Woody

I went out in the garden early Saturday morning, expecting peace and quiet, and instead I heard an incredibly loud, metallic, rapid tap-tap-tap sound. I knew right away it was a woodpecker, pecking on something that was not wood. Sure enough, this little guy was way up on a rooftop several houses away, pounding on a metal chimney piece.

Evolution, I suppose, has not quite caught up with our modern era. That little bird-brain doesn't know what might have bugs and grubs and other edible critters in it, and what will not.

He (and it is a he, I'm pretty sure) didn't seem the least bit fazed by the metal. He just sat up there as proudly as could be and pounded away. I wonder what it sounded like inside the house?

I'm sure he's one of the woodpeckers we regularly see on our suet ball feeder -- so he's getting some food, at least.

I potted up the rest of the foxgloves, so now they're all dealt with, either in the ground or in pots where they will spend the rest of their lives. It's good to have that done. I wonder if I planted them too early, because it is freaking cold here -- a high of 44º F today (7º C) and a low of 33º F tonight (less than 1º C, but not quite freezing). Foxgloves are durable, fortunately.

I walked Olga -- just a short loop around the neighborhood -- and read more about the peculiar and apparently rather apocalyptic outlook of Peter Thiel. All my life I've rolled my eyes at people who insist "the end is near," but now, reading about Ukraine, I'm wondering if it's true. The Times had a story yesterday that upset me more than any I've read so far about that war, illustrating how powerful it can be to focus on a single atrocity, a handful of deaths depicted up close. The photo that goes with that story will be a Pulitzer contender, I imagine.

I don't know where this is going to go, but I do think Putin has to be stopped. Somehow. Simply possessing nuclear weapons can't give any regime a license to steamroll its neighbors.

And then I read The Gateway Pundit and seeing all those rabid right-wingers in the comments section actually praising Russia, insisting that Putin is opposing the "New World Order" and using this conflict as an opportunity to bash Joe Biden -- well, it just blows my mind and turns my stomach. I can only assume some of them are Russian bots, but I'm sure not all of them are. There are a lot of crazy people out there.

Even that woodpecker has more sense than they do.

Out on the River

That's where I was yesterday afternoon, seeing London from the water. A colleague who lives in East London had a party at his flat, and several of us decided to travel there via the river. There are passenger boats that run routinely all up and down the Thames, and when they're on time, they're great. Unfortunately yesterday's boats were running behind schedule so we wound up cooling our heels for a while before one arrived, but still -- it was a scenic journey.

Before I get to that, though, let me talk about the morning.

I read for a while -- a recent biography of the Internet billionaire Peter Thiel, who I find both mysterious and repellent -- and then I took Olga for a walk. We hadn't been to the Heath in ages, so I decided to head in that direction.

We did a shorter Heath walk than we routinely did when Olga was younger, and it seemed to suit her well. We went to the West Heath, where she chased squirrels (sort of) and gnawed on her muddy tennis ball...

...and then we went to Golders Hill Park, where she made a beeline for her favorite place, the "stumpery," which is often full of squirrels and pigeons (and yesterday, rats). Lots to see there.

 She had a great time and didn't seem to be unduly sore when we got home, so I was happy to see that walks to the Heath are still not out of the question.

They do, however, take a lot of time. Olga moves more slowly than she used to, doing lots of painstaking sniffing around at every tree and post, and by the time we got back to the house I was worried I was going to miss the riverboat to the party. So I left Dave to bathe the dog, changed my shoes and zipped off to the tube.

As it turned out, I would have gotten there on time even if the boats were on schedule, and given their tardiness I didn't need to worry at all.

When the boat finally did come, we all bought a bottle of prosecco from the bar (Yes! There's a bar!) and enjoyed the view from within the comfortably heated passenger area with cushioned seats.

Remember Oliver's Wharf? I photographed it a couple of years ago from the street side. It was interesting to see it again from the water.

We also got a good view of the damaged O2 Dome, its roof recently shredded by Storm Eunice. Looks like they've trimmed away the tattered canvas (or whatever it is) and I assume they'll replace it with some new roofing at some point.

I stayed at the party a couple of hours and left just before 8 p.m. I felt like an old man, leaving so early, and then I got home to find Dave snoozing in his recliner and Olga already in bed!

