It Was A Nice Bright Sunny Day,

as we walked from home through the park,

 I was going shopping,

 and looking back Diana was at the bus stop waiting for the bus to work,

 as tomorrow, Sunday, is the first of December, for us it is time to start looking forward to Christmas, and what better way to start the month than with a goose for our Sunday roast? 

 in the evening I was out to the club,

 with Steve, for a few pints, after putting the world to rights and saying our farewells,

 it was a walk through the park for me, to await Diana's telephone call,

  just a tad before midnight Diana called, and we met by the bus stop, in the distance at the crossroad with The Avenue and Copers Cope Road a fairly major accident as the road was closed, as Diana walked by the scene she mentioned that a stretcher was being loaded into the ambulance,

next a bit of fun, one of the local cats was being teased by a unseen animal, the cat was separated from its prey by the wire fence, resulting in a very annoyed and frustrated cat, arriving home it was 00.15 on Saturday morning, so time for a nightcap, after which we were off to bed.

Only Yesterday,

we made a post about an artist, 

that draws hyperrealistic drawings, and today here is another, Japanese artist Kohei Ohmori rose to prominence over the last few years thanks to his uncanny ability to draw everyday metallic objects to perfection, the 25-year-old Japanese artist spends hundreds of hours on a single project, using his signature super-sharp pencils, a steady hand and mountains of patience to get the tiniest details just right, as a result, his drawings turn out as realistic as photographs, photographs Kohei Ohmori/YouTube,

 Ohmori’s “Nut and Bolt” project, which, as the name suggests, depicts a nut and bolt in insane detail, down to the finest threading and imperfection. According to the artist’s brother, he spent around 280 hours working on it, getting the proportions just right and focusing on the most minuscule details, 

people couldn’t stop praising his talent and patience, and after being featured by mainstream media outlets like Japan Today, his popularity expanded beyond Japanese borders, although 25-year-old Kohei appears to focus mostly on metallic objects in his art, he is a gifted portrait artist as well, as you can tell from this portrait of British model Sophia Blackbrough,

how does he do it? here are a couple of videos of his work,

gifted or what!? you can follow his talent by looking at his YouTube, Twitter and Instagram profiles, what stunning images.

Cauliflower Or Broccoli?

was the question I asked of this, 

 the last time we were in Borough Market,

I also mentioned that Diana had never seen how brussel sprout were grown on the stalk, so as cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower are all differently bred cultivars of the same plant, the Brassica Oleracea, 

so I thought I would post this guide to the Brassica cousins, another group that comes from just a few primary ancestors is the citrus group, coming from just citrons, pomelos, and mandarins, all native to South and East Asia, as pomologist David Karp explains, “There’s something fascinating, freaky, even sexy about citrus,” image from readit,

whose research resulted in the above illustration, it should be noted that,

*Researchers continue to debate whether kumquats are indeed in the Citrus genus.

**Most “pure” mandarins have a small proportion of pomelo genes, what a fascinating subject, which begs the question, are apples related to pears?

I Had To Look More Than Twice,

when I saw this knitted quilt,

it was posted on readit, what a neat design.

I Mentioned That On Sunday,

we are having a goose for Sunday lunch,

and I remembered reading how much better deep frying a turkey improves the taste, so I wonder if the same is true of cooking a goose? as we do not live on the ground floor we will have to cook it in the kitchen, what could possibly go wrong?

I Had A Lazy Day,

Diana was at work,

 I looked at the orchids,

 this one we keep saying 'any day now' and its flowers will open,

 the same here as multiple flower spikes,

 eventually grow buds, 

 the good news is that some of the ones that are flowering,

 are now growing more extensions,

 which were not there when we purchased them,

 so hopefully at least,

 from three out of four of them, 

 we should have a show,

of more flowers in a few months time, after my evening meal I watched a few Westerns, all starring Clint Eastwood, just before 10.00 in the evening Diana called, so along to the bus stop, arriving home, a couple from Taboo, both of which were excellent and we were off to bed.

I Find It So Difficult,

to convince myself,

that this is not a real glass of wine, it is in fact a hyper-realistic drawing, using commons drawing tools to make them look three-dimensional Marcello Bareng excels at making everyday objects look so real in two dimensions, photograph Marcello Barenghi/Facebook,

the good news is that he has a number of videos, showing how he works, like this one above of a mirror with him in it as a self portrait, after a number of bad career choices, in 2013 Marcello Barenghi  found himself “unemployed and with nothing to lose”, so he decided to go back to the thing he liked to do the most – drawing hyper-realistic versions of everyday objects, He set up a YouTube account and started uploading video tutorials of himself drawing things like soda cans or fruits. In his first year as “youtuber”, Marcello got 100,000 followers. Today, he has 1.7 million subscribers, which makes him one of the most popular artists on YouTube,

there are few more here, Marcello spends several hours on a single project, which I find amazing, I thought looking at the work, each one would run into days rather than hours, one of the things that set him apart from most artists is that he doesn’t sell his artworks, ever, “Of each and every drawing I realized, I could say I’m not completely satisfied with it, but also that I love it so much I could never part with it. In fact, I don’t sell them,” Marcello Barenghi told American Express Essentials, “Every one of them is the result of a challenge which I loved to take on and overcome: the gold of the World Cup trophy, the transparency of the glass, the weave of fabric. I love them all, each of them has its own peculiarity.” some people just have so much talent, and Marcello is one of them!

