Brawn and Brain
Philip Rose, who runs the Manchester-based Scitech childrens’ summer science camps, has friends in high places. In the past he has secured loan equipment from McLaren Mercedes so that the kids at the camp could learn about the science of Formula 1 pit-stops. This year he went one further and was able to borrow an entire Formula 1 car (minus engine of course) from the newest F1 team, Brawn GP.
So it was that for this year’s camp, held at Altrincham Grammar School, the kids had an opportunity to get their hands on (and their bottoms in) a real F1 car, albeit last year’s Honda model painted up in the current Brawn livery. The story is that Brawn had done some testing with the 2008 car but changed the front and rear wings to the new specification, then later abandoned it in favour of the redesigned car with the double diffuser which won 6 races at the start of the season.
My eldest son Jonny, who attended Scitech in his youth, later had summer jobs there and shares Philip Rose’s passion for F1, was invited to come along and sit in the car. Here’s the car from nose …
(in the picture below notice the pit-stop fuel rig hose, also provided by Brawn, in the background)
… to tail.
Lynas Point and its minus point
What better way to spend a week on Anglesey than in a former lighthouse keeper’s cottage. The cottage is one of two holiday cottages in the lighthouse complex at Point Lynas, a rocky promontory in Northern Anglesey and close to Llaneilian with its cute little beach. Our cottage was pretty, spacious, clean and very well equipped. The setting was jaw-dropping. These are all the plus points.
The lighthouse is still active, having been converted years ago to run automatically. Which brings me to the one minus point. Even in summer the visibility can drop to the point where the automatic foghorn starts up. It is very loud, blares every 45 seconds and can go on all night …
The lighthouse complex has a crenellated wall and gothic arch, like a mini castle.
Silverstone 2009
Some pictures I took over the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone.
Jenson Button coming into Luffield. He struggled with grip in the complex and you could see him skeetering round Luffield bend. He could only manage 6th in qualifying and also finished the race in 6th.
Lewis Hamilton took a journalist from Silverstone TV for a ride around the circuit in the Safety Car. It is a left hand drive vehicle so Lewis is in the far seat in this picture.
The Race Marshals at Luffield B.
Nelson Piquet Jr. in the hideous Renault.
Aaron Scott in the Porsche Supercup. I was quite pleased with the panning technique on this one, where the camera follows the movement of the car while the picture is being taken. As a result the car is almost sharp but the background is nicely blurred, emphasising the impression of speed.
Jonny’s Charity Skydive
On 1 May, Jonny and some friends from law college made parachute jumps for Cancer Research, at the Parachute Centre, Tilstock Airfield near Whitchurch, Shropshire. Naomi went to witness the event and take some pictures.
I’m sure the cap was necessary but can’t quite see Biggles wearing it.
Not a trace of fear from Jack and Jonny.
The Parachute Centre use an Australian-built Gippsland GA8 Airvan.
There was another skydiver on the plane, unconnected with Jonny and his friends, an experienced solo skydiver who jumped out at 5,000 ft. He did some stunts including this upside-down maneouvre.
Jack and Jonny each made a tandem skydive, from 10,000 ft, with an instructor holding onto them the whole way down. Jonny was the first out.
Tandem jumps in tandem. Jack on the left, Jonny on the right.
This is a close-up of the picture above.
Jacks lands.
Followed by the plane.
The full set of pictures is available here.
Chatsworth International Horse Trials 2009
Some pictures I took at the Chatsworth International Horse Trials this weekend. These are all from the cross country event. No show jumping or dressage.
The weather was very changeable – fleeting sunshine would give way to torrential rain in a matter of seconds. I did not fancy the risk of water damage to my camera and took it back to the car out of harm’s way.
These three, of Polly Jackson riding Papillon over one of the water jumps, form part of a sequence on continuous shooting.