Newsrooms and Libraries

Well, thank goodness THAT's over. My journalism talks went well with the 6th Graders yesterday and they all seemed interested and engaged, which is about the best you can hope for with any group of kids. They asked questions and seemed especially enthusiastic when we talked about how to write good "ledes" (as spelled in newspaper lingo), the introductory paragraphs of any news story.

As an example, I read them Edna Buchanan's famous "Gary Robinson died hungry" lede from the Miami Herald. That story, violent as it is, never fails to produce excitement and a good conversation about vivid, colorful writing. (It's no more violent than anything they see on television, I suppose.)

We also talked about headlines ("Ford to City: Drop Dead") and as I've done here over the past few days, I showed them old clips of my own work. I also showed them my first press ID, which was issued when I was a college student and an intern at the Central Florida newspaper where I eventually worked:

Yes, that's the collegiate me, complete with hair. Sort of.

A commenter here asked the other day if I miss journalism. I mostly miss the climate of a newsroom -- it was fun working with a bunch of smart, irreverent people who were good with words and loved discussing the news of the day. I miss the excitement, the unpredictability, but that also had a flip side -- the hours could be long and it could be difficult to have a life, given that you never knew what was going to happen on any given day and how long you'd have to be at work.

Also, it's a different business now. Newspapers are less prosperous than they once were, and the news cycle is 24 hours. Stories get written, edited and published continuously all day on the web. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's a lot of work and it doesn't allow much time to write thorough, comprehensive pieces -- at least not when an event first occurs.

I wouldn't trade my years in journalism for anything, but I'm glad that I now have a job that's more stable and less hectic. I deliberately chose not to continue in journalism when we moved to England. I could certainly have pursued it, even though English journalism is a bit different from the American style -- but I decided to do something new and I'm glad I did.

(Photo: A tree on my walk home from work yesterday.)

Page 7A

I have nothing of interest to report, other than our second tube strike yesterday, which once again did not affect me at all. As I walked home I saw that the traffic on Finchley Road was a nightmare, so clearly a lot of people were driving who normally wouldn't be. I could walk faster than that line of cars was able to move.

Today's the day for my journalism talks to the 6th Grade, so we'll see how that goes. I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

Speaking of which, some of you asked about the continuation of my article about the Queen that I posted yesterday. Even though I'm sure you were joking, I will indulge you and post the "jump page," as it's known in newspaper lingo.

It was a long clip so I had to cut it in two to get it to fit. As you can see from that little note at the end, I incorporated information from the Associated Press into the story -- probably the details about the knighthood and her visit beyond what I observed, and certainly the quote from Schwarzkopf, who I never spoke to. I dimly remember some press information that included details about the Royal Yacht Britannia and about the Queen's dress, which as I recall was by her favorite designer Hardy Amies. (Funny that I didn't mention him in the story yet I remember his name.)

Reading it now, I'm a bit confused by the Whitman/Butler family dynamics. There's a daughter and a stepdaughter and then, later, I mention a son. But only the son and daughter were taken out of school? Did the stepdaughter not enjoy the benefits of an education?

Oh -- and I said yesterday that this was in 1992, but I was wrong. It was actually May 20, 1991.

(Top photo: Some park benches in Coventry, last week.)

Retrospective Royalty

Yesterday was pretty slow at work. I spent much of my time compiling a presentation I'm giving to the 6th Grade on Friday about journalism. One of the teachers asked me to talk about my career, so I scanned some of my clips (like the ones about Ray Bradbury and Vincent Price, as well as some featuring Al Gore, George H. W. Bush and the Queen).

I'm also going to talk a little about writing a news story -- the "lede," the headline, the reverse pyramid, that kind of thing.

It's so weird to look back at my time as a reporter. It seems so long ago. When I began writing for newspapers in 1986 there was no Internet. We had to look everything up in books! It seems positively Stone Age. We used to have these gigantic cross-directories -- bigger than conventional phone books -- that listed people by name, by address and by phone number, so we could call people on a certain street, for example, or find out who had a certain number. We had a "morgue" full of old, yellowed clippings filed in little envelopes, to help us look back on previously published stories. And of course maps were all on paper and tasks that now take a few seconds took hours.

