Architecture – Page 21 – My Photo Blog

The Sound of Silence – 13 October 2016

Posted on October 13, 2016October 13, 2016 by Zogman

He came! He actually came and within twenty minutes the aerial was down and dismantled. The aerial man gave us back the sound of silence. To paraphrase Stuart MacBride’s heroine Detective Chief Inspector Steel, “Seventy five quid plus VAT? My sharny ¹ arse!” This guy did the job and we thank him very much … we did pay him too.

Earlier in the day, Scamp met her aunt and managed to establish the identity of a great many people in a sixty year old wedding photo. It made me think that in today’s world where so many of our photos, even wedding photos are not printed, how will we perform a similar task in the future. Will we still be able to view those videos on their lovely shiny DVDs engraved with the movie highlights of today’s wedding groups? Will the photos that are printed using ink on ‘archival’ paper last for sixty years? Will the resolution of the full frame CCD be as good as the old fashioned 6×6 TLR? Not a chance. The other thing we need is to record the names and fit them to the faces of the people in those photos. I realised too late, after my father died, that I’d lost touch with all those people whose faces I saw in the old photos. They were also dead, but they had also taken their identities with them. What I urge you to do is to record, preferably in ink and on paper, the names of the faces in your old photos, and if you don’t have physical photos, print them out on the best quality paper you can afford. It’s not for you, it’s for the ones who come after you. They are the ones who will be left scratching their heads after you can’t be relied upon to enlighten them.

Today’s PoD was taken on the east of Fannyside Moor looking towards Slamannan. It’s a great place for Big Skies and this certainly was a big sky. I like it because it’s a place where you can just watch the clouds rolling past without cars constantly zipping past. The only traffic today was a lady on a bike who was riding a tail-wind. I hope she had already cycled the head-wind part of the route and was on her way home.

Today’s Inktober drawing was of the church in Cumbernauld Village and is a building I’ve been meaning to draw for some time. It really is the most awkward shape with bits apparently added on at different times in its history. The windows, especially seem to have been placed wherever the builder found a space for them. Only the tops of the upper windows line up properly and some have lots of small panes of glass while others have fewer, larger panes. In all, I was pleased with the finished sketch, probably even more so because I sketched it in the open air. I’m not French, so why should I call it en plein air. That’s just being a poser, or should that be poseur?

Tomorrow is unplanned as yet, but it will not include listening to the crows landing on that aerial or dreading the screech of it rotating in its rusty bracket. The bracket is gone, the pole that held the aerial has been recycled and the aerial itself is in a skip. I love the sound of silence.

Befouled with dung. Merriam-Webster ↩

From the sublime to the ridiculous – 1 October 2016

Posted on October 1, 2016October 2, 2016 by Zogman

Yesterday we had a lovely day. Today we set out to go to Perth for tea and coffee. Yes, I know it’s pretentious to go halfway across the country to get something as simple and everyday as tea or coffee – heavens, you can get them in Tesco. Yes, you can, but I like the taste of loose tea and fresh ground coffee and am quite happy to be called pretentious, after all it’s my money that buys the coffee beans and the leaf tea. My choice, my money, my caffeine fix.

When we got to Cumbersheugh bus station, I suggested that we take the bus to Dundee instead. That turned out to be my undoing. The trip was good on a comfortable bus, but Dundee should have a big sign saying “Under Construction”. The entire waterfront area is a building site and a sight too. I really hope the V&A gallery, museum, atrocity looks good when it’s finished, because it really is an eyesore that this city does not deserve. The result was that we visited Braithwaites for the aforementioned tea and coffee and got the next bus south. We’d intended going back to Perth, then Scamp suggested Stirling as there were a few more buses we could get from there to Castle Greyskull. Mistake 2. A mother and daughter got on at Perth and talked incessantly for the hour it took to get to Stirling. When I say talked, I really mean shouted at each other. If I hear one more time that they had a tape of Pete’s Dragon with Ewoks Adventure immediately afterwards, I’ll go insane. That tape must have been talked about for about half the journey. If people must hold a conversation, then let them keep it between themselves.

Unfortunately for the driver, they were going all the way to Glasgow. Luckily for us we got off at Stirling. We went for a coffee then parted company to spend some money. Scamp wanted a new pair of shoes and I wanted a new pair of trainers. We both achieved our stated goals and headed for the bus again the fourth of the day. Scamp suggested we get the X39. Mistake 3. When I drive from Stirling to home, it usually takes less than 20 min. This journey on a rattletrap rustbucket bus took over an hour and a quarter. We visited every possible village and town between Stirling and Cumbersheugh.

