Code Name ‘deFender’

Back in the mists of time, okay forty odd years ago, some military genius said “what our troops really need to keep moral up on the battlefield is a good guitar so they can rattle off some good licks after battle.” So, the military hierarchy got round a table and decided that a bog standard electric guitar would be far too weak to survives being thrown into the back of tanks, used as clubs when guns jammed, and generally mistreated. After hours of head scratching, cursing, doodling on paper, checking…

Read More

It’s not just dribble, it’s pretentious dribble

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve visited a fair number of art galleries in Scotland and the North of England, and we have seen a great deal of great art. ‘Isabella and the Pot of Basil’ by William Holman Hunt for example (on display in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle) is something we could have spent hours looking at. When you look at Hunt’s Isabella you can see he has spent hours observing light, shadows, colours, shape, form, how light reflects off objects onto other objects… Hunt has then…

Read More

Stars and Fells

We had a run out last night to have a starlit drive through the Lakes, okay, I turned the headlights on when it became dark as driving by starlight was proving difficult 😉 We did pause a couple of times, and I liked the look of the stars just starting to appear in the sky above Buttermere and Crummock (photo from halfway up Honister).   Then there was the stars above Blencathra…

Read More