Bills Posts

Today, you get two pictures up front.

I knew that the plaque for The Thornton Theatre was here. What I don’t think I have done so before is stand back and look at the building to which the plaque is attached. When I took the picture of the plaque this morning I was thinking about this post, and I thought the least I could do was give you a picture of the building.

When I stood back over the other side of the street and lined up to take the picture I really looked at the building. If you ignore today’s usage, you can see that in the 30 years of the life of the building as a theatre this would have been a grand building. Today, it remains a grand building, but that grandness is slightly marred by the frontages of the shops (I am not here talking about the specific business, that is irrelevant – anything which takes away from the grandeur of the original building reduces that).

I have to say that I am very tempted to go in to either of the two buildings and ask if there is anything left of the original theatre. I am having a little bit of a problem locating the back of the building from Google Maps or Earth. If I am correct in what I am looking at, there isn’t much left at all.

This is one of several plaques on the High Street, and there is also one not far off the high street. I’ll do another one next week.

I wanted to do my Gosport walk in a defined order, but it’s not working out like that. Having done four points in the walk, I am remembering them as I go. I think tomorrow is going to be another Blue Plaque day. There are several along the high street, I’ll just go with the first one I find.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a second hand book that I had bought . Luckily the vendor lived in Portsmouth and we were heading that way to have a walk along the waterfront it’s called D-Day Our Great Enterprise by Lesley Burton, it’s all about D-Day in and around Gosport. I’m saying this because whilst I am very keen to read the book, it is number three on my list. I will get to it, but not just not yet. It’s not a huge book but it looks really interesting and I am very keen to read it.

OK, so I couldn’t resist it. I’ve just had a quick read of the first page, it appears to be well written and an easy read. Nothing about Gosport yet, but it is just scene-setting.

I took today’s photograph yesterday morning (that sounds a bit confusing). I didn’t go for a walk first thing I slept through having had what is for me quite a late night last night (didn’t get to bed until 2330, normally it’s 2200) I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep and it was a bit of a disturbed night as well. Hopefully, tonight will be better.

I took this picture this morning. I’m getting a bit fed up with my pictures only because I will take a picture of the Spinnaker across the water. It’s a big frame. This “frame” has been on the high street for quite a long time, sand I’ve never paid any attention to it. This morning though, I wanted something a bit different so I took the picture through it. I must admit that I really didn’t expect anything from it, and even now I look at it and really it isn’t that impressive. But then my brain decides to deceive itself.

Acknowledging that the edges of the frame seem to align perfectly with everything outside the frame, my brain can’t help wondering what’s behind the picture? Even though I know it’s nothing. My brain is being deceived in to thinking that it is an image and in reality, the high street behind the picture looks totally different.

Interesting.

This is the top of Butser Hill. I have been there, but I haven’t really walked the area. The article isn’t about that.

The country walking in the title isn’t an activity in this case. It’s the magazine. I have to confess that I was considering not renewing the subscription. I will though. That is because this month’s issue has reminded me how much I really do enjoy reading the publication. To the extent that i am going to retain this months issue.

One of the many articles is a 180 day calendar of events. In this case, one particular day caught my attention; 23 Jan 1974. (Copied from the magazine “A violent bang shakes the Berwyn Hills a light blazes in the sky; rumours spread that a UFO has crashed and the Army is pulling dazed aliens from a smashed spaceship. It soon becomes known as the Roswelsh incident, after the famous events at Roswell, New Mexico. It is much more likely that an earthquake or meteor was the cause (Of course, I would say that wouldn’t I?).”

Why had I never heard of this episode? In 1974 I was well in to Science Fiction, this would have been a moment of massive excitement. Of course, we didn’t have anything that could deliver the news with today’s speed. That raises another question in my mind that there are people who have never known a world without social media or google – but that’s a different post.

This will be the third (possibly the fourth – I’ve lost count) year that I’ve undertaken the challenge. This year is slightly different. I’ve formally registered. I did look at registering for the first year, but the website with the tracking software appeared to be a bit fiddly, and I wasn’t happy getting to grips with it. When I went to the website this year, it has been significantly revamped, and so I am giving it another go.

I visited a town centre that I had never been to before. It was a Saturday afternoon so you could reasonably expect it to be busy. But, it was raining so whilst not quite empty, it was most definitely not busy. i hasten to add that the town centre in question is not this picture, although Gosport is suffering the symptoms to a lesser degree than the place I visited today.

What are those symptoms?

• Closed and empty shops (more than you might reasonably expect)
• More shops of a particular type
• More “non-shop” services
• Shops whose frontages are dilapidated or poorly maintained
• Lower footfall than might be expected
• Local major loss of industry
• Other factors not considered here

Today’s high street just had a very sad feeling about it. It has had a lot of good shops in the past. There was just a lack of something about the location.

