Without Prejudice 3

[KLaban]

Rob, she - Audrey Fleurot - was also in the latest series of Witnesses.

Worth a watch.

[Rob C]

It's all context. Egon Schiele and the like are in no danger from Me2, whereas The Presidents Club is toast.

Yep, and half a million squids given to the Sick Children's Hospital is supposedly being handed back as coming from soiled sources... I wonder at the sense of it all. I think a hospital and sick kids should not give a shit about the fact that the money comes from a few fat cats with plenty of it. That it is possible to find a hundred girls to attend those functions shows that the agencies have plenty of willing people on their books who think nothing of riotous male exuberance; the shit came from "undercover" plants. How brave of them; how noble that it means kids will probably lose out if the hospital sticks with its silly attitude.

Oh well, that's what a free and hypocritical press does for us all: sells copies and gathers audiences on the back of holding up its dainty, clean little hands in horror.

[Rob C]

Great Britain's all male 'Captains of Industry' putting their hands up young student's skirts and asking "how much for a fuck", well, there's a surprise.

Great Britain's press acting as self appointed guardians of all our morals, well, there's a surprise.

Great Britain's children's charities distancing themselves from these behaviours, well, there's a surprise.

You saw all this? Well, there's a surprise!

Students play hostess games? My girls never told me! That's an ever bigger surprise!

Cap'ns of Industry with roaming hands? Students and schoolboys with roaming hands? Now there's a suprise!

;-)

Rob

[Rob C]

Rob, she - Audrey Fleurot - was also in the latest series of Witnesses.

Worth a watch.

Yes, I saw the ads for it, Keith, but the Beeb here depends on the atmpospherics, just like Radio Luxembourg used to in Scotland: some nights it works and others not. The only channel that sails through fire, storm and general world shit is Sky News. (Other channels are bundled with the telephone contract's tv and Internet package deal, which is where I pick up on France24.) Yes, other satellite channels also weather storms, but I have stopped looking at them because I drift off...

As a result, I saw none of Witnesses and only got into this latest series of Engrenages a couple of weeks ago, so I missed a lot, but will probably end up with it available later on.

To be honest, I watch hardly any tv because I find trawling pictures on that little iPad far more rewarding. But it's also frustrating when I see images that I know very well and find them wrongly attributed.

Rob

[KLaban]

Someone was writing about shadows as theme, I think.

Here's one from this afternoon:

Or Picasso, profile of young woman?

[Rob C]

That strikes me as reasonable, Keith; I therefore offer a single, signed print for $ 40,000,000 - a unique snip!

(That might ensure the arrival of a spanking new M10 as well as of a new Shaman. How odd: on the face of it at least, both are of German origin! I might have imagined I'd have gone for an Italian job.)

Oh, on the sale of said print, I shall immediately take on the chore of my French canal trip and faithfully document the windows along the banks of that waterway. And publish it via Steidl; even he must encounter offers he can't refuse! Whilst there, in Germany, I will pick up the wheels, in a fine, greyish chrome.

Rob

[Jeremy Roussak]

Yep, and half a million squids given to the Sick Children's Hospital is supposedly being handed back as coming from soiled sources... I wonder at the sense of it all.

There's no sense in it at all, Rob: it's sanctimonious virtue signalling. "Oh, sorry, we can't treat your child's cancer: we've had to spend the money replacing the half million we gave back because it made us feel better". GOS gets hugely privileged, special treatment, far in excess of any other children's hospital and far more than it truly deserves. It's been a source of irritation for years to people who work at those other hospitals. If one good thing comes of this absurd and pointless gesture, it will be that the money is re-distributed to others who need it.

As Vespasian (I think it was) is said to have observed when criticised by his son for levying a tax on public toilets, "pecunia non olet".

Jeremy

[KLaban]

I've just removed a couple of my posts so as not to pollute this thread.

[Rob C]

There's no sense in it at all, Rob: it's sanctimonious virtue signalling. "Oh, sorry, we can't treat your child's cancer: we've had to spend the money replacing the half million we gave back because it made us feel better". GOS gets hugely privileged, special treatment, far in excess of any other children's hospital and far more than it truly deserves. It's been a source of irritation for years to people who work at those other hospitals. If one good thing comes of this absurd and pointless gesture, it will be that the money is re-distributed to others who need it.

