More film from St Kilda and the Outer Hebrides, this time as it is today not as it was 100 years ago. Maybe this is something I could plan for in my retirement. It wouldn’t exactly be a sunny retreat, but it would be a wonderful place to go.
I have no idea how these videos have posted full screen..?? but they play ok, just hope they don't distort any ones page.
St Kilda was permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, its population probably never exceeding 180 (and certainly no more than 100 after 1851). The entire population was evacuated from Hirta (the only inhabited island) in 1930. Currently, the only permanent residents are defense personnel although a variety of conservation workers, volunteers and scientists spend time there in the summer months. Occasionally a very lucky tourist may get the chance to visit as part of an organised boat trip or even as part of a North Hebrides cruise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland
This was the first film to be shot on St. Kilda, the later film from 1928 ‘St. Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle’ is shown below and is concerned more with the population that would later be evacuated from the island. This earlier film was by the pioneering bird cinematographer, Oliver Pike, and focuses on the island's bird population, as well as the St. Kildans' remarkable methods of snaring sea birds for food and gathering eggs from the precarious cliff face. To achieve the spectacular shots of the bird colonies and birds in flight, Pike had to develop his climbing skills, with the aid of the locals, burdened as he was with a heavy film camera. It may take a while to view all of these films, but I think its worth the effort.
11th September 1948 - 29th January 2009
Antonio Donghi (March 16, 1897 – July 16, 1963) was an Italian painter of people, portraits, popular life, landscapes, and still life. He studied in Rome at the Instituto di Belle Arti.
After his military service during World War I he studied art in Florence and Venice, he became one of Italy's leading figures in the neoclassical movement that developed in the 1920s.
His paintings are very much twentieth century paintings but with an evident tradition of Italian classicism. He developed an extremely refined technique.
The strength of his work lies in the imposing composition and realism. His figures all seem to have a look of stoic resignation about them with just a hint of humour. His still lifes tend to be simplistic with an almost perfect symmetry.
Donghi achieved both popular and critical success, in 1927 he won First Prize in an International Exhibit at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.
By the 1940s, Donghi's work was far outside the mainstream of modernism, and his reputation declined although he continued to exhibit regularly. In his last years he concentrated mainly on landscapes, painted in a style that emphasizes linear patterns. He died in Rome in 1963.
Most of Donghi's works are in Italian collections, notably the Museo di Roma.
I chose his figure paintings and portraits to show here just because I like their simplicity.
The Government is drawing up plans to sell off publicly owned forests in a move that could see private developers allowed to clear ancient trees to make way for holiday resorts, golf courses and adventure playgrounds.
The battle of Epping Forest
from the album
Selling England by the pound
Is this sick??, or maybe I'm sick for thinking its quite a good idea.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20110125/tuk-row-over-crematorium-heating-for-swi-45dbed5.html
''Moves to warm a swimming pool with heat generated by an adjacent crematorium have sparked outrage.
Conservative-run Redditch Borough Council believes it would be an environmentally good use of energy and could save £14,000 a year at the Abbey Stadium pool''
It's... umm.... an 'unusual' idea, a very novel idea...........but in a weird sort of way I think its quite a good idea.
I like swimming, I think I would be quite happy for the very last of my energy to be used helping other swimmers.
Art Sunday; Tracy Butler
http://tracyjanebutler.co.uk/index.html
I think I may have featured this lady before, but even if I have she is worth a second look. She paints mostly landscapes, seascapes and dramatic skys.
The paintings I’ve chosen here are just a few of her, what I would call ‘garden’ pictures, but she has many, many more paintings on her website.
She has painted some pretty spectacular wildlife paintings and more recently, she has been painting dramatic landscapes with dark swirling skys. All of which you can see on the website.
Tracy studied at both the Glasgow School of Art and Central Saint Martins School of Art in London, graduating with an Honours Degree in 1990.
Born in Glasgow, she has lived in a number of countries, including Canada and South Korea, but Scotland will always be home. 
