amusements, memes, photography

Sox Meme


Sox Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme … It’s laundry day here so it would be fun to check out other people’s laundry on Flickr! So this week’s meme is to find 12 pairs of fun socks! Here are the contents of my washing machine …

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. Curiouser and Curiouser!, 2. Smileyface toesocks, 3. thigh high socks, 4. 6252 Stripe Thigh High W/Strawberry And Bow, 5. Japanese School Girl, 6. 133/365 – Rainy days and holey socks…., 7. Odd Sock, 8. Rainbow of Christmas Stockings, 9. marigold knee socks, 10. sock and roll sushi, 11. Pink toe’s in stockings, 12. fairy girl in tutu and legwarmers

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

current affairs, pleasures

Graduates to get gap-year money

This is the headline on a BBC News item this morning.

The [UK] government is to pay for graduates struggling to get a job to go on trips abroad […] It will pay for 500 young people under the age of 24 to travel to places such as Costa Rica and India to take part in projects such as building schools […] A government spokesman said he would not go into details about funding ahead of the launch.

OK this keeps them off the unemployed register. However, I have just one question. With what are the government going to pay for this? Cork buttons and rubber cheques?

Sounds to me like another NuLaba initiative which will turn out to be just empty promises. Let’s hope so anyway; the country can’t afford to pay kids to go jollying round the world.

beliefs, current affairs, medical, science, sexuality, thoughts

Harrah! More Please!

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There’s a wonderful article over on the BBC News site. Well the article isn’t actually wonderful, it’s pretty hack, formulaic BBC journalism about a TV show. It is the idea, intelligence, thoughtfulness and guts behind the programme which is wonderful.

The programme was on BBC3 last evening and follows a couple of teenage girls and their mums as they visit various people in UK and Netherlands so the girls can discover for themselves about whether they’re ready to lose their virginity. Clearly this had to involve a lot of very open discussion between the girls and the people they met (including a group of teenage boys who were asked some pointed questions by the girls) and between the girls and their mums. From reading the item (sadly I missed the programme) clearly the mums were struggling to cope – but cope they did and I get the impression everyone came out of it much stronger and better balanced.

But why does it need a TV programme to get people to do this? OK so not everyone will take on for themselves a 2000 mile journey. But everyone has a surprising number of local resources to draw on: parents, teachers, doctors, health workers, not to mention their friends, peers and relations. Why can’t people talk about these things? Openly? I just don’t get it. Everyone (almost) has sex in some form or another at some time. Sex is an important part of life so why not admit it and be open about it? Reading and writing are important in life and we get taught those at a very tender age, and hone our skills over many years – some more than others, but everyone improves and learns. So why not sexuality?

Hopefully this programme will be repeated, and repeated, and repeated. And used by schools. And parents everywhere. Maybe, just maybe, it will start the revolution in (most people’s) thinking about sexuality and their bodies that our society so desperately needs.

Incidentally one interesting fact which is often overlooked: Holland has the lowest teenage pregnancy rate and the lowest rates of sexually transmitted infections in western Europe. Britain has almost the highest. Despite a very open attitude to sex, teenagers in Holland start having sex on average one year later than in the UK. Why? Because the Dutch are pragmatic and willing to discussing sexuality etc. openly; they don’t treat it as dirty and hide it in the coal-shed like we do. I lived through the sexual revolution in order to do away with coal-sheds!

Parents and teenagers (even sub-teens) everywhere please note!

memes, personal, photography

Thru' the Years Meme (2)

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Thru’ the Years Meme (2), originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to pick things or events you remember from each year of your life – through 12? it could be anything: who your best friend was when you were 6; your pet when you were 10; a teacher when you were 12; your favourite toy at age 3 — you get to come up with the item for each of the numbers … or just use random years here and there with the big highlights of your life! Here’s a second selection covering some key times in my life to date.

