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talfryn.net (12 unread)

• December 24, 2007
• 20:36

  Fog

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  The previous few nights in London saw mist.

  The entire day yesterday saw heavy fog. I had my stuff packed way ahead of time, for once, and that allowed for a bit of shooting in Hyde Park before I had to leave for the airport.

  Photos :: Fog in Hyde Park

  * * * * *

  While in the cab with Kamil and Vincent, who saw me off (thanks guys :)), we had a good chat on global citizenship and the Londoner identity with the driver, who’s from Somalia. I suppose I’ll be writing more on that later.

  The radio reported that there were some cancellation and delays of flights at Heathrow and the other airports. But I was lucky: my flight was merely grounded - with us on board - for a little over an hour, and I managed to fight my way from an aisle (boo on the Singapore Airlines website’s technical problems!) to a window seat. Heathrow was unusually quiet; most people made off yesterday. No queues, no crowds, no hustle bustle. Wasn’t that fortunate on the plane though. The man who sat in the seat next to mine could have totally passed for one of London’s unshaven homeless.

  He stared at me (or rather, my camera) when I took my baby out to take a shoot of my view from the window. I could barely see the outline of the wing tip!

  * * * * *

  Went about doing the necessary once I got back to Singapore.

  Orchard Road was a sea of people, I had to - perspiringly - weave through crowds and my top was all damp by the time I made it back home after getting what I needed. The Christmas street light-up is one of the best I’ve seen in years though - a pity I couldn’t get out there to take proper pictures. Had a Christmas Eve dinner with family and family friends, and we saw the parade floats go by when we were heading out.

  * * * * *

  Just finished packing now - I’ll be off to Japan till the end of the following week for a family trip and to visit relatives.

  A good Christmas to all; rest well and be merry!

• December 22, 2007
• 5:14

  Mist

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  While it may be said that the camera doesn’t lie, the framing and interpretation of reality lies very much with the photographer and the viewer.

  This is right outside our flat. My street’s not actually this quiet. Not a street, in fact, but a road, and a major road at that. It takes a bit of patience and good timing to stand by the kerbside to get a frame where no cars and light trails could be seen, giving a serenely quiet atmosphere. It’s definitely not as eerie as what the photos suggest it to be, but it was certainly not what you’d call a normal Friday night. Would have been perfect for a Jack the Ripper thriller-mystery genre setting (or a romantic one - you decide). It’s been a misty few nights, and thus rather warmish. The moon’s bright and clear though, unobscured by the usual layers of clouds.

  Meanwhile, inside the house, we were enjoying our little Christmas party…

  Photos :: Misty night
  Photos :: QuGee-LG Christmas party

• December 20, 2007
• 15:03

  Rejuvenation

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  I’ll be returning to Singapore this weekend, but not before we have a quiet little reunion of QuGee and the extended circle and enjoy an evening meal with our friends.

  * * * * *

  A refreshing breath of chilly winter air away from the city centre was just what I needed to wrap up this season in London. The ponds have frosted over, ducks and geese are sliding on ice. The watervoles are, supposedly, hibernating. It’s a frosty winter, this.

  When The Red, Red, Robin
  Comes bob, bob, bobbin’
  Along, along,
  There’ll be no more sobbin’
  When he starts throbbin’
  His old sweet song.

  Wake up, wake up you sleepy head,
  Get up, get up, get out of bed,
  Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red,
  Live, love, laugh and be happy.

  
  The red, red, robin himself

  
  Hark how the green-finch bears his part

  
  Dusk falls in the early afternoon - Hush, hush, hush

  Photos :: London Wetland Centre

• December 19, 2007
• 14:52

  Bah, humbug!

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  Recently I’ve been taking photos of Christmas lights-ups, festivities, fairs, people, shop displays. But it is not the festive spirit that is motivating me. Instead I am driven by a modern sense of humbuggery - a railing against the commercialisation of Christmas. The very thing that repels me is what attracts me to, all the more, have it documented and presented.

  What a grip consumerism has on society. Nevermind that Christmas was originally meant for celebrating the Nativity, and nevermind the common values of peace and giving that transcends all religions. Christmas does not inspire to give, give, give. But encourages to buy, buy, buy.