You see the the worst things about public transport are the public and the transport. If you get less moronic public and real transport that was built this century then the journey will be much more pleasant and more normal folk will use it.

I’m driving tomorrow.

Weather was beautiful today and I’ll remember the Lego men made from hay bales, even if I couldn’t stop to photograph them.

Almost forgot this is day one of Inktober 2016. Must get more organised and spend a bit more time on the sketches. Luckily the first official topic was “Fast” and this was a fast sketch. Inktober is a great way to force yourself to put pen to paper in a graphical way. Click on the image to view the full monsterpiece! I wouldn’t have remembered if it wasn’t for reading the ‘A Year Ago Today’ link. You have read it, haven’t you? It’s at the bottom of the right hand column and is quite the little eye opener for me.

A road less travelled – 21 September 2016

Posted on September 21, 2016September 21, 2016 by Zogman

We woke to a beautiful morning with good colour in the sky and a sprinkling of clouds. According to the weather forecast, rain was on the way in the afternoon, so we needed to get out fairly early. I must admit it was me who was tardy in rising and greeting the day, so there you go, blame me.

We drove up the road to Uig to visit our niece Jac who has just started work in a boutique hostel. I think we were both quite intrigued by the descriptions we’d heard from her mother, another Jac, and Murd. We met more than our usual lot of crazies going the other way. Mother Jac (I think Jac the mum, we’ll call Jac1 – seniority! Our niece will be Jac2. – There, that’s much simpler … I think). So Jac1 had warned us about the amount of crazies driving on the single track roads and the arrogance of them. Today we met them. They seem to think they own the road. They really have to understand that they are only visitors to this island. There are other road users, people who live on the island and then there’s me and I DO own the road. Yes, I did get it when I bought the motor! However, we reached Uig in one piece. The next warning we’d had from both Murd and Jac1 was about the road from Uig to the Cow Shed where Jac2 works. I’m glad she did. It reminded me of a road from Clydeside up to Craignethan Castle, except on that road there are warning signs. On this wee road there are no sign. Suddenly the road rises up right in front of you and continues to rise through three hairpin bends on a single track road. Thankfully there were no crazies coming the other way this time. Also, this achieved today’s goal to travel on a road we hadn’t been on in Skye.

The Cow Shed itself is very luxurious. Calling this a hostel is a real misnomer. This is a luxurious place. The only ‘hostel part of it is the bunk beds in the dormitories. And what a view! From the lounge there is an uninterrupted view right across Uig bay. Scamp was determined to get a look at the ‘pods’ and we did get a look in one. Clever design and environmentally sound. Good thinking too with mini pods for dogs on holiday with their owners. I think we may be paying for a night in one of the pods the next time we are in Skye, but not one with a dogpod!

From Uig we drove over to Waternish and down to Stein and parked next to the loch. That was when the rain came on. In Skye when the rain comes on, it sometimes forgets to go off. We headed back to Sligachan and from there to Portree. The rain thinned a bit, but always came back with a vengence. Got myself a shirt in Skye Batiks, another one, a purple one. We drove back to Staffin and had a cream tea in Columba and a natter with Jac1. After that we drove down to Staffin beach and the roads were in just as bad state as Murd and Jac1 had warned us about.

Headed back to Burnside and dinner which was boiled ham, cabbage and potatoes, my second old favourite. Best favourite being mince and tatties!

Don’t know what we’re doing or where we’re going tomorrow. It’s in the lap of the weather gods. Looks good, but you never know on Skye.

There Jac1 you got a mention! Don’t know if Jac2 reads this, but if you do, you got a mention too.

It’s a small world – 15 September 2016

Posted on September 15, 2016September 15, 2016 by Zogman

Went in to Glasgow on the bus this morning to get my locks shorn. It was really well overdue. There are only two barbers in the shop I go to, both of whom have different topics of conversation. The young one is the radical who follows the Russian news channel on the Internet and says they tell fewer lies than the BBC. Not that they are more honest, just that they tell fewer lies. There’s a subtle difference in the semantics I think. The older man is more careworn and sarcastic. He’s on his third marriage I think, which probably explains my description of him. He was in charge of remodelling my coiffure today. Topics ranged from the usual Scottish start: The Weather to remembering Strathclyde Loch being created. It was after we talked about how the loch used to be just a fishing pond at the south end of Motherwell that he made the startling announcement “‘course I’m not from Motherwell, I’m from Larkhall.” “You’re kidding!” I said. We exchanged information about areas of Larky, then streets and realised that we lived about half a mile from each other. His father had been Mr Smart the headmaster at my primary school. Well, not exactly mine, more like my brother’s. I had Mr Crombie as my headmaster. We never called them ‘heidies’ then, we were much better brought up in Larky. It was only when I went into teaching that ‘heidies’ became synonymous with authority. We talked about places we both knew and inevitably pubs. A normal topic of discussion in a town with the greatest number of public houses per head of population in Scotland. I’ve been going to this barbers’ shop for more years than I care to recall and had my hair cut by this man for most of them, only to find out today the he too came from ‘The Town Behind the Wall.’ Maybe I’ll explain that sometime. A small world indeed.

