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" Just saying boys! I'm no longer sure whether Mrs.Claus is still buying into the; 'twinkly eyes', the 'big round tummy', the repetitive 'Ho-Ho-Hoing', 'mucking out the reindeers once a day' , 'cooking and cleaning for you lot 24-7' and living 'up North' in the land of perpetual snow and ice".
Moose thought of the Day
" Bullocks - Christmas Eve and still no offers of pantomime or seasonal sleigh pulling work!"
"Has anyone from 'Elf and Safety' updated the 'working at height' risk assessment?"
"I don't 'believe in Sat-Navs' but remind me, does Rudolph have to turn left or right when we get to Iceland?"
"Since we outsourced and digitised the 'Naughty and Nice' lists there is absolutely no need to check them 'once' let alone 'twice' Santa!
Moose thought of the Day
" Do I go 'Turkey', 'Goose', or stay with the herd pleasing and traditional 'small willow twigs au naturel'?"
" I'm conflicted by my esoteric life choices! - Moose by day and Elk by night".
The Editorial Team wish all our friends and readers around the world a very Merry Christmas and hope you will continue to read the blog in the New Year.
Christmas
Past, Present and Future
This year, I will sail through my seventy-fifth Christmas on this unique planet Earth.
I can recall many memorable ‘Nativities’, one including a boy in a ‘Scooby-Doo outfit’.
Who, repeatedly poked and punched a shepherd, in celebration of the Virgin birth.
I remember one very merry ‘beery’ Christmas Eve, singing carols with Paul in chorus.
And in the railway underpass near Oulton Broad North Station, sitting in something damp.
And hoping, when we had sobered up, that no one who knew us professionally, saw us.
Do I still enjoy Turkey with stuffing and the seasonal over-cooked sprout?
Nowadays, meat, poultry, and processed food – “ne’er will pass my lips”!
And sadly imbibing, just one cup of hot Marmite, promotes the onset of gout.
Now I dine on fish and veggies and have shown all meats the door.
Can I still drink beer by the gallon and dance the night away?
No chance but nostalgically, I might venture out onto a disco-floor.
Which year did ‘Dad’ dancing become a slow ‘Grandpa’ gavotte?
And why do I involuntarily grunt, when I bend to pick up all the bloody stuff I drop?
And when did my personal story run so short on pages and plot?
Now ‘Yules’ are much less rowdy and run on ‘reduced’ or ‘alcohol-free’ fuel.
Because men of a certain age, get to love ‘staying in’ their favourite chair.
If the frost forecast for the ‘Feast of Saint Stephen’, is all too even and cruel.
Then again, life is good and far too short, to be sad Grinch or solstice hermit.
So don hats, scarves and gloves, load up the sleighs and go reindeer handed into the night.
And be as ‘Santa-Merry’ and ‘seasonally-bladdered' as old age and body permit!
George Roberts Dec 2024
Moose thought of the Day
"Really thrilled, when by chance I discovered, that someone had named a 'Jaw' after me"
Moose thought of the Day
"Has anyone thought about an 'appointed drover'?"
Regular readers of this blog will know that Christmas celebrations at Cabine du Jardin Deux cannot commence before the arrival of 'Barry the Snowman' . This year the editorial team were becoming concerned but last night whilst all good children were sleeping, Barry rocked up! We think that December the 14th is the latest entrance ever made by our very favourite 'Snowman'.
"Barry is in his office - so let the revels begin"
Just returned from Berlin and like Werner Heisenberg, I'm feeling a bit uncertain about posting this.
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| Anita's iPhone image of the wingtip of BA983 with Venus shining in the background. |
Inspired by the great gift of a book of poetry by Roger McGough from our dear friends John and Eileen, I wrote a poem in my head whilst waiting in line to pass through 'customs control' at Berlin Airport. Strangely, whenever I approach the obviously bored person at the desk, I am overcome with a compulsion to start 'Morris Dancing' and 'declare' it to be a 'British Custom'.
'Here I stand Passport in hand' a short poem by George Roberts.
Standing in line awaiting Berlin Airport Security
It occurred to me
Synchronicity!
