its unique range of wildlife, and is as popular with general visitors – local people, holidaymakers, walkers etc. as it is with birdwatchers and naturalists.

 

Situated on the North coast of Anglesey, about three miles West of Cemaes, the reserve land, which is owned by the National Trust and has been leased by NWWT since 1971, includes a large lagoon, separated from the sea by a spectacular, naturally-created shingle ridge.

 

The ridge, known as Esgair Gemlyn, is formed by the process of longshore drift, its profile changing with the action of tide and weather. This unique geographical feature also provides a habitat for interesting coastal plants such as Sea Kale, Sea Campion, and Yellow Horned Poppy.

 

In the summer, the lagoon is the backdrop for Cemlyn’s most famous wildlife spectacle. Clustered on islands in the brackish water is a large and internationally important seabird colony, including breeding Common and Arctic Terns, and one of the U.K.’s largest nesting populations of Sandwich Terns. From the vantage point of the tern viewing area on the ridge, visitors experience these rare and elegant birds close-up – chasing and diving in courtship displays; incubating eggs; preening and bathing in the lagoon, or calling to their hungry chicks as they come winging in with freshly-caught fish.

 

Around the reserve there are also areas of coastal grassland, farmland, scrub, wetland, and both rocky and sandy shore encircling Cemlyn Bay. These are home to a wealth of life - birds, mammals, insects, wildflowers and marine creatures which, together with the tern colony, make up a fascinating ecosystem: an ideal ‘outdoor classroom’ for studying biodiversity.

In addition to being a Wildlife Trust reserve, Cemlyn is a Special Protection Area, a candidate Special Area of Conservation, and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is also part of the Anglesey Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/History...

  

History of the reserve

  

Much of Cemlyn’s history as a wildlife site is tied to the story of Captain Vivian Hewitt, who came to the area in the 1930s, settling in Bryn Aber, the large house that dominates the western end of the reserve, and buying up much of the surrounding land.

A wealthy eccentric, his interest in birds led him to construct the first dam and weir at Cemlyn, replacing tidal saltmarsh with a large and permanent lagoon which he intended as a refuge for wildfowl. He also had a scheme to nurture an area of woodland within the grounds of Bryn Aber, to attract smaller birds. To this end he began construction of an imposing double wall, which was intended both as a wind-brake for the trees, and a means for observing the birds – the gap between the two walls had viewing holes. A further plan to top the walls with polished stone was never completed, and after Captain Hewitt’s death the house was left to his housekeeper’s family, but the walls themselves remain, and lend the site its mysterious, even foreboding presence.

It is the legacy of the lagoon that has had most significance for wildlife however. The change from a tidal habitat that frequently dried out in summer, to a stable body of water encompassing small islands, has provided the terns with nesting sites that are less attractive to ground predators. Over the following decades, various changes have occurred to the lagoon – some natural, eg. storms breaking over and swamping – some man-made, eg. the reconstruction of the weir and the creation or removal of islands. The water level and salinity of the lagoon is now monitored to maintain the ideal habitat for terns and other wildlife.

A couple of years after Captain Hewitt died, the Cemlyn estate was bought by the National Trust. Since 1971, they have leased the land around the lagoon to the North Wales Wildlife Trust, who manage it as a nature reserve. The two organisations work in partnership to enhance and maintain the site for wildlife and the public.

The reserve has had a warden every summer since 1981, with two wardens being employed every season since 1997. With the help of numerous volunteers, their work has included the detailed monitoring of the tern’s breeding success, protection of the colonies from a variety of natural predators (and in a couple of cases from the unwanted attentions of egg-collectors), as well as recording other forms of wildlife, and providing information to the public. Their presence on the ridge and around the reserve helps maintain the profile of Cemlyn as an important and nationally valuable site.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...

  

Terns

  

Three species of tern breed regularly at Cemlyn. The numbers of Sandwich Tern nesting on the islands in the lagoon have been going up in recent years, making the colony one of the largest in the country.