Walked out into the sunshine and went down Bucky Street and out into Exchange Square or Royal Exchange Square to give it its full title, although the royal part of the name ceased to have any meaning when Glasgow Council acquired the Royal Bank of Scotland building which dominates it in the late ‘40s. See, you learn stuff on this blog. Now the grand building houses the Gallery of Modern Art (the GoMA) and is home to all human life … and a few indeterminate other forms of almost sentient beings. “Though I never perfected the simian stroll.” could have been written for this area. Good hunting ground for photos too. The central photo in the above mosaic, with judicious cropping gave the photos at the bottom and the middle left. The other two were just a couple of quick grab shots. They took about 5 minutes total to compose and shoot. Given half an hour here on a reasonably sunny day you could fill an SD card easily.

That was it for the photography for the day. Wandered round the centre of town, but didn’t see anything else to tempt me into digging the camera out of my pocket. Got the bus home and found Scamp happily digging plants out, planting others and generally tidying up the garden. To each his and her own.

Looks like the warm weather is gone for the time being and it’s back to more seasonal temperatures for the next day or so. I blame getting the air-con fixed!

Total abstinence is an impossibility – 31 August 2016

Posted on August 31, 2016 by Zogman

Not a lot to say about today, other than the six Auld Guys met up in the Horseshoe Bar for a few drinks, a cheap lunch, a few more drinks and a lot of good natured banter. It was great fun and for once there were no arguments, even when conversation turned to politics. The title of the blog post is one of the quotes painted, properly painted by a skilled signwriter on the inside of the gantry of the Horseshoe Bar. It’s attributed to Queen Victoria, but there is no proof that she drank in this pub.

From visiting one of the oldest pubs in Glasgow I had a look in one of the newest places, the Apple Shop in Buchanan Street. It only opened on Saturday after an eight month refit. It’s now much more open inside, but unfortunately they removed the glass staircase. Such a shame. It also looks as if they have removed the upper floor which housed the ‘Genius Bar’. That’s not such a big deal as I never actually found any ‘Geniuses’ there.

Only one photo today, there were more serious things on my mind today like a few drinks, a cheap lunch, a few more drinks and a lot of good natured banter. The building is the Premier Inn which, like the Apple shop was recently renovated. In my opinion they turned an ordinary building into a really ugly one. Kind of suits this area of Glasgow.

Don’t know what’s on the cards for tomorrow. It all depends on the weather.

Did you remember to bring the coconuts? – 24 August 2016

Posted on August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 by Zogman

Last night we made plans to go down to Ayr, or Troon, or Largs, or Millport today. Definitely somewhere west or south west, because that’s where the best weather was to be. Today we went east, well, east (ish). Sort of north east. Not west.

We made sandwiches (pieces) and filled a flask and we left. We headed in the morning sunshine in the general direction of Stirling and thence to Callander which we hoped would be free from blue-rinsed drivers on this, our midweek journey. They usually only come out in their hordes on Sundays. Despite being in a long line of traffic behind an articulated lorry we had a fairly pleasant run through Callander and on to Lubnaig. It was Scamp’s idea to stop at the loch for a coffee. I wasn’t too sure about it to start with, but when I saw the reflections on the loch, I just knew I wanted to stop. When we stopped, we discovered that a Rabbies minibus had just arrived and there were tourists everywhere. We’re not tourists, we’re Scottish.

After coffee and fifty odd photos, we headed further up the loch and across on to the Loch Earn road. I’d half intended to drive to the end of the Loch Earn road and then drive back down the other side of the loch. I also wanted to find out where the ‘reflective man’ was. It’s a statue of a man covered in mirror tiles and it stands in the water. I knew it was on the north side of the loch, just off the road. I found it, but there were too many tourists near it. I’m not a tourist, I’m a photographer. I didn’t stop. I didn’t take the south road either, I just drove on. And on and on and on.

