Yes, a rather belated Merry Christmas to all my fellow Samizdatistas, and similar wishes and thanks to all who read us and comment on us and on each other.
I’ve been trawling through my photo-archives for Christmas-related imagery, and here are half a dozen photos that I liked, and which I hope you will like also.
I photoed these people, many of whom were seasonally attired, in December 2012, as they disported themselves down by the riverside here in London, at low tide:
Next up, something topical, which Maplins in Tottenham Court Road was trying to sell as a Christmas present in December 2014:
Sadly, Maplins is now bust, and Tottenham Court Road’s electrical business is now in steady retreat, in the face of advances by clothes and furniture stores.
Next, taken exactly two years to the day after that drone photo, some literature. In Foyles, under the Royal Festival Hall:
Next up, a typically discontented crop of Newapapers, again, December 2016:
And finally, a couple of snaps taken in January of this year, in Lower Marsh, which is one of my favourite London haunts, or it was, until Gramex closed its doors. Sign that you’re getting old: your favourite shops keep closing. Lower Marsh is the kind of place where the effort they put into their Christmas windows tends to linger on into mid-January.
First of these last two, a selfie in a shop window, a favourite photo-genre of mine, featuring some satisfyingly ancient technology in the foreground:
I never could be doing with photography until the digital version of it arrived just before this century did, but I still use a phone like that one.
Finally, this, taken minutes later:
I don’t know what that creature is. His expression suggests that something just went wrong with his Christmas cooking.
Here’s hoping nothing goes wrong with your Christmas or with your Christmas cooking, or for that matter with mine.
What interesting photos, Brian! That odd-looking white whatsit with what appears to be some sort of dial on it — it just escapes me, but I’d swear that once upon a time similar objects were quite in vogue, for whatever purpose. In fact by the time I left home my folks had gotten one. But mostly the ones I remember were black, and toward the end they mostly turned a sort of nasty beige.
Nevertheless, you actually have and use one! I am very happy to hear that, and I speak sincerely not jokingly. Good for you!
The black thing on the viewer’s left in that photo would appear to be a follow-on to the Graflex affair with the slide-in film frame. My Dad had one of those, back when I were a tadpole. Then there was the likes of my mom’s Brownie, and eventually, in the sixties, the wondrous SLR. But the exact one in the photo I never new personally.
Are you trying to tell us that that is you in the middle, between the black and white objects? Strange … looks to me exactly like Geert Wilders!
The little guy with the frying pan looks to me sort of like a snowman made out of ersatz Christmas tree boughs. He does look a little disappointed, or wistful … perhaps he was hoping for gingerbread men.
Thanks so much for sharing, Brian. Happy Christmas!
I spotted an odd pile of publications today – 41 Private Eye magazines at the local Tesco supermarket. None of them will sell (they have already been there a week), but unsold leftist magazines still count to “circulation” figures (corporate advertisers pretend the circulation figures for leftist publications are real – even for the Evening Standard, which is free and is just thrown about London at random).
Still the events at the village of Geddington (a few miles away from my home) were nice – and thanks to Mr Ed I did not have to walk there (not feeling too good today – or any day really).
Merry Christmas to all!