Not quite solid state

Flickr Flicker, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

What need for a DVD or Video when you have these gorgeously gaudy Japanese flicker books? They don't leave a carbon footprint either as they do not require electricity and they do not deteriorate like magnetic or digital media. It is a shame how much room "Gone With The Wind" would take in this medium though.

I knew he was an artist as soon as I saw his hat

I knew he was an artist as soon as I saw his hat, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

His painting features a Guildhall Hill where all the taxis, drunks, Big Issue sellers, hoodies and old people have been removed and replaced by a few slender figures. His apocalyptic vision of Norwich seems to be of a place where the lunchtime crowds have been wiped out by disease and replaced with only the young and beautiful. A kind of Oscar Wilde bomb one presumes.

Is this a clue to why he pulls his brand new Panama down over his head and lifts his collar to hide his face? He cannot bear to stand alongside the glorious, mishapen, humanity passing him by.

21st Century Narcissus

Sunburst, originally photographed by Colonel Blink.

I asked him the question everyone must ask him; how long does it take him to "do" his hair and he told me 40 minutes.

"Oh well", I said "Everyone needs a hobby"

He then gave me that look; the one everybody does eventually.

I did not ask him the question everybody wants to ask him but doesn't dare; "How do you sleep at night"

There is a limit to just how long strangers will let you photograph them: after taking one last snap I made my excuses and left.

Spikes originally photographed by Colonel Blink

Draw!

Draw!, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

We get a lot of them round Riverside Road; artists following the Leslie Davenport trail of where to paint in Norwich. They target Pulls Ferry or Cow Tower or, as in this case, Bishop's Bridge and the nearby houses that are so quaint and expensive that only Savilles sell them. They usually dress in crew cut sweaters or those blue fishermen's smock things and sometimes will even have a knotted red handkerchief around their necks as a badge of office. If they are good enough they prefer to exhibit in the Assembly Rooms for a week every year. If not you will find their paintings on the walls of those coffee shops in Broadland or North Norfolk that have placemats that look like pizza bases and sell eratz homemade jam and Norfolk Lavender as a sideline.

This pair (whom my lawyers advise me to point out are not like the stereotype above) arrived together and moved to opposite sides of the street where they faced each other like Western gunmen at high noon. Sadly though they were not painting each other.

Changing Tastes

AFTER: "The takeaway formerly known as............" a photo by Colonel Blink


They Changed it! The name of the takeaway on Prince Of Wales Road formerly called Tasteless and noted in this entry of mine has changed it's name to Tastebuds by the simple expedient of removing the less and replacing it with buds on its signboard as can be evidenced by the different style of font.



BEFORE:" 'Give me the blandest thing on the menu' " a photo by Colonel Blink


It is fun to speculate what brought about this change in policy from probably the first example of truthful advertising to hit Prince of Wales Road.

1. It was some kind of post-modernist joke that did not come off. Customers were put off by the name and the staff became pissed off by drunks demanding their money back because the food tasted of something if only monosodium glutamate and various E numbers.
2. The owners do not have English as a first language (as is the case with the proprietors of many takeaways) and it took a while to realise that tasteless is not the same as tastiness.
3. The signwriter made a mistake having misheard what he was supposed to write.
4. The signwriter, the brother in law of the owner, deliberately made a mistake because he hates his sister's husband.

In fact, as is often the case, speculation is more fun than knowing the truth so I will not investigate the matter.

Gurney Clock, Castle Mall, Norwich

Gurney Clock, Castle Mall, Norwich, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

Multi-Cultural Society

Not quite a gentleman, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

I am, as I hope everyone realises, the most politically correct of people; I will interact with practically anyone. And then I saw that his bow tie was a clip-on and his dinner jacket and trousers were off the peg and I realised he was not one of us so I cut him dead. Was I wrong? I think not.