1. -2 weeks; I arrive 2 weeks early; I’ve been early ever since.
2. 11; I go to grammar school and get an excellent all-round basic education; we were stretched all the time; and it must have been one of the few co-ed grammar schools in the country.
3. 17; started going out with Jill, my first proper girlfriend; we broke up at the start of our second year as undergraduates.
4. 18; off to university in York to study Chemistry; glorious campus but not the formative years they are for many (they came later as a post-grad).
5. 23; I lose my virginity to Faith; she’s 9 years older than me, and taught me a lot!; yes I was a slow starter.
6. 25; somehow I’m awarded my PhD from University of East Anglia; and yes I’ve got one of these super velvet Tudor bonnets too!
7. 25; and I immediately start working for IBM.
8. 28; Noreen and I marry; we met in Norwich and have known each other for about 4 years, but have been going out less than a year — oh and we’re still happily married almost 30 years later (and long may it be so)!
9. 30; we buy our house just as mortgage rates go through the roof!
10. 32; I have an affair and glandular fever at the same time; Noreen knows about both! Duh!
11. 49; I’m one of the founders of the Anthony Powell Society.
12. 58; just waiting for retirement; so much I want to do outside work.

As always the photographs are not mine (except #9 which is) please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. The Holiday Guests Arrive Early Singing Carols, 2. Leeds Grammar School, 3. Jill, 4. Heslington Hall, 5. IMG 088, 6. Congrats! You made it!, 7. IBM Hursley, 8. The House Opposite, 10. Eve – glandular fever test, 11. ANTHONY POWELL, NOVELIST, AT HOME IN SOMERSET, 28 DECEMBER 1983., 12. Two at the Shoreline

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

memes, personal, photography

Thru' the Years Meme


Thru’ the Years Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to pick things or events you remember from each year of your life – through 12? it could be anything: who your best friend was when you were 6; your pet when you were 10; a teacher when you were 12; your favourite toy at age 3 — you get to come up with the item for each of the numbers … or just use random years here and there with the big highlights of your life! Here’s my selection up to the age of 12 (but not one per year, I don’t remember that much that well, and not in order).

1. Being stung on the big toe by a bee when I was about 6. I trod on it in the garden; it hurt; and my mother told me off for walking about in bare feet — didn’t do any good ‘cos I still do!
2. Summer holidays camping at nudist club when I would have been about 9-10.
3. Staying in my grandmother’s flat in Canterbury for summer holiday; guess I was about 6.
4. Finding abandoned duckling (aged 6) …
5. … and releasing it a year later as a handsome Mallard drake. We didn’t have a single slug in the garden that year! My grandmother (she of the flat in Canterbury) hated the duck ‘cos it nibbled at your ankles when you walked down the garden — which I thought was really funny. But then I thought my grandmother was a sour old bag: she was but at least I now understand why.
6. Derek Part who was my best friend when I was 10 or 11. His brother (who was 16) was drowned swimming in one of the local gravel pits. His mother kept a boarding kennels for dogs down next to the piggery. They moved to Liverpool soon after this.
7. Seeing Cliff Richard’s film Summer Holiday as soon as it was released in 1963 (I was 12). Cliff was a local boy (real name Harry Webb); The Shadows used to practice in the boy’s club which backed onto my primary school playing field.
8. Going to my primary school’s football trials at 10 or 11 … and failing miserably.
9. Fresh bread delivered by the bakers roundsman when I was about 4. I always wanted the crust — buttered! At first I think he had an electric hand-cart but later one of these Morris vans, only red. Oh and the bakers was Hill’s.
10. Getting concentrated orange juice & cod liver oil from the welfare clinic when I would have been 1 or 2; I guess this was just before rationing finished.
11. Going to Cub camp at Whitsun half-term when I was 11, and my parents coming out to tell me I’d got into Grammar School.
12. Smelly. dirty suburban steam trains to London; they finished when I was about 8 or 9 and were replaced by first by boring diesel and then even more boring electric trains.

As always the photographs are not mine (except which is from my photostream) so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. Bee Sting!, 2. Mother & Son, 3. Canterbury, Weavers, 4. The duckling, 5. Mallard Drake on Ice, 6. Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage, Dungerness, Kent, 7. Cliff Richard, 8. How to penetrate the defense?, 9. HCVS London to Brighton 2009 – 1955 Morris J Type Van, 10. Wartime Rationing, 11. mega080024, 12. PADDINGTON STATION 1940

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

memes, personal, photography

Pick One Meme


Pick One Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to pick one of a pair; we were given a long list of pairs and allowed to choose our own 12. Here’s my selection; you probably don’t have to know me very well to predict most of these:

1. Pink or Green. Green; much more subtle and interesting than pink as well as being restful on the eyes.
2. Clothed or Nude. Nude; clothing is nothing but a conventional fetish; nudity is natural.
3. Boys or Girls. Girls; well now there’s a surprise.
4. Cat or Dog. Cat; lean, keen killing machines that they are.
5. Beer or Wine. Beer; such endless variety; and thirst-quenching.
6. Theist or Atheist. Atheist; God is another of our unnecessary (and divisive) fetishes.
7. Heaven or Hell. Hell; see above; much more interesting.
8. Bat or Ball. Ball; he who has the ball is in control!
9. Hairy or Shaved. Hairy; unless we’re talking about faces when I prefer them shaved.
10. Gold or Silver. Both; let’s be greedy!
11. Pen or Pencil. Pencil; old habits die hard; as a one time programmer I was brought up to work in pencil; I still do much of the time, using an automatic pencil with soft 2B leads.
12. Sun or Moon. Moon; endlessly fascinating to look at.

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. green/purple, 2. Underwater Nudes, 3. Rainbow Girls, 4. Cat’s eye, 5. Beer Bottles, 6. Atheists, 7. Wanna go to Hell?, 8. plazma ball green and blue, 9. Hairy backside, 10. Silver & Gold Oak Ring, 11. Pencils, 12. Harvest Moon

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

personal, topographical

Family Grave

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David Masey Grave, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This is the grave in churchyard of St Nicholas, New Romney, Kent of David Masey (b 1807, d 1882) who was my great-great-grandfather and his wife. Also commemorated are a number of his family members (none in my direct line). I’ve been told that David Masey was variously a fisherman, greengrocer, fishmonger, boatman and a lifeboatman at Littlestone.

I was there, rather fortuitously on Saturday afternoon but had only a few minutes to find and photograph the headstone. Had I had more time I was hoping to be able to scour the churchyard for other Masey graves – although sadly very many of the headstones are so weathered as to be unreadable; hardly surprising just a mile or so from the sea. I must check if New Romney have yet catalogued all the graves in their churchyard. More research for one of these fine days when I no longer have to worry about working for a crust!

amusements, current affairs, topographical

Modern Day Prayer

1 Comment

I saw this today posted on the wall of the gents in the Royal Oak at Brookland, Kent. It has to be preserved for posterity …

Modern Day Prayer
Gordon Brown is my shepherd, I shall not work.
He leadeth me beside the still factories.
He restoreth my faith in the Conservative Party.
He guideth me in the path of unemployment.
Yea, though I wait for my dole,
I own the bank that refuses me.
Brown has anointed my income with taxes,
My expenses runneth over my income,
Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of his term.
From hence forth we will live all the days of our lives in a rented home with an overseas landlord.
I am glad I am British,
I am glad I am free.
But I wish I were a dog
And Brown was a tree.

nudism, personal, thoughts

Figleaves or Not?

There’s another sensible item on nudity, especially as relating to one’s children, over on The Political Naturist. Here’s a taster …

For many parents, allowing a child to run around naked at home is perfectly natural, an expression of physical freedom that represents the essence of childhood, especially in the summer. But for others, unclad bodies are an affront to civility, a source of discomfort and a potentially dangerous attraction for pedophiles. […]

There is no rational reason for ordering a toddler to put on clothes. People will always tell you that it’s “indecent”, or “inappropriate”, but they cannot tell you why. It’s transference of adult shame, built up over years of cultural mores and religious teachings. […]

Around the age of 3 or 4, children begin to differentiate between what’s private and what’s public, experts say, and they usually begin to feel modesty soon after. But parents’ attitudes play the largest role in determining whether children are comfortable being naked at home … If someone has what appears to be an overly strong reaction to seeing young children running around naked, it tells us about their own hang-ups, their own inner conflicts […]

What is it about the sight of naked children which causes people to bristle and turn away? I would think most people would smile, or laugh, at the sight of children at play, clothed or unclothed. Bottling up the natural instincts of children to shed their clothes only teaches them body shame, that there is something wrong and repulsive about their flesh. Adults should not be transferring their own guilt, false modesty and irrational fears to their children. We are all born with nude bodies, we all see ourselves when we change clothes or bathe, so why is it so shocking when we see someone else’s nude body? […]

Thanks heaven for another dose of common sense. More please!