Asian Style Red Lentils and Norwegian Prawns

Red lentil dhal with onion-garlic-chilli pepper garnish.
Prawn curry with egg and cashew nuts.

Pretty as a picture and a very tasty supper. Toot's cooking just gets better and better!

Lost Art Treasures No 5

The Milkmaid with large jugs.
Dick Jan Veneer
(Flemish painter and lactose intolerant)

Lost Art Treasures No 4

Night-Hawks
by Dickie 'Rock' Hopper
painter and ornithologist

credits Wikipedia

Nine to Five

'Nine to Five' - what a way to make a living

Last night Toot and I went to the Theatre Royal Norwich to see the first night of Dolly Parton's musical 'Nine to Five'. Great performances and lots of energy from the lead players and supporting staff.  If you can get tickets, its a great night out!  After the show, Toot and I danced all the way back to the car park!

Credits: photo Theatre Royal Norwich

Comet C/2011 L4 Panstarrs

My impression of what Comet Panstarrs might
 look like on the 13th of March 2013 if you  were
 on a boat anchored off Sizewell Suffolk

I'm hoping the weather is going to improve before the week commencing the 11th of March.

Comet Panstarrs, which has been visible at dusk and dawn in the Southern Hemisphere, should become visible in the UK after sunset on the 12th or 13th of March.

Today Toot and I went for a walk to find a good place to view and hopefully photograph the comet.  If you are interested in seeing this celestial visitor from the Oort Cloud you need to find a location with a good western aspect and a horizon unobstructed by trees or buildings.

The comet should be visible to the naked eye but binoculars, if you have them to hand, could provide the best view.

NASA Guide Sky-map

The comet will appear brightest early in March and fade as the month progresses due to a combination of increasing competition from moonlight and its increasing distance from the Earth and the Sun.

Information from Southern Hemisphere observers is all positive with the comet brightening significantly in the last few days. The comet reaches its closest point to the Sun on the 10th of March and may break up and or brighten significantly.

Lets all hope for clear skies and a good show!

Anatomy of a Comet

Credits to NASA and Wikipedia

Latest image of comets Panstarrs and Lemon taken from the Atacama Desert, South America and Parkes Radio Telescope, Australia.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130305.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1303/CPanstarrsParkes_Sarkissian.jpg

For my UK images taken on March 13th 2013:
http://george-artcabinedujardin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/comet-panstarrs-first-light.html

Lost Art Treasures No 3

The Night Watch
by Rembrandt van Rick
(painter, etcher and horologist)

Acropolis Penguins

How many ways can you stack a penguin?
No5 Classical Greek Style

Lost Art Treasures No 2

The Civil Partnership of Arnolfini
by Dick Van Eyck
(Portraitist and Pavement Artist)

Lost Art Treasures No 1

The Infanta - playing Paso Doble Studio 3
by  Dick Velazquez (third cousin to Diego)

Southwold Railway

Modelling the Past
(No 3 Blyth)

The Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway was opened in 1879 and closed in 1929. It ran between Halesworth and Southwold in Suffolk England and had intermediate stops at Wenhaston, Blythburgh and Walberswick.  The three foot gauge track was eight and three quarters of a mile long and followed  the line of the river Blyth. The rails were lifted and scrapped in 1941 to help the war effort.


Our friend Stewart Green has made three train layouts which show different aspects of the Southwold Railway and has regularly exhibited his brilliant models at shows in the UK including at the National Exhibition Centre.







If you are interested, why not go to see Stewart's models  on display:

2013 Apr 06 10:00	Norwich Railway Heritage & Model Society Show	Hellsdon High School, Norwich, NR6 5SB	see website
Open from 10:00 to 16:00 this model railway show features the Southwold Railway Trust stall alongside Stewart Green's new 2mm narrow gauge layout "BRIDGE OVER THE BLYTH".

2013 May 04&05  10:00	2nd Southwold Railway Show & Model Railway Exhibition	St Edmund's Hall, Cumberland Road, Southwold IP18 6JP	£3 adults; £1.50 children up to 15; under 3s admitted FREE
Promoted by the Southwold Railway Trust, the exhibition will have the very latest on our loco build and restoration projects plus up-to-date news on our re-instatement plans. There will be at least four working Southwold Railway layouts on show, plus other layouts (both standard and narrow gauge). Refreshments available throughout the weekend.

Or follow the link for the Southwold Railway Trust:
www.southwoldrailway.co.uk

Bridge over the River Blyth

Credits: Images and Models Stewart Green

Kaleidoscope Penguins

How many ways can you stack a penguin?

No 4 Kaleidoscope style.

Credit base penguin image Cool Antarctica

Starstruck Lovers

Callisto or Kallisto

Callisto is the fourth Galilean Moon of Jupiter and has an orbital radius of 1,880,000 km. It is the second largest Moon in the Jovian system after Ganymede and the third largest moon in the Solar System.  Callisto has an almost identical diameter to the planet Mercury but has only one third of its mass.

