Welcome to my web site.
As I add items the older stuff gets pushed down the page so you will need to scroll down to see it. This front page only shows the most recent entries – to find older articles visit the index page or use the search box.
The photo at the top of the page is me standing in the middle of the Great Salt Lake in Utah staring at my shoe.
Dave celebrated his 60th birthday on Sunday with, amongst other things, a meal for friends and family at the Tufnell Park Tavern. It was jolly good fun. The photo are here.
Thirty nine years ago, in the summer of 1972, Jo Robinson and I took a bunch of kids for a day out to look at the trains at Kings Cross. At some point I popped into a photo booth and grabbed a few pics including these two of Kelly Wild sitting on my lap.
Yesterday I popped over to Kelly’s place and took some photos of her, her son Noah and the very newly arrived Finn. They are here. Time passes.
Back in 1972 Sam was considerably less happy than Kelly about having his photo taken.
Isabel and I went on the gigantic demo against the cuts today and encountered a vast cross section of humanity and lot of very funny posters. The photos are here.
Here is a selection of some of my favourites.
A view along the Embankment (make sure you view this one full size to get a feel for the size of the crowd).
The sentiment of the masses pithily summed up
The Red and the Black – it takes me back. I got warm feelings of intense nostalgia when I encountered the anarchist contingent, I was just sixteen when I joined my first anarchist group.
This also captured something from my youth, a moment, a feeling, an intensity.
A few posters
Some faces in the crowd and our own armoured division!
We gathered for Geraldine’s 60th birthday party. Old friends were embraced and kissed. News and gossip exchanged. We chatted and laughed. Champagne was drunk and food eaten. There was some dancing. And Ralph read a poem he had written to celebrate the love of his life. Here is the video – it’s a bit dark but the lights were low.
Terry left to work in Ethiopia for the next year and the night before she left she held a farewell party. Here are a few seconds of video from what was a very nice night full of old friends.
Yesterday we gathered to celebrate Alison’s 60th Birthday. I remember her 20th birthday, I bought her an album, or an LP as we called it then, it was “Air Conditioning” by the band Curved Air. Seems like yesterday. Where does the time go?
The birthday party was great – the photos are here.
Christmas has come and gone and I am left with a lot of nice presents, some photos and a cold.
The festive season kicked off with the annual name day gathering at Eva’s on Christmas eve. As usual the food and the company was excellent.
Christmas Day was nice and cozy at our place with just Jess and Rosie, lots of good food, a film or two on the telly and the big inviting sofa.
Boxing Day was in Hackney with the ever growing Russell Clan. After the food came the Secret Santa presents, and a simultaneous game of Articulate and a giant German Autobahn jigsaw (courtesy of Sophie). There were also an unusual number of false moustaches, don’t ask. The photos are here.
Here is a video of the Secret Santa presents being opened.
And here is a video of the intense Articulate game.
The day after Boxing Day and it was the turn of the Swash family to gather at our place for the usual mixture of fun, drinking, eating and laughter all conducted with an accompanying and a non-stop wall of noise. The photos are here.
Here is a video which captures the noise and energy unleashed when the Swash family gathers together in a confined space.
Yesterday I had a lovely couple of hours messing about on a snow covered Parliament Hill with my brothers, sister-in-law, my nephews and some toboggans. Great fun. The photos are here.
We had a very small fireworks gathering at my brother Chris’s place. Mostly it was an opportunity for a few beers, conversation and lots of laughs. Very good fun all round. The photos are here.
I have finally got around to posting some of our photos from our American road trip back in July and August. We were away for seven weeks and during that time I shot nearly 5000 photos, although quite a few were multiple exposures of the same shot or multi-shot panoramas. I will only be posting a few of these photos, just the ones I like.
I have sorted and processed four albums so far covering our first few weeks on the road and featuring photos from the Rocky Mountains National Park, our stay in the delightful high mountain town of Leadville, our visit to the equally lovely mountain town of Crested Butte and then our longer stay in Moab which is at the heart of the canyon lands of Utah.
You can see all the photo albums by clicking here.
A couple of photos from the Rocky Mountains National Park. The rest of the photos from this part of our trip are here
The 4th of July in Leadville and a sample of its wonderful buildings. The rest of the photos from Leadville are here
On top of Crested Butte mountain, Isabel strolling and the view from our motel. The rest of the photos from Crested Butte are here
Life on the plateau rim at the Island in the Sky near Moab in Utah. The rest of the photos from Moab and the canyon lands of Utah are here
Isabel and I went for a walk in Waterlow Park yesterday in the glorious early autumn sunshine. The sky was a clear, sharp, pristine blue and all the flowers and autumnal leavers just radiated colour.
I haven’t posted anything here since our return from America mostly because the shock of returning to our real lives after being on the road for so long left us rather dazed for a while. Plus I took over 5000 photos on our road trip and I have started the long task of sorting them out. The art of photography is mostly to just take lots of photo, just a few end up being keepers and the good ones I will start posting here soon.
In the meantime here are some photos from our walk.
Isabel strolls beneath a beautiful tree
Isabel strolling
Some radiant flowers
