If a week is a long time in politics, the two weeks since Boris Johnson’s government announced the prorogation of parliament has been an age. Johnson has lost his majority, lost (or ejected) 22 Conservative MPS, and lost six out of his first six votes in Parliament. Since the dramatic scenes at the close of parliament on Monday night, we have learned that the government’s act of prorogation is unlawful (subject to an appeal to the UK Supreme Court to be heard next Tuesday), and that even the barest of outlines of Operation Yellowhammer, the government’s contingency plan for a No Deal Brexit, is enough to demonstrate that Project Fear was always Project Reality. (Here’s a pithy Yellowhammer summary in summary.)
Read More · 12 September 2019 · Politics
After Singapore I was in Sydney again in July, visiting family with the kids, where I photographed its iconic sights—the Harbour Bridge (crossing it on foot for the first time), the Opera House—as well as some lesser-known ones, like Tarban Creek and Chinamans Beach. We also spent a day up in Gosford at the Australian Reptile Park, taking lots of photos of Aussie fauna. I was going to tack these onto the end of the gallery I posted earlier in the year, but there were enough for a whole new one.
Read More · 11 September 2019 · Travel
Two shop signs spotted in recent months provided some unexpected spelling lessons.
9 September 2019 · Words
On our trip back to Australia to visit family in July we stopped for a day in Singapore, a city I’ve visited five or six times over the years, first when my brother lived there in the 1990s, and later when my brother-in-law lived there in the 2000s. Add in some additional stops at Changi Airport for a quick curry or bowl of noodles between long-haul flights, and I must have set foot on the island eight or nine times.
Read More · 6 September 2019 · Travel
While Brexit wreaks havoc on Parliament, its opponents in Parliament Square are drawing inspiration from protesters on the other side of the world, as Hongkongers take to the streets to resist the erosion of their rights by the city’s Beijing-supported administration. Their example drew me back to my photos of a couple of days we spent in Hong Kong on our way to Australia in June 2015, which has yielded another gallery for Detail (and also provided a couple more panoramas).
4 September 2019 · Travel
My summer (winter) holiday photos have borne their first fruits in the form of dozens of new panoramas of Singapore and Australia. Some I’ve added to earlier galleries, either because those were a bit slim or there were only a few relevant new ones. All of the locations featured here will feature in regular galleries eventually.
Read More · 3 September 2019 · Travel
I’m not sure they’ve thought the Scottish version through.
Read More · 2 September 2019 · Politics
I mentioned the other day that my London photos contained another gallery in the making. Here it is: Henry VIII’s magnificent pile, as seen on a sunny day in the summer of 2006.
26 August 2019 · Site News
I had an email from a visitor to the site last week, complimenting my Scottish Sand photos of North Berwick (thanks!) and wondering if I’d ever taken any of Rosslyn Chapel. I saw the chapel a few times between 2005 and 2011, but haven’t been back since, and hadn’t done much with my photos of it. Still, it was a good prompt to go back over them, the first of which were taken on a 2-megapixel Canon IXUS and the rest on a 5-megapixel Lumix. Between them I had decent coverage of the interior and exterior of the chapel, including its roof, which at the time was accessible using the scaffolding in place during its repair. I haven’t got any exterior photos without that scaffolding, so I’ll have to go back to get some, but in the meantime here’s a collection of the best of them.
Read More · 23 August 2019 · Site News
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