"And everything looks worse in black and white...."

                                        … Read full post »

         They called it The Great War, and they were right about that. They also called it The War to End All Wars, and about that ... well, they were wrong.

    Laurence Stallings, a U.S. Marine captain who lost a leg in the Belleau Wood fighting in 1… Read full post »

Decommissioned broadsheet presses, 2006

 

 

     "Hey! You with the camera. Over here."

    The fat railroad cop was standing beside the shattered ruin of the train. Portable arc lights threw the scene into sharp blacks and whites, highlighting s… Read full post »

      A few shots showing where we live -- but mostly why we live here. When we get tired of the view from the sundeck, we have a bewildering assortment of places to walk.

 

Lookin' out my back door. Garden in the right foreground was planted last… Read full post »

 

 

    When  James Chaney Palms showed up at the Essex Scottish Regiment's recruiting office to volunteer for the Second World War,… Read full post »

    “All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it… Read full post »

The question: Which is the lie?

 

1. Graduated at the top of my journalism school -- Class of '73.

2. Discovered the joys of vertigo halfway up the outside of a 10-storey grain elevator carrying 30 pounds of camera gear.

3. Was once almost lit up by… Read full post »

I'll make these all career-oriented because ... well, no good reason.

 

1. Graduated at the top of my journalism school -- Class of '73.

2. Discovered the joys of vertigo halfway up the outside of a 10-storey grain elevator carrying 30 pounds of camera gear.

3. Was… Read full post »

    April 25 is pretty much like any other day in most of the world, but not in Australia and New Zealand.
    There it's known as Anzac Day, a national day of remembrance in both countries that commemorates their nearly 11,000 men killed in the abortive Gallipoli campaig… Read full post »

 

 

    It's not much to look at on an army ordnance map -- a sort of whaleback feature in Nord-Pas-de-Calais that's less than five miles long, nowhere even 500 feet above sea level and overlooking a broad plain of small villages, roads, trees and fields.
  &… Read full post »

 

 

 

     It's really not much to look at on an army ordnance map -- a sort of whaleback feature less than five miles long that's nowhere more than 500 feet above sea level, overlooking a broad plain of small villages, roads, trees and fields.
   &… Read full post »

My Top 10 (plus one) misheard lyrics in honour of all the really, really, really bad tunes that have been floating around here lately.

 (Actually some of them seem to make more sense than the originals, such as No. 2 and No. 8)

 

10. Might as well face it,… Read full post »

    Anyone who's ever owned a Brit bike has been the butt of cruel jokes and jibes. Only a couple of my riding buddies tried to tame the beasts, preferring HondYamaKawaZuki clones that didn't need maintenance. We happy few referred to them disdainfully as UJMs -- Universal Japanese Mac
…

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     Halfway through a leisurely bend in third on a beautiful fall day, one of those glorious afternoons when the heat of summer has passed and the cold northern winds haven't started.

     There's a tang in the clear air, and I'm where I'm happy, in the saddle… Read full post »

Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I would be remiss if I didn't say something here today.

Monday, I was dumbfounded to find a message from RicTresa in my inbox, saying that a new banner had been created for me to use on what laughingly passes for my blog… Read full post »

I didn't write this, but I wish I had because IT'S BLOODY SNOWING AGAIN here. And the *$#%&# snowplow just went by. AGAIN.
 
 December 8 6:00 PM
 
 It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our  cocktails and sat… Read full post »

For those who are following what's happening in Australia, the front page of the Melbourne Herald Sun's website says it all:

 

 http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/

 

Particularly moving are the following:

http://player.video.news.com.au/heraldsun/#Reay9LDBRJjZcvLwFEDVTVmNzvM39fBl

 … Read full post »

I've a good long think -- helped along by the ingestion of much red wine -- since I posted some comments a day or so ago about the state of OS, at least as I see it as a relative newcomer. I had been considering saying "meh" to the whole thing… Read full post »

    So it's 1 a.m., and nearly the end of another long day of Adventures in Bureau Journalism. Couple of accidents caused by the snow in the morning, court case in the afternoon, school board meeting at night.
    Nothing spectacular, just the small stuff that helps fill the… Read full post »

" 'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung
Our families back in England were toasting us that day
Their brave and glorious lads so far away...."
           &nb… Read full post »