Callisto unlike the other Galilean Moons does not experience appreciable tidal heating and is less affected by Jupiter's magnetic field primarily because its orbit is further away.  It is composed of equal amounts of ice and rock and may have a subsurface ocean.  The surface of Callisto is pocked with impact craters and has a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen.

Photograph taken by the Galileo Spacecraft

Greek Myth

The God Zeus really had an eye for the girls and was always up for a seduction. Depending upon which version of the story you wish to accept, Zeus took a great fancy to King Lykaon's daughter Callisto.

As a member of the royal family Callisto was not obliged to get a job and therefore spent her days hunting with the Goddess Artemis. For some reason or other Callisto vowed to keep her virginity for as long as she remained in the company of Artemis. 

As a result of Zeus's perseverance or Callisto's inability to hang on to her knickers the Father of all God's seduced her and put her in the Olympian Pudding Club (Ancient Greek slang term for being made pregnant).

Having broken her vow, Callisto decided to keep her pregnancy hidden. Clearly this was a good short term strategy that was destined to unravel with the passage of time.  Her delicate condition came to light whilst she was taking a bath. What Artemis was doing in Callisto's bathroom remains unknown but when she found out that Callisto was pregnant she really got the hump (Ancient Egyptian slang term for being annoyed).  In her fury Artemis transformed the pregnant Callisto into a bear.  Nice choice as swans were off!

Hunters then captured the bear and delivered her and her new-born son Arkas to King Lykaon.  The King being broad minded,provided a home in his Palace for his newly discovered grandson and his then rather well built and hairy daughter.

Time passed by..........................................................................................

Presumably Arkas was either very unintelligent or possessed the world's worst memory, and he forgot that the bear wandering about the Palace was in actuality his mother. 

One day, the bear, being a bit bored, wandered into The 'Sanctuary of Zeus'. Arkas, being a 'full on' religious zealot, was angered by the bear's act of sacrilege and decided to kill it.

Zeus however intervened and placed both bear and amnesiac son amongst the stars.

So the next time you look at the Constellation Ursa Major hanging in the northern night sky remember Callisto and her illegitimate son Arkas, a real Greek Tragedy if you ask me!

Credits: Nasa and Caltech

           Wikipedia

Galilean Moons

Jupiter and three of the four Galilean Moons.
The Great Red Spot is visible in the Southern Equatorial Belt.
The fourth moon, Callisto, was outside the frame of this image.

The image was taken from our backyard on the 4th February 2013. The picture was created from a video clip taken with a QHY5v planetary camera attached to my 127mm Apo-refracting telescope. The image size was increased by the use of a 2.5x Revelation Barlow lens.  The still image was derived from the video clip using the freeware AutoStakkert and the final photograph was manipulated in Photoshop.

As Dorothy might have said "Its amazing what you can see from your own backyard"!

Europa

NASA  image of Europa taken from a distance of 417,489 miles
by the Cassini Spacecraft

Jupiter's moon Europa is an ice-world comprised of blocks which are broken apart and rafted into new positions. These geological features are indicative that Europa may have had a sub-surface ocean at some time in its past. Europa has its own magnetic field and this combined with other geological data lead scientist's to believe that a hidden ocean is mostly likely present on Europa today. The ridges shown in these images returned by NASA's Galileo spacecraft 1996-97 represent fractures in the ice-crust  caused by the gravitational influence of Jupiter. The Europa sub-surface ocean offers a potential habitat for extraterrestrial microbial life.

Ganymede

Ganymede image taken by the
New Horizon's Spacecraft on its way to Pluto.

This is New Horizons' best image of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera at 10:01 Universal Time on February 27 from a range of 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 38 degrees West and the image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. Dark patches of ancient terrain are broken up by swaths of brighter, younger material, and the entire icy surface is peppered by more recent impact craters that have splashed fresh, bright ice across the surface.

With a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3.273 miles), Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system.

This is one of a handful of Jupiter system images returned by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter.  Most of the data gathered by the spacecraft was stored onboard and was subsequently downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007.

Io

Two images of Io
taken by the New Horizons Spacecraft

This New Horizons image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io was taken at 13:05 Universal Time during the spacecraft's Jupiter flyby on February 28, 2007. It shows the reddish color of the deposits from the giant volcanic eruption at the volcano Tvashtar, near the top of the sunlit crescent, as well as the bluish plume itself and the orange glow of the hot lava at its source. The relatively unprocessed image on the left provides the best view of the volcanic glow and the plume deposits, while the version on the right has been brightened to show the much fainter plume, and the Jupiter-lit night side of Io.

New Horizons' color imaging of Io's sunlit side was generally overexposed because the spacecraft's color camera, the super-sensitive Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), was designed for the much dimmer illumination at Pluto. However, two of MVIC's four color filters, the blue and "methane" filter (a special filter designed to map methane frost on the surface of Pluto at an infrared wavelength of 0.89 microns), are less sensitive than the others, and thus obtained some well-exposed views of the surface when illumination conditions were favorable. Because only two color filters are used, rather than the usual three, and because one filter uses infrared light, the color is only a rough approximation to what the human eye would see.