The three year old boy crying in front and the seventy five year old me lagging behind
Both hate to queue and would rather be at Berlin zoo.
Viewing Giant Pandas eating bamboo.
Shoots, then reloads and re-holsters passport!
Out of the corner of my good eye,
I noticed that both of us roll from side to side when we walk towards ‘Departures’
Perhaps we were both sailors in former seafaring lives?
Or maybe its because he’s learning and I’m forgetting where and how to go?
Front row far left, my Great Uncle Bob, somewhere in Burma World War 11. A bit of a 'handful' but always very kind and nice to me! He featured strongly in many of my best memories from childhood. He had a cellar under his house, an 'Aladdin's Cave' full of tools, nails, screws and bits and bobs. All my sheds have been mini replicas! He made me stilts and a soapbox cart, which provided me with many adventures. He was a builder and probably kindled my interest in a career in construction. I still remember him and think of him with love. RIP Uncle Bob and Aunt Alice.
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| The Beaver Moon in November 2024 imaged with a hand held Canon 600d DSLR and a 135mm Samyang fixed lens. |
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| The Southern Pole and Southern Highlands of a waxing gibbous Moon imaged, a few days before full, with a 66mm Altair Astro Lightwave Doublet and QHY5111462c camera on a Star Adventurer EQ mount. |
When our kids were little we used to refer to this as a 'Charlton Heston Sky'. A crepuscular sky is one that features 'crepuscular rays' of sunlight filtered through clouds. This photo was taken with an iPhone from Lidl's carpark Lowestoft. The world around us is a joy to perceive, you just have to look and observe.
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| 'Winter is on it's way' - arty rendition of the eastern sky over our hedge. The bright planet Jupiter can be seen centre-right above the hedge, with the open star cluster the 'Seven Sisters' just above and to it's right. |
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| 'The Plough' asterism as seen with a painter's eye, from St Michael's Church graveyard in autumn. |
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| 'C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)' - the last naked eye glimpse from Lowestoft on 18-10-2024 |
The night sky is a beautiful place to let your mind wander. Celestially, much stays the same in the short context of a single human life. Every now and then and in the words of Wilkins Micawber - " something will turn up".
In the night sky, this might be a sudden bright flash of light, witness to the demise of a grain of dust, a pebble or a rock that ventured too close to the Earth and burnt up in our atmosphere as a meteor. It might be the glow from a passing comet, illuminated by the Sun. A cometary visitor to our skies for a few days a few weeks or months but eventually destined to fade as it sails off into the dark cosmos. The planets of the solar system 'wander' across the sky following elliptical orbits around the Sun and move against the backdrop of apparently fixed stars.
Even the stars, with distances from our planet so great that they are measured in the years it takes for their light to reach us, move and change. Starlight from some of these remote suns may grow brighter and then fade, either because of the star's intrinsic variability or, after running out of hydrogen to fuse, brighten temporarily in a cataclysmic supernova. The Universe is truly a dynamic entity but the vast distances and timescales involved render it apparently static within life-span limited perception of us poor mortals.
Even passing jets and man built satellites can provide a beautiful ballet in the night sky and engage our imagination of their destination and purpose.
All in all, - 'Distance lends enchantment' and this is never more true than when stargazing!
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| Hugging a tree - you know it makes sense. |
Sometimes I become overwhelmed with emotion and perhaps this is not such a bad thing. I guess all of us feel sad at leaving things behind, people leaving us and the inexorable process of moving on. I find that writing words to describe feelings I barely understand helps me to come to terms with life, loss, ageing and death.
Thankfully, I am not ill or depressed but accommodating a difficult two years on this planet in the best 'creative' way I know how! At the very worst I might get offered a job by Hallmark.
We’ve been to too many funerals lately
The very old and lovers share a secret.
Hands grasp as if lives depend upon the bond,
holding expectations and memories secure.
Eyes meet and engage for far too long as if focus alone
might, capture and hold frozen, a moment in space and time.
Ears do not hear and evidential proof is overwhelmed by preferences,
established in life from birth and every subsequent moment of existence.
If we are lucky, we find at least one absolute love, which lasts forever.
So is there an end to you, me and time?