There were over 1000 nests in 2005, and a good percentage of chicks fledged. The Sandwich Terns generally nest in dense groups, and seem to benefit from being close to groups of nesting Black-headed Gulls, which react aggressively to the threat of a predator, while the Sandwich Terns sit tight. Common Terns nest in sparser groups and smaller numbers on the islands, as do the very similar Arctic Terns, which make an epic journey from the southern to the northern hemisphere and back every year - the longest migration of any bird.

One of Britain's rarest seabirds, the Roseate Tern was a former breeder at Cemlyn, and is still sometimes seen on passage, as are other rarities like Little Tern and Black Tern. A vagrant Sooty Tern caused great excitement when it visited the colony in the summer of 2005.

 

The tern colony is the main focus of conservation work at Cemlyn. Because of disturbance at their traditional breeding areas, due to increased coastal access and development, terns have declined historically in Britain, so sites like Cemlyn, which still hold healthy populations, are a precious and nationally importance resource.

 

Two wardens are employed by NWWT every summer, to monitor and protect the terns. As well as dealing with disturbance and predation, they record the numbers of nests, the fledging success of chicks, and also the kinds of fish being brought in by their parents. Feeding studies are important because availability of fish, especially the terns ideal food, Sandeels, can be the key factor in a successful breeding season. The combined results of warming seas and commercial overfishing of Sandeels around Shetland for example, have had a disastrous effect on the productivity of Arctic Terns there.

 

All terns are migratory. Sandwich Terns are usually the first to be seen, in late March and April, with the bulk of breeding adults of all species arriving on site in May. June and July are the busiest months for the terns, and a good time to visit the reserve, the lagoon islands becoming a hive of activity.

By mid-August, the majority of chicks should have fledged, and be ready to join their parents on the journey south to their wintering areas - the coast of West Africa in the case of most Common and Sandwich Terns, even further south for Arctics.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...

  

Other Birds

  

Oystercatcher and Ringed Plover both breed on the reserve, making their nests in the shingle of the Esgair.

In such an exposed choice of site, both species rely on wonderful camouflage of eggs and chick. In response to a direct perceived threat however, adult Ringed Plovers may resort to the 'broken wing trick' - drawing the attention of a potential predator by feigning injury and leading it away from the nest. To protect these waders, as well as the tern colony, visitors are asked to avoid walking on the lagoon-side of the Esgair during the summer months.

 

Cemlyn's situation and range of habitats make it a haven for a range of birds at all times of the year. Coot, Little Grebe and Shelduck can usually be seen around the lagoon, and Stonechats are a regular feature of the surrounding areas of scrub.

A variety of waders such as Curlew, Dunlin, Golden Plover, and Redshank use the area, and Purple Sandpiper may be seen on the rocky shoreline.

Summer visitors to look out for include Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler, while Wigeon, Teal, Red-breasted Meganser and other widfowl may be present in significant numbers in Autumn and Winter.

Other migrants turn up from time to time, and over the years a variety of rarities have been spotted –

2005 sightings included, apart from the Sooty Tern, an American Golden Plover, a Terek Sandpiper and a Melodious Warbler. Any keen birdwatcher will want to scour the site for something unusual.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildife...

  

Other animals

  

Grey Seals can often be seen in the sea around Cemlyn, or hauled up on Craig yr Iwrch, the rocky island just off the Trwyn, and Harbour Porpoise sometimes feed close to the western end of Cemlyn Bay.

 

Brown Hares can be seen in or around the reserve, occasionally crossing the Esgair at dawn or dusk.

 

Weasels and Stoats both hunt the hedgerows and grassland at Cemlyn, and during the summer, basking Adders and Common Lizards may be spotted.

 

There’s also a wide range of insect life – butterflies, such as Grayling, Wall Brown and Common Blue, and day-flying moths like the Six-spot Burnet can all be seen, as can various beetles, grasshoppers and dragonflies.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...

  

Underwater Life

  

The coastline of Cemlyn includes areas of shingle, sand and exposed rocky shore. These provide habitats for a variety of marine life including sea-anemones, crabs, prawns, blennies, butterfish, winkles, whelks, limpets, coastal lichens and a range of seaweeds. e.g. kelp.

 

The lagoon, with its changing mixture of fresh and salt water is a challenging environment, but Grey Mullet and Eels thrive in the brackish conditions. In fact Cemlyn is one of the top sites for specialised saline lagoon wildlife including shrimps and molluscs, and waterplants like Tassel Pondweed.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...

