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Loxit in London
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Loxit in London

A very different sort of trip, limited to London for the time being Read more
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  • BlogarithmsLoxit in LondonTraveler

    The Terpsichorean muse

    October 28, 2021 in England ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    Not a lot of people may want to know this but Terpsichore is the muse of dance and music and gets a mention in the Monty Python cheese shop, with the customer praising the eccentric dancers in said shop! But quite a lot of people MAY want to know that with a thaw in lockdown which we fervently hope won't freeze over with the forthcoming winter, musicians are out in the streets again.

    Back in the spring I spotted a young lady with guitar outside Holborn tube station playing a tune by Erykah Badu called "On and on".. Badu is a wonderful "nu-soul" singer who started in the late 1990s with an intriguing fusion of soul, funk and jazz and is influenced by Billie Holiday. Need I say more? Singer no. 2 beings us 20 years forward and is an aspiring Adele.

    From then on, if we can't travel the world, at least we can hear its sounds. The male trio plays the sounds of Morocco which mix Arabic melodies with the percussive beats south of the Sahara. And from outside the Royal Festival Hall come the even more insistent beats of an Brazilian "bloco"---with Nelson Mandela looking on.

    Finally on home ground to Cleaver Square, we are treated to kletzmer sounds, which survived the Holocaust to reach western Europe and beyond. The pentatonic scale may not be all that familiar but anyone who knows "If I were a rich man" from Fiddler on the Roof will get the idea......    Read more

  • BlogarithmsLoxit in LondonTraveler

    TTOTY.....

    November 17, 2021 in England ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    .....stands for That Time of the Year, which it is, with November showing off the finest of autumn colours. The first scene is a fine avenue in Hyde Park, followed by a back-lighting shot in St. James's Park. The bagged-up of leaves come from one of the finest small open spaces in central London, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

    Crossing the river to nearer home, I'm in the gardens of the Imperial War Museum, with the falling leaves complementing the fallen Russian people in WWII. Kennington Road weaves abstract patterns in the tarmac, and another back-lighting view through the trees lends it an almost Continental air.    Read more

  • BlogarithmsLoxit in LondonTraveler

    A foggy day......

    January 5, 2022 in England ⋅ ☀️ 4 °C

    .......in London town, as goes the song by Billie Holiday. Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington and many others! This winter so far, the weather has been too breezy for fog but an appeal from the Camera Club to submit photos of it for a competition got me digging through the archives. These views are taken from slides from many years ago before I took up digital, but they show how beautiful London can be, even in what train announcers call "adverse weather conditions". (Why don't they just say "bad weather"?

    The first couple come from my beloved South Bank with an appropriate poster for rum, and the next one shows Queen Boadicea's horse. At the time this photo was taken, Big Ben was free of scaffolding. More recently, it's been wrapped up in it for years, but they've just released the clock face again and perhaps the rest will follow before 2022 is up.

    The other three come from down river on the Isle of Dogs, the final one showing the Canary Wharf tower looming above some former warehouses now turned into apartments. While some might oppose the gentrification, at least they've escaped the wrecking ball and put to another use.    Read more

  • BlogarithmsLoxit in LondonTraveler

    South Bank revisited

    March 7, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    Almost on my doorstep, the South Bank carries its charm through the seasons even in the depths of winter. It's a good opportunity for back-lighting at a low angle. The elegant arches of Waterloo Bridge are ever-present and and the bookstall is coming back to life.

    Slightly upstream, the Covid memorial wall is constantly being updated, with the hearts of last year already fading, to be replaced by memories of the recent departed. The final picture with the red roses makes a particularly poignant statement.

    As I write this, regarding the C word we are in a much better place than this time last year. But those who didn't fall ill or die somehow survived punishing lockdowns and the fear of infection. And now there's war raging in Europe. Let's hope we can all learn from what's gone wrong.

    It is 2 years to the day since the return from my last long-haul trip, so it's perhaps a good moment to close this blog, for no other reason but that I spent 9 days in Spain recently. More of that later........    Read more

    Trip end
    March 7, 2022
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