So what are you normally doing at 8 o’clock in the evening? Or even what are you abnormally doing? That’s what Tara is asking as her theme for the Gallery this week is 8PM.

Until recently my normal activity at that time would have been eating, but we’ve now brought evening mealtime earlier (it is better for you, it seems) so the answer has mostly now become reading, in one form or another. One thing I mostly am not doing at 8PM is taking photographs. But of course there are always exceptions: when late home, away on business, on holiday or just out on the town. Which is how my three contributions come about.

I can’t guarantee they were all taken at exactly 8PM, but they were all taken around then.

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Waiting for the Virtual Curtain
Montage of the Globe Theatre on a very wet evening

We’re Going Home!
On the M40 into London after another long day at the office

Night Ride Timelapse
Another late evening on the road from somewhere

The theme for Tara’s Gallery this week is Breakfast, and what’s more this week there is a prize.

Now breakfast is the meal we are all supposed to indulge in. The old saying is Breakfast like king, lunch like a lord and dine like a pauper. And it does actually work. But I can’t get on with it; evening meal being meal of the day is too ingrained from my childhood. Besides I’m not a breakfast-y person; I never have been. I can’t face breakfast immediately on waking. When I was working I never had more than a mug of tea before going out but always wanted something once I got in the office.

Even now when, due to the diabetes, I’m supposed to eat breakfast as often as not I don’t. However when I do I’m not wedded to particular foods; I’ll eat anything I fancy for breakfast.

So here’s my usual somewhat askance take on breakfast possibilities.

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So the theme for Tara’s Gallery this week is simple … Beauty.

Simple huh?

So what is thing called “beauty”? Is it merely something cultural; an attribute based on whatever is the current common consensus? Or is there some “universal beauty” which transcends time and place? It seems (see here and that it’s actually a mix of the two. But it’s also interesting that aside from the biological markers of health and fertility, there’s no definition of beauty that isn’t considered ugly in another place or another time.

Which means I can choose anything the hell I like! So what shall we have?

Some pretty flowers?

(Yeah OK, so a cabbage isn’t a flower, but you get the point!)

An attractive blonde?

Or some pussy porn?

But then again we could have a crane!

I know, I’ll let you choose …

For her Gallery subject this week Tara has chosen another “mummy topic”: Back to School. So of course I’m struggling with it — well I would wouldn’t I, ‘cos despite my wrinklydom I’m not yet quite mummified; neither have I had a sex change, at least not when I last looked.

So about the best I can do by way of a contribution is this:

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I took this at London Zoo way back in June 2008 — blimey was it that long ago; it seems like last summer!

I’m not sure if these girls (and there was a whole gaggle of them) were part of a school trip or just locals who were able to take a short cut through the Zoo, but the former is more likely. Anyway despite the tiger masks these two were failing to blend in with the animals, and no doubt got carted off back to their penitentiary.

Just look at the ladders in those stockings/tights though! Surely only a schoolgirl would be seen dead in those!

Another instalment in my occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.

This garage area is at the back of one of the houses near us and opens onto the main road. Here it is just before last Christmas.

And this is the same area around Easter time.

Now I know I’m not the tidiest and most organised person in the world, but at least the rubbish at the bottom of my garden isn’t visible to the whole world.

This week over at Tara’s Gallery we’re being asked for photographs of sky.

Now there are boring, dull, flat grey skies and boring, wall-to-wall clear blue skies. But just about anything else is interesting: clouds, stars, the moon, sunset, sunrise, rainbows … the list is almost endless.

So here is a small selection of mine from across the years.

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Trees at dusk, taken one late winter evening as I left work

January sunrise seen through the birch tree in our garden

“Armco Sundown”, sunset on the A11 in Norfolk taken from the passenger seat
of the car one late February

This could be almost anywhere in England on a hot summer’s day; it’s actually in Norfolk, again taken from the passenger seat of the car

This week over at Tara’s Gallery we’re being asked to come up with photographs showing emotion. That’s not the easiest of challenges, nevertheless here are three I’ve culled from the archives.

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This young lady, taken at London Zoo in June 2008, spent quite a long time concentrating hard on the text messages on her phone. Watching the people at the Zoo was as good as seeing the animals!

Here are my former colleagues Steve and Peter concentrating hard on something on Peter’s laptop. Taken in the office way back in February 2008.

This young lady was clearly on her way for a lunchtime liaison with her lover on the slopes below Sacré Cœur in Paris (way back in June 2007). Lip smacking is a reflex reaction in response to sexual interest and anticipation.