the emotional blackmailers handbook

go to the NEW emotional blackmailer's handbook ...

2009-04-14T15:26:00.005+01:00

via this link ...

http://thenewemotionalblackmailershandbook.blogspot.com/

one careful owner ( i )

2009-04-10T06:02:00.004+01:00

i nearly walked past this ... then realized i was looking at a grime-free working antique ... a bit like me but probably twenty years older ... the owner is clearly someone who doesn't need to make a fashion statement with a new bike ... this expertly maintained old bike, its patina and blemishes invisibly varnished, tells you such a lot about his discreet good taste and skill

one careful owner ( ii )

2009-04-10T05:56:00.002+01:00

one careful owner ( iii )

2009-04-10T05:50:00.002+01:00

one careful owner ( iv )

2009-04-10T05:31:00.003+01:00

reminds me of a place i went to eat once or twice ... almost a million miles from ulan bator

2009-04-10T05:21:00.002+01:00

http://www.ycs-mongoliangrill.com/locations.html

anthropological notes: a spaniard does his duty

2009-04-09T01:11:00.002+01:00

chimbleys by pugin at albury in surrey ... you wouldn't get planning permission nowadays

2009-04-07T17:22:00.000+01:00

i can't adequately express my gratitude to andre michelle who designed this light relief for unmusical hands ... click away

2009-04-06T19:21:00.002+01:00

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

me and my big mouth

2009-04-04T14:43:00.009+01:00

on the crest of an astonishingly pompous impulse, i mistook a pub in Wandsworth Road for this one in Charlton as recently featured by Tom Sutpen in his ever-stimulating blog "if charlie parker was a gunslinger ..."

i'm still blushing

http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/2009/03/abandoned-places-12.html

up in the clouds ... tremedal

2009-04-04T07:49:00.004+01:00

derelict railway at guadalupe ... allegedly built by prisoner slaves after the civil war

2009-04-04T07:39:00.003+01:00

tempus fugit ... a decaying church with a fully atrophied sundial at deleitosa

2009-04-04T07:30:00.003+01:00

threshing circle at the summit of the pass between navezuelas and canamero

2009-04-02T02:15:00.003+01:00

the flight to madrid awaits, backsun

2009-03-27T03:07:00.000Z

undeniable symptoms of incipient blue-skies thinking

2009-03-26T19:28:00.003Z

blooming marvellous

2009-03-26T19:24:00.000Z

a hollow tower at bruton

2009-03-24T18:20:00.003Z

a three sided tower at stourton

2009-03-24T15:07:00.001Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Alfred%27s_Tower

it was six in the morning. "Are we ready to rock'n'roll ?"

2009-03-24T14:59:00.003Z

... asked the efficient looking man with the clipboard at goods-in.

"Well, yes ! In a manner of speaking ...", I replied somewhat hesitantly, pointing down to my regulation industrial footwear

goin' rattin', luv ?

2009-03-20T20:11:00.002Z

banish the agony of mothers' day indecision ... buy some daffodils that match her marigolds now ... while stocks last !

2009-03-20T19:20:00.004Z

turned out nice again !

2009-03-19T16:00:00.000Z

balcombe viaduct ... brought in by ship !

2009-03-18T17:24:00.008Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcombe_Viaduct

on putney heath ... spring is sprung

2009-03-18T17:19:00.001Z

cowdray park ... all you need now is a polo pony ... one would rather hope to see the players in shining armour

2009-03-18T17:12:00.001Z

upstairs next door to the bread shop

2009-03-18T17:07:00.000Z

hammersmith bridge, nice and early

2009-03-16T05:56:00.008Z

my dear aunt mavis forward/ferguson/butler near blorenge ... and in 1943, with her mother violet, my grandmother

2009-03-16T05:48:00.010Z

when mavis was very small, perhaps around the time that the great first world war was ending, mothers would dress their girls all in white at whitsun

some miners, bringing a wagon full of coal down from their hillside pit, discovered her dressed just so when she had wandered off too far from home that afternoon, and they brought her back sitting on top of their coal

she recalls that her mother "was not best pleased"

gratuitous chocolate pudding imagery ... with kitchen genius sheila evans searching the ceiling for a lost word

2009-03-14T08:25:00.002Z

built to last ... with identical twin lady doctors ?

2009-03-11T19:09:00.009Z

in case of emergency: when emotional blackmail fails ...

2009-03-11T19:04:00.002Z

Chapter Ninety Nine: In which our hero discovers the limitations of pathos ...

2009-03-11T18:59:00.002Z

There is a full moon and the bright air is filled with frost.

In the nearby wood, owls cry and foxes yelp.

Imagine a darkened bedroom in which an exhausted trucker lays down in the hope that sleep will come quickly, but there is a chill in the air and he reluctantly shifts himself in search of some socks because his feet won’t warm up.

The loved one brings in her own little heart-shaped hot-water bottle and she settles down for the night in comfort, on her side of the bed, whereupon, if you had been listening, you might have heard him telling her that,

“In an ideal world, you would curl yourself around my feet !”

And after her contemptuous snort, you might just have caught her monosyllabic rejection, projected as if towards a badly behaved dog.

i've fixed us a noticeboard, six feet high by two feet six ... in the loo ... how many postcards will it take ?

2009-03-09T16:38:00.002Z

what's the welsh for "gone coracle-ing" ?

2009-03-09T16:27:00.000Z

and you can always use microsoft word spell checker to find out if your style is fashionably opaque

2009-03-08T09:39:00.007Z

must i run barefoot all the way down to the king's road to get some new trainers right now ?

2009-03-08T09:34:00.002Z

superheroes go bonkers in lone pine

2009-03-06T17:32:00.014Z

we went to lone pine in california once and i often check it out on the internet webby thing to see what might be happening because i'd love to go back

the sierra nevada is big but these undaunted hyperactive nutters from san diego ( Scott Nelson, Nathan Ricklin and Charles Ince ) made me laugh and gasp with envy and admiration when they conquered it with self-imposed handicaps

you can click on to their short film and read all about it via this link

http://pullharder.org/2009/02/20/winter-ascent-of-the-complete-north-ridge-of-lone-pine-peak/

uk government health warning ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolpidem

i am too weak-willed to resist sharing with you this gratuitous juxtaposition ( i )

2009-03-06T14:57:00.003Z

real grass at liberty in sloane street

2009-03-05T19:02:00.004Z

cleaning the hob ... any excuse to delay the hoovering !

2009-03-04T19:18:00.000Z

we flew south ...

2009-03-02T20:07:00.003Z

... to indulge in a growing affection for roman marble

2009-03-02T19:57:00.006Z

lintels !

2009-03-02T19:44:00.005Z

beards

2009-03-02T19:34:00.004Z

and when i rule the universe, this is where you'll find us on bath nights

2009-03-02T17:31:00.003Z

the god of the nile

2009-03-02T17:25:00.001Z

it is a well-known fact that truckers make ideal artist's models

2009-03-02T17:11:00.008Z

i once knew a farmer who'd ( allegedly ) been weaned on scrumpy

2009-03-02T16:58:00.004Z

a bit of raphael

2009-03-02T16:43:00.003Z

romans tip-toeing through the ages

2009-03-02T16:29:00.006Z

grrr !

2009-03-02T16:13:00.005Z

hey ! isn't that rene magritte's old jacket ?

2009-03-02T16:10:00.001Z

a sunday school teacher at the office said i should bring her some leather-bound relics from rome ... with louis vuitton written all over 'em

2009-03-02T16:06:00.005Z

those australian barmaids again

2009-03-02T16:02:00.000Z

bring me my bow of burning gold

2009-03-02T15:58:00.000Z

a bold promise

2009-03-02T15:48:00.002Z

night must fall

2009-03-02T15:44:00.000Z

inside the pantheon

2009-03-02T15:41:00.000Z

outside the pantheon

2009-03-02T15:39:00.000Z

water water everywhere

2009-03-02T15:34:00.001Z

are they baths or coffins ?

2009-03-02T07:19:00.003Z

Santa Maria della Vittoria

2009-03-02T06:45:00.015Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_St_Theresa

of course, a real gentleman would instinctively understand how to operate this

2009-03-02T06:21:00.002Z

fifth century mosaics high up in santa maria maggiore

2009-03-02T05:59:00.001Z

in the gallery beneath the dome of saint peter's, just before the ascent to the cupola

2009-03-02T05:45:00.002Z

the messengers

2009-03-02T05:27:00.003Z

manzu's doors ... just about everything else in saint peter's seems to be presented as some sort of monument to the vanity of the popes

2009-03-02T05:18:00.006Z

http://www.saintpetersbasilica.org/Interior/DoorofDeath/DoorofDeath.htm

these noble dudes were absolutely ready to party on in to the next world

2009-03-01T21:20:00.006Z

a horse startled by an elephant

2009-03-01T21:13:00.000Z

i should imagine that italian social workers will take a dim view of this kind of informal fostering arrangement

2009-03-01T15:40:00.005Z

on their way to the fancy dress ball

2009-03-01T15:13:00.005Z

proof, if it were needed, that the romans introduced cricket to the ancient britons

2009-03-01T14:41:00.002Z

the self-appointed chairman of the jockey club

2009-03-01T13:20:00.001Z

if you have tears to shed ...

