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Journal entries prior to May 2008 can be found in the old archived site here

Journal: July, 2010

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Visualizing the Word Sustainability
Six posters play with the S-word

Design by Michael C. Place

Two years ago, Stora Enso, the Scandinavian paper company, commissioned six designers to create posters inspired by the word Sustainability. The winning designs came from Marian Bantjes, Bruce McCall, Christoph Niemann, Michael C. Place, Paula Scher and Winterhouse. Sadly, the series was cancelled when the paper company sold its U.S. operations after printing and distributing only the Bantjes, Niemann and Scher works.  But all six are now downloadable for free from a website which I found via a Big Think link Will Rosenzweig of Physic Ventures sent me today. ... more >

Mudlarks
East Head, Again

Reflection

Shadows

Rusty landscape on a tank in Itchenor

East Head perambulation

Snapped a couple of random images at a wayside garden centre as we headed back to West Wittering, which turned out to be seething - but we managed to get away from much of the crowd by walking out to the end of of East Head. I lay on the dunes, upside down, in the sun, as a bumblebee, or similar, quartered the airspace over my head. I watched, with great joy, several groups of children - mainly girls - working themselves up to coating themselves from head to foot in the dark, unctuous mud of the mudbanks on the other side of one of the bodies of water. To begin with they were tentative, but then started slithering and sloshing around with great gusto. Overhead, a series of microlights buzzed back and forth - and a Tiger Moth, I think, dipped in and out at one point. What a glorious place.... more >

Art through the millennia
Bignor Roman Villa and Goodwood Sculpture Park

Dolphin mosaic, Bignor

Vineyard, Bignor

Self-portrait, Goodwood Sculpture Park

Steven Gregory's 'Fish on a Bicycle'

Distortion

Ralph Brown's 'La Sposa'

Jilly Sutton's 'Fallen Deodar'

Over 'Fallen Deodar' to Manfred Kielnhofer's 'Timeguards'

'Timeguards', with vegetal echos

Phillip King's 'Sun's Roots II'

Danny Lane's 'Stairway'

Started off the day at the Bignor Roman Villa, which has some interesting mosaics, and a couple of poignant children's skeletons, and then decided on the spur of the moment to go to the Goodwood Sculpture Park again - although, once again, it proved very hard to find. Well worth the effort, though. Lovely weather as we walked around - and very few people indeed. Seems something of a well kept secret, this place.... more >

It Was 70 Years Ago ...
... next month

Chidham 1

Chidham 2 - the crash-site is alongside the copse on the horizon

Chidham 3

Chidham 4

Chidham 5

Coastal signpost

Bosham boat

West Wittering flag

Elaine

Dunes, East Head

Prospecting

East Head panorama 1

Panorama 2

Panorama 3

Next month, more precisely 16 August, will mark the seventieth anniversary of the day Tim was shot down during the Battle of Britain, with his Hurricane crashing into the south end of the Chidham peninsula, part of Chichester Harbour, and him landing by parachute near West Wittering. We got as close as we could to the crash site without infringing private property more than we already had done to get to the coastal path, then walked on through a haze of butterflies - and what I think were thunder flies, which blackened by orange shirt at one stage. One treat was seeing an egret on the shore at one point.... more >

Stumbling on a Seahorse
Or at least a Roman variant, at Fishbourne Palace

Pawprint in Roman tile

Legionnaire and spinner

Cherub riding dolphin

Seahorse mosaic

Day started with a visit to Fishbourne Roman 'Palace', which delivered an unexpected pleasure, in that I have been reading Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses, From Myth to Reality, by Helen Scales, and there in one of the best-known Roman mosaics in the country was an unmistakable seahorse - albeit allowing for a little poetic licence on the part of those who laid the floor.... more >

Cursed by Fire and Water
Midhurst, Cowdray and environs

River fronds

Skyscape 1

Skyscape 2

Skyscape 3: where Catholics prayed for generations, at some peril

Garden bugler

Damsel in repose

Convocation

Skyscape 4

Skyscape 5

We drove south to Midhurst in Sussex today, walking around the town and stumbling on the ruins of Cowdray House. I had known of its role in history in Tudor times - but had no idea that this is where it was. A wonderfully kept site, but a pretty tragic history at times, what with the fire that reduced the great house to ruins in 1793, and the death by drowning of an  heir around the same time. Not sure I believe the story of a curse laid upon the family during the dissolution of the monasteries, that they would be destroyed by fire and water, but it provides a neat hook on which to hang the tragedies.... more >

An Appointment with Cucumbers
Decompression begins

Some of Tim's cucumbers

Maple keys - where the Bramley used to stand

Pat at Burford Garden Centre

Lavender bed

Spent the first two days of my week off at Hill House, with my parents, beginning to decompress. Saw quite a bit of Tessa and her boys, who were there, too. Among other things, took Caroline to the Borzoi bookshop in Stow-on-the-Wold and drove Pat across to the Burford garden centre. Slowing down made me realise just how much of an adrenaline junkie I am at times. What an oasis this has been.... more >

Ahead of the Pack
Where can I hide my photograph albums - and this blog?

