Sunset and Robin

A few days ago I showed you a beautiful sunrise -- here's its counterpart in a sunset. I shot this as I was walking home last night, crossing the pedestrian bridge over the tube tracks. When I got out to West End Lane I saw at least 10 people shooting pictures from that bridge with their iPhones. We were all enthralled.

It's funny how everyone feels compelled to take pictures and videos nowadays. I was reading an article about a recent John Galliano fashion show -- here it is -- and I found it so funny that in the second picture, every single person is taking a photo or video with their phone. Granted, these are probably all fashion journalists or industry people who want a record of what they're seeing, but still -- it used to be you'd just sit through something like that, appreciating it as a transient event, and later you'd look to photos or video by the expert photographers in the room for a visual record. Now we all have to take our own pics, and put them on Instagram. Is there a point at which the world is oversaturated with images?

I imagine trained photographers feel a bit surplus nowadays. And yet, just because everyone does it, doesn't mean everyone does it well, right? It's like written journalism -- millions of people are writing nowadays for public consumption, but only a tiny fraction of it is reliable and worthy.

Oh, it makes me tired. Information overload. And here I am, adding to it with my little blog. Sorry, world.

Yesterday, before work, I yanked a dying rosemary plant out of its pot on the patio so that I could get it in the garden waste bags before they're collected this morning. (The only time I have to do any gardening on a weekday is before work because, as you've seen above, it's basically dark by the time I get home.)

That plant was so root-bound that I had to really work to get it out of the pot. No wonder the poor thing died. I must admit I have ignored it for years. It's a plant Dave bought long ago and it has lived in a pot on the sunny side of the house, which we don't see from any window and I basically just forgot it was there. I think I'm going to use the pot for the citrus tree.

Anyway, I was amused to see this little robin flit to the scene of the crime in order to pick any newly-exposed bugs out of the dirt. I left the plant lying on the lawn so it would have a chance to feast. (And so any lucky bugs could escape.) Now it's with the garden waste out at the street.

I was reading blogs yesterday evening and was amused when another blogger used the word "cheroot." This always reminds me of an article I read in The New Yorker many years ago, talking about euphemisms originated by the British satirical magazine Private Eye. "Lighting an exotic cheroot" was their way of saying smoking a joint, "tired and emotional" meant someone was publicly drunk, and "talking about Uganda" meant having sex. I have laughed about that for years. So thank you, Mitchell, for bringing it to mind once again!