‘Freedom, Communism, A Mannequin’
A surreal scene during Catalan protests in Barcelona in October last year.
A mannequin is unmoved as a fashion store window is daubed with a red hammer and sickle and a yellow freedom protest ribbon. Leafy trees and the sky are reflected in the window, giving a sense of calm in the general unrest.
‘House Of Cats’
One from the travel archives to brighten the day of feline lovers, or art lovers for that matter.
This shot was taken in Barcelona late last year. I was taken by the varied cat images and soft colour geometric highlights on the wall of a central city building.
Not until sometime later did I notice the curling shape at top left of the image.
The tail of a mystery black cat perhaps?
‘Unfinished’ Edinburgh, October 2019
There’s nothing like being corralled in one’s home during lockdown to cause a longing review of your travel pics.
This shot of Edinburgh’s National Monument of Scotland atop Calton Hill is a particular favourite.
The Monument is a wonderful exemplar of overreaching ambition unmet in actual performance!
Intended as “A Memorial of the Past and Incentive to the Past and Future Heroism of the Men of Scotland ” (phew!), construction of the grand edifice began in 1826 but stopped in 1829 owing to the cash drying up.
It has apparently earned nicknames such as “Scotland’s Folly” , Edinburgh’s Disgrace”, and best of all “The Pride and Poverty of Scotland”.
A bit harsh really.
As I stood in the drizzle gazing at the Grecian columns framing the grey sky, I had a sneaking admiration for those who started something so grand it just could not be completed.
Been there, done (or not quite done) that!
‘Spanish Dream’
A flashback to my time in Barcelona late last year (loved the sheer style of this old building!), on account of hearing on the news of lockdown restrictions lifting in Spain.
The country has suffered more than most with Covid-19, but it brought some joy to see footage of children who had been prevented from going outside for weeks, finally playing in the spring sunshine.
When I was there, there was an entire week of Catalan protests, culminating in marches involving over 500,000 persons. I had never seen so many people in one place in my life, let alone such purposeful and agitated crowds!
Contrast that with the deserted Spanish cities under lockdown currently.The television shots of the main centres have been emphatically eerie and quiet.
But the laughter of children running around in parks is a small sign that maybe are heading in the direction of our dreams, rather than being haunted by with a nightmare.
There are no people in my picture, but I hope that those cooped up inside the fantastical building right now, and all around Spain, and elsewhere , get some sense of normality and freedom soon.
Stay safe until then!
‘View Over The Old Town’ Edinburgh, October 2019
‘Private’
A wrought iron gate cordons off a small and somewhat mysterious flight of stone stairs in the Tower of London.
The sign spells out the obvious.
It’s a classier warning sign than the one I featured in the recent post No Admittance, but amounts to the same thing really.
The bars pictured here are signifiers of more than privacy – they emphatically spell isolation.
The Tower, in bygone times, was home to many prisoners, who I suspect had way more privacy than they would have liked…
‘Beacon’
Skylight, Edinburgh Waverley Station
The restored ceiling and glass work of the ticket hall at Edinburgh’s principal rail hub is a wonder, that escapes due attention as travellers scurry for their trains, or the exits.
If they do glance up, it is only as far as the electronic schedule boards announcing arrivals, departures and British Rail’s inevitable delays.
My own hurried phone photograph was an exposure fail, but it serves to emphasise the ceiling’s stunning design.
In silhouette, the dome appears as a great eye.
All seeing.
Omniscient.
I wonder how many sojourners have passed under the skylight’s gaze?
How much motion silently observed from above?
I didn’t have time to look up again, but am glad I did in that moment, before moving for the exit, eyes ahead.
Barcelona Estacio de Franco October 2019
Numbered platforms, nameless people.
Coming and going as they please, or as they must.
For every departure, an arrival.
Many journeys.
From a short distance I observe those on the platforms coming and going.
I am a stranger here, but am a fellow journey maker, so there is a momentary affinity of sorts.
Even the sweeping ironwork of the grand station roof speaks of the lines and curves of travel.
