Saturday 30th August has been a non day, mostly of my own making. It was a day lacking in energy and enthusiasm, with an hour's sleep during the afternoon.
There was one moment of brightness and even then I managed to turn a discovery into potential disaster, given its triviality in the great scheme of things, given what has been discussed over recent days.. I begin with this because it has had a satisfactory ending. On my recent visit to London I was upset that I had been unable to photograph the statuesque figures posed by young men and women along the embankment as I had made my way to London Bridge Station after attending the free concert at the Royal Festival Hall. I have seen such figures before, usually around Leicester Square. They require considerable expenditure to cover the body, clothing and skin in such a way and then to stand motionless for periods perhaps only responding when someone delivers an appropriate coin. What had surprised me with the number of the young people involved and the variation in subjects. The atmosphere was truly magical and not one which I had experienced in London before, since perhaps my youth and visiting the world of Jazz clubs in and around Soho as a teenager.
I had been taking photographs using the memory stick on my digital movie camera for the earlier trip to the Dome development at Greenwich and to see the new digital film experience of Journey to the centre of the world and then moved to the Royal festival Hall for the free concert in the early evening. I could have then journeyed by underground to Soho in an attempt to recapture some of my feelings from that time, or travelled to Victoria for a train back to East Croydon and to write up what had been a very interesting day especially the great boat trip at speed between stops and the sights along the river bank which were so different from when the trip was made before. It was a warm and sunny evening with several hundred young people assembled outside enjoying an early evening drink or walking along the river so my first instinct was to visit the book sellers outside the Heyward Gallery, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the National Film Theatre, stopping awhile to watch the youngsters on their skateboards under the concrete supports of the main building structures, and once also used for the homeless, the drunks and the druggies. An then I spotted the first of the statuesque which I had photographed only to find that the photos were not on the memory stick when I return to the Travel Lodge and transferred the photos to the laptop computer. I had remembered stopping by the booksellers to check the position after the finding that the memory stick was full with only 150 photos taken having unintentionally used the remaining space for another 150 by switching to film record. The odd aspect is that I had then photographed the statuesque and back at the Travel Lodge I had assumed that I had forgotten the problem with the memory stick. I therefore decided to return to the embank on the Saturday before going to the concert at the Royal Albert Hall and had been disappointed that despite even greater crowds there were no statuesque's and only one entertainer had been encountered at a different location.
Then to-day I decided to photograph completed sets while watching Newcastle play badly and lose heavily at Arsenal and got the second memory stick as I had used the first for photos of my patio plants as they approached the end of their season. This also registered that some 100 photos had been taken. What were they. Loo, they were those of the statuesque figures revealing that I must have found the second memory stick. The feature of memory sticks I have never understood is that they contain channels and that if one is used regularly it appears to switch between channels progressively only showing when new and then increasing to two, three and four. This is irritating because one then has to check each channels to find the most recent photos and it is has not been unknown for a switch between channels during one shoot. I can only assume that when I checked both memory sticks on the Friday evening that I had missed the channel on which the photos had been stored and remained over the days since returning. It was a wonderful find so I divided to immediately transfer to the location with the photos and then create new files under My Photos in order to create two new series of 101 photos for MySpace. This involved reviewing each photo, dividing them into the two series one exclusively the river and views from the speed launch and the other of the Dome area, the statuesque and other river bank shots. This took time as I also attempted to then place the photos in some kind of order. Then to my late night hotter I could not find the file containing those of the river transferred from the main file and I assumed I had managed to delete after going through all the main photograph files and then the document files and then those on the computer not once but twice. I became tired and was ready for bed but continued knowing that I would not rest having made the discovery and then lost some of the more important shots taken from the launch, and then I found it tucked away in another file and which had been overlooked on the two previous searches. It was time for bed but I was able to go content, to a point, but annoyed with myself for not checking properly on the original Friday evening or subsequently and then for getting into such a pickle after discovering them now. Needless to say I did not photograph the completed set work or watch the film which had also been an intention.
I did watch two other films. 10.50 Apocalypse was not a two part four hour epic I had seen before. I tend to the view that once you have seen one disaster epic you have seen them all, unless the latest technology creates a different experience and certainly I look forward to seeing what is accomplished using the 3 D dimension. This film was worth staying with in order to see the scale and nature of destruction which includes the breaking of the Hoover Dam, a Volcanic explosion in Sun Valley and the destruction of Las Vegas as everything sinks below the surface. The cause of these events in a sudden movement of the plates beneath the earth surface and which created the original continental break up and drift. The proposition of the film is something causes the dramatic sudden reversal of the drift with the outcome of changing the geography of the States with disastrous consequences for the populations of the area involved, the western plains and mountains although by the time the first part ended there was an accelerating movement into the central states. I am unable to say if the area between California and Philadelphia becomes a great lake because the second part is not being shown until Sunday afternoon when I shall be at the football. I was surprised to find a review on the On Line Film Critics Society by Scott Weinberg in 2006 which provided the information that this is a follow up to 10.50, an earlier epic. I thought the President was a familiar face and he also revealed that it is Beau Bridges. I was truly amazed that the President appeared to have personal knowledge of the heads of the Federal agencies involved in the film given that on any one day there are some four hundred Federal agencies at work in addition to those at State. It is because there are so many interests cutting across the departments of Cabinet members, those run by the Congress and those by individual States that ensuring there is in fact a common approach and a chain of command when civil emergencies take place, I sat this as the latest major hurricane of the season appears to heading in the direction of New Orleans again, which if is the situation will be interpreted by some religious groups as God giving Bush and the Republican administration a chance to redeem themselves after the last disaster, and enabling the public to include the event in their assessment before voting in November. The whole things lasts 169 minutes and be a good reviewer the writer omits to reveal how the things ends as if we did not know that the man rejected by the agency because his theories were too wild comes to the rescue and provides his daughter now the Presidential Chief Adviser with the solution, but is this before after half of he USA turns into a great lake.
I also watched for the second time in memory, the Man who knew too Little the Bill Murray 1997 comedy caper in which in unknowingly, the original American innocent abroad, prevents world war three breakout as he singled handedly prevent a plot between elements in the Kremlin and While Hall London from blowing up the Russian President and British Prime Minister, from signing a midnight peace accord to end the cold war. You get the spirit of this film when I say that the Russian hitman is called Boris the Butcher Blavatsky (Alfred Molina) and that one of his assistants specialist torturer is Dr Ludmilla Kropotkin, while Richard Wilson plays Sir Roger Daggenhurst and Johns Standing Gilbert Embelton the two British Whitehall plotters.
Only few days after taking out membership of Newcastle Club enabling priority ticket buying before the general public and on the day the club had sold James Milner, a moderate winger, for £12 million to Aston Villa where he had been on loan in a previous season, I watched in a horror show in which Arsenal played brilliantly after their debacle against Fulham the previous week. The next few days will show whether Newcastle is again in serious trouble as the new player buy period comes to an end and the auction between clubs for the best players and potential best players closes until the New Year. I like the look of what Sunderland and the Boro have done to-date but as for Newcastle alas all is woe again.
I only managed to catch the end of Last Choir standing and will watch the two programme son video, but I did enjoy a Morse which I had no memory off although I cannot imagine I have not seen before about the machinations at the top of an Oxford College with its high powered connections in Whitehall.
I had a pork roast with roast potatoes for lunch and a vegetable pasta for tea with a glass of red wine, two lots of toasts, a couple of cups of tea, one of coffee, the second portion of fresh pineapple and a can of rice pudding eaten cold from the tin and tea time snack of two slices tomatoes with olives dripping in olive oil.
The previous evening I had watched Cornelia Parker, the installation artist whose work was one of those which had great impact when I visited Tate Modern for the first time, introduced the architectural programme about modern China and its impact on the future of the planet, before a film about the bipolar Nina Simone whose records three Long Plays I had once managed to find in a Woolworths sale for between 10 and 20 pence or 5 to 10 cents today.
I also completed some research on the present structure and working of the American presidential a Federal system but will need to read thoroughly before claiming to have a better knowledge, but it does confirm my understanding that President although having import executive roles is nevertheless firmly influence by his party and its funders, his cabinet and their departments and agencies, by his personal Whitehouse administration and that of the Vice President, by Congress and by the Governors and their administration of the individual States. Given the limited time available in each day the extent to which a President can become involved in any issue will be defined and will be limited. The individual is not just a figurehead, a concept and a symbol as the Queen or King of Britain has become but will have les power to directly change a country than everyone appears to be hoping for in the current election.