Are, just days conjoined with us and being here so very important?
When my body fails, as ultimately fail it must, I can only hope:
I am holding another human hand in shared experience and affection,
all my expectations and memories merge in a timeless wrapper of love
and that this is comfort enough for those I leave behind
and will continue to love literally forever.
George Sept 2024
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| A composite of two images, one taken of the 'Forts' from a boat in daylight and the other of the Moon captured in video format from our backyard in Lowestoft. |
Whilst visiting my grandchildren in Westcliff-on-Sea, I would often pass Wilko Johnson's house with his 'Observatory' precariously perched on the roof. When trying to get Dr. Feelgood a record deal and when asked where the band came from, Wilko said "The Thames Delta". Top bloke!
Wilko Johnson 1947-2022 - Rock on Wilko.
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| 'Max Off Grid' - George Roberts -digital art- 17-08-2024 |
" I love to make images from mixed media. This image is a blend of fractal-math and photography, which some how creates for me a concrete moment in time art-deco redolent "
Then again and throughout history even gifted artists, when they stop making art, talk unutterable bollocks!
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| 'Bee on Linden tree blossom' - George Roberts Digital Art - June 2024. |
In bright Sicilian sunlight, the perfumed blossom on Linden trees lining the streets in Giardini Naxos, were alive with bees going about their honey sweet business.
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| 'Old Tree' - George Roberts Digital Art June 2024 |
Engaging pictures sometime arise spontaneously created by 'happy accidents'. On the other hand, trees have taken millions of years to evolve and become the magnificent bits of life that they are.
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| ‘Three palms and a building’ George Roberts June 2024. Watercolour and pencil sketch on paper. |
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| No Aurora but a lovely crescent Moon above the fields. Tripod mounted Canon 600d DSLR with a Canon 50mm lens at F1.4. |
A lovely crescent Moon in May, seen across the fields in Suffolk. The summer night sky can be so very beautiful if you go to a dark location and take the time to look!
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| 'Its life Jim but not as we know it' No2 - surreal digital imagery - George Roberts April 2024 |
I really should stop messing around with fractals and astronomy in the digital domain.
This year, I must get back to doing some serious analogue drawing, printing and painting because once I get the turps out I really enjoy it.. The modern world is just so full of easy-peasy distractions! Having said that I reckon Max Ernst would have loved Mandel Bulb software and 'pooters' in general.
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| 'Rhino on the Square' - digital art - George Roberts, April 2024 Credit: Incendia Next software and Affinity Photo2 |
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| 'Captain Nemo dives again' -digital art George Roberts March 2024. |
The Nautilus both extant and extinct, are characterized by involute or more or less convolute shells that are generally smooth, with compressed or depressed whorl sections, straight to sinuous sutures, and a tubular, generally central siphuncle. Having survived relatively unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, nautiluses represent the only living members of the subclass Nautiloidea, and are often considered "living fossils" -Wikipedia
The shells follow the mathematics of a logarithmic curve. All but one of the above were generated as fractals created in the software INCENDIA.
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| 'Spring' digital art by George Roberts March 2024 INCENDIA software. |
"Thorns and briars grow around the Castle, and soon it is almost invisible and nearly forgotten. A passing Prince, and his father the King hear of the legend of “The Sleeping Beauty”, and Prince Florimond declares he will rescue her from her sleep"
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| 'Seeds and ferns' - digital painting by George Roberts using INCENDIA fractal software and Affinity Photo2 |
The infinitely recursive universe of fractals, provides a multiplicity of brushes, colours, textures and lighting for the digital artist to explore. This is such a surprising journey full of wonderful artistic and unconsidered events at all possible scales.
The ancient dragon swallows it’s scary, scaly tail
between
two mirrors parallel and recursive bound.
The artist daubs a painterly fairy tale,
between
two dimensions and with marks on gesso ground.
All protagonists and time
await an unexpected and infrequent visitation,
which in itself will announce an act of creation.
