Author: jamesclay

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Going to the cinema

On Friday night we went to the cinema, after checking we ended up at Cineworld in Weston.

We spent over eight pounds on one portion of popcorn and some pick and mix. I can never understand the cost of cinema food. I understand the economics of it, but I do wonder sometimes if that model is flawed.

We saw The Fast and the Furious 9 which was a fun escapist film. It didn’t take itself too seriously, so neither did we. This is the first of these films I have seen from the franchise, having said that I don’t think you needed to have seen the others to enjoy the film (well except perhaps the post credits clip).

Despite being almost opening night, a Friday night and peak time of 7:40pm the cinema was quite empty. The whole complex looked very sad now that Prezzo, Pizza Express and Loco Mexicana have all closed down. The only places left are Nandos and Costa. How long will it be before Cineworld decides to shut.

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What’s the sculpture?

On a recent visit to Ashton Court I was reminded of this piece of bronze art that was on display at the front of the mansion building.

There wasn’t anything that I could see that said more about the art, so no idea about the title or the sculptor?

What’s the sculpture?

I quite like it though.

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Things I still never had…

Scrolling through the Twitter I came across this post from UK Vintage Catalogues from the Scalextric in 1963.

It reminded me of a post I had written on this blog about Scalextric, I thought I had written it a few years ago, no it was back in 2012.

I was being slightly nostalgic about the wonders of Scalextric.

I never had Scalextric when I was young.

We don’t even have it in the house now, even with two small boys, they wanted model railways and trains…

I am kind of glad I never got Scalextric as it is obvious (now I am older) that the only way to use Scalextric was to find a constant speed that ensured the car went around the track without falling off and keep doing that, whilst your competitor in an attempt to beat you, would more than likely fall off the track and so you would eventually win!

Though I am too young for this 1963 catalogue, I do remember seeing bridges in the Scalextric catalgoies of the 1980s.

Scalextric Bridges

I do remember once playing Scalextric at a cousin’s house and they had the hump backed bridge.

The memory was that it was really fun.

I will never get Scalextric now, as my memory of wanting it, I know will be ruined by actually playing with it… so I shall just be nostalgic and think about what I missed and never fulfil a dream that would have never come true.

 

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Filming The Undeclared War

Went to Bristol to work in the office. After the office closed I walked back to my car. Wondered why there was a coffee stall at the FaithSpace, then realised that they were filming today at the FaithSpace in Redcliffe in Bristol. No idea what they were filming and no indication either.

FaithSpace

Found out later in the evening from another Twitter account that it was a Channel 4 production of The Undeclared War.

Set in a post-pandemic 2024 in the run up to a British general election, THE UNDECLARED WAR tracks a leading team of analysts buried in the heart of GCHQ (the UK’s version of the NSA) secretly working to ward off a cyber-attack on the country’s electoral system.

 

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Then and Now Take Two – Snowing in Weston Village

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I published back in February some photos of Weston Village in the snow, so when I was there recently I decided to (intentionally) take a similar photograph and add it to the photographs I had taken there before. This time no snow, just some spring sunshine from April 2020.

Weston Village

However the following photographs were intentionally taken from the same location. I have over the years (when we had snow) taken a particular photograph so here is the 2018 version.

This with the wind and the cold was actually some of the worst weather I have seen down here, but as you can see it doesn’t look too bad…

This was how it looked in December 2010. Back then we had very heavy snow.

This was how it looked in eleven months earlier in January 2010,  again heavy snow.

And here it is in February 2009. At this time this was some of the worst weather we had seen in twenty years. This was taken from the other side of the fence.

 

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Then and Now – Clevedon Pier

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart.

I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart.  The first instance of this that came to my attention was last year in May when I went to Manchester.

It only really came to my attention that I was doing this a lot, when checking the Places function on the Apple Photos Mac App that I could see I had taken the same photograph of the same thing just years apart!

I had taken some similar photographs in Clevedon, which you can see in this blog post.

Clevedon Pier is a seaside pier in the town of Clevedon, North Somerset, England on the east shore of the Severn Estuary. It was described by Sir John Betjeman, as “the most beautiful pier in England”. The pier opened in 1869 and served as an embarkation point for paddle steamer excursions for almost exactly 100 years. Two of the spans collapsed during stress testing in 1970 and demolition was proposed, but local fund raising and heritage grants allowed the pier to be dismantled for restoration and reassembled. It reopened in 1989, the pier now, once again, offers a landing stage for steamers and is a popular attraction for tourists and anglers.

I took this photograph of Clevedon Pier in May 2005.

In July 2014 I took these photographs of the pier.

Not quite the same view, but very close.

In February 2016 I took this photograph.

We were back in Clevedon in June 2017 and this was the photograph I took of the pier.

February 2018 saw me take this photograph.

In July 2019 I took another very similar photograph, this time much closer to the pier though.

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What the…

Saw these at our local garden centre.

I have no idea why…

Reminds me of someone though….

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Winterstoke Railway Bridge 

On a recent walk I took a photograph of the Winterstoke Railway Bridge in Weston-super-Mare.

There are plans to replace the bridge due to the decaying nature of the bridge.

There is an interesting story behind the bridge which was built  in the Second World War in 1941 to provide easy access to the military aeroplane factory. Emergency wartime powers were used by the War Office at the time to enable the bridge to be built, as a result the bridge was owned by the War Office, now the Ministry of Defence.

The fact that the bridge was owned by the MoD has created challenged in getting the bridge repaired and now to be replaced.

The new £15m bridge is set to open in 2023.

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Then and Now Take Two – Moor Lane

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I published back in March some photos of Moor Lane, so when I was there recently I decided to (intentionally) take a similar photograph and add it to the photographs I had taken there before. This time no snow, just some spring sunshine.

Moor Lane

My other photographs of Moor Lane though did contain some intentional similar shots. The first of which was taken in January 2010 when we had some of the worst snow for forty years. I had woken up to a deep blanket of snow on the ground, so myself and my son got all wrapped up and headed off to Morrisons to do some panic buying of milk and bread (as advised by the BBC, well I think that was what they were saying. I saw this view of Moor Lane in the snow and it reminded me so much of how I pictured Narnia.

This was taken with a Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera which at the time was pretty good on taking photographs and video.

We had snow again in December 2010, so I took a similar photograph. Though we had snow by the time I got to Moor Lane a lot of it had melted and turned to slush.

In March 2012 the sun was out, and no snow.

We had snow again in January 2013, so yes, I took the same photo.

In 2016 the Moor Lane Bridge was closed to traffic for six months and then permanently closed to traffic. This has obviously had an impact of traffic on this stretch of road.

In March 2018 we had the Beast from the East and so I took a similar photograph again of Moor Lane.

So there is a distinct snow theme with these photographs, which is one of the reasons I took a new photograph of Moor Lane in the sun.

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Then and Now – Clevedon

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart.

I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart.  The first instance of this that came to my attention was last year in May when I went to Manchester.

It only really came to my attention that I was doing this a lot, when checking the Places function on the Apple Photos Mac App that I could see I had taken the same photograph of the same thing just years apart!

Clevedon is a small seaside town in North Somerset.

I took this photograph of Clevedon and its pier in May 2005.

Eight years late in June 2013 I took this photograph of near enough the same view.

And in May 2021 I took another very similar photograph.