  Just look around you. Do you hear what I hear? iPhone.

  
  The big X’mas tree at Trafalgar Square

  
  Carolling in the cold

  
  Possibly Rudolph’s wife

  Photos :: Christmas in London

• December 17, 2007
• 16:37

  London East End

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  Was at Liverpool Street’s Old Spitalfields and Brick Lane markets over the weekend. Nice weather, for once, and great company.

  Its markets sell anything and everything you can think of, mostly second-hand, but some are quality wares. Fruits and vegs are sold fresh and cheap, and the entire neighbourhood is a diverse, densely multicultural area, being home to London’s Bangladeshi community, and formerly of the Jewish and Huguenot communities. Vendors and visitors are not limited to the Middle East and Indian subcontinent though - there are Chinese, Japanese and other Europeans who have set up stalls there. Its street corners with tattered posters and stickers, and graffiti walls (photographers are drawn to them like seagulls to bread) are a constant visible reminder of the area’s vibrant artistic and political culture.

  One thing dismayed me though - the Square Pie shop is gone!

  Photos :: London East End Album

• December 16, 2007
• 0:24

  Christmas in London II

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  
  Bankside Frost Fair

  
  St Paul’s from the south bank

  
  Inside Tate Modern

  
  Finding that perfect educational Christmas gift

  
  The ghosts of Christmas?

  More photos: Bankside Frost Fair and Tate Modern

• December 15, 2007
• 0:24

  Christmas in London I

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  
  Flowershop in the park

  
  London Eye Junior

  
  Curious crowds

  
  Ice rink at Natural History Museum

  More photos: X’mas at NHM and Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park

• December 12, 2007
• 21:15

  From the dusty shelves

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  Since I don’t have my handwritten diary with me right now (the high school volumes are in Singapore), I’ll just post here from time to time some random selections from my ‘Updates’ series - not the most original of titles, but they served well as regular emails/newsletters to friends during my high school days in Sydney. It’s all rather interesting to re-read them. My thoughts, my observations, my adventures and misadventures, they were all shared with my close friends. Steadfastly for the first year and a half, at least. That was before the blogging days, and that was when I only had more or less one main circle of friends (who were geographically-distanced!), so it was still quite practical back in those days.

  For starters…

  for breakfast they [the Aussie boarders] like to put spaghetti on bread, they also put lots of ketchup on scrambled eggs on bread and for dinner they sometimes put custard on rice…

  ~ From early 2001 (Year 11 Term 1 - first term at boarding school)

• December 11, 2007
• 0:12

  Eh, m’lady?

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  “While wearing high heeled shoes, a woman’s curves are more pronounced because of the positions of her derriere and chest. She also walks differently, with her hips moving gracefully. High heeled shoes not only make a women look better. She feels sexier wearing them as well. This can be seen in the confidence that is seen in women who wear high heeled shoes. They move with a smooth sexuality that women in flat soled shoes rarely show.”

  … so says a website I found. (I was curious. Seriously. Wearing heels make no - physiological and anatomical - sense.)

  Far from donning a dainty, elegant gait when heels are worn, I feel more like a baby elephant trying to imitate how penguins walk. (Or should it be trying hard to not imitate how penguins walk?) Occasions that call for a certain attire demand a certain sacrifice. Oh vanity! Thy price is sore calves, strained tendons, and blisters on all four corners of the feet - the two big toes and the two little toes. Womanhood is a tall order, and ‘dressing to impress’ is such a flawed trait of a twisted societal expectation that borders on self-abuse. London’s uneven cobbled streets, fallen leaves that pose a slippery business, puddles of rainwater, the stairs, crowds and occasionally out-of-order escalators, and the mazes of the Tube all make for an advanced endurance course.

  Aye, this is the first post dedicated to my job-seeking experience thus far - my first assessment centre at an environmental consultancy - my first job application. It’s been a fun day, meeting all sorts of people (a quarter of the candidates were, coincidentally, from my MSc course!) and thrown into all sorts of stimulating situations, with individual and team-based exercises. Having one too many mugs of tea or coffee over breaktimes, sipping politely while engaging in talks of sustainable development, or general, harmless conversations of a more personal nature. I really wouldn’t have minded more of these assessment centres, if it were not for the anxious waiting-for-the-outcomes that follow (okay, and if it were not for the dressing up bits as well).