  

It often strikes me--and others--as I report on my travels in this blog series that I love a remarkably privileged live. It also strikes me that the air travel component is something that future generations will not be able to enjoy unless there is an unforeseen breakthrough in carbon-neutral flight. Reading Helen Simpson's wonderful collection of short stories a few days back, called In-Flight Entertainment, I was reminded of this concern by her story Ahead of the Pack.... more >

Auctioned
I seem to have been a prize

Filmed in the garden, with Amy and Adrian (who we found through Gaia)

Carried

Westward panorama from Docklands

I was heavily pollinated by one of the lime trees in the garden at 2 Bloomsbury Place today as we filmed a series of sequences for our Allianz project and for our website. The magnolia is back in flower, to a degree, too, which is lovely.... more >

New Delhi
The longest day

The Imperial's Jaguar - lens misted by humidity

Our (Bayer branded) Tata Nano for the day

Nano parked on Development Alternatives surface designed to harvest rainwater

George shows us around the new DA building

Glittering cow dung

Inside the building's courtyard - the central rectangle of stone will stream with water

Interior (detail)

Amy about to interview Ashok

As I emerged from The Imperial this morning, I snapped a picture of the hotel's old Jaguar - my lens steaming up with humidity. One of the busiest days of the trip, with trips to see Development Alternatives, IDE India, (where we had an excellent lunch), TERI, MART and the European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC), which aims to promote a range of technologies, products and services in India, with a particular focus on climate change and renewable energy.... more >

BBC Films Tim
Seventieth Battle of Britain anniversary

Tim (seated) and BBC film crew pause as plane flies by

With the build-up to the seventieth anniversary of the Battle Britain, I have been fielding a number of interview requests for my father, Tim. He did a filmed interview this week, to screen in September. Doesn't much like interviews - says he didn't do much and can't remember much - but he did and does, and I think it's great that there is such interest these days.... more >

Solar Impulse
Sun-powered aircraft makes it through the night

Solar Impulse

25 years ago, Pelican published my book Sun Traps: The Renewable Energy Forecast. At the time, the aerial solar phenomenon was the late Paul MacCready's Solar Challenger, which I featured in the book. As we travelled around India, Richard (Northcote) was keeping a close eye on developments with the first through-the-night flight of the Solar Impulse. The pioneers this time being Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg. Their aim, in a few years, is a round-the-world flight.... more >

A SEWA Day
How we stopped the traffic

Early morning prayers - my lens misted by humidity

Francis Bacon would loved it here in the fish market

In conversations - at the vegetable market

Fish market 1

Fish market 2

Fish market 3

Moove over

Fascinating day spent with SEWA, the Self Employed Women's Association, visiting various of their activities, including their HQ here, their vegetable and fish marketing operations, and their bank. Found the women enormously engaging, with their enthusiasm and energy, but the conditions in which they worked in the markets were horrendous.... more >

Gujarat
A day down (or up) on the farm

As if encouragement were needed to blow horns

Goats as we drive north

Shrine as we turn into the farm

Rather discreetly decorated

Potato field

Cows

Stairway to the heavens

Farmers

Shadows on carpet

Discussion

Sparrow's nest

Well

Amy interviews Rohit

We flew this morning to Ahmedabad, arriving at 11.30, and then were driven three hours north to meet a group of farmers. A moment of vertigo as I looked down the farm well, or one of them, to see no bottom and no obvious water. First time, I think, that I have seen biogas digesters in the wild, though these ones didn't look that effective. Among the minor touches I liked were the home-made sparrow nests that had been tied to pillars around one of the courtyards, to help birds that helped hoover up the flies and other insects that gathered around the farmyard. Then three hours back to Ahmedabad.... more >

Bengaluru
Energetic day, followed by a night in a tent

Charcoal

Richard, Amy, Azita, Rohini, me

Selco awards

Amy interviews Chitra Vishwanath at Biome Solutions

My tent - the morning after

Someone else on a journey as we leave

What a relief Bengaluru (Bangalore) is after Mumbai, with abundant signs of better urban management. We fly in on Jet Airways 2112, then make the long trip into town to see Rohini Nilekani - and learn more about her various initiatives, among them Arghyam, the India Water Portal and Pratham Books. Lovely to see her again and to see how her team is growing and her agenda evolving.... more >

Bombay Bandh
Driving through a temporary ghost city

Bandh clears the roads

Bridge and skyline

After the guests (or most of them) had gone

We are in India working on a new project with Bayer MaterialScience - and spend the morning at their Mumbai offices, hosted by Stefaan Gerlich. Later on, we do a teleconference with Kishor Chaukar of Tata Industries, who I know as a fellow member of the Board of the Global Reporting Initiative. We had intended to meet face-to-face, but the nation-wide strike (or Bandh) today makes travelling to some parts of the city difficult - or impossible.... more >

July 4 in Mumbai
Gate of India from landward side

Slum with a view - of how the elite lives

Amanda and Amy

Gate of India (detail)

Equine illuminations

Flew in to Mumbai today with Amy (Birchall) on flight 0199, bringing to mind the Beatles and Back in the USSR, though this was BOAC's successor, the embattled BA. And Russia's influence on India is way less these days than it was the Sixties. We are staying at the swish Renaissance Mumbai Conference Centre Hotel - where the view from my room, when I swish back the curtains, and fittingly perhaps, turns out to be of satellite dishes, skyscrapers and a somewhat cheek-by-jowl slum.... more >

Reminder of Glencot Years
School photo conjures a different world

Was sent this photo today by Sam Hunt, who lives in Somerset, showing the denizens of Glencot preparatory school, near Wookey Hole, sometime early in the 1960s.  He is third from right, third row; my brother Gray, who would eventually become Head Boy, eightth from the left, front row; and I am seventh from right in the back row.... more >

The Rosetta Stone, the Harrier and the Jaguar
Written in stone and in the skies

Indeed it does: hoarding

Jaguar 1

Jaguar 2

Jaguar 3

Harrier, with feathering pattern on wings

Feathering on Assyrian beast from Nimrud

Nereids, I think

Taking flight: Doug Miller 1

Taking flight: Doug Miller 2

Incoming: Kecia and Alex

Weird concatenation as I write this: our new neighbour is laughing her woefully irritating laugh and, at exactly the same time, a magpie is making its grating sound at the bottom of the garden. The two have a great deal in common, though on balance I infinitely prefer the magpie.... more >