There is wonderment in such a place, but always anticipation of the next destination.
For we must keep moving…
London October 2019
Window Boxes, Edinburgh October 2019
Calton Hill, Edinburgh October 2019
Charleston, South Carolina April 2017
No, not another Marvel sci-fi box office thriller.
However, the scene is ever so quietly gripping…
A southern river scape :
One mighty, fully laden, container ship, ploughs the shipping channel sea bound and looms large against the horizon.
Meanwhile, unperturbed by the floating behemoth, a group of sizable armour plated horseshoe crabs, prehistoric survivors, make their presence known on the muddy shore.
A contest of heavyweight champions!
I make it an honourable draw…
Chairs on a porch, Charleston,SC April 2017
Queensferry Crossing, Scotland
This stunning modern suspension bridge over the Firth of Forth was certainly worth a picture, as we crossed over it late last year( don’t worry, I took this photo from the passenger seat! ).
Serious wires!
As I have been filling my musical boots with vintage sounds of late, may I take you on a transatlantic leap to the somewhat older but equally stellar Brooklyn Bridge, which I was fortunate to have walked over as a young bloke.
Artwork of it features on the cover of a 1982 album ‘The Bridge’, by jazz/fusion keyboardist David Sancious. Sancious may be better known to rockers as an early member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
A YouTube link to the sublime title track ,an old favourite of mine, is below, if you have the time to embark on a sprawling aural trip of your own…
A break in the clouds as they sweep through.
The old houses by the shore gleam in the temporary sunlight.
The rocks below the seawall are the inscrutable guardians of these shifting scenes, waiting for the rising tide.
“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
– Mark Twain
Pictured recently, yours truly, seated with a bronze statue of the great man (real name: Samuel Clemens). As close as I will get to meeting him!
I have long admired Twain’s wry humour and sage veracity.
Like the quote above – you laugh first and then the wisdom drags you in and sits you right down, as you reflect on hard life lessons.
I sometimes feel his writing gets me, rather than the other way around.
When I was a young man I took a Greyhound bus from Chicago to New Orleans ( helluva long ride!), and the road more or less followed the Mississippi River south after St. Louis. My best companion on the journey was Twain’s ‘Life On the Mississippi’, published in 1883 . A great read – fantastic tales of diverse folk, working and up to all sorts otherwise, on the river back in the day (it’s well worth searching out).
It just made my trip feel damn boring by comparison though…
Chimney Tops, Pittenweem, Scotland
Albeit a bit of a global warming horror show, I was delighted at this rooftops vista in Fife.
Rows and rows of chimney pots like soldiers on parade. Dozens of the buggers! And hundreds more throughout the village…
It wasn’t cold enough in mid-autumn for smoke to have been puffing from the chimneys.
Had it been, the ghost of my coal mining grandfather would surely have smiled…
In the previous post Boxed In ,I touched on the boxes that we end up in.
In my recent travels in Scotland, I came across this ancient stone version in a cemetery at St. Andrews. Pretty impressive; nicely ergonomically tapered and contoured to fit the deceased’s head. Top design marks.
I suspect it was for someone of some importance. You wouldn’t go to all that bother for a regular dude or dudess.
Important person or not, as the pop-punk bard Wreckless Eric once said,” there’s only one destination in the final taxi”.
And on that cheery note, I too shall depart…
My fourteen year old daughter took this photo of her old man in one of London’s iconic red telephone boxes.
I do look just a little trapped!
We do it to others; we do it to ourselves mostly.
Put them, us, into boxes of our design.
Labels are for jars, and boxes, well, boxes are the caskets that we will go out in.
Pigeonholing and stereotyping behaviours kill the hope of the different and the unique.
In venturing into blogging , I am trying to think outside of a box I have spent years carefully constructing.
In expressing my creative side, I bury the negative self-thought (and perhaps the thought of others), that tells me that is not what I am, or do.
That final box can wait for now; I have a few more I need to tick…
Ebb Then Flood 