  Right now I’m deciding between bursting my uber-large blister with a semi-sterile needle, or letting it get squished and pop on its own on Wednesday. It’s inevitable - a degree of ignorance for my personal welfare will be required again. Wednesday might just make or break my prospects of a career with this firm.

• December 08, 2007
• 23:46

  Making noise about global warming

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  A wet day… a wet week, in fact. We were planning on shooting the main Climate Change march this afternoon but it was raining too heavily. I brought my kit along to lunch just in case… and since Bond St was just a few stops away, I hopped onto the Tube and popped out over the other side just to grab a few shots of the rally participants and to see exactly what this whole ‘protest’ was about. Banners and posters a-plenty, slogan-bearing hippies, students, right-wingers, political activists, and the young and old from the odd family group. Looked like they were out to have a day of fun more than anything else.

  More photos here.

• December 04, 2007
• 23:00

  Labels

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  … I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that’s an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.

  ~ Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

• December 01, 2007
• 18:43

  The importance of not being earnest

   » ‎ talfryn.net

  Went with Xi to the National Portrait Gallery where they were showing the Photographic Portrait Prize and Pop Art Portraits exhibitions. For many of the prints, although first impressions were of an occasion of solemnity, if you were to read the captions and the story beneath it, you’d be hard-pressed to suppress a chuckle when you look at the picture again. Somehow, there’s something intellectually funny about it.

  I’ve been meeting quite a lot of people (relative to my usual weeks) in the past week - all quintessentially very English sort of people.

  From pre-teenage kids to retired seniors, from the BBC to tabloid papers, from the highly-rated TV programmes to YouTube homemade clips, from those classic Orange ads in the cinemas to the posters they have on buses (I saw one they other day which went: “I’d do anything for you… including your wife” but couldn’t see what it was trying to sell) - they all have it: humour. And it’s not just any humour. It’s English humour:

  The English do not have any sort of global monopoly on humour, but what is distinctive is the sheer pervasiveness and supreme importance of humour in English everyday life and culture. In other cultures, there is ‘a time and place’ for humour: among the English it is a constant, a given - there is always an undercurrent of humour. Virtually all English conversations and social interactions involve at least some degree of banter, teasing, irony, wit, mockery, wordplay, satire, understatement, humorous self-deprecation, sarcasm, pomposity-pricking or just silliness. Humour is not a special, separate kind of talk: it is our ‘default mode’; it is like breathing; we cannot function without it. English humour is a reflex, a knee-jerk response, particularly when we are feeling uncomfortable or awkward: when in doubt, joke. The taboo on earnestness is deeply embedded in the English psyche. Our response to earnestness is a distinctively English blend of armchair cynicism, ironic detachment, a squeamish distast for sentimentality, a stubborn refusal to be duped or taken in by fine rhetoric, and a mischievous delight in pricking the balloons of pomposity and self-importance. (English humour is not to be confused with ‘good humour’ or cheerfulness - it is quite often the opposite; we have satire instead of revolutions and uprisings.)

  ~ Kate Fox (2004), Watching the English

  And I’m lovin’ it!

  * * * * *

  The Aussie election outcomes were announced yesterday. On the streets, we saw a group of people, dressed up to an Aussie theme. What was odd was not so much of how they looked; even odder was the response (or lack of) that they got from others. We tagged along, observing them for a while. Other pedestrians, although they were aware of the comic group of characters proceeding their way, would hardly give them a second glance as they walked past. As if it was a most normal affair - to have people costumed as the Tassie devil, girls in pink fluffy dresses as though they came straight from Dreamworld, and Steve Irwin impersonators (cargo shorts in winter complete with ‘Akubra’ hats and dangling corks). “This is London!” - where everyone minds their own business. I came to the same deductions when doing street photography here too - compare shooting on the streets and markets in London, and in China, for example (where people’s reactions are simply hostile), or in Japan (where they’d pose and give the ‘V-sign’), or in other parts of South-east Asia (where people would look down, face away, or walk off).