We passed through twee little Comrie but didn’t want to go all the way to Perth, so we turned right and pointed the car at the Braco road. We climbed up one side of a hill, across the top and down the other side, and eventually we found Braco. Braco has a main street and a shop called, conveniently, the Braco Shop. From there a signpost pointed to Stirling and we followed it and put Braco and the Braco Shop behind us. Instead of continuing to Stirling, we diverted to Doune to eat our ‘pieces’ and drink our coffee in Doune Castle, and that’s what we did.

Doune Castle is where bits of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was filmed. One of the great scenes in the film is where the knights pretend to ride horses while their pages click coconut shells together to simulate the sound of the horses hooves. Part of that scene was filmed around the castle. A few years ago when we were at Doune Castle an American boy pulled a couple of coconut shell halves from his bag and proceeded to clip-clop around the internal square of the castle while his mother filmed him. Like I say, he was American. When we were sitting in that same internal square today, Scamp asked me “Did you remember to bring the coconuts?” Had you worked out the cryptic clue Hazy?

While we were there, I got a sketch done of the castle tower. It’s only when you sit and study these old castles, you realise how different they are from todays buildings All the windows are different sizes and shapes, as are the doors. You can see where bits have been added, bits removed holes have been cut in the walls, only to find that they are in the wrong place, so the holes are bricked up and covered over. Just like Cumbersheugh Town Centre in fact. History repeats itself. However, the castle was much more fun to sketch than CTC.

When we got home, Scamp suggested we walk to the local pub for fish and chips and a pint. I thought it was a wonderful idea. A great end to a great day.

Lighthouse and Lightroom – 23 August 2016

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Zogman

Now that normal service has been resumed to the train line into Glasgow, I accepted Scamp’s kind offer of a lift to the station today to travel into ‘The Toon’ to visit a photographic exhibition in the Lighthouse. The cunningly titled “Nobody’s Home’ by John Maher ex-Buzzcocks. The blurb says: “John’s photographs of decaying man-made objects set against a backdrop of stunning Hebridean landscapes have appeared in a wide variety of publications.” I’ll bet they have. These are beautiful photographs up to about 2m square, obviously taken on a large format camera and mostly with wide or ultra wide angle lenses. Some looked very staged with incongruous articles lying around the rooms. I find it hard to believe that the average Harris crofter would have time or inclination to read Good Housekeeping magazine. The lighting in some was confused to say the least with general illumination being achieved with ‘light painting’ using torches I expect. However, it’s the textures he achieves that really impressed me. That and the colours. While the photos are restrained, they aren’t dull. An hour well spent I think.

After wandering around the gallery, I went for a wee bit of climbing, taking the stairs up to the viewing gallery at the top of the Macintosh water tower in the building. Strangely, my iPhone didn’t manage to record any flights of stairs climbed! Possibly it was just a case of information overload. It just couldn’t believe I could climb that many steps so quickly. The weather wasn’t as good as it was down London way where the mercury was reaching over 30ºc and wall to wall sunshine. In Glasgow it was more like half that temperature and wall to wall grey. However, I still managed to get the shots I wanted of the backs of well known streets and interesting ‘looking down’ views. Then I got the train back home and got a lift from Scamp back home. Macaroni Cheese for dinner Hazy! Lovely. Then I dumped the photos into the Mac and that’s where Lightroom worked on the Lighthouse shots. A tenuous link, I know, but a link none the less. Here’s another link. This one will take you to John Maher’s website. Clicking on the mosaic at the top is another link, the usual one to my Flickr page!

Hobbiton – 14 August 2016

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Zogman

According to the weather fairies last week, today was to be a beautiful day. Yesterday they said that Sunday was to be a bit cloudy but with sunny intervals and Monday was to be a beautiful day. Today was less than beautiful and there was a distinct lack of sunny intervals, and now the predictions are that Tuesday, not Monday will be a beautiful day. It’s like “cake tomorrow, but never cake today.” However, we struggle on with grey skies and the eternal prospect of good weather some day.

It was dry, not very windy and quite warm, so we went out for a walk. Today’s choice of walk was around one of the paths at Chatelherault near Hamilton. It’s a huge area with forest, grassland and interesting architecture. The main building on the site is the former Hunting Lodge and Summer House for the Dukes of Hamilton and looks out over an avenue of trees which originally led down to Hamilton Palace which has now been demolished. Behind Chatelherault is a large forested area of gigantic redwoods, pines and also some natural hardwoods. The Avon Water runs through the estate and it was looking very fishable today with tea coloured water just running off a spate.

We left the car in the car park and headed for one of the shorter routes. Shorter, but still quite demanding, especially to two walkers who will happily admit they are out of condition. I think we need to visit the gym more than once a week to get back to a reasonable degree of physical fitness. That said, it was an interesting walk. Lots of ups and downs, muddy paths and demanding stairs to climb. Perhaps it was because we were watching “The Hobbit” last night, but the whole place had the feeling of the set for that film with thinning of the pines allowing the light to penetrate and made it much less gloomy than commercial woodland. Unfortunately we didn’t see any hobbits.

