Monday 19 December 2011

Christmas on Mars

So here it is - Merry Christmas! Everybody in these pictures is guaranteed to be having fun. But they can't look to the future now. Something something about it's only just begun.

I don't know where these places are. The photographs have no identifying text on the back, and have been sourced from various sets. They do have one thing in common though - they all encapsulate the festive joy that is the Christmas period.


Muffled against the cold and driving rain, she presses gamely on, the pram cutting through the puddles like the bow of a destroyer on the Arctic convoys. Her quilted anorak is soaked through, and her heel is sore after the inattentive gentleman behind her trod on it. The shops don't have what she wants and little Frank is crying somewhere beneath the transparent plastic cover on the pram. If only his father were here. Then again he'd probably be craning round to look at that dolly bird in the black boots' legs. Trollop. The only comfort she has is that this moment of ordinary misery will never be captured for the world to see. That would be awful.


The problem with modern towns is traffic. High streets that were laid out before the age of the motor car just can't cope with modern traffic volumes. That wasn't the case in the old days. Oh no. Take a look at this - all the Tizer lorry has to do to progress up the street is drive round the Mini van, slalom past the Austin 1100 and the other thing, and then pass through the generous gaps left by the three lorries entirely blocking the road. Piece of piss, or indeed, Tizer. They're probably all going to the Town Centre Exhibition. Yay. Two things of note; it's a shame that you don't get shops called 'Hump' anymore and secondly, the photographer took this picture whilst attached to the bonnet of a P6 Rover, having absent mindedly wandered into the road.


The twins liked nothing better than a day out at the precinct. All day they'd just hang about, looking at all the half-masts.


If you want to get your Christmas shopping done, there's always the arcade just down the road. It's nice, honest. You could place a bet for your loved one (William Hill hasn't had to spend its profits re-designing its shop fronts) or go to John Fane and get, well, whatever John Fane sells. John Fane, incidentally, was the tenth earl of Westmoreland so perhaps it sells grouse or ermines or something. The area is also, for the Christmas period only, suffused in a poisonous brown mist.


Terraforming on Mars was not easy.


A lot of the colonists got a bit depressed.

Feel free to print any of these images out to send as Christmas cards. Though only for work colleagues, not friends or family. If I don't post anything before, have a very Merry Christmas and don't go back in time to any of the places shown above.

Sunday 11 December 2011

Creative Masks

Oh, hello! You know how it is when you compile a load of old photographs and books to put up on your blog and then they just disappear from your house? No? Oh. I do. I just can't find anything. Its all gone. Disappeared. Apart from 'Creative Masks for Stage and School' by Joan Peters and Anna Sutcliffe (pub. Plays Inc, Boston 1976). And something about shopping centres which I'll put up once I've ripped the floorboards from the house in search of my stash. Anyway, lets get on with it.


According to wikijustmakeitupedia masks are worn for 'protection, disguise, performance or entertainment'. I'm wondering which one of those functions this one performs. All four probably.


That's not a mask! It's a sweater and a half though.


All teachers wear glasses do they, Jenny? Well actually I do, but that's not the point. Actresses and spies are fair game though. None of these are masks by the way.


These haven't come up very well, although rest assured she is holding a pair of scissors in front of her face in one picture, and wearing a pair of tights with two chocolate digestives stuffed down them in the other.



Now THEY are masks. A stately home garden setting, although it looks a bit damp underfoot for leotards and bare feet. If you can name the performance these are for, I will give you a biscuit and an M&S Frosty Ball.

(Note - I do not know what performance these masks are for).

Well that has eased me back into the whole posting on my own site thing. If I find the other bits and pieces I'll let you know (I say bits and pieces - two months worth of yellowing instamatics!), in the meantime I'll meet you in the shopping centre for the crippled children's bangers and mash party. And I'm not joking.