Continuing my archival project at Detail, here are two more galleries from 1991–92, when I was studying in England. These ones cover London and the rest of England (and a bit of Wales), and include some photos from a trip around the British Isles with my parents at the end of my studies. There are at least four more galleries in this series to come, when I get the chance to work on them.
I spent a few days driving back and forth to Glentress with the kids last week, while they did separate mountain biking courses with Dirt School. While one was on a course I rode with the other, although rain on the second and third days slowed us down a bit. It was a chance to take some more photos of the place to flesh out the gallery I posted last year at Detail. Here are the new ones in their own right.
There’s growing evidence that Covid-19 is airborne.
Serious brain disorders are developing in people with mild coronavirus symptoms.
Parenting in the Covid-19 economy.
Those “all over the place” feelings are symptoms of stress. Here’s what’s happening.
Thucydides in times of trouble.
When lies and incompetence collide.
A Caribbean beach could help us slow climate change.
Time for another archival instalment at Detail. On my flight to England in 1991 I was with KLM, which meant my first stop at Schiphol Airport and my first visit to Amsterdam. Over two days I took in the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and a canal boat tour, on which I took most of my photos. In this gallery I’ve converted a few to black and white to deal with the reddening effects of a light leak at the end of a roll, but they look fine. If I ever get to 1998 in my marathon scanning project I’ll add some photos from my second visit to the city, but for now, grab a stroopwafel and enjoy the show.
I went for a drive on Saturday, leaving the confines of Edinburgh for the first time in four months to take my daughter to the beach. It had been so long since I’d filled up the car that I’d forgotten how to open the fuel door. With that embarrassing hurdle cleared, we headed out to the bypass and drove twice as fast as we had done in, again, four months, stopping only for the inevitable traffic jam at every roundabout and exit on the way to North Berwick. We didn’t exit there, but headed on to Dunbar, to have a look at John Muir Country Park. The entrance is right next to East Links Family Park, which was heaving with people.
Even the Country Park carpark was almost full, but we found a spot and walked along a path behind the dunes to Whitesands Beach, a vast expanse at low tide, where even the high numbers of visitors were swallowed up by the space. It was virtually impossible to do anything except socially distance, so as far as infection risk went, it felt safer than doing the shopping or walking along our street. While my daughter ran in and out of the waves and buried herself in sand, I took a few photos, which look even emptier than the place did in person—the opposite of all those newspaper telephoto shots designed to make Britain’s beaches look packed. Here they are.
There’s a new detail at Detail: having made an index of galleries by region, I’ve now added one of galleries by date, so that I can see more easily what’s missing, and you can see where I’ve been when. There’s a lot of scanning of 1990s photos still to do, and even some revisiting of photos and old galleries from the 2000s.
How the virus conquered America.
Brazil faces the worst-case scenario.
Europe’s post-lockdown rules. Telling detail: the UK has had by far the longest lockdown.
Britain has gone completely mad during lockdown.
More madness: We can’t fight covid and Brexit at the same time. But as of midnight last night, we’ll have to.
The UK government’s coronavirus testing statistics are missing most of the current new cases.
Our kids have turned 9 and 13 during lockdown and have been trying to keep up with schoolwork on Microsoft Teams day after day after day, and this short film about lockdown life by Canadian teenager Liv McNeil felt so true that it reduced me to tears.
Les poules rentrent à la maison pour se percher.
You can’t understand the world without learning about empire.
A letter to a granddaughter about Earth’s history.