  

Plantlife

  

The shingle of the Esgair is one of the harshest habitats imaginable for plants – arid because of the quick-draining pebbles, and exposed to wind, salt-spray, and the ravages of winter storms. Nevertheless it provides a home to specialists like the rare Sea Kale, whose deep roots and fleshy leaves enable it to survive close to the tide-line, and whose profuse white flowers give off a strong sweet smell.

Other characteristic coastal plants to look for along the ridge include Sea Campion, Sea Beet, and the striking Yellow Horned Poppy. Stands of Sea Purslane and Glasswort (Sea Asparagus) can be found at low tide close to the car park at Bryn Aber.

The grassland around Cemlyn is rich in wildflowers; an early spread of colour is provided by Spring Squill and Thrift which punctuate the grass with blues and pinks, while later blooming flowers along the Trwyn include Tormentil, Yellow Rattle, Knapweed and Centaury.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/seasons...

  

Cemlyn through the Seasons

  

Spring

 

Early signs of Spring may include the first Wheatears arriving on Trwyn Cemlyn, the first Manx Shearwaters weaving through the waves out to sea, or the first Sandwich Tern’s call in the Bay - these are all possible from March onwards. Later on, Spring colour on the grassland around the reserve is provided by Spring Squill and Thrift which stud the ground with blues and pinks, and the first sunny spells may tempt out Common Lizards or Adders to bask. By mid-May, a range of birdlife is becoming visible and audible around the reserve, including terns settling on the islands in the lagoon, Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler singing in the scrub and water-margins, Whimbrel foraging along the rocky shore, and other waders like Dunlin and Black-tailed Godwit on the beach or in the lagoon.

 

Summer

 

Summer sees activity on the lagoon islands reach fever pitch with the terns and Black-headed Gulls using every hour of daylight to bring food to fast-growing chicks. The sight, sound and smell of this bustling seabird metropolis make up a memorable Cemlyn experience. June and July is the time to see the stands of Sea Kale in full flower, and to spot Yellow Horned Poppy and Sea Campion along the Esgair - Oystercatcher and Ringed Plover are also nesting on the shingle during this period. On the Trwyn, look out for Tormentil and the deep pink flowers of Centaury, as well as the passing colours of butterflies like Small Heath and Common Blue.

Also look out for the red and green leaf-beetle Chrysolina polita on the Dwarf Willow along Trwyn Pencarreg.

  

Autumn

 

The tern chicks are usually fledged by mid-August, ready to start the long migration south to their wintering grounds on the coast of Africa, so by early Autumn, the islands seem strangely peaceful. Other wildlife moves in however – flocks of Golden Plover, along with other waders like Lapwing and Curlew can be seen. Big Autumn tides can uncover interesting marine life that usually remains hidden on the lower reaches of the shore, and rough weather at this time brings a range of seabirds passing close to Trwyn Cemlyn – Manx Shearwaters, Gannets, Kittiwakes and Guillemots.

 

Winter

 

The lagoon remains an important resource for birds throughout the Winter months – Little Grebe, Shoveler, and Shelduck can regularly be seen, along with the Coot and Wigeon that also graze on the surrounding fields. The Herons that fish the lagoon at Cemlyn through the year are sometimes joined by a Little Egret darting in the shallows for shrimps. Red-breasted Merganser and Great Crested Grebe can often be spotted either in the lagoon or out in the Bay, while on the rocky shore, a keen eye may pick out a Turnstone or Purple Sandpiper foraging close to the water’s edge.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/english/angleseycoasta...

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/english/angleseycoasta...

  

Education & Outreach

  

The aim of the project is to raise awareness in local children about the importance of biodiversity and conservation by enabling them to explore the array of unique wildlife habitats on their local doorstep.

 

The project is designed to link in with National Curriculum topics covered in subjects including Science, Geography, History, English & RE, and provide a basis for ongoing work in the classroom. These different topics are often linked in with general environmental themes, in a conscious effort to encourage pupils to think about their relationship to their surroundings.