I think this begs the question is the high street of the twentieth century in its final throes? If that is the case, what will it be replaced by? Is there scope to change the role of the high street? If so, to what? Re-role commercial units to residential? More social activities? I don’t know. But I do know that the state of the high street (generically) is not good. I don’t know what to do about it. Do you?

I am not content with the way I write. Part of the problem is that I write literally, so I will say “It was cold”, whereas I need to learn to write more descriptively, along the lines of “the gentle breeze carried with it a chill deep enough to make your joints creak”. Ok, perhaps that’s not a very good example, but hopefully you get where I am coming from.

A few years ago I attended a creative writing course at the local college. It was a good course, and the lecturer was a well known author who’s intention was alway to get her students published. The nature of the course was such that a number of her students were regulars, they had done the course several times. I did it twice. I stopped after that. In fairness, I did tell the tutor that I wasn’t interested in writing fiction, but I felt obliged to for the purpose of the course. Of course, what I wrote was rubbish.

I think I could go back and do the course one more time but it would be on the basis that my work would be non-fiction (of course, unless that brilliant idea hits me making me the next JK Rowling – how likely is that?). Even to the point of character development, which is a crucial part of fiction, it is also critical to non-fiction that you understand who and why you are writing about someone.

It was only after I had walked away from the creative writing course, that I became aware of the concept of creative non-fiction. That of course hit a not in my mind. I’ve looked at a few YouTube videos on the topic, and there are podcasts as well. It’s not really a problem that most of these are American in origin, it’s just that they are so enthusiastic. I just need to find the right one – I am still looking.

For the first time this year, I left the house to go into a freezing night. My breath was misting up. Luckily, I had been given a pair of touch sensitive gloves, so at least I was able to use my phone without taking my gloves off.

I didn’t go on to the Haslar Marina Pier Wall, it was an ice rink. I didn’t find any black ice though.

One of our cats loves squirty cream. I bought a fresh can the other day, for the first time, he refused it. I couldn’t work out why. Then, when I looked at the can, I saw it was dairy free. I wonder I thought, I tried him with another can we have. That disappeared very promptly, I got the impression that he was quite annoyed that we’d tried to feed him that rubbish.

I’m getting towards the end of a book; Portsmouth a literary and pictorial tour by Matt Wingett. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. One aspect that has featured quite a bit ( unsurprisingly) are the names of famous writers mentionned in the book, they include;

• Jane Austen
• Arthur Conan Doyle
• Charles Dickens
• H G Wells
• Beatrix Potter
• Nevil Shute
• Pauline Rowlson

Other famous people are associated with the city, including Ghandi and one T E Shaw (Who’s he?) turns out T E Shaw is also T E Lawrence pr Lawrence of Arabia.

It turns out that Nevil Shute wasn’t just an author. He developed the first retractable undercarriage for an aircraft.

Fascinating stuff.

When I went out for this mornings walk, it was dark, there was very Partly due to there being practically no wind, less than one knot from the south west-ish, and even at 8.8C, it felt mild. It certainly didn’t feel cold. Given that it was the first working walk of the year, it was very pleasant.

The contrast comes with the lunchtime walk. That it was light was obvious, so doesn’t really need stating. The wind though, was the first thing, there was a real bite to it. I must admit, I didn’t look at the temperature, but it was cold.

The water in the harbour at 0630 was calm, to the point of having that oily character. When reached the harbour at lunchtime, the harbour looked rough;

The pilot cutter was creating quite a bow spray as it came in. I was glad that I had put on my padded jacket, as well as a fleece. I. Didn’t really need it for the morning walk, most definitely for the lunchtime stroll.

A morning of contrasts.

This is the Dry Stack at Gosport Marina. Roughly in the middle of the picture is the forklift truck that moves the boats around. It was in the process of putting a boat on the stack. I took this today as I was out on my walk.

I was determined to just take some pictures as I was out and about. I didn’t go anywhere special. Just on my normal route. I took this picture of a tree trunk;

I thought it might look OK in mono, but really it doesn’t. To be honest, it’s not that good in colour. Then I took another picture;

I was after the angles on the corner. It wasn’t until I was editing the picture that I even realised that the people on the bench were there, or the discarded can of beer. I quite like this one, but only quite. It doesn’t have the same effect on me that some of the pictures that I take have, like this one for example;

I wrote about this one when I first took it. The circumstances under which the opportunity for the picture occured frustrates the heck out of me and also that I really like the picture.

To briefly go back to the one “I quite like” It wasn’t a grab shot, I was trying to compose a picture to show angles. Composition is an absolutely fundamental aspect of photography. I need to look at that.