George Roberts
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| 'Fractal blossom' - digital painting George Roberts March 2024 |
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| 'Tardigrade' digital painting - George Roberts March 2024 |
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| 'It's life Jim but not as we know it' - digital painting George Roberts March 2024 |
These images were constructed and rendered using the mathematics of fractals and the excellent and powerful freeware INCENDIA and Mandelbulb 3d. Many thanks to Prof GP for recommending this software. The above images were finally composed using Affinity Photo 2 software.
All fractals show some self-similarity. If you look ever closer into the details of a fractal, you observe multiple replicas of the whole.
Fractals can often be seen in nature. A fern is a classic example, with each of the branches coming off the main stem being similar to the entire frond. They are self-similar to the original but on a smaller scale.
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These self-similar patterns are the result of a simple equation or mathematical statement. You create a fractal algorithm by repeating this equation through a feedback loop. This process is called iteration with the results of one iteration forming the input value for the next.
The patterns created by these algorithms often have fractal dimensions that are not whole numbers. Fractal dimension is a measure of shape complexity. Fractals are also recursive irrespective of scale - repeating themselves endlessly.
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| 'Salvador Dali in the 3rd Person' digital painting by George Roberts March 2024 The image was created using Mandelbulb 3d and Affinity Photo 2 software. |
In memory of my university flat mate Paul, who had tea with Dali in his surreal garden with the giraffe in Spain many moons ago.
The longer I live the more surreal the world in which I live becomes - here's to you Paul and Salvador!
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| 'A goat by moonlight in a fractal landscape' by George Roberts digital art . Credit:: Mandelbulb 3d software |
Thanks to the excellent Greg P for bringing 'Mandelbulbs' to my attention. Credit to the brilliant freeware Mandelbulb.3D, which was used to create this fractal landscape. Mathematics is the digital artist's infinitely flexible brush and medium.
"On a bluff, on a bluff, on a bluff stood billy-goat Gruff"
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| .Josephine Wright portrays her grandson's Birthday Party - Oils on Canvas - Josephine Wright of Derby 1736-1800. |
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| 'The Cowboy Angel and the Gates of Eden' - Mixed media digital and otherwise - printed, painted and arranged on canvas and board.- George Roberts January 2024. |
Eventually finalised what was originally a digital image /sketch - see 'Fermi Paradox' post. When I got around to making a submission for the Royal Academy Summer Show they had already reached their self imposed limits for registration (165,000 submissions). Anyway, I was reasonably pleased with the completed collage, which differs in a number of ways from the original idea in addition to the title. The new name for this collage alludes to a Bob Dylan song 'Gates of Eden', which I used to sing way back in the late 1960's. Since then full internet access to and from millions of personal mobile phones has industrialised the movement of information, sanctified money and generated a multiplicity of affordable 'keys' to the Gates of Eden. We have collectively made gods of celebrity and created heroes from rogues. We have mixed the truth, lies, science and faith to such an extent that we struggle to make decisions in our collective best interests. Perception of the Universe is now so corrupted by our shared beliefs that evidential reality has become subjective. Why is Paradise perceived as somewhere else, ever something to be gained or lost but always locked away and gated beyond our current reach? Beats the shit out of me!
"Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when ’neath the trees of Eden"
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| Mr &Mrs Briggs go Paddlin' by courtesy of Mr &Mrs Briggs - traditional watercolour on NOT paper - George Roberts 2023 |
Eynsford, Kent - a nice summer's day by the river to remember with friends. It's re-mailed and on its way folks!
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| 'The Fermi Paradox and fake views' - digital collage - January 2024, George Roberts |
This piece of work started off in my head when I read on line that the Royal Academy had made a call for 'entries' for their 2024 Summer Exhibition. The theme for this year is "to explore the idea of making space, whether giving space or taking space. This can be interpreted in various ways: to make space can mean openness – making space for something or someone, also making space between things". Clearly the RA were not looking for a "one step for man one giant leap for mankind" sort of thing but hey that's where I like to go. My 'day job' experience of 'Architectural Competitions' might well be summed up by " No one ever won a coconut by observing the rules of competition". So I ploughed on with the ideas whirling in my small brain (or 'filbert' as it's known in the South) mindful that I might buck the RA's rules and astound them with my conceptual insight and brilliance.
So what is the Fermi Paradox? Well the gist of it is:
