I Made My Way Into Town,

Diana had already left for work,

 I walked past the green, the leaves on the ground more numerous now,

past the church,

to the card shop, Christmas cards are now in stock!

I also had to pick up a part of my prescription from the pharmacy, 

when we were last at the Natural History Museum,

in the shop I asked if they had any live dinosaurs for sale, regrettably they had just sold out, but the good news was that as I was walking towards Sainsburys, one came walking towards me!

great fun,

for all of the kids following the dino, the sights you see in Beckenham High Street!

into Sainsburys for a few bits and pieces,

then home, in the afternoon I played with stamps, until my evening read and sherry,

for tonight's meal spring rolls,

followed by a Chinese chicken curry,

eyes down and tuck in!

I rounded off my meal with some more mango,

Diana telephoned so a brisk walk to the bus stop and back, past the houses in the park and home, where it was feet up for a double helping of Midsomer Murder before we were off to bed.

Last Week I Noticed That 2 Pairs Of Spectacles ,

were coming up for sale at Sotheby's,

but not just any old pair of spectacles, this is a pair of Mughal spectacles set with emerald lenses, in diamond-mounted frames, India, lenses circa 17th century, frames 19th century, the first mention of emeralds to soothe and protect the eyes dates to the first century AD in Pliny the Elder’s ‘Natural History’ (Naturalis Historia), an encyclopaedia of ancient knowledge. He notes that: “[…] after straining our eyes by looking at another object, we can restore our vision to normal by gazing at an emerald”. This is perhaps why Pliny also noted that the Emperor Nero (r.54-68 AD) used emeralds to watch the gory gladiator combats, thus protecting his sight from the bloody scenes, the spectacles were offered as Lot 213 of Sotheby’s London sale Arts of the Islamic World & India on 27th October, 2021. It’s estimated to sell between 1.5 and 2 million GDP. so here is the question, how much did they sell for? think of a number and scroll down to see if you are correct!

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and the answer is, they did not sell! “Over the past month, these spectacular objects have been marvelled at wherever we exhibited them—from New York to Hong Kong to London,” a Sotheby’s spokesperson said in an email statement to National Jeweller Wednesday, “Anyone who has laid eyes on them is in no doubt that they are indeed something very special, and we have every faith that the huge interest we have seen will translate into a different result later down the line.” I wonder if there was a reserve put on them? well you never know you might have bought them really cheap!

Whilst Looking For Nothing In Particular,

I found these few bits and pieces that I found interesting,

for a bigger look at the map and an explanation about the at least 7,102 known languages, have a look here,

how did Michael Jackson defy gravity? I found this on Reddit,

I am not sure when this was made, but certainly leave me out of the queue for helicopter test pilots! lastly as a kid there were a number of penny arcade machines,

typically about a haunted graveyard or witches coven, all made in the 1940s by Bollard, but above is a new automaton, “This has taken me nearly a year to build, all completely from scratch. Everything inside the room is 3d printed (apart from the ceiling light) and much of the mechanism is 3D printed too. It has 3 computers, 3 smoke machines (also 3D printed), 27 servos, 60 LEDs and 3000 lines of code. It’s based on a 1940’s haunted house working model, but mine is a lot more complicated and a third of the size” found at Grayson’s Art Club, the Internet is so amazing if you have the time to look!

As Diana Was At Work,

during the day I decided to play with stamps,

there were still a number I had not put into their new pages from when I consolidated them when we left Thailand, the time just flew past, as an aside I had a terrible dream last night, it was all about Pompeii and Herculaneum, I mentioned yesterday that we had watched a documentary about the Mount Vesuvius eruption, so I guess that was what caused the nightmare, the good news is that all is well now!

back to playing with the stamps, in no time it was a sherry and a read,

instead of a huge sausage roll for a starter I decided on 2 hog roast,

followed by bangers and mash,

eyes down and tuck in!

fresh mango for dessert and then it time to wait for Diana to call so I could walk her home from the bus stop, we arrived back where it was feet up for one from Midsomer Murder, followed by a New Tricks before we were off to bed.

These Photographs,

brought back so many memories of when I was in the print trade,

for 5 years I was a bound apprentice, the sad fact is that in just a few years so much of what I had been taught was already out of date as the lithographic press swept away the letterpress machines before them,

as well as printing the company I worked for T. J. Hunt, had a book bindery,

this was a common sight in the women's book bindery section, as ladies hand sewn the books bindings,

I am very familiar with this, it is the justification scale of a monotype machine, I was told at the time that the inventor allegedly had a total nervous breakdown when compiling the above justification drum, as you came to the end of a line numbers indicated on the drum were entered into the machine and the line was justified,

a monotype paper roll, and why these photographs? San Francisco remains a hub for analogue artforms, hosting an annual festival that uses a 7-ton steamroller to print linocuts and housing one of the last remaining publishers of its kind. Arion Press is dedicated to the age-old practice of bookmaking, and with a small team of type casters, proof-readers, printers, and binders, painstakingly produces artist publications entirely by hand,

in an episode of Raw Craft, a film series produced by The Balvenie distillery, visits the publisher with the late Anthony Bourdain as host. For three seasons, the chef, writer, and travel icon toured the U.S. visiting tailors, metal casters, saxophone designers, and myriad crafters devoted to traditional techniques. On his stop at Arion Press, Bourdain explores all steps of the bookmaking process, from using 19th Century technology to print each letter with metal type, proofing the text by reading out loud, and stitching each page by hand, you can look into the publisher’s process in the episode above, and check out some of its latest projects on Instagram, and browse publications, notebooks, cards, and other goods in its shop, You also might enjoy this film chronicling the last day of hot metal typesetting at The New York Times, so many images that I never though I would see again, and bringing back so many memories, and my lasting impression of a monotype machine? the noise! the casting machine was indescribably loud.

This Car Looks So Futuristic,

and is due to be ready for sale in 2024,

but what makes this car so different from so many other? renderings XPeng,

it flies! XPeng revealed the renderings of the unnamed electric flying vehicle at its annual 1024 Tech Day, where it showcases its latest innovations, the company plans to release its flying car by 2024 and according to TechCrunch it will retail it for less than than one million Chinese yuan, at today's rate £113,397.90 or $156,289.07, the road-capable flying car is being developed by the company's urban air mobility (UAM) affiliate HT Aero,

 the renderings suggest the vehicle will be equipped with a steering wheel for driving and a single lever for flight, the vehicle will include an environmental perception system that can evaluate the surroundings and weather conditions to make sure it can take-off and land safely at the desired destination, while it will be manually controlled, a perception and flight control algorithm will help the pilot to avoid obstacles during flight, the car would have both a steering wheel for driving and a lever for flying, now some bad news for the motorcar retail trade, Xpeng plans to sell the vehicle directly to consumers, 

the vehicle is an evolution of the company's previous two-seater flying car concept, the Traveler X2, also developed by HT Aero, "Our exploration of more efficient, safer, carbon-neutral mobility solutions goes far beyond just smart EVs, and is the cornerstone of our long-term competitive advantages," said XPeng CEO He Xiaopeng, "We strive to implement cutting-edge mobility technologies in mass-production models for the benefit of our customers." if this project takes off I wonder if you will need a pilots licence?

Diana Went To Work,

for myself I had a really lazy day,

I watched a few documentaries and looked at lots of YouTube clips, in the evening Diana called so down to the bus stop and home, after a  couple of quiz shows we settled down to watch a fascinating documentary by Bettany Hughes,

 titled Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead, which we both found fascinating, although a little disturbing, I had thought that the pyroclastic flows were so hot that everybody died almost instantaneously, but it appears as this documentary explains, that many poor souls were slowly roasted to death, for those in the harbour at Herculaneum taking some 15 minutes or more to die, the brick archways of the harbour they were sheltering in meant that the heat was not instantaneous, they, thinking they were safe, were slowly cooked to death, moving on just as this finished New Tricks started, after watching that we were off to bed.

