Out For A Duck.

Upper Salhouse Duckpond, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Anyone else notice how these roadside ponds where the ducks spill out onto the road are gradually being filled in. Along with unbridged fords they are becoming threatened with extinction.

Help The Age Discrimination

The Gentle Art Of British Hypocrisy, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

There is always something going on in London Street number 410: A chugger (a name achieved by amalgamating the words charity and mugger) caught in the act of raising funds for Help The Aged. Amusingly despite that Charity's claim on its website that it stands four square in the fight against ageism in the workplace ("Age discrimination should not be tolerated") I have never seen one of their street fund-raisers over the age of twenty five.

I would imagine that the arguments why this should be so are much the same as the arguments put forward in the sixties and seventies when observers asked why only white males and never women or people from racial minorities became foremen in factories; "They don't want to do it, the work is not suited to them, they have the wrong temperment etc. etc."

Their website also claims that "Age discrimination is hard to spot" - No its not (see photo).

I woke up this morning

Borderland, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

I want an empty room in an empty house in an empty land with an empty sky.

Norwich Camera Dealers

Phillip, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

The owner of the eponymous Phillip's Cameras on Wensum Street. I was in his shop buying a second hand Canon Remote Switch (RS60-E3) and this was taken with the aid of that and without looking through the viewfinder. This should be seen as one of an occasional series of Norwich Independent Camera Dealers including Richard Nunn of Exposure Cameras (below).

I guess Pat Woods of Capricorn Cameras will have to be next.

Phillips Cameras (01603) 625261
Exposure Cameras (01603) 622458

Heavenly Bodies

Comet, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Comets were once a popular design for weather vanes; particularly in the 18th/19th century. Several reasons for this I think.

Firstly to commemorate the coming of a comet (whether Halley's comet or not). This happened less often than some would have you believe. More likely people became comet minded rather than trying to actually commemorate the coming of a particular comet.

Secondly it was not a weather cock. Weather cocks became associated with the Papacy after a Papal Decree in the 19th century said that the figure of a cock should be put on every church steeple as the emblem of St Peter. (A cock is an allusion to his three times denial of Christ before the cock crew twice). I have read that this Papal Decree was the cause for a lot of churches on the continent losing fine specimens of early weather vanes. This is favourite where St Helens is concerned I think. In the great rivalry between High and Low Church that festered in Norwich, St Helens was always a bastion of the Low. Fellow Flickr photographer and habitual Church Visitor Simon_K will probably want to expand on this theme if he swings by here.

Thirdly as a symbol it chimed in with the scientific ethos of the Age of Reason and beyond.

Fourthly there are only so many designs that are suitable to be a weather vane for a church and be effective in its job; it must have a point and a tail.

Fifthly there is an aesthetic satisfaction in looking up at a tower or steeple and seeing a heavenly body on top.

Sixthly they only had comets in stock in ye olde weather vane shop that day.

The European Swan Mountain

Bigfoot, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Tree Lines

Caister St Edmunds Theme and Variation, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.