Endgame - Day 13

I'm sorry I upset you on your deathbed, mummy.

Climbing Mount Olympics

When I was leaving the National Gallery on Thursday, I was beguiled by the fountains with their red underlighting. I clicked a picture including the Olympic countdown clock. I didn't intend the flash to go off, but it did, making the whole scene look like night, when it was barely dusk. I think it makes a better, more colourful picture though.


Today a flier came through the door about transport and parking during the Olympics. Apparently the only parking in the Olympic park will be disabled parking. Everyone who has a ticket for an event will get a free travel pass.

So those of us who paid for the whole show, and had no chance of geting tickets (OK, I didn't try, but even so...) will be paying to travel on overcrowded buses and trains while the visitors filling them up will get on free.

Most people will consider that, as we are some miles away across the river from the stadiums, we will be relatively unaffected here. But the light railway system takes 45 minutes at most to go directly to the Olympic site. Plus the equestrian events take place in Greenwich Park, just 4 stops along.

This rankles with locals, as it really isn't suitable. It's too small, and IT'S A WORLD HERITAGE SITE!!! No escape to its quiet green hills and stunning views for those of us uninterested in the whole spectacle. Will we ever get it back the way it was?

Curmudgeons Are Us!

Zoo Baby Day

Those sweet little girls are just growing so fast. They are already as big as medium-sized dogs, and they're barely five months old. They spent some time chasing round in circles with each other's tails in their mouths, but I couldn't quite catch it on camera.

During the keeper's talk, dad Lucifer treated us to a full series of roars, which rounded his little daughters up pronto. Sent some shivers down my spine, too.

Endgame - Day 12

Get ready to kill Brady in 5-4-3-...

How not to put on an exhibition

The National Gallery in London has been the host of a much vaunted exhibition of Leonardo Da Vinci. Getting tickets was not easy - by the time you'd got to the check-out phase of the website, th ticket you were about to buy had been snapped up by someone ahead of you in the process. But I did managed to snaffle one for today, even though I started to try and buy as soon as tickets went on sale.

For me, the big attraction was that both the London and the Paris versions of the painting The Virgin of the Rocks were to appear in the exhibition, their first time in same room ever. I've seen each painting in its gallery many times, but to see them together would have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. What could possibly go wrong.

Well, the massive numbers of people allowed in during each hour of timed entry tickets was a problem. But it was as nothing compared to the curator's decision to exhibit the two paintings, not side by side, but at opposite ends of the gallery!

People were standing in the middle of the room turning their heads this way and that, trying to compare the two over the heads of the people standing between them and the paintings. It was not possible to see details from such a distance. The only place where they appeared side by side was in the film at the end of the exhibition. Well, sorry, I can put pictures of them together at home to better effect.

The man responsible for this expensive farce is curator Luke Syson. All I can say is, I'm glad he's soon off the the Met. I'm just sorry they didn't entice him away before he made such a botch of what could have been the most amazing exhibition ever.

Endgame - Day 11

You don't believe Frank looked after you, Bobby? I'd be surprised if you did!

The richest man ever to visit Deptford

I was born and bred in Deptford, a very poor part of south east London. In my grandparents' day dockers worked whenever there were ships to unload, and didn't when there weren't; railwaymen built new railway lines until they were all built. The tallyman lent money till payday (what's so new about payday loans?) and unemployment was rife. The docks and surrounding area were bombed extensively during WWII, and I grew up among ruined buildings (great for playing in!) alongside the public park that had been made out of the gardens of the 17th century diarist John Evelyn's manor house...or what was left after Peter the Great of Russia had himself wheeled through the hedges in a wheelbarrow. I suppose in absolute terms, the Tsar of all the Russias might have been richer, but today Bill Gates visited Deptford Green School.


Deptford Green was the first school I taught in, and it's the school my student Alex's brother now attends. He was one of the students chosen to attend the function, so I followed the news with interest.

Endgame - Day 10

Right at this moment, Bobby hates the Captain.

Endgame - Day 9

A happy moment - even if Bobby was just going to use the photo his mother gave him to link her to Brady.

Endgame - Day 8

I'm only half way through my Endgame album, so I think I'd better indulge us all with a few more pictures from that tearjerking episode.

This picture of Bobby's reaction to Frank's enquiry about their mother's affairs "being in order" speaks volumes. Who needs words?

Endgame - Day 7

Bobby loves his mummy. Sometimes she even loves him back.

Credit where it's due

Just watched Don't Go In The Woods. Watching the credits at the end, I noticed that one of the First Assistant Cameramen (wot, no women?) is called Nicholas Deeg.

Unusual surname. My German cousin Hartmut Deeg lives in Rochester, New York, to be near his kids, but I don't know their names and ages. I wonder if I have a young cousin who worked on Vincent's film?

I see Hawk D'Onofrio and a young Bogosian also assisted.