 

The activities include carrying out habitat surveys, where pupils record different species along a line of samples (as in an ecological transect), investigating the wildlife of the lagoon and shore using nets, and observing the tern colony through binoculars. Art-based exercises focus on perception of surroundings through the senses and encourage pupils to explore, using materials found on the beach to create their own 3D designs.

 

In some cases, the People and Wildlife Officers can visit schools to give illustrated talks and initiate written or interactive exercises in the classroom.

  

Outreach

 

The Coastal Nature Reserves project also involves general education, awareness-raising and outreach to the local community. Activities have been organised both on and off the reserve - there was a Cemlyn Creature Count in June 2010, and guided walks have also been arranged for the general public as well as for youth clubs and a daycentre group for people with learning difficulties. The project has been represented in The Anglesey Show and the Wylfa Community Fun Day. Illustrated talks have also been carried out for groups such as the Urdd, Scouts and for two branches of the University of the 3rd Age.

 

The People and Wildlife team aim to extend the range of this work, and are very keen to hear from any organisations or community groups interested in either on or off-site activities.

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/english/angleseycoasta...

  

How to get involved

  

Anglesey’s coastline is famous for its stunning scenery and the fantastic array of wildlife it holds. North Wales Wildlife Trust has a number of ways you can get involved in helping to protect this resource and raise awareness about its importance. The emphasis is very much on getting people involved, interacting with and enjoying their local naturalheritage.

 

As a volunteer with the Coastal Nature Reserve Project, opportunities will vary depending on the reserve and time of year. There’s a rough guide (by location) to the possibilities below.

Cemlyn Nature Reserve

The season will commence with a volunteer open day in March. This is a fantastic opportunity to meet the rest of the Cemlyn team, learn more about the work, the reserve and the wildlife you may encounter, with a guided walk and volunteer fact sheets also provided.

Check out the detailed information on helping at Cemlyn here (pdf 80k)

Mariandyrys Nature Reserve

Working to maintain the diverse grasslands and heathlands by scrub clearance and fencing

Monitoring and species survey work

Help with events and raising awareness

Coed Porthamel Reserve

Scrub clearance

Path and fence maintenance

Building and erecting bird and bat boxes

Porth Diana and Trearddur Bay

Help with events such as guided walks and beach cleans

Surveys (including Spotted Rock Rose) and monitoring

Working to maintain the diverse grasslands and heathlands by scrub clearance and fencing

  

www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/visitin...

  

Visiting the reserve

  

Cemlyn is sign-posted from Tregele on the A5025 between Valley and Amlwch. Although the roads to the site are narrow, there are two car parks adjacent to the reserve (OS 1:50, 000 Sheet 114 and Explorer 262. Grid ref. SH329936 & SH336932).

 

The reserve is open throughout the year: admission is free.

 

Group visits are possible by appointment

  

Suggested walks around Cemlyn

  

These are a few popular routes around the reserve, focussing mainly on wildlife and landscape features.

  

Esgair Gemlyn

 

The shingle ridge at Cemlyn is accessible from the Beach car park at the eastern end of the reserve.

Although the distance along the ridge to the tern viewing area opposite the islands is only about 0.5 km, it's worth bearing in mind that during the summer months, visitors are asked to use only the seaward side of the ridge, and the shingle can make for arduous walking.

It’s a much shorter walk from the Bryn Aber car park on the western side of the lagoon, but beware – the causeway linking the car park and the ridge can flood an hour or more either side of high tide, so it’s worth checking the times to avoid getting stranded.

During the summer, daily tide-times may be chalked up close to the causeway by the wardens.

Outside of the tern breeding season, the lagoon-side of the ridge is open to the public, and its interesting habitat can be explored at closer range.

  

Trwyn Cemlyn

 

This little peninsula (Trwyn is Welsh for nose) makes a favourite short walk for local people. Accessible via the Bryn Aber car park, it comprises coastal grassland with small patches of gorse and heather, and a rocky shoreline allowing views out to The Skerries in the west, Wylfa to the east, and if there’s good visibility, sometimes the Isle of Man to the north.

It’s a good spot for spring wildflowers, and also for seeing seabirds, seals, and sometimes porpoises.

It also links up with the National Trust coastal footpath to the west.