As Vespasian (I think it was) is said to have observed when criticised by his son for levying a tax on public toilets, "pecunia non olet".

Jeremy

Funny you should say that: early during my first couple of years working on my own, my pa-in-law tried to convince me that I was nuts trying to stick to the difficult path of finding fashion photography to shoot in an area not famed for offering much work of that nature. He was a successful surveyor, and told me: I don't care if I measure a shit-house or a palace, the bank is just as happy either way! And he was, objectively speaking, right, but that didn't take cognizance of personality. However, I'm sure the concern was for his daughter's welfare and not directly mine other than by virtue of marriage! (I was very vituous then.)

Yes, it must really be a drag for similar institutions to feel that they somehow lurk in the shadow of famous establishments. If there's a solution, it must lie with some honest political initiative, cross-party, where they sit down and realise - no, admit what they already know - that finance for health can't be done on a small/medium scale: there has to be a massive input of money and as that is ever finite, then other ependitures have to be cut, or taxes raised for everyone to sustain the entire show. But above all, they have to be honest and show what the ideal service we all seem to desire will really cost us, collectively. Perhaps a simple, yes/no referendum on that would make sense. ;-)

I write as one of that certain age where hospìtal visits can become as casual to dropping in somewhere for a coffee. Oh well, at least I rapidly lost my fear of hypodermic syringes.

;-(

Rob

[KLaban]

Rob still working on convincing my Shaman about the Cayman but truth is I can't even convince myself.

[KLaban]

Could almost be Audrey Fleurot

[Rob C]

You have a point!

Remove her from the lawyer character that is all I know about her, and she could be very, well, entertaining!

:-)

[Rob C]

The Easter Islander was the second thing I shot at home after lunch; just before lunch I shot one half of the attached image, and immediately after I caught the next part, and then the Island.

People sometimes look for the distinctions between art (as in drawing and painting) and photography. I think that the reality is that a photographer's art is pretty much confined to his ability to recognize, and then subsequently shoot what he sees well enough to stay with his vision as it was, whereas the other person also has that, but the ability to go that essential step beyond, and create a physical work even without a physical presence doing the really heavy lifting.

Anyway, more shadows. I enjoyed my own cooking yesterday, maybe because I was excited by the two-image shot I recognised the day before. Convenient how shadows appear upside down sometimes. Only reason I twigged.

[Rob C]

Rob still working on convincing my Shaman about the Cayman but truth is I can't even convince myself.

Yep, it was the same before we sold up and moved to Spain: as I think you know, I was inclined to buy a yacht and live on it, cruising and working the Med. Fortunately, Ann was far more perceptive and insisted that any move meant buying another property on land. Thank God for that; I'd have bankrupted us following that whim!

[KLaban]

Pornographic cacti!

[Rob C]

Pornographic cacti!

Thorny issue, but probably grist for some peculiar mills.

All I saw was penumbra acting as a Softar. Told you I loved my 500s!

Rob

[GrahamBy]

There's no sense in it at all, Rob: it's sanctimonious virtue signalling. "Oh, sorry, we can't treat your child's cancer: we've had to spend the money replacing the half million we gave back because it made us feel better".

Nothing is simple. Children's cancer research is massively over-funded relative to both its rarity and what you can do about it (it tends to be of genetic origin because, well, children haven't had much time to be exposed to the environment). Pancreatic cancer research is poorly funded and kills almost everyone who gets it... it's much more common, but there are hardly any survivors left to lobby for funding. Breast cancer is hugely funded because survival is very high (but not for all types... sorry Rob) and the lobbying pressure is immense. Lung cancer is poorly funded despite being the most common cancer globally because it's perceived as self-inflicted (probably true in the west, not so much where coal is used for cooking in unventilated kitchens)... and because of the lack of survivors.

So the funds are distributed largely according to feel-good impulses. It's not so surprising that they get re-directed accoding to the mood of the moment.

The other thing you might usefully look at is what percentage of funds actually get to a hospital or a research institute: charity can be very profitable for people putting on the show... and the fact that they choose to support children's cancer rather than say colorectal cancer is itself likely to have been a marketing-driven choice.

[GrahamBy]

Reason to not own a Monochrom

[Rob C]

Reason to not own a Monochrom

Unless as a spare - or a gift...

:-)

[petermfiore]

Unless as a spare - or a gift...

:-)

Gifts are always most welcome...

Peter