Slugs and Snails and Tomato Plants?

 

[caption id="attachment_471" align="alignleft" width="258"] My surviving tomato plant[/caption]

Tomato Plants on the agenda again

Tomato plants? Well, spring in France this year was the worst I can remember, and so far summer has not been much better. By this time I should be on first-name terms with the community of lizards that live in my courtyard, but this year, hardly a hello. They’re all still hiding.

 

Mind you, it’s not been so bad for all the critters in the yard. My pet hate, les limaces, our delightful Burgundian slugs, are positively thriving. I mean, these ones are not shy, they don’t even try to hide, and they’re bright orange anyway. Maybe it’s a warning that they taste disgusting. I’ll let someone else find out. What I do know is they like my tomato plants.

The Realpolitik of Islamism

 

[caption id="attachment_447" align="aligncenter" width="655"] Realpolitik: the Battle of Vienna[/caption]

It is now over twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall; for many young people, the Cold War, of which it was the most compelling symbol, is no more than a history lesson. In my desk here I have a small piece of concrete, with paint on, which was recovered from that wall and sold as a tourist trinket. It is perhaps the most telling one I have.

Our children do not, as those of my generation did, live in daily fear of being blown to pieces by atomic bombs or dying an agonising death from radiation sickness. They do not walk into their schools to find posters saying “Better Dead Than Red” on the walls, nor do they crowd around flickering television sets alongside their anguished parents, watching as Kennedy drew his line in the ocean, and curled his finger around the trigger of nuclear Armageddon. And for this we should all be very, very thankful indeed. No child should have to live with nightmares like those.

Why French Men Watch the News

Ever wonder why French men watch the news? I did a piece a while ago about 'Why Americans Go To Church' which was stimulated by some or another piece of typical septic-tank arrogance but was really meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Kinda.

 

Anyway this is also meant to be a bit of fun.  Did you ever wonder why it is that so many French men seem so very well versed in current affairs, news, and general what's the buzz? It has nothing to do with the Bac de Philo or anything like that.

 

This is the REAL reason:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg89TfgbERk

I give you

Mélissa Theuriau

And she's just one in a long long line of stunning French newscasters. Makes the eight o'clock news worth waiting for.

Peg Replacement on a Fiddle or Violin

[caption id="attachment_407" align="aligncenter" width="640"] 19th century German violin[/caption]

To replace a peg, you'll need the right tools.

Some of these are very specialised, and can be expensive, but even after just one set of pegs, you’ll be ahead, and believe me, then you’ll want to do more.

One of the most common problems with old violins is that the pegs are poorly fitted, are not a match to the violin or are just plain old worn out. A fiddle that won’t tune because the pegs jam or slip is a curse. Fitting new pegs is not difficult to do. 

The stove story

[caption id="attachment_368" align="aligncenter" width="614"] The Godin Stove at the bottom of my stair[/caption]

Life certainly has an interesting tapestry here in P’tit Moulin. This morning I was awakened at some ungodly hour—well, just before ten actually, but I am semi-nocturnal—by an excessively enthusiastic clangour (good word that) of my front door bell, of which more later.

 Well, I threw on a pair of jeans and a T and went to see who had disturbed the peace in this manner, and there on my doorstep was a rather scruffy individual, definitely of the traditional French horny-handed persuasion. Behind him was a truck that looked, to my bleary and unaided vision, even older and more dilapidated than my Isuzu, and that’s saying something.

 

 He must have recognised my absence of recognition. ‘Sir,’ he said (in French of course, I’m just trying to make it easy for you. Do keep up.) ‘Sir, the last time I passed you said you had some scrap.’

Low-Key Photographs: What they are and how to make them.

[caption id="attachment_352" align="alignleft" width="636"] Low-Key photograph of Exeter Cathedral, Rod Fleming 1980[/caption]

Tones, Highlight and Shadows

Key is an essential consideration in all photographs. It helps to influence the mood of your picture and to define its message.

Key is just as important in colour as in monochrome work, but to simplify matters we’ll look at these separately.

 

Poaching the River in English!

[caption id="attachment_324" align="alignleft" width="200"] Poaching the River[/caption]

 Poaching the River is back on the shelves, both physical and virtual, so I have been addressing the next issue.

 

 Poaching the River was written only partly in English, or at least the Scottish version of it, and all the dialogue is in authentic Mearns Doric. That is my native tongue of course, although I didn’t really know it until I was at school.

 

 The book was written as a homage to that culture, but it is a sad fact that there are few of us left who understand Doric, or can speak it. Ever since Poaching was first published I have had requests to translate it into English, something I have always resisted, for a number of reasons.