Sarah Barker on Diamond Life. Seems to be finding it an exhilarating experience …
Another Sarah, Sarah Thorpe, riding Durlas Aris. I nearly left this picture out, because the horse’s head is partly out of shot. But on reflection, it captures the power and pace of the horse, and the impact on the water, better than any of them.
I believe (based on this) that this is Beatrice Stocks on Toy Story II.
Oli Townend on ODT Penguin Ice:
More British Open Show Jumping
Some more pictures from the British Open Show Jumping Championships 2009. This one, of William Whitaker on Fairviews Mirabelle D’Or, is my favourite.
The horse is not 100% sharp, I couldn’t get the shutter speed fast enough in that situation. But it’s not far off and I caught the peak of the action. The foreshortening, raised front hooves and dipping head make it look more like William Whitaker is riding a dolphin than a horse.
In practice, there were only two fences I stood a chance at capturing the action at. The one above and a green and yellow one closer to where I was sitting, but where the horses were moving across my line of view, not towards me, making it even harder to freeze the action. This is another Whitaker, Ellen this time, on Equimax Ocolado. Sounds like a drink or maybe a supermarket.
This is Guy Williams.
The perennial Nick Skelton.
Pius Schwizer.
Unfortunately I misjudged the trajectory of the action, managing to lose the top of Pius’s head. Naomi joked that if I’d done the same with the photo above it, we’d have a picture of Nearly Headless Nick.
British Open Show Jumping Championships 2009
On 19 April, Naomi, Esther and I went to the British Open show jumping at the LG Arena, NEC Birmingham. To my surprise, photography (without flash) was allowed. Well flash would have been useless at the distances involved anyway.
Some of my pictures from the event, starting with French trainer Jean-François Pignon.
Then the preparations for the grand final showjumping event.
Robert Whitaker on Lacroix 9
Tea at the West Lodge
Some pictures from last weekend’s afternoon tea at the West Lodge Park hotel to celebrate Lucia’s milestone birthday. We had perfect weather so took our tea out in the open. This meant we could go for occasional wanders around the arboretum, play croquet to our own invented rules, etc.
Another of my legendary random compositions.
Confused dog in the fog
Naomi brought some dry ice home so the kids could make some Dr Jekyll drinks. The left-over dry ice was chucked in the sink. When the tap was turned on the whole kitchen turned into Dr Jekyll’s laboratory.
Our dog was duly confused.
Confuse a Twitter
You can now subscribe to this blog on Twitter.
If you are a Twitter-user (and who isn’t these days?) just click here, then click the “Follow” button.
Then, each time there is a new post on this blog you will see a tweet and a link in your Twitter stream.
What more could you ask for?
Confuse a Dog
This blog has a new Internet address. It continues to be hosted on WordPress.com and can still be reached via its old URL of http://cheeseblintz.wordpress.com, but from today it’s main URL is http://confuseadog.com.
There is, as with all things, a reason for this.
It has a lot to do with the arrival of a 6 month old mongrel puppy in our household. Tiggy, as we have named her, has much to learn, not least about walking on the lead. As is typical for young dog, she tends to try to run in all directions, move from side to side, run ahead and pull on the lead, get distracted by pedestrians and cars, etc.
We were given some advice by Claire, a colleague and friend of Naomi’s, who has long experience with dogs. She told us there is a trick to getting a dog to walk to heel and not pull on the lead. It is all about avoiding predictability. If you always follow the same circuit, the dog rapidly gets a sense of where it is headed and will tend to pull for home. If on the other hand you keep varying the route you take on your walks, keep changing direction, vary your speed without warning, cross the road at random, the dog will become confused about where it is and become much less likely to pull.
We have tended to refer to this concept, for short, as “confuse-a-dog”, partly in homage to Monty Python’s “Confuse a Cat” sketch. Instinctively we bolted on “dot com”, maybe because it has the right ring to it in the Internet age. Thus the notion of confuseadog.com was born. It never occurred to me that the domain confuseadog.com might actually be available. I tried it in the browser some days later out of curiosity, and found it was unknown to DNS servers anywhere.