There was one moment of brightness and even then I managed to turn a discovery into potential disaster, given its triviality in the great scheme of things, given what has been discussed over recent days.. I begin with this because it has had a satisfactory ending. On my recent visit to London I was upset that I had been unable to photograph the statuesque figures posed by young men and women along the embankment as I had made my way to London Bridge Station after attending the free concert at the Royal Festival Hall. I have seen such figures before, usually around Leicester Square. They require considerable expenditure to cover the body, clothing and skin in such a way and then to stand motionless for periods perhaps only responding when someone delivers an appropriate coin. What had surprised me with the number of the young people involved and the variation in subjects. The atmosphere was truly magical and not one which I had experienced in London before, since perhaps my youth and visiting the world of Jazz clubs in and around Soho as a teenager.
I had been taking photographs using the memory stick on my digital movie camera for the earlier trip to the Dome development at Greenwich and to see the new digital film experience of Journey to the centre of the world and then moved to the Royal festival Hall for the free concert in the early evening. I could have then journeyed by underground to Soho in an attempt to recapture some of my feelings from that time, or travelled to Victoria for a train back to East Croydon and to write up what had been a very interesting day especially the great boat trip at speed between stops and the sights along the river bank which were so different from when the trip was made before. It was a warm and sunny evening with several hundred young people assembled outside enjoying an early evening drink or walking along the river so my first instinct was to visit the book sellers outside the Heyward Gallery, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the National Film Theatre, stopping awhile to watch the youngsters on their skateboards under the concrete supports of the main building structures, and once also used for the homeless, the drunks and the druggies. An then I spotted the first of the statuesque which I had photographed only to find that the photos were not on the memory stick when I return to the Travel Lodge and transferred the photos to the laptop computer. I had remembered stopping by the booksellers to check the position after the finding that the memory stick was full with only 150 photos taken having unintentionally used the remaining space for another 150 by switching to film record. The odd aspect is that I had then photographed the statuesque and back at the Travel Lodge I had assumed that I had forgotten the problem with the memory stick. I therefore decided to return to the embank on the Saturday before going to the concert at the Royal Albert Hall and had been disappointed that despite even greater crowds there were no statuesque's and only one entertainer had been encountered at a different location.
Then to-day I decided to photograph completed sets while watching Newcastle play badly and lose heavily at Arsenal and got the second memory stick as I had used the first for photos of my patio plants as they approached the end of their season. This also registered that some 100 photos had been taken. What were they. Loo, they were those of the statuesque figures revealing that I must have found the second memory stick. The feature of memory sticks I have never understood is that they contain channels and that if one is used regularly it appears to switch between channels progressively only showing when new and then increasing to two, three and four. This is irritating because one then has to check each channels to find the most recent photos and it is has not been unknown for a switch between channels during one shoot. I can only assume that when I checked both memory sticks on the Friday evening that I had missed the channel on which the photos had been stored and remained over the days since returning. It was a wonderful find so I divided to immediately transfer to the location with the photos and then create new files under My Photos in order to create two new series of 101 photos for MySpace. This involved reviewing each photo, dividing them into the two series one exclusively the river and views from the speed launch and the other of the Dome area, the statuesque and other river bank shots. This took time as I also attempted to then place the photos in some kind of order. Then to my late night hotter I could not find the file containing those of the river transferred from the main file and I assumed I had managed to delete after going through all the main photograph files and then the document files and then those on the computer not once but twice. I became tired and was ready for bed but continued knowing that I would not rest having made the discovery and then lost some of the more important shots taken from the launch, and then I found it tucked away in another file and which had been overlooked on the two previous searches. It was time for bed but I was able to go content, to a point, but annoyed with myself for not checking properly on the original Friday evening or subsequently and then for getting into such a pickle after discovering them now. Needless to say I did not photograph the completed set work or watch the film which had also been an intention.
