Eye

This is a picture of M's nearly-six-year-old eye. I'm really pleased with this. You can see me reflected in her pupil. Not easy keeping a nearly-six-year old still for long enough to focus a 105mm macro lens manually and capture a reasonably sharp shot at 1/50s! If they handed out prizes for eyes, she'd win them all.

Details: Nikon D70, 105mm macro, f/5.6, 1/50s, ISO 800. 27 January 2007.

Icicles

Icicles on Mackenzie King's house at Kingsmere, in the Gatineau Park. Lots of icicles at this time of year, temperatures staying well below freezing all day, but bad insulation means that the snow on the roof melts slowly and refreezes as it drips off the guttering. I don't think I'd ever seen an icicle before I came here.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-70 @ 18mm, f/8, 1/100s, ISO 200. Gatineau Park, Quebec, 17 February 2005.

Snowshoes

Terrific day today up in the hills - bright sunshine, fresh snow, bitterly cold - perfect weather for snowshoeing! I hadn't done it before and I was surprised at how much fun it was. The forest is so bright and airy at this time of the year. Can't wait to get out and do it again!

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm @ 32mm, f/13, 1/250s. Gatineau Park, Quebec, 20 January 2007.

Ukrainian

This is St John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Shrine in Ottawa (that's a mouthful). The picture is taken from the Hog's Back lock gates on the Rideau Canal, where it parts company from the Rideau River.

I had no idea there was such a large Ukrainian community in Canada before coming here. Apparently the Dominion government actively encouraged immigration from Ukrainians fleeing religious persecution in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they couldn't find anyone else to farm the prairies and cope with the winters. I think Ukrainians have heavily influenced the Canadian character. Maybe something to do with the social fabric of the community that saw each other through the hard winters. I don't know. It would be interesting to study.

Details: Nikon D70, 75-240mm @ 190mm, f/8, 1/1000s, ISO 200. Ottawa, 30 January 2005. Placemark.

Eat my shorts

This very cool looking creature was laying eggs on my shorts at La Pêche beach a couple of summers ago. I have no idea what it was - some kind of grasshopper I suppose! - but it had an amazing coppery metallic exoskeleton.

Details: Nikon D70, 105mm macro, f/16, 1/40s, ISO 200, tripod. 4 July 2005, Gatineau Park, Quebec. Placemark.

Glue

The adhesive that keeps my life together. :)

Details: Nikon D70, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/640s, ISO 200. 21 February 2006, Treasure Beach, Jamaica.

Library

This is the Library of Parliament in Ottawa. It's an interesting neogothic building sitting very distinctively on top of the bluffs overlooking the Ottawa River. For our first couple of years here it was shrouded in white sheets while it was renovated (if you find it in Google Earth - see today's placemark - you can still see them). When the sheets finally came off, its new copper roof shone gleaming on the skyline - beautiful. I took this shot in March last year, after an unseasonal thaw had cleared most of the snow. If last winter was mild, this winter is positively tropical. It's the middle of January and there's no snow on the ground, the canal and river remain unfrozen, and at one point last week I walked to work in only a long-sleeved t-shirt. Apparently a lot of it has to do with El Niño, but one can't help thinking about climate change and what it's going to mean for our future.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm @ 18mm, f/22, 1/40s, ISO 200. 16 March 2006, Ottawa. Placemark.

Fish post

The City of London Corporation puts these fetching lamp posts along the Thames. This was taken by London Bridge, near Billingsgate Fish Market.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm @ 200mm, f/5.6, 1/50s (VR), ISO 200. London, 28 December 2006.

Reflection

Here's another shot taken by the Millennium Bridge. This time it's a self-portrait, a reflection in the windows fronting the Tate Modern, the gallery housed in the former Bankside power station on the South Bank of the Thames. They had the most amazing exhibition going on in the gallery: artist Carsten Höller had installed several massive slides in the vast interior of the building, which visitors could use. The 'art' is both the slides themselves, impressive chrome coils occupying the turbine hall, and the sliders, who can be seen from various levels of the museum as they slide down. I wish I'd been able to have a go myself, but the queues were too long. :(

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200 @ 40mm, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 200. London, 28 December 2006.

Beard

Another from the V&A cast courts. This is a cast of Michelangelo's Moses, the marble original is on the tomb of Pope Julius II in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, on the Esquiline in Rome.

Details: Nikon D70, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/25s, ISO 400. London, 2 January 2007.

Suckle

Another photo from the cast court at the Victoria & Albert Museum. This is a fun bit of the early 14th century pulpit by Giovanni Pisano, the original of which is in Pisa.

Details: Nikon D70, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/20s, ISO 400. London, 2 January 2007.

V&A

I had a great day today, me & my daughter being tourists. She was a trouper. After peering through the bars at the guardsmen outside Buckingham Palace she was promised a trip to see the dinosaurs and blue whale at the Natural History Museum - but when we got there the queue to get in was backed all the way up to the Cromwell Road, so we ditched that - much to her disappointment - and went to the V&A instead.

The Victoria & Albert Museum is an absolute treasure trove. I used to spend bored, wet Sunday afternoons there when I lived on my own in Fulham. Somehow in the intervening decade (and a bit) I'd clean forgotten about the cast gallery - the huge space at the back of the building where plaster casts of some of the world's greatest historical and artistic treasures are stored. I'll be drawing on this for a few posts yet - here is a detail from Trajan's Column, which you can find in its entirety (albeit in two halves) and inspect at your leisure.