I Have Yet To See A More Different Set Of Buildings,

that are maned by 31 countries,

they are all part of COMNAP (The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs), these fantastical buildings are all on the Antarctic, each one looking totally different to its neighbour,

if you want to see more of the buildings or stations there go to this page, if you scroll down all of the stations are listed alphabetically, I had no idea of the number of countries with a station there, also some countries have more than one station, what an amazing, almost out of this world series of buildings.

I Have Not Made A Post About A Motorcycle For Some Time,

so here is one that I like,

photographs by Jonathan Silene, the motorcycle in question is a reworked BMW K1100, it has a twin-cam K series four-cylinder engine,  

if you are not familiar with the machine, this is how it appeared in the shops from June 1989 to April 1999, taking a standard machine France’s Jérémie Duchampt at his Jerem Motorcycle headquarters turned the above tourer,

into this, the first task on the build was to strip off all of the factory fairings and cut down the main frame to the parts that were only absolutely necessary,

with a bare chassis to work with, a new set of bearings was pressed into the headstock to allow for a full Suzuki 1000 TLS front end to be fitted. The 43mm USD forks bring with them their Tokico brake calipers from the Suzuki, which also donates its big brake discs and factory alloy wheel. For the rear end, a BMW 1200 GT rim was utilized for the single-sided swingarm look, and it’s all controlled by a custom made YSS shock absorber. The back end also gets its own drilled brake disc and a Brembo calliper provides the stopping power,

losing the hefty air box was the main victim of the strip down. In its place to feed the quad throttles goes a set of pod filters and the fuel pressure regulator has been replaced too. The cooling system has been overhauled with new end tanks, an aluminium overflow and fresh hoses, and a body matching blue crankcase filter has been screwed in. Then to give the bike the sound of something very sporty, the four into one stainless exhaust system is finished out with a Leo Vince end can,

the rides view,

a new digital control unit from Aeon is the brains of the operation, along with a keyless start system, the motorcycle is made to truly stand out by the flawless paintwork of A2F, who are responsible for painting all of Jerem’s bikes. Modelled on the BMW M Sport colours, the blinding gloss white is then topped with the iconic blue, violet and red graphics across the build, no mention of price, but would I like it? you bet!

Diana Was Already At Work,

and I was on a mission,

we enjoyed the chestnuts so much I decided to buy some more, the day was so nice and sunny, 

as I made my way past the fallen leaves in Beckenham Green,

to the bus stop opposite the church,

I caught the 227 to Penge, I had decided not to go all the way to Blackheath, there was a shop near The Moon & Stars in Penge that always had a huge display of fruit outside, but alas, just a handful of not very nice looking chestnuts,

back onto the 227 and through Beckenham onwards to Bromley,

to the International Food Centre, similar to the one in Penge, success! as I was in Bromley I thought I would buy some flowers for the weekend,

past the Art Deco cinema,

and the balloon lady,

and guess what was in the street? a stall selling chestnuts, boxes of them! and it has to be said, a lot nicer than the ones I had just bought, well that is just my luck!

into Lidl for a bunch of flowers and I was on my way home,

all of that bussing and walking was thirsty work, so a slight detour into the club,

a couple later and I was on my way home, there was some work going on at the club, the football/cricket pitch had been dug up, and evidently soil replaced, and was soon to be reseeded,

also a new roof was being placed on one part of the old pavilion,

all set for next year,

the roof on the main part of the pavilion still not needing to be replaced,

looking back to the club, normally when I take a photograph of it on a Friday night it is pitch black,

the flowers, a bit lighter than they are in the sun,

that's better,

later a sherry and a read,

no starter tonight, straight in with a chicken tikka masala and chicken jalfrezi with pilau rice,

eyes down and tuck in,

mango chunks for dessert, later Diana called so down to the bus stop and home, where it was feet up for a Endeavour followed by a New Tricks before we were off to bed.