No Post

You will have to imagine tonight's picture: a heron fishing or, alternatively, a beautiful sunset over Richmond Bridge. I have been badly let down by my camera and, it must be said, a couple of pints of Grimburger. There was I, the next Ansel Adams in the making, yet when I got back and put my memory stick into my Vaio in expectation of exciting developments I was met with the realisation that a tripod and a decent flash are not to be sniffed at. So, come back another time would be my advice today. That and avoid Grimburger if you can.

28th May 2005 

24th May 2005 T'ai Chi spot  

27th May 2005 Thameside sunset.  

27th May 2005 T'ai Chi below Pembroke Lodge.  

26th May 2005 

22nd May 2005 Weather poor today so here's one I did earlier.  

Koran desecration

Mock executions, sexual humiliation, torture, thousands of civilians killed... do these get people out on the streets? Well, possibly, but it isn't until the Koran is thrown into a toilet that things get so hot the press picks up on flag burning in Somalia. I don't understand it - it's a book, a symbol, a guide to living. But it isn't a life. It will exist elsewhere even if copies are destroyed by laughing soldiers (not something I am advocating, btw, I'm not that insensitive). And it is my inability to empathise with these feelings about a book that is most frightening: if this gap cannot be bridged (and speaking pour moi, I don't think it can), then there isn't much hope. I'd feel the same way about the bible as well of course.

17th May 2005 again, this one slightly 'shopped.  

19th May 2005 

Legacy v. Transformation

From ZDnet News, a quote comes from Iat Watmore, head of the e-government unit at the Cabinet Office:

" We spend too much on legacy and not enough on the transformational side of the business. We need to change spending on legacy which we know is not efficient."

This is precisely what is wrong with my profession (let's just say I'm in the "caring" side of things and leave it at that). We need to concentrate on transformation and avoid spending so much time on legacy. The two can be combined of course - we could learn from legacy in order to transform but I fear that spin gets in the way of genuine knowledge in this regard. Consumed with documentation, we lose sight of the "why" and focus instead on the "how". Yet "why" questions have more chance of improving future interventions than "how" questions which are essentially backward looking, at least in my organisation - we ask "how did we do that" and not "why?" We also incessantly ask "how many times did we do that" instead of "when we did that, what happened?" We need to look ahead, not in the rearview.

17th May 2005 

17th May 2005 Today's T'ai Chi spot - I haven't been able to do it justice - suffice it to say it was heavenly. I also did some T'ai Chi at the other green and wondrous spot by the river in the sunshine - hard to beat.  

12th May 2005 Royal bollards on the way to the river, found next to Henry VII's wardrobes.  

16th May 2005 Dionysus on Greek amphora made c.520 BC - from the British Museum.
From Wikipedia:
Dionysus (or Dionysos; also known as Bacchus in Roman mythology and associated with the Italic Liber), the Thracian god of wine, represents not only the intoxicating power of wine, but also its social and beneficent influences. He is viewed as the promoter of civilization, a lawgiver, and lover of peace — as well as the patron deity of both agriculture and the theater.
Greeks borrowed Dionysus' figure and within the Olympian tradition he is made to be the son of Zeus and Semele; other versions of the story contend that he is the son of Zeus and Persephone.

15th May 2005 Devon.  

More Net Nonsense

Things are going from strength to strength on the web are they not? Try visiting Konfabulator and combining Web Images with addresses from BBC London's jamcams list... fantastically useful. Alternatively, go over to http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/and see what you can come up with. Or, what about http://www.penguinremixed.co.uk/site/rmx_main.php# ? Have a look...

11th May 2005 Spot the deliberate mistake... ah yes, I forgot about traffic and pedestrians moving around and thereby causing confusion in my Autostitched pics... Must try harder.  

10th May 2005 I've been trying (and failing) to make something of this banner for a few weeks now - it looks like it's not going to happen so I'm putting this up as a marker to denote the end of my efforts.  

9th May 2005 I know it appears dull at first but give it time and it becomes an urban still life.  

... and this:

7th May 2005 OK, so maybe I was a bit churlish about the council tax - after all, we get this:

6th May 2005 Taken a few days ago but work troubles kept me from using my camera the last few days. Shows detail from a sculpture given by Belgium to Britain in thanks for sacrifices made in WW1.  

3rd May 2005 

2nd May 2005 By the Thames (and with permission).  

1st May 2005 Phillips Hill Woods