There wasn’t much to photograph today, but it has potential if there is a bit more directional sunlight to play with. I did manage to fake a shot of the frontage of Chatelherault with a bit of levels adjustment in Lightroom, then I pasted in a more interesting sky from one of yesterday’s shots. The peas are two of the potentially five pods from our single pea plant. I think I planted the other peas upside down and they are growing down the way.

Hoping against hope for cake tomorrow.

Serendipity – 6 August 2016

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Zogman

Last night was a late night. It was Saturday morning about 1am when I finally dragged myself to bed. As a result, we woke late this morning, or should I say ‘later’ this morning. We had intended to go to Edinburgh, hereinafter referred to by its proper name of Embra. It was touch and go whether we would go or not, but finally we decided that we should just go, as there was nowhere else that interested us.

In Embra we walked through the Conference Square canyon. I hadn’t realised just how ugly the Conference Centre was. What a waste of concrete. From there, up the Grassmarket through the crowds and on to the Royal Mile. That’s where the real ‘Maddies’ were. For a fair few blocks, the Royal Mile is pedestrianised at festival time and so it was today. Scamp was interested in a couple of groups of a cappella singers and I was just interested in taking photos of the nutters.

The fringe is interesting, but after a while you get fed up listening to the hype from these self centred eejits and have to get back to reality. That is what we did. We walked down The Bridges and on to the St James Centre. What a disaster that is now. All that’s left in the entire centre is John Lewis. Everything else is closed. It appears that the whole site is being rebuilt while the JL shop remains open. It is a really depressing site (and sight) and will remain that way for FOUR years. The new centre isn’t due to open until 2020. There are loads of ‘artists impressions’ or AutoCad renders of the proposed new retail opportunity. It looks very smart, but it is very difficult to work out what you are looking at as there are no landmarks on the beautifully rendered artwork, and let’s face it, it’s Embra. It has a few landmarks!

From the disaster that was the St James Centre, we walked through St Andrew’s Square (there are a lot of saints in Embra!) and on to George Street. Like the Royal Mile, part of George Street was pedestrianised for the festival with lots of drinks venues pitched on the roadway. We stopped at one for a beer (an expensive beer at £2.50 for a half pint!) and that’s where the ‘Serendipity’ came in. We were sitting at a table across from an older woman. As usual, Scamp got into conversation with her, but I must admit that for once she didn’t instigate it. It turned out that she was on a bus tour to see the Tattoo and she had come from Cambridge. She knew Baldock and also Little Downham. However, she had lived in South Wales before she got married and knew where Scamp’s aunt lived in Maesteg. Thirdly, she had been to Inverness last year and had gone on another bus tour to Skye and stayed in the Pink House in Portree! It was almost as if she had read our minds and plotted three places where we had synchronicity.

When we left her and George St then turned onto Princes Street, we could feel that the weather had turned. It was cooler and there were spits and spots of rain in the wind, so we headed for the train and home. No lunch out today, but dinner was provided by Golden Bowl and was delicious. Rain and high winds forecast for tomorrow and I’ve got an appointment with the physio to see what’s wrong with my shoulder. Maybe he’ll just give it a rub with the magic sponge and it will be as good as new. Maybe!

Fish Again – 5 August 2016

Posted on August 5, 2016August 6, 2016 by Zogman

Out fairly early to pick up our fish and crab meat from Oyster Oyster in Linlithgow. While we were walking into the town from the carpark, I saw this view of St Michael’s church spire pointing upwards behind the trees. Everyone thinks this is part of Linlithgow Palace and it looks as if it should be, but no. It dates from 1964 and is made mainly of aluminium.

When we got back it was time for a technology injection with a coffee or two with Val. It was good to exchange problems and solutions with someone who understands why that borked Nexus is a “wee shalenge”[sic]. As I expected, he suggested yet another way to solve the Nexus problem, or maybe just a chance to create a new problem.

When I got back it was time to prepare the main course. To speed up the preparation of the sauce, I decided to slice the ginger with the mandolin. Yes, JIC, I managed to slice my finger once again. The good news is that it was ginger I was slicing, not orange, so no acidic juice got in the cut. However, I had to continue the prep with two plasters on the cut and my hand in a plastic glove. Thanks to Nurse Scamp, it wasn’t any worse. Fish is now prepped and bread is baked without any more dramas. Just waiting for our guests to arrive.