This is the cherry tree in the street outside our doctor’s surgery. It looked stunning against the blue sky; the shapes and contrasts were fascinating. I’m sure I could have found a better angle, but sadly I didn’t have time: work was calling. 🙁
Category Archives: photography
People in Your Life Meme
This week’s Flickr Photo Meme is the first names of people in your life. So as usual here are the questions and my answers
1. Spouse’s name. Noreen, and yes that is her in the photo taken with an ultra-wide angle lens at short range.
2. Mother’s name. Dora
3. Father’s name: Bob
4. Brother / sister’s name: to quote Peter Cook “Tragically I was an only twin”
5. Pet’s name: The cats: Harry and Sally, no not our choices!
6. Best friend’s name: Suzy
7. Childhood friend’s name: Derek
8. Person who has most influenced you: that has to be Victor, but only by a short head from Faith and Barry & Julia
9. Neighbour’s name: Zaina, a luscious Lebanese beauty queen
10. Grandmother’s name: Flo; that’s my mother’s mother
11. Grandfather’s name: Alf; my mother’s father who I never knew as he died 2 years before I was born
12. Your name: Keith, but I have yet to understand why!
As always these are not my photos (with the exception of #1) so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!
1. Madam Noreen, 2. Dora was my co-pilot (04/2005), 3. Bob Staake – Toy Designs, 4. tragically i was an only twin, 5. PB120027-1, 6. Shy Suzy, 7. Derek, 8. Victor Bagging, 9. zaina, 10. say ah (iris ‘larry and flo’), 11. Alf Leila Wa Leila, 12. Keith Haring by Annie Leibovitz New York City 1986
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
After the Barber's
This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 49/52 (2009 week 05).
After going to the barber’s early this morning I decided to treat myself to pain au chocolat.
Job Meme
This week’s Flickr meme is all about jobs. So here as usual are the twelve questions and my answers:
1. Your first job.
At 17 I was a shop boy in our local supermarket. This was in the late 1960s, when supermarkets were only just invented in England. We did everything on the premises in those days. I worked in the “Provisions Department” (ie. dairy, delicatessen, etc.). The first thing they did was teach me to bone a side of bacon. Yes, we had bacon delivered as cured half pigs and we had to bone, joint and then slice it. I also served on the deli counter as well as helping out wherever needed. I did this for about 2½ years in vacations ending up on checkouts, doing displays and helping run the wine counter. I still know more about bacon that most butchers!
2. Your best job.
This would have to be wasting time as a post-grad student and then a post-doc. In fact I wasted so much time as a post-doc I had to resign before I was sacked.
3. Your worst job
IT Technical Sales. I hated anything to do with selling and stress. I’m really a techie. I did this for 2½ years in late ’70s, before PCs were around. I worked in the City of London and did get to go one or two interesting places as a result.
4. Your current job.
IT Project Manager. I’m currently running team who have just installed two of these enormous beasts of machines.
5. Job you are aiming for.
Retirement.
6. Job you wish you could have regardless of qualifications.
Gentleman of Leisure. Somehow I think I might be able to do that quite well!
7. Job you wish you could have regardless of salary.
Dilettante Researcher. Well almost regardless of salary; I would need enough to live on! I’ve always wanted to research what I like when I like. I should really have been an academic, but not in the sciences where I was trained; far too much like hard work! Oh and the picture is the Reading Room of the British Museum (it was the British Library); what a stunning place to do research; it really is awe-inspiring inside.
8. Job you would absolutely HATE to do.
Anything nasty and messy: abattoir work, butchery (bacon is OK, it isn’t bloody), refuse collection, emergency services, medicine.
9. Job that you just do not understand how it is done.
Anything to do with electronics. I never did understand how to design circuits, and a totally inept with a soldering iron.
10. Least amount of time you’ve worked at a job.
Two Christmas when I was a student I did 2-3 weeks delivering the mail – back in the days when the Post Office took on casual staff at Christmas. It was horrible early hours and quite hard work, but interesting.
11. The silliest job in the world.
There are lots of these, but Fashion Model has to be somewhere near the top.
12. First thing you will do when you never need to have a job again.
Sleep and Recover
1. half a pig, 2. UEA, 3. Computer Sale, 4. New IBM Z10 Mainframe, 5. man in chair, 6. Gentleman of Leisure, 7. British Museum Reading Room, 8. Butchery Lane (4), 9. tag some of this stuff if you know what it is, 10. Red Bike in the Snow, 11. Sweet, sweet madness…, 12. IMG03898
As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
After the Blood Test
This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 48/52 (2009 week 04).
