The Sacred made Real

Visited this wonderful exhibition at the National Gallery this week with Eileen.
Stunning polychromatic statues (painted to you and me) and pictures depicting Jesus, Mary, various saints and towards the end of the exhibition, an extraordinary statue of Mary Magdalen contemplating the Crucified Jesus my favourite piece, the statue of Mary Magdalen.

Thoroughly recommended and on until 24 January 2010. For more information see here

Ixus 70 exposed

Another one bites the dust - child kills Ixus 70
Originally uploaded by Danny McL

I bought two Ixus 70s a couple of Christmases ago - one for me and one for the daughters to use.

This one went to University with my daughter and immediately fell victim to a drenching in pineapple juice. The on / off button and zoom controls are completely gummed up - regretably it is "kaput".

That said, these are tough cameras. The other Ixus 70 got dropped onto boulders at Kimmeridge on the jurassic coast and whilst the lens took the full force knocking off the plastic inner covers and the metal face plate surrounding the lens, it still worked after I forced the then diagonally protruding lens back into place.

Recently, the camera got dropped again by another daughter's friend onto concrete dislodging the front metal body from the rear part.

Liberal application of Duck / duct tape has restored it to life (until the next accident at least).

Beautiful Roisin starts at UCL September 2009

Roisin aged 4

Looks like all the good food her mum gave her from an early age has paid off. She got great A / AS level results and starts at University College London (UCL) in September 2009 to study History.

As the first of our family to go to University, we're enormously proud of her. She attended a Hackney Comprehensive school and a Tower Hamlets primary school, she has never had a day's private tuition in her life and for the past year has also been working part-time in The Body Shop recording excellent daily sales, as she says herself, she "has a life" and she also passed her driving test and regulalry "borrows" the car.



Rosin's first tandem skydive, California - 2008

We look forward to seeing this next phase of her life.

Unsuitable for traffic

Unsuitable for traffic
Originally uploaded by Danny McL

Found this road in the Northumberland National Park running north from Cawburn towards Stonehaugh in the Wark Forest part of the larger Kielder Forest.

Where the public road ends at the southern approach to this road, there's a big sign and a gate saying unsuitable for vehicles.



Unsuitable is a clever word, I suspect most people read that to mean, vehicles prohibited. I just assume it is meant to deter people from driving these roads with fearsome suggestions of potholes, ruts, mud-filled puddles and maybe even ranging torrents. But in the spirit of adventure, I take the view, why not give them a go.

This turned out to be a great road, yes full of potholes, massive puddles, deep ruts and mud but easily passable in a 2WD car even after incessant rain the night before.

The road is part of the National Cycle Network route through the park from Hadrians Wall towards Kielder - thoroughly recommended by car, bike or on foot.

There were a numer of wallsteads along the route, very reminiscent of some roads in Donegal Ireland with lots of abandoned houses.

Soup Making

Soup Making
Originally uploaded by Danny McL

As I am off work for a while - my wife is setting me tasks like a five year old at school. I am hoping for a gold star by the end of the week. Task one is helping her to make soup.

So I sourced some marrow filled bones from a butcher Porteford Meats at Bow Lane in the City of London (only £3.00 for 3kg worth) and then I was instructed to set them to boil along with some peppercorns, celery, a few onions, carrot and parsnip peelings, the external leaves of some leeks and a couple of bay leaves.

Stage 2 comes tomorrow but in the meantime, we have some barley and lentils soaking overnight.

Canfranc Estacion - Spain

This was one of my main targets on the journey back from Madrid - the abandoned Canfranc station on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. After a 1970s rail accident, the link between Spain and France was broken and the line was never restored. The station is an amazing Victorian feat of engineering and a wonderful building, standing in what might be desribed a close to the middle of nowehere.

Here, behind the station is at least one long and diverse row of rotting rusting rolling stock. A quite surreal place especially at 9:30pm on a still chilly Summer evening high in the mountains.

Butterfly

This rather impressive butterfly landed on the car during a stop on the autoroute on the way north towards Tolouse on the journey from Madrid.



It was using its long tongue (is it a tongue) to probe the debris of dead flies on the car bonnet, grill and windscreen.

Not sure what type of butterfly it was but more pictures at Flickr

Panda in the Pyrenees

Panda in the Pyrenees
Originally uploaded by Danny McL

The Panda made it to Madrid and back from London. I was working in Madrid for four days in July 2009 so I thought I would make a bit of a holiday out of it and decided to drive down through France, across the Pyrenees and then on to Madrid.

Despite its 1.2 litre engine, the Panda proved more than up to the task, although I was sometimes in the crawler lane on some of the longer steeper uphill inclines, but gravity is a great friend downhill. Overall, the car averaged 58 mph all the way from Central London to the northern suburbs of Madrid including diversions on the way for sightseeing.