  

Lagoon inlet

  

The narrow bridge at the western end of the lagoon, just before Bryn Aber, makes a good vantage point for the lagoon islands if the ridge is inaccessible. It also allows views over the freshwater inlet and the adjacent area of gorse and scrub known as Morfa. The road alongside the inlet that leads to the farm of Tyn Llan has no parking, but a walk down gives views of the reedy inlet margins and surrounding damp pasture, which sometimes harbour interesting birdlife.

  

Coastal footpath towards Hen Borth

 

.Cemlyn forms the eastern end of a stretch of wonderful coastal footpath, taking in rugged landscape characteristic of the north Anglesey coast.

From the stile at the ‘brow’ of Trwyn Cemlyn, the path leads off the reserve up past Craig yr Iwrch, an outlying rock favoured by seals, cormorants and roosting curlews, and along the cliffs, passing Tyn Llan farm on the left, to the bay of Hen Borth.

Keen walkers may wish to carry on following the coastline as far as Carmel Head or Ynys y Fydlyn, while others may wish to visit the small church of St Rhwydrus, returning through the gate by the farm and back past the lagoon inlet.

  

Coast towards Wylfa Head

 

Trwyn Pencarreg - the area of rocky outcrops, grassland and coastal heath to the east of the Beach car park at Cemlyn, is interesting for its plant communities, wildflowers and insects, and for its impressive views back across Cemlyn Bay. A circular walk is possible via the old mill at Felin Gafnan.

The National Trust has produced a booklet detailing several circular walks around, or starting from Cemlyn. It includes illustrated routes for all of the areas described above, and of walks that take you further afield.

To obtain a copy, or for further information regarding other National Trust walks on Anglesey, contact:

The National Trust Wales, Trinity Square, Llandudno, LL30 2DE

Just south of the south switch at Byron where the double track ends the hill has been topped and the train gains speed. Helperlink on the pushers allow them to cut off on the fly. This probably should be a video but everything is in motion here, the DPU is slowly pulling away and the tunnel motors are about the brake to a stop before reversing direction. July 20, 2024.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (ISO: Mōhanadāsa Karamacaṁda Gāṁdhī;[pron 1] 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (from Sanskrit 'great-souled, venerable'), first applied to him in South Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.

 

Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, Gandhi trained in the law at the Inner Temple in London, and was called to the bar in June 1891, at the age of 22. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to live in South Africa for 21 years. There, Gandhi raised a family and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against discrimination and excessive land-tax.

 

Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj or self-rule. Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. He began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 and in calling for the British to quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.

 

Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a Muslim nationalism which demanded a separate homeland for Muslims within British India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Abstaining from the official celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these was begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948, when he was 78. The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India. Among these was Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist from Pune, western India, who assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January 1948.

 

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is considered to be the Father of the Nation in post-colonial India. During India's nationalist movement and in several decades immediately after, he was also commonly called Bapu (Gujarati endearment for "father", roughly "papa", "daddy).

 

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

Lumen print

Successful advertising of the farrier/blacksmith

 

Zum Monatsthema "Schilder"

Last year, Volvo Bus & Coach revealed that they received a significant Euro 6 vehicle order for 20 hybrid single deck 7900H buses from Lothian Buses, based on their successful introduction of ten similar vehicles earlier in the year.

 

Set for delivery during later this year, the 20 new 7900Hs are now starting to be parked up in Volvo Truck and Bus Centre's Workshop on Crowther Industrial Estate in Washington.

 

The 7900H is a complete Volvo vehicle built on a hybrid driveline. The 12.1 metre single deck bus offers reliability and high performance, whilst the body frame is specifically designed to save weight and therefore reduce fuel consumption.

 

Specified with a Volvo D5K 5.1 litre 4 cylinder engine, rated at 240 hp and supported by a Volvo Electric Motor, rated at 120 kW, with a Volvo I-Shift gearbox, the 7900H combines a number of proven Volvo systems together.

The travelling experience is further enhanced with silent boarding and take-off thanks to the hybrid engine’s ‘stop start’ feature, where the vehicle pulls away from the bus stop in pure electric mode. The 7900H also includes electronically controlled air suspension and smooth pneumatically controlled EBS 5 braking.