A Tragedy Struck In Brookhaven, Georgia, USA,

a delivery truck had crashed, 

and several cases of Krispy Kreme donuts were scattered about the road, and some were even in the gutter. It was a traumatic experience for the responding cops, as can be seen from this post on Brookhaven, GA Police Department Facebook page, 

on Tuesday

Just moments ago, your #BrookhavenPolice officers answered the call each of us fears most 😳. Dozens of donuts fell from a Krispy Kreme delivery truck as it drove along Peachtree Road. 🚚🍩🍩. BPD rushed to the scene (🚨🚓💨🚔🚨), but to no avail. We found total carnage; donuts scattered along the curb and into gutter- THE GUTTER, people!!! 😲🥺. The response time was stellar, but we couldn’t beat the 5 second rule 😢. We are deeply saddened to report that the donuts were a total loss 😭😭. As you can imagine, this is a very difficult time, and the senseless loss of these delicious pastries has deeply affected all of our officers 👮‍♂️👮‍♀️. We ask that you keep our department in your thoughts and prayers as we mourn this terrible moment,   #OnlyHalfKidding #TheyLookedDelicious #WeKnowItsAstereotype #NoShame #DonutsMakeEveryoneHappy #🍩🍩🍩

officers inspect the carnage, it is unclear whether trauma councillors have been called,

The Associated Press has more.

Police say their response time to the call was stellar, but they missed the five-second rule. The post asked for thoughts and prayers as the total loss of the doughnuts deeply affected all the department’s officers.

Police later added a comment with an update to the so-called tragedy. It says officers in Gainesville sent a batch of sympathy doughnuts to Brookhaven police in their time of mourning.

and who says the police do not have a sense of humour?

As I Was Writing A Post Back In November,

I remember thinking, 'it is only a matter of time',

before a lorry clips the now raised bridge in Durham, North Carolina and it claims its first victim, in that post I wrote 'Too Late, the show has ended', but apparently not, far from being the end of the website 11 foot 8, which documented the many trucks whose tops were sheared off by the bridge after the driver underestimated their truck's height, or else was not paying attention, Jürgen Henn still has his webcam trained on the Gregson Street trestle, and on Tuesday it caught the first incident since the bridge was raised, a rental truck scraped against the bridge, and small pieces fell off, not like previous attempts to write off a vehicle, but it goes to show the bridge can still catch out the unwary.

Below,

is an answer, 

to the Travelling Salesman Problem, a mathematician who teaches at Oberlin, Dr. Bob Bosch, created this image of Botticelli's Birth of Venus using the shortest possible line while still rendering the image, yes it is made of just one single line, a masterful illustration of the Travelling Salesman Problem, the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology defines it as:

The problem of finding the shortest path that passes through a set of given points once and only once, as when a travelling salesman needs to visit a number of specified cities exactly once, using the shortest possible route. The problem is notoriously difficult to solve, because the number of possible tours rises rapidly with the number of cities.

for more of these remarkable drawings have a look here, and for more from Dr. Bosh have a look here, amazing!

Diana Was At Work,

so upstairs to play with a few photographs,

 all of these infrared photographs we took when we were at Glenshee in March 2018, Diana keeps asking when are we going to have some snow,

 so there is some in these,

 colour swapped and added,

 plus a lot more,

 black and white,

 and a old fashioned look,

 as the photographs appear out of the camera,

 then colour swapped,

 a bit more added,

 I then decided to give the photograph a totally different look,

 back to black and white,

 and aged,

 this a pool that is made by the melting snow,

 colour swapped,

 and added,

 plus a lot more,

 black and white,

 and a antique look,

 in the evening a pre meal sherry, 

 I decided on a change of reading for this evening,a book I have enjoyed reading a few times before The Keys of Egypt, this is what I wrote the last time I read it, 

I had read it before, it is a fascinating read about the race between scholars to decipher the hieroglyphics that were left on tombs, temples and papyrus,

from one of the reviews,

'The book tells the true story of the early nineteenth-century race to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and how it came to obsess the brilliant French scholar Jean-François Champollion, whose painstaking work finally solved the mystery of the hieroglyphs. He faced bitter academic and political opposition, at a time when France was often in turmoil with the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. His greatest rival was Thomas Young, the exceptionally gifted scientist and physician. Champollion's discoveries started a process which revealed the incredible history of ancient Egypt',

from another review,

'Jean-Francois Champollion's biography is neatly interwoven with Napoleonic history and the functions of Egyptian hieroglyphs in The Keys of Egypt. A gifted bookseller's son born in Revolutionary France, Champollion was to become "gripped by energetic enthusiasm" for Egypt. By the age of 12, he was studying several ancient languages, and, amid a "wave of Egyptomania," he would beat rivals to discover the key to deciphering hieroglyphs. If this was a race, it was a marathon. The breakthrough came after "20 years of obsessive hard work," not through the quick-fix solution often thought to have been provided by the Rosetta stone.

The Keys of Egypt details Champollion's life and work, which were hampered by politics, poverty, and an almost hypochondriacal series of health problems. Its sources include letters and journals, the authors having undertaken researches in major libraries and museums',

if you like non-fiction books as I do that deal with historical facts this is a book for you, extremely readable and enjoyable, to say Champollion was a genius is such an understatement, at the age of 12 he was totally proficient in Latin and Greek, so he was then allowed to learn Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac and Chaldean!

 'Cheers!',

 for my evening meal a tuna salad, 

 I read and listened to music for the rest of the evening until Diana called, so off to the station,

'there's a train down there', we walked home where it was feet up, one from New Tricks and we were off to bed.