I stopped in Poitiers and Lourdes on the way down through France and in Zaragoza in northern Spain. On the way back, the journey involved an overnight stop in Pau on the north side of the Pyrenees and then a long fast(ish) journey back to London - 63 mph average speed including a crawl around the Peripherique of Paris and the journey back through the East End home.

Highlights? Lourdes, amazingly spiritual place with lots of hope and faith on display, the Pyrenees - fog bound on the French side, clear on the Spanish side on the way down and the castles dotting the landscape of Aragon.

Interesting points on the way back included an abandoned hotel in Aragon and the abandoned railway station and carriages at Canfranc in the Pyrenees.

City trees

City trees
Originally uploaded by Danny McL

I quite like this picture - it feels like it could be a steamy rain forest scene - in fact it is the result of a smoky barbeque at a school fete in the City of London.

Shepherd's Bush Burlesque

Went to a great show the other night in Shepherd's Bush at the Bush Hall on the Uxbridge Road - Burlesque with a Circus Sideshow theme - trapeze, oddities, half-man half woman!

This is a picture of Marianne Cheesecake!

Soda Bread

My mum makes soda bread every day - something she has been doing for at least 70 years.

Chameleons

I really like this picture - came across the guy whilst wandering off the road near a house we stayed in inland from Velez Malaga, Andalucia, Spain. The picture below if of one of his African cousins in the Masai Mara in Kenya.

Formation flying

I really like this picture of the RAF Red Arrows in formation with an English Electric Canberra - shortly before the Canberra was retired from RAF service. This photo was taken from Waterloo Bridge (north side) - the place to see flypasts which are heading down the Mall in Central London.

Smiles

Smiles
Originally uploaded by Danny McL

I like this photograph as I think it perfectly captures what the London Freewheel was all about today. These three cyclists all have great smiles on their faces. I suspect the right hand lady is finding the Sky Sports flurescent bib a bit hot - I did!

What I found really great about cycling along today was the density of the cyclists on the roads (far more than in a car or bus for the same footprint) - all moving virtually silently, non-polluting and mostly in perfect coordination whether three years old or seventy three.

The sun shone - everybody seemed to have fun - what more could anyone want. This should be a monthly event.

My most viewed picture on Flickr

This so far is my most popular picture on Flickr. Over 28,000 views at the time of posting this. Obviously "wreck" and "car" are a popular combination and when people see the thumbnail if they search using Google they must think the picture is of some really horrific smash!!

As the picture states, we came across this wrecked Ford Fiesta on a back road in Donegal one Summer and couldn't resist posing the picture - sick? yeah! ghoulish? - definitely! Serious point being made? Absolutely - both about the extraordinarily high number of deaths on Donegal roads and also about the casual dumping of all sorts of shit and wreckage by people in one of Ireland's most beautiful counties.

The dirty feckers!

Fox in a tree

Been taking the kids to Donegal in Ireland on and off for the past 18 years. We love night time drives where we head for the remote country roads and tell each other ghost stories and speculate about "What would you do if we came across (enter horrific scene of your choice here) around the next bend?

Doing this one night in April in the back roads close to Tullydush in Inishowen - the car was filled with screams as we spotted this fox in the tree at a T junction.

Poor old fox! Not sure if he had been hit by a car, shot or poisoned - whatever, he was hanging in the tree as a morbid example to his fellow chicken and lamb snatching brothers and sisters!

Burbank

Stayed in Burbank early in the Summer after a business trip firstly to the US East Coast, and then across (on Jet Blue) to Oakland and then Burbank in California.

I liked Burbank - just north of Hollywood and LA, it is home to a lot of TV and movie related businesses. With mountains to the east and the Hollywood Hills to the south, it seemed a nice pleasant place to me. Not too much traffic, a decent hotel, plenty of places to eat, shopping and easy access to the Freeways. Definitely a more pleasant place to stay when in LA - especially if you have access to a car.

Badge Man - a portrait

Met this guy in Commercial Road one afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised to find he was from Northern Ireland and so telling him about my Donegal roots immediately made it easier to ask if I could take his picture.

Brackets

Another of those photos with a tag on Flickr that seems to attract lots of attention. Brackets are what we in Britain would call braces - is it some sort of fetishistic reason that so many people view this picture?

Yemeni Eyes

This picture was taken by my daughter at Eid 2007. Her friend has the most wonderful eyes, framed by the veil.

Aston Martin

A splash of colour suits this Aston Martin as it heads north towards the Angel in early 2007. Lose the modern bus stop and it could be 1967 all over again.