I can draw on my more recent newspaper experience, from the late '90s onward, to weave technology into the presentation, but yeah, I suddenly feel like I've been alive forever. I tried to choose clips about people who the kids might know, but I'm sure more than a few of them will have no clue who Vincent Price is.

Oh well -- that's why they go to school, right?

Just for fun, here's my story about Queen Elizabeth's visit to Tampa way back in 1992. She knighted Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who had presided over the first Iraq war, and gave him a medallion. Like I said, it seems like a million years ago. It's the only time I've ever seen the Queen in person, even though I now -- ironically and unexpectedly -- live in her country. I never got very close to her -- she was a speck on the Tampa waterfront when our photographer took the photo above with a big zoom lens, and later she passed me in a limo with shaded windows. I could just barely make out her waving glove.

Speaking of gloves, I took two foxgloves to my boss and another to one of my co-workers, thereby reducing my stock a bit. I still have several that haven't been planted. I may wind up leaving them in pots.

(Photo: In the spirit of victory for Ukraine, here's a photo of Victory News in Broadstairs.)

Tube Strike and Bad Art

Yesterday the tube was closed because of a strike. Supposedly it will be closed Thursday as well. Dave and I live close enough to work that we can easily walk -- as you know I often walk anyway -- so for us it's not a problem. But for people who have to commute it's a nightmare.

Although I am a supporter of labor and unions generally, I don't quite get the point of a transit strike. It just makes life miserable. All it does is punish the riders, who aren't able to do anything about the workers' demands anyway. London already has a Labour mayor, who's going to be most sympathetic to workers' concerns -- so it's not like we can vote in new leadership who will be more compliant.

Anyway, when I walked past the tube station on my way to work, this is what it looked like (above). Mobs of people waiting for packed buses.

The gates to the station were securely locked.

I walked onward. It was a rainy morning, which made things even more delightful.

I passed these paintings, which had been set out in someone's driveway, I assume to go out with the trash. The two leaning against the fence caught my eye, but there are also at least 14 more stacked on the ground.

I corrected the perspective so we can get a better look.

Hmmmm...

Oh, I also found out what those bright pink signs are for in my previous post. They're used by film production crews when filming on location. Just in case that was keeping you up at night!

Street Fashion and a Blender

Yesterday, as part of my professional development day, I went to a talk by one of our school's photography teachers about picture-taking with a mobile phone. I thought it might give me some good tips on how to take better iPhone pictures, but unfortunately it mostly taught me that I need a new phone.

Apparently the iPhone 13 is now state of the art, and I have a 6s, purchased way back in 2015. I had no idea I was so behind the curve, but anyway, many of the teacher's helpful hints didn't help me at all because I don't have the features and controls available on the newer phones. Argh!

Still, it inspired me to gather some recent iPhone shots into a post -- so, here goes!

First, a discarded tabletop plastered with stickers, seen on my walk home yesterday afternoon.

Here's a phone booth where -- thanks to a discarded barstool -- you can actually have a (very wobbly) seat to make a call. Assuming the phone is still working, which is a big assumption.

Dave's grandmother stitched a needlepoint sampler when he was born, bearing his name, his parents' names and his birthday, among some floral and animal designs. It's been living in a cheap frame, poorly protected, and I decided to have it reframed as a surprise for Dave. (He doesn't know about it, and he never reads my blog, so he won't find out about it here.) Anyway, when the guy at the frame shop and I peeled off the paper on the back we found this -- apparently Dave's grandmother, in 1968, mounted the sampler on cardboard cut from a blender box! We're leaving the sampler on the cardboard in the new frame, because his grandmother glued it so securely -- so the blender will live on, a surprise to be found by future generations.

A van I saw in Broadstairs. Someone has a dramatic streak.

I see signs like this around town occasionally and I have NO idea what they're about. Anybody know?

Well, that's an interesting look.

Here's another interesting look. This raincoat was painted by a street artist named Haculla who I know from my years in New York. It was pretty surreal to see it walking down the street in London, but apparently he has a clothing line now.

Finally, Olga came home from her walk last night with a dirty face and eyebrow. It did not detract from her soulful eyes.