So on impulse I registered it and decided to attach it to this blog, since this was the only website of mine still using a wordpress.com URL.
Confuseadog.com may not make a lot of sense as a name for a personal and travel blog, but please just humour me. At least it is no less logical than “cheese blintz”. Now, I haven’t checked to see whether bewilderbeest.com might still be available …
Pictures of Bobbins
I miss Bobbins and have been looking for pictures of her. We don’t seem to have taken many, and not really any good ones. I don’t know why. There are loads of horse pictures in our photo library but very few of Bobbins.
Maybe she was just so much a part of everyday life that we never felt the need to take pictures of her.
This is what I’ve been able to find that’s remotely usable. Not much really, to say that’s all we’ve got left of her, aside from our memories.
My bad joke of the day
Most people think electric light was invented by Thomas Edison. Not so, it was actually discovered hundreds of years ago by the great civilisations of ancient Peru and since handed down from generation to generation.
Well, have you never heard of incan descent bulbs?
Back at the ranch
We have come nearly full circle. After our morning at Harvard we were collected by Adrian and Peg and taken to their home in North Andover.
We were instantly into shopping for the wedding mode, with stop-offs at malls to buy balloons, electrical shops for microphones, etc.
In the evening Naomi and I had some time together by the lake at the back of the house.
Harvard Yard
Our last morning in Boston before heading off to Andover we took a taxi to Harvard, just out of curiosity. It is green and spacious, and there is some varied architecture to admire.
One of the most extraordinary buildings is the ornate red brick Sever Hall. I guess it’s pronounced as in “sever an artery”. Anyone know?
This Chinese turtle surmounted by a stele, just outside Boylston Hall, was strangely reminiscent of the giant stone tortoise we had seen the year before at the Sacred Way by the Ming Tombs near Beijing. Some background to this strange sculpture is included here.
This is University Hall. In front of it is the famous statue of John Harvard with its “lucky” left toe-cap. The toe has been worn pale because everyone has their picture taken while holding onto it, myself included.
Memorial Church …
… and Memorial Hall:
Right next to Memorial Hall is a rather imposing Fire Station.
It was the middle of the day but the moon was in the sky.
Sunset over Boston
That evening we dined at the highly rated Dante restaurant at our hotel, the Royal Sonesta, on Cambridge Parkway. We took an outside table with views across the Charles River to Boston.
As the sun set I took this picture of the buildings on the Boston side of the river. Well, I had already captured the sunrise.
I’ve used this picture for the banner of my new photography blog, exposures.
More from the Prudential
Looking West along the Charles River towards Harvard. The “broken Toblerone” building on the far bank is the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Looking back towards the East, the Hatch Shell open air music venue is central in this picture, about two thirds down from the top.
My eye was drawn to a very bright glint. It turned out to be the sun catching the cars in the car park towards the top right of this “urban abstract”. Sadly the limited dynamic range of a digital photo can’t capture the effect.
Straight across the Charles River to Cambridge.
From the Prudential Tower there is a good view of Logan Airport, with a Delta Airlines flight coming in to land.
Up the Prudential
Lunch at Abe & Louie’s on Boylston Street, with all the businessmen doing their deals. Then shopping at the Prudential Center, mainly after some Uggs for Esther. While there we took the opportunity to go to the top of the Prudential Tower. Not quite as tall as Hancock Place but at least you can go to the observatory at the top.
This is the dome atop 111 Huntington Avenue, looming disturbingly close.
The Boston Red Sox stadium, Fenway Park.
Looking up the Charles River towards our hotel, the Royal Sonesta (name on blue sign atop the hotel). Longfellow Bridge is in the foreground.
Copley Square, with Hancock Place towering over 500 Boylston Street, with Trinity Church nestled at the foot of the latter. The angular building partially obscuring the Hancock Tower is the Westin hotel.
Focusing in on Trinity Church with 500 Boylston Street behind.