Some music for the weekend; I've have had family this weekend and it was truly……….madness in a house of fun :-)
Abortion; this topic seems to be in the media again. This is something I posted elsewhere during the election period, thought I’d re-post it here now, partly because like I said………its back in the media again and partly because its far too long to stick as a comment at the end of someone else post. :-)
Abortion epitomises the polarization of American opinion, possibly at its most venomous. I’ve read a bit on the subject. I’ve read the religion led argument that says the sanctity of life is revered and protected from the nanosecond the sperm hits the egg. I’ve read the pro-choice argument that says government has no business in a womans body, EVER, and that abortion up to and including late term abortion with no time limit should be a right and a choice. Disability, the mothers health, viability of the pregnancy, pregnancy as a result of rape and/or incest, etc, etc, etc, have all become missiles in this war of opposing philosophies. Watching this unfold, it looks a bit like a couple of medieval armies facing each other across a muddy field, shields up, weapons at the ready and everyone absolute in the knowledge that every thing they believe is 100% right and every thing the ‘enemy’ believes is 100% wrong. No one misses an opportunity to ridicule and exaggerate what the opponent says; the tiniest flaw in perceived logic or consistency is exaggerated and exploited and nit-picking has become an art form.
If all this sounds rather harsh I apologise, I guess I’m lucky, I live in a country where health care, including access to family planning and well woman clinics, is readily available but; this debate widens the gulf in an already polarized society and that DOES affect me. Unfortunately what happens in America inevitably has a knock on effect around the world. Personally I would prefer both sides found some sort of middle ground that every one could, if not actually agree with, accept and live by. Which is why, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the subject.
First I’d like to say to those people who find abortion, the morning after pill etc, etc all completely abhorrent on religious grounds that I totally respect your religious belief and you have every right to believe what ever it is you believe. And please rest assured you will never, under any circumstances, under any administration, be forced into having an abortion against your will, and really, that’s the only assurance any one needs. Neither will any medical practitioner be forced into participating in abortion against their religious beliefs. In the UK there are many medical practitioners, doctors, nurses and therapists who all practice their faith AND work quite happily within the National Health Service. They just don’t work in areas that run into conflict with their beliefs. It’s so simple I can’t understand why I read scare tactics claiming people would be sacked from their jobs for refusing to perform abortions or give out the morning after pill, it doesn’t happen here why should it happen there? BUT; that doesn’t mean any one has the right to dictate and enforce that religious code onto others. There are other medical practitioners who are happy to perform these duties so why involve those who are not?
I have empathy with the argument that says life begins at conception, it’s something I’ve thought about and once you start thinking, it becomes impossible (for me) to pin down the exact start of life any where other than conception. I know there are various debates about when ‘consciousness’ kicks in but that’s another issue. But that’s all it is, a definition of when life begins. It’s not some sort of insurmountable mountain blocking forever all abortions under all circumstances. The definition of exactly when life begins and the rights and wrongs of abortion don’t have to be inextricably linked and the earliest flicker of life doesn’t automatically cancel out all other arguments in favour of abortion. That’s just a very easy opt out clause that saves some people the inconvenience of thinking.
And then there are those who proclaim as loudly, as often and as provocatively as possible that abortion is no concern of government, its a womans body and a womans choice to abort for what ever reason at what ever stage.
Well…………umm………no it isn’t. Every one needs to have some regard for the opinions of others and no one lives in complete isolation; living in a democracy means living by the wishes of the majority, which means looking for workable solutions which can at least be acceptable, if not agreeable, to every one. And proclaiming that a baby is not a baby in the very final stages of pregnancy just because it’s a couple of weeks either side of the due date flies in the face of any sort of logic or reason.
Abortion is legal in the UK up to the 24th week of pregnancy. To comply with the 1967 Abortion Act, TWO doctors must give their consent, stating that to ‘’continue with the pregnancy would present a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman or her existing children’’. In reality this does often mean abortion on demand, but that was not the intent of the law. There is another clause that I’m not personally happy with and that is ‘’if there is a substantial risk to the woman's life or if there are foetal abnormalities there is no time limit’’. This is because the ‘foetal abnormalities’ are not defined and could be relatively minor, but when you live in a democracy I guess you need to accept you don’t always get everything your own way.
At least we don’t allow the …UGH…..DNX method which as far as I can see is infanticide in another guise, I would get really upset if that were practiced here. I didn’t know what this entailed and so I made it my business to find out, seems it can and often does involve a full term baby or almost full term baby being delivered face down feet first up until the point where the head remains inside the mother. At this point the child is alive, often kicking and ready to enter the world. The ‘doctor’, inserts a sharp instrument up into the babies head via the neck and mashes the babies brains, at which point ( in most cases) the baby dies and can be delivered. This is too sick to contemplate, the fact that the head remains inside the mother is a technicality which I think that takes advantage of a peculiarity of law which doesn’t recognise a child as a child until the birthing process is complete. No amount of ….’it was rape’… ‘it was incest’… the baby will be disabled’….. etc etc justifies infanticide.
But this method of ‘abortion’ is extreme and not the norm. I’ve known women who have had abortions; I’ve known women who have taken themselves off to the hospital to get the ‘morning after pill (just in case) and I personally know two little girls who were born at 23 and 24 weeks gestation. Both children are happy, healthy and have no brain damage or other disabilities. What I’ve learnt from this is that abortion is ALWAYS a tragedy, the woman will always grieve and mourn what may have been but at the same time they don’t regret their decision. No woman plans an abortion, women don’t think …’hey I’ll go get myself pregnant and then abort that sounds like a fun thing to do’’……….nope, no one does that. The decision to abort is always sad and always difficult, the women involved always need support, what they don’t need some bible bashing, fire and brimstone breathing, fundamentalist zealot condemning them to a life of eternal damnation. That’s not really helpful or particularly therapeutic.
I suppose if I were asked I would have to say that abortion is often the least wrong thing to do. There is no point in arguing that abortion is somehow good, of course it isn’t but we are human, we live messy lives and sometimes in our lives there isn’t a ‘good’ option so we need to do the best we can, sometimes the ‘least bad’ is the best we can do. There are so many reasons why women resort to abortion and although rape and/ or incest are the most often quoted, they make up a tiny proportion of real cases. If I were asked for a time limit I guess I would say about 20 weeks because up until that point there is no viable baby and 20 weeks is actually 5 months which seems like plenty of time to make arrangements. If I were asked about criteria, I guess I would say if a woman feels she wants an abortion there is usually a pretty sound reason and she needs to be listened too. Not that what I think maters, what does matter is that the people who make these decisions agree to talk openly and honestly about it.
What I would really like to see is genuine discussion on this, not extremists from either side, both entrenched and immovable in their belief, trotting out the same old well rehearsed rhetoric, but genuine discussion where those involved are willing to negotiate. Those who oppose abortion need to realise they don’t have the right to impose their morality onto others and those who advocate abortion on demand need to realise they don’t live in isolation, they are part of a community and for the sake of the community as a whole, they need to negotiate. They also need to recognise that at some point an unborn child becomes an actual child. Everyone needs to want solutions more than they want victory. Every one needs to listen more and stop jumping down the throat of any one who says anything that doesn’t completely echo their own beliefs. Somehow some sort of workable negotiation needs to be found, cos the alternative is accelerated polarization of the whole dam country. And that’s scary.
http://www.euronews.net/2011/01/20/uk-bans-koran-burning-pastor/
An American preacher who threatened a mass public burning of the Koran has been banned from entering the UK.
Pastor Terry Jones provoked international outrage when he organised the stunt to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks last year. Pressured by the White House, he eventually called off the mass burning.
Jones had been invited to speak at rallies organised by the small far-right group “England Is Ours.” But the Home Office has prevented him entering the country. A spokesman from the Home Office said:
“The government opposes extremism in all its forms which is why we have excluded Pastor Terry Jones from the UK. Numerous comments made by Pastor Jones are evidence of his unacceptable behaviour.
Coming to the UK is a privilege, not a right, and we are not willing to allow entry to those whose presence is not conducive to the public good.”
At last...............I can agree wholeheartedly with the Home Office statement.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-11707.html/
A gay couple are suing after a Christian-run hotel in Cornwall barred them from staying in a room together.
Martin Hall and Steven Paddy, who are civil partners, have launched a county court claim seeking up to £5,000 in damages alleging “direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation”.
They booked the room in November but were told on arrival that the hotel could not honour the booking
It's good to see anti discrimination laws actually being used. How the hotel owners run their own lives and home, is up to them, but once they open up their home to the public and offer it as hotel accommodation ...........it stops being a private matter and enters the public arena........ And there is no space for discrimination in the public arena...............
Feeling quite happy with the world tonight
Some one once called her the 'original rock chick'.
I know very little about this place.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov
Born; 31 May 1862
Ufa, Russian Empire
Died; 18 October 1942
Moscow, Russian SSR, Soviet Union
Training; Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Imperial Academy of Arts
Movement; Russian Symbolism
Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov was a leading representative of religious Symbolism in Russian art. He studied under Pavel Tchistyakov at the Imperial Academy of Arts, but later allied himself with the group of artists known as the Peredvizhniki. His canvas The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew (1890–91), depicting the conversion of medieval Russian saint Sergii Radonezhsky, is often considered to mark the inauguration of the Russian Symbolist movement.
From 1890 to 1910, Nesterov lived in Kiev and St Petersburg, working on frescoes in St. Vladimir's Cathedral and the Church on Spilt Blood, respectively. After 1910, he spent the remainder of his life in Moscow, working in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent.
As a devout Orthodox Christian, he did not accept the Bolshevik Revolution but remained in Russia until his death, painting the portraits of prominant Russianns including; Ivan Ilyin, Ivan Pavlov, Ksenia Derzhinskaia Otto Schmidt, and Vera Mukhina, among many others. More of his work here.
Some of the paintings in the video at the bottom of the page are by other russian painters of the same period.
This is an excellent site showing some of his many works.
http://www.abcgallery.com/N/nesterov/nesterov.html
My interpretation of the three witches made famous in 'That' Scottish play.
Moral of the story seems to be.............don't piss me off, the ...'models' for this painting, are three ladies who I work with and who could, at times, easily be mistaken for three witches.
:-) not to be taken too seriously of course.
Maybe you will appreciate the artistry more if you just turn the sound off.
Charges dropped against film-makers accused over Donald Trump documentary.
Men accused of entering and filming without permission at US business magnate's office at proposed golf resort in Scotland.
Two documentary film-makers arrested and held by police as they investigated complaints about Donald Trump's proposed golf resort in Scotland have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors and police have dropped all charges against Anthony Baxter and Richard Phinney after they were accused of entering and filming without permission at the US business magnate's office at the proposed resort in Aberdeenshire.
Read full story
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/04/film-makers-donald-trump-documentary
Elderly widow wins battle in her war against Donald Trump’s golf resort plans
By Peter Laing
Urgent appeal to America….
Please take Donald Trump home,
we don’t want him here.
If you need to ask why, visit here.
http://www.trippinguptrump.com/
Tripping Up Trump
Now about protecting the families that are being threatened by compulsory purchase, not for a school or a hospital but for private profit.
Residents of ‘Menie’ have AGAIN and AGAIN stated they do not wish to sell and only ask to be left alone in peace but Donald Trump will not accept this fate. Worse still, planning permission was granted on the grounds that he had all the land he needed!!
This is why Tripping Up Trump will stand strong and protect the residents of ‘Menie’ from the lurking threat of compulsory purchase. What is happening to the homeowners could happen to anyone else, once a precedent is set.
video links
http://www.trippinguptrump.com/links
Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh................how dare this American imbecile call Mr Forbes the village idiot and his croft a slum !!...........Please take this revolting man back to America.
He seems to have bought and paid for Aberdeenshire council AND The Scottish Government ( shame on us)
He has already managed to manipulate his way into buying some of the most beautiful and special sand-dunes in Scotland to turn into some sort of Disney type golf resort, a play thing for the rich. Not happy with that, he is now terrorising little people and threatening their way of life. His latest maneuver is to sue very poor people for a fortune in legal fees.............because they stood up to him.
This man is a monster, take him away
An old favourite, Runrig, Our Earth was Once GreenThis man was born and raised not far from here. He went to Duncan of Jordanstone Art College of Art which is part of the University of Dundee and he still lives and works in the area.
I came across his work a week or so before Christmas and just by looking at it I can see how familiar he is with this landscape.
I’ve chosen a couple of his winter landscapes to show here because they show exactly what this area has looked like recently but there are many more landscapes, seascapes and wildlife paintings on his website.
From the artists website
http://www.derekrobertson.com/profile.php
Profile of Artist Derek Robertson
‘’Born and raised in Fife, Derek Robertson works from his studio in Balmerino and, since graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone Art College in Dundee some fifteen years ago, has established a name as one of the country’s foremost wildlife and landscape artists. He exhibits work in galleries around the world including regular selection in the Woodson Art Museum “Birds in Art” international show in the USA. His paintings are held in private collections in more than 40 countries as well as in numerous public collections including those of several British Universities, Museums and the collections of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh and The Scotland Office in London. Derek is a professional member of the Society of Scottish Artists and the Aberdeen Art Society.’’