2009-03-01T12:58:00.002Z

just cos its amazing

2009-03-01T12:41:00.001Z

when we close our eyes

2009-03-01T12:33:00.000Z

bernini's "four fountains" in piazza navona ... with that crocodile drain, the fountain seems nicely allegorical of time's flow and renewal

2009-03-01T10:53:00.004Z

ourselves when younger

2009-03-01T10:47:00.000Z

oh, my aching feet !

2009-03-01T10:26:00.004Z

the worst bit is coming down all those stairs from the cupola of saint peter's

we're flouncing off for a bit of spiritual edification in rome ...

2009-02-23T21:30:00.003Z

and if we play our cards right ... i may come back with the franchise for the purveyance of papal indulgences in battersea and nine elms

"english, as she is spoken" ... katherine whitehorn broadcasting last weekend ... gratuitous picture of the lady when younger

2009-02-23T14:17:00.003Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hlsps/A_Point_of_View_20_02_2009/

the green man, sutton benger church, wiltshire

2009-02-21T19:40:00.003Z

hardenhuish church, wiltshire, and the tomb of david ricardo

2009-02-21T19:14:00.006Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo

east beach cafe at littlehampton ...

2009-02-18T17:45:00.000Z

... and it's view

2009-02-18T17:42:00.002Z

sir robert clayton, dame martha clayton, and their baby at bletchingley in surrey

2009-02-17T18:59:00.008Z

Here rests what was Mortal of Sr. ROBERT CLAYTON Kt. in the year MDCLXXX Lord Mayor and at his death Alderman and Father of the CITY of LONDON and near XXX years one of its Representatives in Parliament.By the Justest Methods & Skill in Business He acquir'd an Ample Fortune, which He appli'd to the Noblest purposes, & more than once ventur'd it all for His Country. He fix't the Seat of his Family at Marden, where he hath left a Remarkable instance of the politeness of his Genius, and how far Nature may be improved by Art. His Relations, his Friends, the Hospital of St Thomas in Southwark (of which he was the President) Christ Church Hospital & the Workhouse of London, were large shares of his bounty. He liv'd in the Communion of the Church of England & in perfect Charity with all Good men however divided amoung themselves in opinion The Welfare of his Country was the only Aim of his Publick actions and in all the various Efforts that were made in his time for preserving it's Constitution, He bore a great share & acted therein with a Constancy of Mind which no prospect of danger could ever shake.It's but Just the Memory of so Good and so Great a Man should be transmited to after age, since in all the private and Publick transactions of his life He hath left so Bright a pattern to imitate but hardly to be outdone.He was born at Bulwick in Northampton, Shire the XXIX day of September Ano: Dom: MDCXXIX and died at Marden the XVI day of July MDCCVII.Gulielmus Clayton Nepos et Haeres>D-D< href="http://emotionalblackmailers.blogspot.com/2006/09/sir-thomas-clayton-behind-saint-thomas.html">http://emotionalblackmailers.blogspot.com/2006/09/sir-thomas-clayton-behind-saint-thomas.html

... their only child died very young

2009-02-17T18:55:00.000Z

post valentine's confession

2009-02-16T17:18:00.003Z

i was too tight-fisted to buy a valentine's card so i had to get up early on saturday and re-cycle an image i'd painted for her some years ago when we lived in brighton

job done

2009-02-15T19:28:00.000Z

early to rise on clapham common

2009-02-15T11:10:00.000Z

from one kind of heraldry in royal tunbridge wells to ...

2009-02-12T16:19:00.000Z

... another kind of heraldry in the wandsworth road

2009-02-12T16:16:00.000Z

a life of luxury

2009-02-12T16:13:00.001Z

looking across the flooded meadows of the river arun from stopham towards hardham

2009-02-11T19:17:00.001Z

stopham bridge ... a lot of water has

2009-02-11T19:09:00.000Z

leaves of frost form on an old sleeper as the flood recedes

2009-02-11T19:06:00.000Z

a mossy roof by stopham bridge

2009-02-11T19:03:00.000Z

trotton bridge

2009-02-11T19:00:00.000Z

what a come back

2009-02-07T14:48:00.005Z

the bbc radio five live sports presenter just announced that "blake" would be singing jerusalem before the start of this afternoon's rugby match at twickenham