Back in the eighties I was teaching at a comprehensive school in Salford. I discovered that the school possessed a video recorder that had been donated by a former pupil. Video recorders were fairly new back then, I imagine now every school has DVD players and computers coming out their ears. The school had a couple of famous ex pupils, Ben Kingsley and Albert Finney to name them both but the donator wasn't either of them. The Video recorder had spent all it's time in a store room because no one had bothered to set it up. So I went out and bought a bit of cable and wired it up. A few weeks later Michael released Thriller and one of the girls in my registration class brought in the video to lend to a friend. I offered to show the video that lunch time to any one who wanted to watch not really expecting more than a few people to turn up. When I got to the video room there were a couple of hundred children waiting. Over the next 3 days I showed it about 15 times to about half the school including many of the staff so Michael must have been popular. I am not a fan but I can recognise genius when I see it.
A few months later I was again in the video room when a little incident happened. Nothing to do with Michael but still interesting. It was the last period on a Friday afternoon and I was due to teach 4D some maths. These 15 year olds had learnt all the maths they were ever going to learn and some one had given me a tape about tessellation and I decided that a walk up to the video room and 20 minutes watching shapes fit together was the easy option. By the time the tape ended it was only 5 minutes to home time so I stopped the tape and expressed the wish that the pupils had enjoyed the show and as it was only a few minutes to the bell would they all mind very much watching the TV program that was now running. At that moment the head teacher walked in. This guy wore suits that must have cost £200 but looked like he had been to Oxfam for them. Anyway he must have wanted me for something, I never did find out what. Now I was standing with my back to the screen and had no idea what was showing but at 3:30 it was fairly safe bet the BBC weren’t showing a porn movie. He took one look at the TV and shouted loudly from the back of the room, “I though you were a maths teacher Mr Banks.” Now this was a typical example of this man’s bad manners. Even the children look surprised. I looked at the TV which was showing a nature film, Twenty rabbits were in a field eating grass and other things. So much for the BBC not showing porn films. “I am a maths teacher,” said I. “Today we are covering multiplication.”
There was a slight intake of breath from the class and then some one laughed and the headman stalked out. Shortly after that I decided that I had spent enough of my life in teaching and got a job as a driving instructor.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Days Out.
Had a couple of days out this week. Both were a little disappointing, both partly for the same reason. The first trip was to Buckfast Abbey, a 12 to Newton Abbot and then an 88 to Buckfast. The timing of the 88 meant I could spend either one hour or two hours at the Abbey. Now I am not a church going person but churches can be quite dramatic to photograph. So I took myself into the church and this is where two things happened to provide the disappointment. One, a big sign saying we sell photographs of the church so none of that 'Do It Your Self' stuff here thank you very much. The second disappointment was the church itself. Grim and dull. OK, I know the monks built it themselves with their own bare hands after the worlds best know bigamist tore it down in the 16 century but a bit more imagination next time please Fathers. I did find something interesting to photograph, a 1957 AEG open top bus.
So I caught the next bus back to Ashburton which is a small town about half way to Newton.
I have driven through Ashburton many times back in the days when I used to work out of Newton the 72 went up to Buckfastleigh every hour Monday to Saturday. So I got off and had a look round. And took a few photos. This used to be the A38, the main road to Plymouth before the by pass was built. Used to get crowed.
A couple in Sands School where the pupils were staging a small exhibition of their art work.
The second trip wasn't as far, just to The Spanish Barn. Number 32 from town heading for the Willows but get off at the end of Falkland Road and turn left into the grounds of Torre Abbey. This Abbey dates back to the 13th Century and was also closed down by our friendly bigamist but he must have forgotten to send the bull dozers in because the building is still there and for a small fee you can spend a few hours wandering round (and take all the photographs you want). But I wasn’t after the Abbey, I was after the Antony Gormley show. This one is the opposit of his Angle of the North which is big and stands on it’s own. This one is called Field for the British Isles and consists of 40 000 6 inches high statues all looking at you. As with Buckfast Abbey there were two disappointments, the first was the positioning of the clay figures. The Barn is about 3 times as long as it is wide and the eyes are all facing one end. This means the poor sods standing at the back are so far away they don’t get a look in. If they have eyes they are too far away to notice. I do feel it would have been better if they were turned through 90 degrees and the door in the centre of the barn had been used as the viewing place. It took two days to set the figures up so it wouldn’t be too hard to turn them all round one night half way through the two month long show and see which way we, the viewers prefer. The second let down was again the bar on taking photos. Now I know there are photos for sale and if you go on the internet you can download any amount of photos but they are not the shot you would take if you had permission. It’s not as if there were football match type crowds waiting to get in. (See photo).
Still get along and have a look. Catch the 12/12A to the Grand Hotel from either Torquay or Paignton/ Brixham and walk up Kings Drive or get a 32 to the end of Falkland Road and turn left into the Abbey grounds. The Land Train from Torquay Strand also goes there.
So I caught the next bus back to Ashburton which is a small town about half way to Newton.
I have driven through Ashburton many times back in the days when I used to work out of Newton the 72 went up to Buckfastleigh every hour Monday to Saturday. So I got off and had a look round. And took a few photos. This used to be the A38, the main road to Plymouth before the by pass was built. Used to get crowed.
A couple in Sands School where the pupils were staging a small exhibition of their art work.
The second trip wasn't as far, just to The Spanish Barn. Number 32 from town heading for the Willows but get off at the end of Falkland Road and turn left into the grounds of Torre Abbey. This Abbey dates back to the 13th Century and was also closed down by our friendly bigamist but he must have forgotten to send the bull dozers in because the building is still there and for a small fee you can spend a few hours wandering round (and take all the photographs you want). But I wasn’t after the Abbey, I was after the Antony Gormley show. This one is the opposit of his Angle of the North which is big and stands on it’s own. This one is called Field for the British Isles and consists of 40 000 6 inches high statues all looking at you. As with Buckfast Abbey there were two disappointments, the first was the positioning of the clay figures. The Barn is about 3 times as long as it is wide and the eyes are all facing one end. This means the poor sods standing at the back are so far away they don’t get a look in. If they have eyes they are too far away to notice. I do feel it would have been better if they were turned through 90 degrees and the door in the centre of the barn had been used as the viewing place. It took two days to set the figures up so it wouldn’t be too hard to turn them all round one night half way through the two month long show and see which way we, the viewers prefer. The second let down was again the bar on taking photos. Now I know there are photos for sale and if you go on the internet you can download any amount of photos but they are not the shot you would take if you had permission. It’s not as if there were football match type crowds waiting to get in. (See photo).
Still get along and have a look. Catch the 12/12A to the Grand Hotel from either Torquay or Paignton/ Brixham and walk up Kings Drive or get a 32 to the end of Falkland Road and turn left into the Abbey grounds. The Land Train from Torquay Strand also goes there. Wednesday, 24 June 2009
RIP Kodachrome
Kodachrome has gone the way of the dodo. It has starred extinction in the face and blinked. It's gone. Kodak announced today that no more rolls of this excellent film will be made. Killed off not by the economic down turn but by the digital image. Well that's not exactly true, the millions and millions of images taken with Kodachrome and all other film makes and types will last much longer than the images stored on most hard drives.
I’ve always had a camera starting with a Box Brownie an aunt gave me when I was about 7. So why are there so few photos of me taken between 1950 and 2000. I bet if I went through the various photo albums belonging to family members there wouldn’t be more than 15 photos of me and so few holiday shots. I’m sure I went on more than 3 holidays in 50 years. Many have become lost, you would take a roll of film, which cost money to buy and to process, so due economy would be exercised in the pressing of the shutter. So much economy that a roll of 36 would usual start with summer holiday snaps and end with a Christmas party. Sometimes not even in the same year. But the roll would be taken to the chemist and the photos collected a week later, the photos looked at, disappointment expressed at least half the photos and the rest put to one side to be put in an album later. Sometimes later never came and photos which had been sitting in a camera for months or even years would be looked at once and end up in a cardboard box under the bed.
