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Walking Commentary

Thoughts while waiting to walk from Manchester to Rome in 2022

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the guardian

Universal Challenges: Part 1

April 13, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I’m having an epiphany. My moment of revelation actually lasted about ninety minutes. It wasn’t the first time I was traumatised by a television. That happened first in the World at War in the scene where a chicken farmer was splashed by brains. The mood music and laconic narration of Laurence Olivier helped fix this scene forever in my memory. We were shown how the grey matter that had just been thinking terror had sullied the splendid military uniform of a man for whom executions were timed as a newsreel opportunity. Such was Himmler’s power that people slaughtered other people just to appease him. Such was the wilful ignorance in Nazi Germany that this wasn’t considered abnormal behaviour.

Natural recovery underway at the many scales of a local woodland I walked this morning.
[Read more…] about Universal Challenges: Part 1

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir Tagged With: george monbiot, lia mills, libran writer, photos, seaspiracy, the guardian, the world at war

Looking Beyond Seeing

February 16, 2021 by Simon Robinson 2 Comments

We had reason to hang some pictures today. I mean, rehang. We’ve been slowly rehanging pictures that we took down off the walls in January. They’ve been stashed around the place while we repainted the house. One of the things we agreed was that nothing could go back up without mutual agreement.

I couldn’t resist taking this shot at the Don McCullin exhibition in Tate Britain 2019.
[Read more…] about Looking Beyond Seeing

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir Tagged With: art, donn mccullin, natalie angier, tate britain, the guardian, the smithsonian, william utermohlen

Enduring Decisive Moments

January 13, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

There are times when photographers ruin your day. It happens to us all and there’s one such annoyance that I recall many years later. I’d positioned myself early, ready for the sunrise when another photographer put himself in my frame. He knew I was ahead of him in time but behind him in space. I called across the harbour and he squatted down, as if that would help. He might as well have said ‘Just a second’ knowing the exposure for his decisive moment wouldn’t last that long. But no, he brazenly stayed put for thirty minutes. My enduring decisive moment was just a quarter of a second and it’s lasted eight years and counting.

An enduring decisive moment I captured in 2013.
Sunrise in Coliemore Harbour, Dublin
Ruining My Sunrise © Simon Robinson 2013
Coliemore Harbour, Dublin
Canon EOS 5D | Canon EF24-105 F/4L IS USM | 24 mm | 1/4s | f/16 | ISO 100 | tripod
[Read more…] about Enduring Decisive Moments

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: coliemore harbour, new kim, photography, pigeons, the guardian, the smithsonian, travel

Another Year, Another Game

December 12, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

It would have been fun to visit Montpellier again this weekend but pandemic travel restrictions have kept us at home. So we sent the Leinster Rugby team without supporters to a stadium where no home support is allowed. Last time Leinster played Montpellier, we were there to witness the win, sitting in the top row of what surely must the most vertiginous stadium in rugby. We followed the team each step of the the way to the final in Bilbao which Leinster also won. Our fourth Champions Cup.

A door we noticed on a rugby excursion to Montpellier in 2018.
[Read more…] about Another Year, Another Game

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: leinster rugby, steve thompson, the guardian

Plant Food

November 19, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I wonder if McPlant can save the world? I’ll bet the CEO has the same question. One company’s sales of 75 burgers per second represents a lot of slaughter. And there are many burger outlets across the globe. And we all know that abattoirs aren’t nice places. Perhaps that’s why so many humans close their eyes when they bite into the machine ground flesh between breads. Industrial death is surely as unacceptable for animals as for humans?

Ungrievable: street photography in Dublin 2018
[Read more…] about Plant Food

Filed Under: Anchoritism Tagged With: booklink, eric schlosser, mcdonalds, mcplant, photo, rachel carson, the guardian

Managing Expectancy

August 16, 2020 by Simon Robinson 2 Comments

We are taught early in life that heart muscle repairs itself very slowly. You probably worried that it will wear out one day. So you determine to look after your primary pump by eating carefully and taking suitable exercise. You do what you can to keep the pipes clean and flexible so that your heart can pump some 8000 litres of blood around your body each and every day for whatever term you consider to be your life expectancy. That life expectancy in Ireland was 79.6 years for men and 83.4 for women according to the CSO in 2017.

Foggy Harbour Scenes
[Read more…] about Managing Expectancy

Filed Under: Anchoritism Tagged With: cso, fitbit, life expectancy, the guardian

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