As well as an eye test I’ve had to have two blood tests in the last week or so. Boring!
You get a little bit of my daily working environment too — yes I work from home most days now; haven’t been in the office yet this year!
Midweek MiniMeme: All About Flickr
This week we have a mid-week mini-meme; and it’s all about one of our favorite things: Flickr!
So as usual here are the questions and my answers:
1. First person you met on Flickr? Probably RogerGW
2. First pic you faved? Shoveller Lines by my namesake Keith Marshall — it’s really scary ‘cos we even have almost identical tabby cats, tho’ he’s a much better photographer than I am!
3. Person on Flickr you would most like to meet? From amongst my contacts? Well it would have to be ~Misty~; we live quite near each other too!
4. Someone on Flickr you have already met? Melly Melly Me; we’re both owned by the same large It company and when we were working on a project together we discovered we were both on Flickr!
5. Your funniest Flickr friend? This just has to be edartr; just check out his two hilarious dogs!
6. Most endearing Flickr friend? Claire who already belongs to Rom.. Oh to be young again! 😉
1. Tomb plate, Standish, 2. Shoveler Lines, 3. Les socks de jour!, 4. Tig2, 5. oohh and THEN i get a cookie ?, 6. Portrait…
As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
Wonders of the World Meme
This week’s meme is to say what you think the 12 Wonders of the World are? This can be man-made, natural, things you’ve seen, things you haven’t! Or a mixture!
So here are my twelve …
1. Power of Natural Forces, especially the sea
2. Existence of Life. Even as a scientist just the sheer chemical and anatomical complexity blows my mind
3. Diversity of Life, from amoeba to elephant; from top of Everest to ocean depths
4. Amazon: the rainforest, the fish, the parrots
5. Cats, from domestic cats to terrifying tigers
6. Human Intellect / Mind, without which we wouldn’t have any of the following …
7. Agriculture. How do you get from being a hunter-gatherer to a settled community growing rice and pigs?
8. Stonehenge, being a representative of all incredible building by ancient peoples who as far as we know had no writing and no recognisable mathematics
9. Bread and Wine. How did anyone go, A, B … X to discover them; bread especially
10. Writing, without which we wouldn’t have society or literature
11. Medieval Cathedrals: complex architecture, brilliantly built with no advanced mathematics or science
12. Zero, without which we wouldn’t have maths or science
1. Stormy Seas, 2. Coral Reef, 3. Bugs life, 4. Rainforest Parrot, 5. Wild Jaguar, 6. The Labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, 7. Terraced Rice Fields of Sapa, 8. Stonehenge, 9. Wine and Bread, 10. Book of Hours : Use of Sarum, Prayer to St. Thomas Becket of Canterbury (circa 1330), 11. Focs artificials gòtics, 12. zero
As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
Dark, Dubious & Depressed
“Dark, dubious & depressed” is very much how I feel about January every year! And this year they’re playing in trumps.
I’ve decided that this year I’m going to do a self-portrait a month for the Flickr “12 Months” group. This is the first. (This will replace the weekly SP when I get to the end of the 52 weeks at the end of February.)
Special effects created with Dumpr
Eye-Eye!
This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 47/52 (2009 week 03).
I had my annual diabetic retinopathy scan today, where they take (digital) photos of the back of they eye. This entails having eye-drops to dilate the pupils so you can’t see properly for several hours afterwards – not invasive or nasty, just a damn nuisance ‘cos you can’t focus. This is my eyes 3 hours after the drops when they are starting to wear off – and look how dilated my pupils still are!
12 Ways to Win Your Heart Meme
This week’s meme is to tell us 12 ways to win your heart!
To win my heart you need to …
Be my friend
And my sister;
My mother
But not my father.
Share my interests
While remaining true to yourself.
Bring me food
And bring me wine (but the pine logs are optional).
Be my jester (but not my knave, and definitely no strawberry tarts),
My muse
And my soul-mate;
But most of all be my lover.
1. A Rose For My Friends, 2. My sister enjoys the morning sun, 3. mother-baby bathtime – dscf8133, 4. Super Angry Father, 5. Object #1, 6. Siamese Toast Twins, 7. miniature food en masse, 8. wine, 9. Clowns & Jesters at Alexandra Palace, 10. my muse…, 11. soul mates, 12. If u were my lover
As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.