The red color of the Tvashtar plume fallout is typical of Io's largest volcanic plumes, including the previous eruption of Tvashtar seen by the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft in 2000, and the long-lived Pele plume on the opposite side of Io. The color likely results from the creation of reddish three-atom and four-atom sulfur molecules (S3 and S4) from plume gases rich in two-atom sulfur molecules (S2 After a few months or years, the S3 and S4 molecules recombine into the more stable and familiar yellowish form of sulfur consisting of eight-atom molecules (S8), so these red deposits are only seen around recently-active Io volcanoes  Though the plume deposits are red, the plume itself is blue, because it is composed of very tiny particles that preferentially scatter blue light, like smoke. Also faintly visible in the left image is the pale-colored Prometheus plume, almost on the edge of the disk on the equator at the 9 o'clock position.

Io was 2.4 million kilometers from the spacecraft when the picture was taken, and the center of Io's disk is at 77 degrees West longitude, 5 degrees South latitude. The solar phase angle was 107 degrees.

Credits

NASA/JPL

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Anglo-Indian Cuisine

Toot's Indian Delights

Toot does very tasty Anglo-Indian Fusion Cuisine.

This plateful of 'Delights' included:
an Egg and  Prawn Korma, a Prawn Biryani, a Lentil Dahl, a Vada, Vegetable Samosas, Cauliflower Pakoras and a Stuffed Roti with Coconut Sambal.

I washed down this excellent supper with a pint of Southwold's Finest Adnams Broadside Ale.

A fine fusion of flavours if ever there was! Nice one Toot!

 Does anyone know the piano accompaniment to the 'Indigestion Waltz' ?

"The screens nurse, the screens"

Misplaced Architecture No 15

The Great Wall of China

Inspired by Toot's crockery cupboard!

Twelfth Night

The Propeller Company's Twelfth Night

Had a great night out with our friends Steph and Mike at the Theatre Royal Norwich.  No better way to complete the Christmas festivities than to see Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare!  

The all male cast, Propeller Company, was excellent.  In particular the portrayals of Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Feste were outstanding.  All in all a great production and a fine night out with good friends.

Plot Synopsis (thanks to Wikipedia)

Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria and she comes ashore with the help of a captain. She loses  contact with her twin brother, Sebastian, whom she believes to be dead. Disguising herself as a young man under the name Cesario, she enters the service of Duke Orsino through the help of the sea captain who rescues her. Orsino has convinced himself that he is in love with Olivia, whose father and brother have recently died, and who professes to refuse to see any suitor till seven years have passed, the Duke included. Orsino uses Cesario as an intermediary to profess his passionate love before Olivia. Olivia, believing Viola to be a man, falls in love with this handsome and eloquent messenger, while Viola has fallen in love with the Duke who regards her as his confidant.

In the comic subplot, several characters conspire to make Olivia's pompous steward, Malvolio, believe that his lady Olivia has fallen for him. It involves Olivia's uncle, Sir Toby Belch; another would-be suitor, a silly squire named Sir Andrew Aguecheek; her servants Maria and Fabian; and her fool, Feste. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew engage themselves in drinking and revelry, thus disturbing the peace of their lady's house till late into the night, prompting Malvolio to chastise them. Sir Toby famously retorts, "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" (Act II, Scene iii) Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria are provoked to plan revenge on Malvolio. They convince Malvolio that Olivia is secretly in love with him by planting a love letter, written by Maria in Olivia's hand, asking Malvolio to wear yellow stockings cross-gartered, to be rude to the rest of the servants, and to smile constantly in the presence of Olivia. Malvolio finds the letter and reacts in surprised delight. He starts acting out the contents of the letter to show Olivia his positive response. Olivia is shocked by the changes in Malvolio, who has seemingly lost his mind. She leaves him to the contrivances of his tormentors. Pretending that Malvolio is insane, they lock him up in a dark chamber. Feste visits him to mock his "insanity", once disguised as a priest, and again as himself. At the end of the play Malvolio learns of their conspiracy and storms off promising revenge, but the Duke sends Fabian to pacify him.

Meanwhile, Sebastian (who had been rescued by a sea captain, Antonio) arrives on the scene, which adds to the confusion of mistaken identity. Mistaking him for Viola, Olivia asks him to marry her, and they are secretly united in a church. Finally, when Viola and Sebastian appear in the presence of both Olivia and the Duke, there is more wonder at their similarity. At this point Viola reveals she is really a female and that Sebastian is her lost twin brother. The play ends in a declaration of marriage between the Duke and Viola, and it is learned that Toby has married Maria.

I have to say that I have always considered Shakespeare's treatment of Malvoliio as rather cruel and quite disproportionate to the steward's short-comings.  I probably share some, if not all, of Malvolio's character faults so am a bit sensitive with regard to his harsh punishment at the hands of Maria!

Credits 

Images: Propeller and The Theatre Royal Norwich.

Text: Wikipedia