General – Page 80 – Boadicea's Chariot

Oberon and Titania watched by a Harridan

The stock in trade of painter Richard Dadd (1817-1886) was fairies as depicted in his most famous work The Fairy Fellers Master-Stroke. The multiple characters in the painting were immortalised on vinyl by the rock band Queen on their eponymous second album Queen II. Dadd’s picture is filled with tiny, meticulous detail and was nine years in the making but remained unfinished at his death. This is yet another one of those unfinished Master-Strokes that artistes leave lying around. The painter wrote a guide book about the painting signifying the various tasks assigned to the hundreds of fairies he had illustrated. Continue reading “Oberon and Titania watched by a Harridan”

Dear Green Place

A respectful offering for JW’s epic.

And then did bold Magellan cry,
‘Marvin let’s straitways Westward hie.
The sinking sun we’ll there espy,
With sights to sadden any eye. Continue reading “Dear Green Place”

Photo comp results.

Sorry for the tardiness in assessing the entries in the photo comp

https://charioteers.org/2013/07/10/photo-comp-for-august/

My excuse is that Mrs FEEG and I have been celebrating our Ruby Wedding with the family! Thanks for your entries.

Soutie’s Statues: Certainly wierd and quite impressive

OZ’s two views of sunset: Very interesting effects there, especially #2

Ara’s chandelier: Quite a strange arrangement

Christopher’s Hiroshima dome. with a weird lighting effect.

All very good and interesting in their diferent ways, but my favourite and this month’s winner is OZ number 2, Reflections of the Sunset. Over to you, my lupine friend.

More jokes

Following on from the Chariot’s own stand-ups, here are some jokes I enjoyed.

Curtains

Now that’s an improvement 🙂

An Answer to FEEG

‘Just finished watching the BBC coverage of the Edinburgh Tattoo. It was as entertaining as it was when Mrs FEEG and I were there in person 10 years ago. Absolutely stunning.

There is still one question that arises from it, though. When you are in Auld Reekie, the atmosphere around Festival time is great except for all the “bagpipe buskers”.

So, my question for Mr Mackie is, “Why is it that bagpipe solos sound like a particularly sadistic version of cat strangulation, whereas a massed pipe and drum band is one of the greatest sounds on Earth?” ‘

A very fair question, FEEG and one which I have often pondered of a summer evening as my homeward bus sits at the junction of Waverley Bridge and Princes Street snarled up in the interminable Embran pre-tram delays. That spot is one of the mercifully very few where licensed bagpipe playing by a succession of inept pipers clothed in many and varied versions of what they fondly believe to be ‘The Garb of Old Gaul’ as in the regimental march of Her Majesty’s Scots Guards is allowed. Continue reading “An Answer to FEEG”

Come Sailing By

This photo was taken by me two days ago in Balintore (near Dornoch) on the Cromarty Firth, Sutherland. Scotland. I thought it was a nice combination of chimney, roof and sails though I took a few other shots of the passenger ship alone. My host had told me that the previous day he witnessed schools of basking sharks, with huge dorsal fins and the fish as long as 20 feet and more.

I had been in Sutherland for a week and returned from Inverness yesterday by Easy jet. (Not so easy that when we landed at Gatwick, there was no immediate place for the plane to taxi to and when we were allocated a space there was no bus to take us to the terminal. A gruff and untidy man, two seats away from me, sat throughout the flight with his scruffy coat draped over his head. That’s Easy Jet for you!)

I may attempt a Low Wattage style format of post of the holiday with loads of landscape pictures.

Help!

Soutie I find I cannot post a comment at the moment. I click the button “Post Comment” but nothing happens. Do you know of any present glitch? Please delete this post once seen.

It’s not just you PapaG but all of us, let’s give the rocket scientists at WordPress an hour or two to sort out the problem

I too couldn’t comment, so thought I’d use your excellently timed post to notify you and others

Soutie 🙂

If other cherished colleagues wish to comment on the current ‘glitch’ please email me and I’ll post your pearls of wisdom below.

Interlude

Me and Chibber were on the subway the other day. By subway that might mean the underground to you or the tube station. I don’t know, I‘m not cosmopolitan. Anyway, we’re sitting there and a woman is sitting directly across from us and her hands are stitching a piece of yarn like nobody’s business. She’s nonchalantly staring into space while the hands are going at Burlington Bertie, a hundred to thirty.

“She’s a good knitter, isn’t she?” I said to Chibber, who replied.

“She’s crocheting.”

As soon as he said this he wanted the ground to swallow him up even though we were already underground. How did he know the difference?

A question for Mr Mackie

Just finished watching the BBC coverage of the Edinburgh Tattoo. It was as entertaining as it was when Mrs FEEG and I were there in person 10 years ago. Absolutely stunning.

There is still one question that arises from it, though. When you are in Auld Reekie, the atmosphere around Festival time is great except for all the “bagpipe buskers”.

So, my question for Mr Mackie is, “Why is it that bagpipe solos sound like a particularly sadistic version of cat strangulation, whereas a massed pipe and drum band is one of the greatest sounds on Earth?”