Now the photos end up on a hard drive in a computer or a mobile phone. They get emailed round the world in seconds, appear on sites like Flicker and Picasa and in Blogs, sent to the local paper or the BBC. Some even get printed, on paper. But billions get taken, terabytes of zeros and ones sitting on the hard drives of the worlds computes waiting for the click that will bring them on to the screen to be admired or deleted. How long will they last on the hard drive compared with Kodachrome and all the other films we knew and loved back in the bad old days? Actually the question isn’t how long will they last on the hard drive but how long will your hard drive last. Backup your photos now, on write once CDs or DVDs. How long will these backed up images last? Well the truth is we don’t know. I have photos taken in 2004 and copied to CD so they are 5 years old and were looked at a few weeks ago and are indistinguishable from the copy I have on the hard drive on this computer. I have a photograph taken in 1890 of my grandparents and it shows no sign of deterioration yet. Who knows how long it will last. Longer than Kodachrome anyway.
PS. If you have any photos on your hard drive that aren’t copied somewhere else then don’t go to work tomorrow. Spend the day backing them all up, on CDs, DVDs, memory card, or even email them to yourself. ( That last method is free).
I’ve always had a camera starting with a Box Brownie an aunt gave me when I was about 7. So why are there so few photos of me taken between 1950 and 2000. I bet if I went through the various photo albums belonging to family members there wouldn’t be more than 15 photos of me and so few holiday shots. I’m sure I went on more than 3 holidays in 50 years. Many have become lost, you would take a roll of film, which cost money to buy and to process, so due economy would be exercised in the pressing of the shutter. So much economy that a roll of 36 would usual start with summer holiday snaps and end with a Christmas party. Sometimes not even in the same year. But the roll would be taken to the chemist and the photos collected a week later, the photos looked at, disappointment expressed at least half the photos and the rest put to one side to be put in an album later. Sometimes later never came and photos which had been sitting in a camera for months or even years would be looked at once and end up in a cardboard box under the bed.
Now the photos end up on a hard drive in a computer or a mobile phone. They get emailed round the world in seconds, appear on sites like Flicker and Picasa and in Blogs, sent to the local paper or the BBC. Some even get printed, on paper. But billions get taken, terabytes of zeros and ones sitting on the hard drives of the worlds computes waiting for the click that will bring them on to the screen to be admired or deleted. How long will they last on the hard drive compared with Kodachrome and all the other films we knew and loved back in the bad old days? Actually the question isn’t how long will they last on the hard drive but how long will your hard drive last. Backup your photos now, on write once CDs or DVDs. How long will these backed up images last? Well the truth is we don’t know. I have photos taken in 2004 and copied to CD so they are 5 years old and were looked at a few weeks ago and are indistinguishable from the copy I have on the hard drive on this computer. I have a photograph taken in 1890 of my grandparents and it shows no sign of deterioration yet. Who knows how long it will last. Longer than Kodachrome anyway.
PS. If you have any photos on your hard drive that aren’t copied somewhere else then don’t go to work tomorrow. Spend the day backing them all up, on CDs, DVDs, memory card, or even email them to yourself. ( That last method is free).
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Teignmouth Festival
Yesterday, being a nice sunny day I decided to go down to the Harbour for a little walk round fallowed by a long sit down. As I got into Fleet Street I noticed a bus coming, a 32T, it goes to Teignmouth, a small sleepy town a few miles north of Torquay. Why not thinks I? So a bit later I end up in Teignmouth (pronounced Tin mouth) and discover it's Teignmouth Festival. First thing I notice is the Folk band playing folk music and children dancing. After getting slightly bored slightly quickly I wandered off and found the Morris Dancers.
Now I have never seen Morris Dancing before, not for real anyway. Just a few seconds on the TV. Men dancing around with bells tied to their legs and hitting each other with sticks. In this case BIG sticks. This dance was introduced as The Bear Dance, a throw back to the bad old days where MPs amused themselves by fiddled their expense claims and the plebs amused themselves by baited bears, hitting them with sticks and setting dogs on them. Doing that to bears is now illegal so the Morris Dancers have to call for a volunteer to play the part of the bear in this dance. No MPs have volunteered so far.
Click here to watch.
Now I have never seen Morris Dancing before, not for real anyway. Just a few seconds on the TV. Men dancing around with bells tied to their legs and hitting each other with sticks. In this case BIG sticks. This dance was introduced as The Bear Dance, a throw back to the bad old days where MPs amused themselves by fiddled their expense claims and the plebs amused themselves by baited bears, hitting them with sticks and setting dogs on them. Doing that to bears is now illegal so the Morris Dancers have to call for a volunteer to play the part of the bear in this dance. No MPs have volunteered so far.
Click here to watch.
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