M was amazingly patient, wandering through the museum inspecting works of art, asking about the inhabitants of Angevin royal sarcophagi (conclusion: all very good, except King John, who was very naughty); sympathising with the dragon in a 12th century Bohemian carving of a rampant St George; and calmly commenting on Michelangelo's David's impressive physical attributes. I was proud of her.

Details: Nikon D70, 50mm prime, f/1.8, 1/15s, ISO 400, b&w conversion in Photoshop. London, 2 January 2007. Placemark.

New Year Rant

Happy New Year etc. I know I shouldn't start the year off with a vitriolic rant but I can't help it. We had a fun day out in Brighton today. A nice fast train ride through the South Downs, then a leisurely amble down to the seafront and along to the pier. Fish & chips on a bench watching the seagull and the choppy seas, then a couple of fairground rides. All good fun. It was dead crowded, full of locals, day trippers, and overseas tourists. Brighton's a fun town and must be one of the places in the UK which is most visited by foreigners.

So why in the name of all that's reasonable should a souvenir shop slap bang in the middle of Brighton's top tourist attraction have a display like this in its window?? Where else in the world would they get away with something like this? In my book, it's a hate crime. Why is it OK for the British (actually make that the English) to get away with inciting violence against Germans, sixty-two years after the end of the war? I'm tempted to make some kind of formal complaint, but they'd only accuse me of lacking a sense of humour. For far too long the English have used their fabled (and largely mythical) sense of humour as an excuse to abuse their neighbours. There was an excellent article about it in the Spiegel a couple of years ago - archive copy here (in German). Here, I'm going to post a translation, apologies in advance for its length and its dodginess, no need to read unless really interested...

What's up with the British sense of humour? British jokes can't make much headway with the new Germany - and with the old one they're just flogging a dead horse.

The best-kept secret of the British sense of humour is that it doesn't exist. At least, not when it comes to the Germans. Sorry, does not compute. It's the fault of both parties, the English as well as the Germans.

What is it we can give them? For ages Germany could at least give British comedians Helmut Kohl. But now all we can offer is people who wash out their yoghurt pots. Not much to laugh about there.

But the thing is there's a demand for it: the inhabitants of the island love Germans first and foremost as 'Nazi Fritz', who can be used in any situation as an excuse for good-humoured Stuka-Headlines: Surrender, Kraut! Perhaps this works for them as therapy to deal with some primitive complex they have about the neighbours making better cars than them. Maybe it's to help remember a time when their country still held together. Or maybe it's there to feed their resentment, as in the advert produced by euro-sceptics which goes: "One Race, One Reich, One Euro!" as a corruption of the phrase used by Hitler?

We ought to let our otherwise greatly admired British friends amuse themselves with this little anachronism and not bother them any further. What good would it do? Anyone that criticises them gets accused of having no sense of humour.

"A load of Sauerkraut"

Still: Nazi Germany remains a stock reference for British comedians' efforts, by contrast the New Germany knocks them for six. 'Nazi Fritz' still works as a joke after the fifth pint of beer, actually perhaps only after the fifth pint, but the English sense of humour simply can't get to grips with Jochen [= generic modern German name] the peace activist.

Until the comedian Harry Enfield created his blond character 'Jurgen the German', who would seize upon unknowing British pedestrians and say: "it is my solemn duty to apologise for the actions of my nation during the Second World War."

That at least is fantastic.

The daft thing there, though, is that this is a closing gag, and with it the whole Nazi thing has been milked to death and the German militarist has disappeared from the radar screens. It's been knocked into the bushes, from where we can only hope that it never returns. Even the British Minister of Culture last year praised the German love of art and classical music, and criticised the lack of it in her fellow countrymen - and all this without mentioning the war! A capital offence!

The Daily Mail went to fetch it, and knocked it straight back. "A load of sauerkraut," they said, and reminded its readers in an awesome display of fine British humour that Germans wear lederhosen, grab their arses and are as queer and eccentric as Mad King Ludwig. And then (get this, it's a cracker!) "they eat dumplings" and the only German film director is called (he shoots!) Leni Riefenstahl and so (he scores!) we're back again at the war, which incidentally the Daily Mail reminds us "we British won."

Please mention the war!

Thus has British comedy (with the glorious exception of John Cleese's "Don't Mention the War!" sketch) been doing the rounds for over sixty uninspired years, whenever the subject of their giant continental neighbour comes up. Certainly a lasting consequence of German aggression, yet another reason why we can never apologise enough. Other than the war, there wasn't much to joke about.

And what little there was has now gone - namely our legendary national victory on the Sunlounger Front. For ages British comedians could poke fun at the German Economic Miracle Tourists for being the first to put their towels by the pool. But even that is no longer the case.

Legendary Kraut-hater Jeremy Clarkson has now revealed in the London Times that: "Sorry, Hans, brassy Brits rule the beaches now." The noisy, red-faced British rule the beaches, while Hans, the pale poofter, can only retreat to the classical concert halls.

It's a crying shame. As a byword for cheeky British comedy Laughing Stock Germany is a total washout. As for cars: who can make jokes about a bunch of provincial engineers? Answer: the Germans, and they do it pretty well. They work with, er, typical German understatement, those people at Audi, managing to plaster this engineering saying all over the Island: "Vorsprung durch Technik."

In German. In the ridiculously clumsy language of the Krauts. They can't speak English, these people from Audi, but they can build cars. And in the ultimate irony, it has nothing to do with the war! Do it again!

Details: Nikon D70, 50mm prime, f/1.8, 1/320s, ISO 200. Brighton, 1 January 2007. Placemark.