Sunday 18 January 2009

funny

Saturday was a day of dramatic weather; we headed north under an apocalyptic sky, which cleared to cloudless by Gloucester. And shortly after I got home in the evening, a storm hit Bristol and the house shook in the wind. I had to lash down the skylight to stop it blowing away.






Anyway... having dropped K off, I came down through Wales and took a walk around Newport with my camera. It is a very camera friendly place.














And I met my old friend Mark who runs a book stall in the market, and caught up with the news. And then bumped into a protest over the Israeli action in Gaza. It was good to see something happening in Newput more animated than booze and fags and junk food




...walking back to the car, which I'd parked in a bit of wasteland near the river, I was accosted by a bloke with a razored head. He bounded across the road to me, with one of those smiles that aren't really a smile, and said, "It's funny, isn't it?"

I looked blankly.

"It is funny though. You're always taking pictures of these arabs. What about the white people? The homeless white people who've been here all the time?"

This was some time after I'd left the demo. He had no reason to suppose that I had been taking photos of the demo, other than figuring that I looked the sort... must be doing something right then.

I gave him a smile-that-wasn't-a-smile and said nothing. And walked on.







5 comments:

  1. The weather cleared during the day in Bristol too... odd how it comes and goes so...

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  2. I presume the space would have been where your razored headed 'friend' picture would have gone.

    I see they have a transporter bridge, does it till transport? Wonderful iron work. Our local one was built by Gustave Eiffel

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  3. I really wanted to take his pic, Anji, but he was too potentially dangerous and there was no-one else around.

    The bridge ceased operation indefinitely two years ago. A shame, as it was great fun to ride on. Was Gustav practicing for his Tower, I wonder? It seems quite french that they named the tower after the engineer rather than the place. As opposed to, say, the Blackpool Tower...

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  4. A lot of places are named after people. Recently the car park in the village was named after the village priest who was deported. He came back and lived out the rest of his life in the village. The gym is named after a date to do with the Algerian war (shame on me, I can't remember it. We get a lot of places named after memorable (or unmemorable) dates too.

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