Today is 23rd April. As well as being St George's Day, my late mother's birthday, and Shakespeare's birthday, I now discover that it's also JMW Turner's birthday.
He was born 250 years ago this very day, and is arguably Britain's finest ever painter. Odd that our best writer and our best artist should share a birthday.
This is the Turner Contemporary, in Margate, which commemorates a place where he spent a lot of time and painted many pictures.
At Easter time five years ago, we were in the throes of the first, big, Covid lockdown. Some of us - those living in pleasant, open surroundings anyway - may have rather enjoyed it. I know I did. It was so quiet and peaceful everywhere, and the pace of life slowed right down...
Now here's a gloomy space for #GoodFriday and #FensterFreitag. You'd have trouble searching for easter eggs in a place like this.
Much of the time these days, it seems like the whole world is just circling ever closer to the plug-hole of doom.
Mind you, I don't suppose the real plug-hole of doom looks as attractive as this water feature.
I always like photos where you have to look twice to check whether they are in colour or black and white, but I imagine there isn't much colour at the plug-hole of doom.
It may have been Sunday yesterday, but the farmers were out doing their spring stuff anyway.
When I saw this scene, I was reminded of that quote from Eric Cantona about seagulls following the trawler...
Somewhere near you, quite possibly, right now, is a bracken frond unfurling in the spring sunshine...
Once upon a time, we thought the future would look like this - all weird shapes, brutalist concrete, and windows.
Motorway service areas seemed like an exciting development too...
See how it looked in the 1960s in the replies to this post.
A window into a corrugated iron chapel.
You don't see many 'tin' buildings like this around any more.
If you look hard, you can just see the altar and candles behind the daffs.
Illuminati HQ
https://justin-farrimond.pixels.com/featured/illuminati-hq-justin-farrimond.html
Time owns no fixed point in space. This building, in this point of time, is an Illuminati HQ.
A bank, a brothel, a gentlemen's club, a rendition basement and a gallery space - all occupy this grid in Northern England.
It's not often you get to see history practically halted in its tracks, but here is a rare case.
On the left is John Constable's 1821 painting, 'The Haywain', and on the right, is my picture of the same location from 200 years later. Willy Lott's House is probably the least altered part of the scene.
I've not posted any of my Australian pictures for a while, so here is one.
At the end of this trail, through this woody tunnel, at the brow of this hill is a magnificent panorama of the ocean - which I will leave you to imagine for yourselves...
#RabbitRabbit ^1 20250315-W-BRM8QV
on foot
52.492745, 13.366957 ^1
X marks the spot
Saturday, 15 March 2025
427.01 ppm CO₂
1: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=52.492745&mlon=13.366957#map=17/52.492745/13.366957
in Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin, Germany
I was down by the sea last weekend, when I came across this post. Obviously, I've no idea what the flowers are for - whether celebration, or memorial, or simply a whimsical gesture. Your assumptions are as good as mine...
Once upon a time I was camping out on a beach in Greece. Every day this couple rode past twice - presumably on their way to and from work. One evening I managed to capture this shot of them. I wonder whether anyone there still does this kind of thing?
