Double murder scene

Nobody seemed to know very much about this. It had happened a few days earlier. There were some flowers by the door so somebody must have cared.

And while we are on the subject, the estate on which this happened was designed/architected along the lines of a Cornish fishing village, Polperro or something similar. Huh? Don’t you want to just curl up and die? I’m sure Prince Charles would approve but is it really the way to create *instant* community for a Liverpool overspill new town? It has been done cheaply and it shows. Polperro it is not. Have the people that commission these things never heard of William Morris or Le Corbusier? Rhetorical question I know, it all comes down to how cheaply they can do it. The ribbon looks good when it is cut and the place is shiny new. Fuck the people who actually live there and have to endure its shoddy physical and social demise.

They get left with the ribbon in the picture above. Cut that Mr Mayor.

I was a one time inhabitant of a relatively successful new town:

“a town designed for healthy living and industry of a size that makes possible a full measure of social life but not larger, surrounded by a rural belt; the whole of the land being in public ownership, or held in trust for the community“

The italics are mine. Margaret Thatcher fucked up that particular vision with “Right to buy” turning the whole thing into very desirable real estate with typical nightmare Little England Tory values. I had no love for the place but had some pride in the principles on which it was built.

Somehow, I don’t think it will happen in Skelmersdale.

And here we go again with our current unelected ‘coalition’ government delivering a right-wing ideological onslaught that looks set to eclipse that of the Thatcher government of 1979, only this time with the complete destruction of public services. To pay back the banks? To save the economy? Fuck ‘em.

Thatcher was elected, a major difference from David Cameron and his lightweights. Weirdly though, Cameron, like Thatcher, is once again helped along by lap-dog Lib-Dems (then known as the SDP) when (back then in 1981) they split the Labour vote and thus helped the Tories keep power in the 1980s and 1990s in a strangely parallel universe.

Nick Clegg, St Vince Cable et al, may you rot in hell. Nothing personal, I felt the same about Roy Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams in 1981. At least most of those had some gravitas, even statespersonship. Unlike your craven, power-seeking, sell-out selves. Do I make myself clear?

I feel like I’m very much stuck in a loop at both ends of my life.

Unbelievable.

Cat

The moggie ignored everything… Well done moggie, you have the right idea

Some heavy post-processing for dramatic effect, aka laying it on with a trowel.

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Two of my favourite photographers are wonderful exponents of colour.

I lurve William Eggleston’s rich dye-transfer prints and Saul Leiter’s early colour sends me into ecstasies.

Window

Torso / fanny

I was talking to a guy recently who used to do dye transfer prints for some major clients (think of the Aladdin Sane cover for Bowie by Duffy… and that is another story best told by Duffy. RIP Duffy btw, great man).

Apparently, a liberal dose of Comfort fabric conditioner applied to the final print and carefully wiped off worked wonders for the saturation of the colours. Since clients paid a premium for dye-transfer this was kept secret, so after the 10 minute application of Comfort, he kept the print for a couple of days longer so the client thought they were getting value for money…

I haven’t a clue about the veracity of this story, but he had no reason to make it up.

Sadly, the raw materials for dye-transfer printing are globally pretty scarce now. I’m pleased I got a print a couple of years ago.

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