Chimney pots and blue sky

October 21st of this year was a good photoday for me. There was this, and then this. Now let me show you nine chimney pot photos, taken on that same day:

The first four were photoed in the vicinity of South Kensington tube station. Then I tubed myself to the West End, which is where the rest of these photos were photoed.

I think my favourite is the fifth, or perhaps 3.2, depending on how you prefer your numbering to be done. But I like them all, or I’d not have shown them to you.

The final one, 9 or 3.3, was taken from the inside of the top of Foyles.

I’ve called this “chimney pots” because all these photos have that in common. But there are many other kinds of roof clutter also on show. I rejected including “roof clutter” in the title, because although most chimney pot arrays do indeed become very cluttered, as in randomly varied and chaotic, that cannot be said of photo 4, aka 2.1.

The satellite dish in 1.3, aka 3, looks, to a casual observer, aka me when I first encountered it in the directory (not when I actually photoed I), the moon.

Which I like. And I also like it when there are chimney shadows, as in 1.1 (1), and 5 (2.2). And there are other sorts of shadows in 6 (2.3).

Plus there’s a crane (7 (3.1)). and a pigeon (9 (3.3)). But, not any scaffolding that I can see.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Challenging a Victorian myth with Twitter

Tom Holland, agreeing with this lady, says that this thread is a perfect illustration of why the Cromwell Museum’s approach to Twitter …:

… is an absolute model of what museums can achieve with the medium …

What the Cromwell Museum was saying, quite a while back now, was this:

A myth about Oliver Cromwell seen in films & TV is that he dressed dourly in black. The idea that all Puritans did is a Victorian myth; there isn’t a single contemporary portrait of Cromwell in black. He’s always depicted instead in armour or fine clothes.

Interesting. I agree that this is a very good use of Twitter.

I am still pondering whether to bother with Twitter. Its censorious left-wing political preferences repel me, and its wearisome slagging contests seem hard to avoid. (Said he, slagging off Twitter itself.) Postings like the above make me suspect that I may persevere. They also tell me how to use Twitter myself, if I ever do this more actively than now, even though I am not a museum.

LATER: See also, this, about another “myth”, this time based on a misunderstanding of clothing evidence.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Light from behind and light from in front

I spent most of today, and am about to spend the rest of it, recovering from some combination of a cold, and drinking too much last night, at my Last Friday of the Month evening. It went very well, but very well is not how I felt this morning, or feel now.

So, quota photo time.

I could rhapsodise indefinitely about this photo (which I photoed on the same afternoon I photoed this photo of Centre Point):

The thing I want you all to realise is that the light hitting the white sheet is hitting it from both sides. There is the sun behind the white sheet. And there is the sun bouncing off the windows on this side of the street, a lot of it in window shaped shapes.

The next project is to track down the building and see what it looks like without all the scaffolding.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog