Here, there and everywhere

Lots of bits to cover this week as we have been all over the shop and I am struggling to get internet access in deepest Dorset…Yes it’s another holiday.

Photo Comp
The Beast and I didn’t win last week’s summer competition or even get an honourable mention. As Cynical Scribbler said, in last week’s comments section: “If we don’t win we should ask for a steward’s enquiry.” Where is a steward when you need one….?

Personally I’m blaming the BP incident, as it is a Yank run competition, and El Presidenti is busy whipping up all sorts of anti-British feeling at the moment, to act as a smoke screen. Come on guys, calling for an enquiry because Paul McCartney (a dreaded Brit) visited the White House? Just be thankful he isn’t with Heather Mills any longer and didn’t bring her along. She is probably calling her solicitors to see why the visit wasn’t included in the divorce settlement…..

Yes BP are not blameless (besides it is more of an international company than British, having changed its name from British Petroleum over a decade ago) and should take a portion of the blame as well as a large part of the costs. It seems to have been conveniently overlooked that American companies have an equal responsibility for this tragedy. Transocean being a case in point. It was their rig, operated by them* which was leased by BP that blew up causing this disaster. If I leased a faulty TV, which was operated by the company that leased it and which blew up, I’m not sure I would be happy about being the only one being held responsible for wiping out half the neighbourhood.

* I have to admit I’m not 100% sure about who was operating the rig but for the purposes of this week’s blog it is much more convenient for me to go with this story line…Hey the truth never gets in the way of the proper press covering a story from whatever angle they choose….

The Beast has taken the loss particularly badly and has come down with some sort of virus, which has left him struggling to focus and taking 4 attempts to get the light right. He produces a couple of over bright shots, a dark one before getting it more or less on the nose. Most strange, I feel a rather expensive trip to camera hospital coming our way. I wonder if, like the America pension companies who have shares in BP and who are suing for losses, I can sue “In a Yellow House” for cost of repair fees for a depressed camera……

Against my better judgement I’m entering this week’s competition with the subject of Nature – To be on the safe side I shall put my entry under the Irish flag.

Hannibal the Swallow lets his sisters sing for their supper

while he gets on with the important task of eating his

brother....Nature, isn't it just wonderful?

Press the above button to

see the inferior entries... 

Keane at Thetford Forest
A great gig, held in a fantastic little venue in a clearing in the trees. I had difficulty getting The Beast in as he was accused of being a professional camera by security. Nowhere on any of the tickets or accompanying literature, which is admittedly unusual, did they mention the use or rather non-use of cameras. Suddenly it was no cameras over a certain size, which is being sizest in my book. I note they were not stopping large people going in and they take up much more space. Fortunately I had dressed The Beast in his 50mm jacket lens (i.e small) and left the 75-200 jacket zoom lens (i.e. very large) at the bottom of the bag, under the Picnic blanket. Security told me I could take him in as long as I didn’t use him. Yeah, like that was going to happen….besides I had my fingers crossed behind my back as I agreed to their demands.....

Tom Chaplin - Lead Singer

The one thing that lets down the venue was the food and not for the reasons that you might think. The quality was good** and the price was only a little bit inflated. What let the experience down was only having one food outlet. Yes, count it - one…. I had left Mrs B in the middle of the crowd and it was over an hour and a half later that I made it back to her. …. Worse still they only sold food but no drinks. As I made my way back to Mrs B I glanced across at the drinks queue, which was twice as long as the food one and decided it was a lost cause. Mrs B already had a case for suing for abandonment. Another couple of hours and she probably could have declared me legally dead and collected my life insurance. Besides I only just got back in time for Keane to hit the stage….. We should have brought a picnic but the bag was already full of illicit camera equipment. Besides, security would probably have accused us of attempting to bring in a professional picnic and made us swear not to eat it…..

** I had a Venison Burger. It was probably road kill caused by the sudden influx of visitors to the forest, while Mrs B had a vegetable chilli – they had run out of beef, I guess the local cattle are better at crossing the road than the deer or even the carrots, beans and other assorted inedible foods that make up a vegetable*** dish …..

*** yuck, I feel queasy and unclean just mentioning the word

Football woes in Deal
No sooner had we got home from Thetford than it was off to Deal in Kent to celebrate Mrs B’s Dad’s 70th. Mrs B had booked a lovely house with sea views for the extended family. She had even checked that it had a TV and everything so I could watch some of the World**** Cup. Unfortunately she had not checked the dimensions of said TV which would not have looked out of place in a dolls house. To think I had left my 58” World Cup ready TV unused at home. Still it didn’t matter as she had booked a table for dinner at 7:30pm on the Saturday evening at exactly the same time that England’s opening game kicked off. I’m guessing that our keeper was feeling guilty about the whole BP fiasco as I hear he rather generously gifted the USA an equaliser. Doesn’t that make us even now? I would comment further on the game but as I didn’t get to see it….In defence of Mrs B, if we had stayed at home I would not have seen the England goal anyway as I would have been watching in HD and ITV HD was busy showing a car advert rather than Stevie Gerrard’s 4th minute goal. Bloody amateurs, sounds like they should leave the showing of anything more demanding than a test card to the BBC….

**** Unlike the world series in baseball, the World Cup does encourage proper global involvement and don’t even get me started on the Americas cup and the whole “Not wanting to give it over to the winning nation if they don’t happen to be American*****”. Sorry to be so bitter but the photo competition (did I mention I didn’t even get an honourable mention?) and subsequent Beast illness, is sitting heavy on my heart.

***** I have at this point decided to conveniently forget the years where we steadfastly refused to hand the Ashes to the Aussie upstarts who have regularly thrashed us at cricket over the years but feel I should defend the keeping of the Elgin Marbles. Elgin won those fair and square even if the Greeks did not realise he was playing for keeps.

Is that a TV or a postage stamp? Pass me 

the binoculars I think someone scored.... 

Chris Isaak - Sheppards Bush
Did I tell you it was all go last week? From Deal it was straight up to Sheppards Bush for a Chris Isaak gig (“Wicked Games” etc) A big thank you to Ash who gave us the tickets and insisted on paying for dinner as well. I left the sickly Beast in the car and we used Mrs B’s Mini Beast, which is much easier to smuggle into venues. It also has a very good video option on it which I would show you if only Blogger had not hidden the video load button.

Mrs B and I had wanted to see Chris Isaak for a long time but had failed to catch him******. Either finding out too late about his tours or already being booked up for another event. I can report it was worth the wait, his haunting voice and excellent backing group were complimented by a magnificent and very funny commentary throughout the night. He even did a second encore, which is quite unusual in these days of venue control, and played for almost 2 hours. Again, unusual with some groups finding it difficult to make it to an hour and a half. The down side (you know there invariably is with the BlackLOG) he attracts a more mature audience (admittedly we are no spring chickens ourselves), which equates to a taller audience, which makes it difficult for Mrs B to see. For some reason a lot of the women were sporting big hair, possibly wigs, while any follicly challenged men seem to make up for it with hats – do us a favour guys, it’s an indoor gig….

****** Mrs B admitted that she would not have actually recognised him if he passed her in the street. I’m guessing she is not the only one as he painted his name on his guitar to help people recognise him

How kind of Mr Isaak to put his name on his guitar

so Mrs B could tell who we had come to see....

Not that she could see much thanks to the big hair

and the hats.....

The Mini Beast did a good job as

a stand in for the depressed Beast

I could go on, as from the gig it was a short visit home for a quick kip, pack and then off to Dorset for the week but I can see you are starting to fidget at the back and I need to leave something for next week. I will leave you this week with a big thanks to Kirsty for looking after McG and Mischief in our absence and I can assure you no Americans were hurt during the production of this Blog but I may have hurt the feeling of some of the more sensitive off you. I’m sure you will get over it just as I will get over the crushing disappointment off Photogate ….Ok, ok I’ll get a life…..

Photo Finish
As ever I will leave you with some shots from the last week, including some flowers from a secret garden in Sandwich, just up the coast from Deal. Thanks to Mrs B's Mum and Dad for that suggestion, I'm not surprised you didn't join us as it's a bit steep at £6 each to get in, for that sort of money I was expecting to see man-eating plants....... Plus call me picky but it's not very secret garden when you have signs leading you to it.

Mrs B's mums creation - if you have one of those

new lick and taste PC screens you should be able to

get a hint of the flavours.....

Giving nature a helping hand.....

Mrs B and Mini Beast - I think that is my

 finger  at the bottom of the shot.

Bees and flowers getting it on....

Move along, nothing to see here but interspecies porn

The love that dares not speak its name

Perhaps that's why it was so expensive to get in

porn's not cheap these days ....

 

More bee porn...

Mini Beast and Mrs B again