With a tendency to carry my camera everywhere and snap anything that looks vaguely interesting, I now have more than eight hundred hi-res photos from Spain! (The joys of 1 Gig memory cards). Needless to say, many of them are turkeys, being blurred, wrongly exposed or poorly composed. However, I really liked this one, taken in a Merchant’s House open to the public in Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain. It made a change from the Roman relics of Tarraco which whilst equally interesting wasn’t quite as photogenic. Spot the blown light bulbs lamps!
(I put the camera on timer, plonked it on the floor, pressed the button then cleared off. It is a smidge wonky, hence the slight rotation.) The room is very 17th Century and the ceiling is superb with allegorical paintings including the elemental themes of earth, wind, fire and water.
We went to a steam fair in the East Riding during early August. I was delighted to see a long lost old friend there, last seen at the Tyneside Summer Exhibition, somewhere I remember going to throughout the 70s.
These shuggy boats* were always rather intense and I was delighted to see that they haven’t succombed to elfen’ safety yet. David loved them but Karen struggled, even in the centre of the boat (her preferred seat in Pirate Ship rides).
*Strictly speaking, Shuggy Boats are the manual swing type rides but it is what my Dad always called the Steam Yachts.
…well, it looked a lot when I had a map of the world and pins in the 80s. It looks rather less impressive when mapped, especially when Russia is basically Moscow. Although, 23 countries isn’t trivial.
I always fancied the Far East but the opportunity never arose (although my Lodger and colleague got to do a training course in Tokyo, it kept us in Sake’ for months and gave us a chance to refresh our CD players).
I define “lived there ” as in staying in an Apartment for an extended period rather than a Hotel (Norway 1 year, Saudi 1 year, Ontario 2x 3 months, Eire commuting for 6 months or so.)
I saw a fascinating video twice on holiday. “Hmm”, I thought, “I’ll bet it is on ‘tinternet”.
The first time was at Sylvester Oscar Scary’s House of Illusion in Salou, where it was used as the launch of the show. (Their website is a little broken but gives you the idea of what it is about).
The second time we saw it was the following day at PortAventura Theme Park where it was projected onto the side wall screens of the Magic of China Theatre as the five minute pre-show for the Fantasia Magica de China show.
A search for Animusic Pipe Dream should reveal higher resolution versions, although the Animusic web site appears to have gone.