I did watch two other films. 10.50 Apocalypse was not a two part four hour epic I had seen before. I tend to the view that once you have seen one disaster epic you have seen them all, unless the latest technology creates a different experience and certainly I look forward to seeing what is accomplished using the 3 D dimension. This film was worth staying with in order to see the scale and nature of destruction which includes the breaking of the Hoover Dam, a Volcanic explosion in Sun Valley and the destruction of Las Vegas as everything sinks below the surface. The cause of these events in a sudden movement of the plates beneath the earth surface and which created the original continental break up and drift. The proposition of the film is something causes the dramatic sudden reversal of the drift with the outcome of changing the geography of the States with disastrous consequences for the populations of the area involved, the western plains and mountains although by the time the first part ended there was an accelerating movement into the central states. I am unable to say if the area between California and Philadelphia becomes a great lake because the second part is not being shown until Sunday afternoon when I shall be at the football. I was surprised to find a review on the On Line Film Critics Society by Scott Weinberg in 2006 which provided the information that this is a follow up to 10.50, an earlier epic. I thought the President was a familiar face and he also revealed that it is Beau Bridges. I was truly amazed that the President appeared to have personal knowledge of the heads of the Federal agencies involved in the film given that on any one day there are some four hundred Federal agencies at work in addition to those at State. It is because there are so many interests cutting across the departments of Cabinet members, those run by the Congress and those by individual States that ensuring there is in fact a common approach and a chain of command when civil emergencies take place, I sat this as the latest major hurricane of the season appears to heading in the direction of New Orleans again, which if is the situation will be interpreted by some religious groups as God giving Bush and the Republican administration a chance to redeem themselves after the last disaster, and enabling the public to include the event in their assessment before voting in November. The whole things lasts 169 minutes and be a good reviewer the writer omits to reveal how the things ends as if we did not know that the man rejected by the agency because his theories were too wild comes to the rescue and provides his daughter now the Presidential Chief Adviser with the solution, but is this before after half of he USA turns into a great lake.
I also watched for the second time in memory, the Man who knew too Little the Bill Murray 1997 comedy caper in which in unknowingly, the original American innocent abroad, prevents world war three breakout as he singled handedly prevent a plot between elements in the Kremlin and While Hall London from blowing up the Russian President and British Prime Minister, from signing a midnight peace accord to end the cold war. You get the spirit of this film when I say that the Russian hitman is called Boris the Butcher Blavatsky (Alfred Molina) and that one of his assistants specialist torturer is Dr Ludmilla Kropotkin, while Richard Wilson plays Sir Roger Daggenhurst and Johns Standing Gilbert Embelton the two British Whitehall plotters.
Only few days after taking out membership of Newcastle Club enabling priority ticket buying before the general public and on the day the club had sold James Milner, a moderate winger, for £12 million to Aston Villa where he had been on loan in a previous season, I watched in a horror show in which Arsenal played brilliantly after their debacle against Fulham the previous week. The next few days will show whether Newcastle is again in serious trouble as the new player buy period comes to an end and the auction between clubs for the best players and potential best players closes until the New Year. I like the look of what Sunderland and the Boro have done to-date but as for Newcastle alas all is woe again.
I only managed to catch the end of Last Choir standing and will watch the two programme son video, but I did enjoy a Morse which I had no memory off although I cannot imagine I have not seen before about the machinations at the top of an Oxford College with its high powered connections in Whitehall.
I had a pork roast with roast potatoes for lunch and a vegetable pasta for tea with a glass of red wine, two lots of toasts, a couple of cups of tea, one of coffee, the second portion of fresh pineapple and a can of rice pudding eaten cold from the tin and tea time snack of two slices tomatoes with olives dripping in olive oil.
The previous evening I had watched Cornelia Parker, the installation artist whose work was one of those which had great impact when I visited Tate Modern for the first time, introduced the architectural programme about modern China and its impact on the future of the planet, before a film about the bipolar Nina Simone whose records three Long Plays I had once managed to find in a Woolworths sale for between 10 and 20 pence or 5 to 10 cents today.
I also completed some research on the present structure and working of the American presidential a Federal system but will need to read thoroughly before claiming to have a better knowledge, but it does confirm my understanding that President although having import executive roles is nevertheless firmly influence by his party and its funders, his cabinet and their departments and agencies, by his personal Whitehouse administration and that of the Vice President, by Congress and by the Governors and their administration of the individual States. Given the limited time available in each day the extent to which a President can become involved in any issue will be defined and will be limited. The individual is not just a figurehead, a concept and a symbol as the Queen or King of Britain has become but will have les power to directly change a country than everyone appears to be hoping for in the current election.
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