Aborted trip to LACMA, the art museum here in LA because of Wednesday closing resulted in an extra few minutes walk to the Movie Museum nearby. There’s enough going on in here to keep you interested for days, so like a good movie, we had to edit it all a little and then we’ll take a look at what’s left for another trip. First of all a typographical gripe, why the hell does someone think that setting white text on black is a good idea? It’s not. Then further along setting white on pale green for crying out loud. Fire … Continue reading Movie musings in a museum…

A trip across town via Laurel Canyon to see the art gallery, strange to get there and discover the place closed on a Wednesday, when everything else in this town seems to be open 24/7. Anyhow we did get to see these magnificent sculptures by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei The pieces are set out in a huge circle outside the gallery, and there’s a story behind them about ancient Chinese clocks. Worth looking into. Not to be too disappointed we then headed to the Academy Museum, which is all about film of course. More about this later, but for now … Continue reading Ai Weiwei

Apparently these little gems are common in these here Californian parts. This one in my daughter’s garden. Photo taken from a balcony on full telephoto zoom and the only one to come out half decent. They zip about at some speed. Continue reading Humming bird

My brother and I both worked as students at Haydock Park racecourse where we shovelled horse manure! It was however pedigree horse manure, not just any old s***! We also occasionally witnessed this sort of thing on race days. It’s his birthday today. Happy Birthday John! Continue reading Not just any old s***!

It’s English, but not as we know it. It’s one of those phrases that I heard with my own ears outside Woolworths ( always named in the plural despite being singular on the sign ) in Wigan when I was about 12 years old. As I went to school with kids who grew up with a strong local accent I found it quite easy to translate especially as I was a witness to the incident that gave rise to the question. A small child, no doubt called Wallace, or Wally for short, had fallen down outside the aforementioned Woolworths in … Continue reading “Was wont Wally, as ford?”

They love their wires here, strung out over the whole city, apart from Beverly Hills, where they like to hide them underground. We get our wires crossed here in many ways, like they think we’re Australian and that maths has no ‘s’ on the end of it. The phrase “Do the math” sounds like something uttered by someone with a lisp, and is possibly the most annoying sentence along with the single word: “Awesome” which generally means that whatever is being referred to is not, and is over used everywhere. But that’s just me being boorishly British. I can almost … Continue reading Wires crossed.

… that film companies chose this area to move to. That unrelenting sunshine helps and the light adds a sharpness to almost any picture. I like the bright signs out here, not just the huge billboards which in a rainy dull place would look dreadful, but somehow in this bright sunshine seem to have a majestic feel. It’s all about competition to get noticed here of course. The traffic signs are unequivocal, stop means stop and you can get a ticket if you are spotted not coming to a complete standstill at a junction at a stop sign even though … Continue reading It’s no wonder…

This is Dave, he works on one of only four surviving newsstands in LA, just around the corner from where I’m staying. I meant to take a picture of this last time I was here , so I made sure not to miss the opportunity this time on a bright sunny morning, with the sun on the newsstand. Dave offers a massive selection of magazines here. I recall that we had newspaper sellers in the UK. Generally just a guy on a street corner with a small box and a poster on each side of the box with a headline … Continue reading Last stand of the newsstand.

I wrote this one on the plane out here, so it appears here slightly out of sequence. The images are from a previous trip. There we are in the Heathrow airport departure lounge, doing what you do in airports, mainly avoiding the bright lights of the shops just after the farting about in security. Of course no one complains about security, even if the queue was starting to look like a Royal Lying in State, and none of us wants to fall out of the sky once up there, even though the airlines food makes you contemplate that this might … Continue reading Wear your decorating clothes…

You can blame a chap called Jennings way back in the 60s I think who was the first to apply meanings to place names, a bit of fantasy fun in the days when there were but three TV channels and shops had what was called ‘early closing’. It was a in many ways the death of the corner shop, and later they revived when ethnic minorities never closed them, ever. I can remember now just one of those place names that Mr Jennings gave a new meaning to: Wembley : to feel a bit Wembley was to feel not quite … Continue reading Amberley.

I’m a big fan of modern tech. I was late to this game way back when computers came into the graphic design field thinking like decimalisation that it would never ‘catch on’ and we’d soon be back to pounds, shillings and pence. I carried on drawing in the old way, on paper. I still do, but have caught up with tech as best I can. My approach to it was to ‘never get cross with it’, that way it would never get me ranting on about how dreadful it is ( and it isn’t) and what a time swallower it … Continue reading Technology tipping point