Posts

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Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2021

In 2021 I published 46 posts to the blog. So how did I do in 2020, well I published 423 posts…

Okay so 366 of those were of the photo a day project I did in 2020, so really I published 57 additional blog posts. In 2018 I published 89 posts to the blog, in 2019 it was 68, though 36 of those were in December.

Most of the top ten are nostalgic posts about the Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s.

The tenth most popular post on the blog was Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Six.

At number nine we have another post on the 1990s Bristol Harbourside, with Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Five.

Eighth post was on the Harry Potter Wizarding World Potions Classroom.

Number seven was my first post on the Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s

Sixth post was a post reminiscing about The Longleat Miniature Railway

Five was my second big post on the Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s

Fourth was Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Three

The post at number three was “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.” Which was Michael J Fox joining Coldplay on stage in New Jersey in 2016, playing Johnny B Goode from Back to the Future.

The Café

The second most popular blog post asked the question “the cafe on tv at weston super mare is it real” which was a post about people Google searching that phrase and ending up on my blog. Now those same Google searches send people to this page rather than the original post on Cyril’s Cafe.

The most popular blog post in 2021 was a nostalgic post about Remembering the Bristol Temple Way Flyover.

 

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Marine Lake

Went for a walk this morning and we walked past Marine Lake and Knightstone Island.

It has been drained and hopefully will be cleared of mud and silt making it a better swimming experience. The work requires permission from a government agency, and if approved will be finished by the summer of 2022.

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1947 Nash Ambassador 436YUP

This beautiful 1947 Nash Ambassador was in a local car park, part of a local hot rod meet.

1947 Nash Ambassador 436YUP

The Nash Ambassador is a luxury automobile that was produced by Nash Motors from 1927 until 1957. For the first five years it was a top trim level, then from 1932 on a standalone model. 

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Then and Now – Kiln House

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.

Unlike some of the photographs in this series, this time the now photograph was an intentional photo.

Back in May 2016 I went for a lunchtime walk and saw the building work in the Redcliff Quarter of Bristol. One place caught my eye, Kiln House, where the majority of the building had been demolished, but the facade was retained (it was probably listed).

This is another view of the facade.

The other day I was out for a similar lunchtime walk and remembered taking the photograph (didn’t actually remember when, I had to find the older photograph when I got home). So I took another photograph from a similar (but not quite the same) perspective.

Kiln House is now modern flats, but I don’t know much about the history of the original building.

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The day we bumped into Rod Stewart

Back in the summer we were visiting relatives in London. We went on a sightseeing walk around London. We were staying in Kingston so caught the train into London. We changed at Vauxhall and caught the tube to Green Park. The aim was to do something of a quick walk around some central London tourist landmarks.

We  first walked through the park to Buckingham Palace. We did wonder why anyone would book a deckchair for the whole day to sit in the park.

Buckingham Palace

We took some photographs of the palace and watched as the Guards standing on duty were inspected.

Military officer was riding around on his horse, quite surreal in some respects.

As we walked to Clarence House, we saw Rod Stewart. It was looking like he was filming a music video.

I stopped to take a photograph or two. 

One of the reasons for posting this post, was that the video has now been released.

We then walked around to St James Palace. We missed the entrance as we were on the pavement next to the palace, but it was interesting to see what was originally the home of the royals. Through St James Park, through Whitehall, down to see the Houses of Parliament.

It was then pass Downing Street with a couple of protests. Back through Horse Guards Parade.

We then walked past Admiralty Arch into Trafalgar Square.

Then we  caught the tube to Waterloo and then caught the train back to Kingston.

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BR Logo

I did not know this. The diagonal lines on the BR logo are not parallel. They taper outwards so they “look right”.

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11th September 2001

On 11th September 2001 I went to work at Norton Radstock College in my role as Director of the WCC.

I was working in my office, when someone came and said a plane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York.

I went the BBC News website, but it wouldn’t load. I initially put it down to the college network, but of course realised later on that it was excessive demand on their servers which was causing their site to fail to load. I tried a fair few times to get the front page to load, but had no luck.

In the end I went to the canteen where the news was on the TVs in there and there was loads of people, students and staff, just watching the TVs. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but as the day progressed it became much more apparent what had happened.

I listened to the radio news in my car on the way home, there was a lot more detail about what had happened, but less about the who and the why. We went to the gym and as I cycled away on the cycle machine the news was on the screens in front of me and the devastation and destruction was shown. It was awful. The cycle of news, of the plane crashing, the towers collapsing, the dust and debris cloud was right there in my face and it just added to my shock and disbelief.

Those memories of that day have stayed with me ever since then.

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A House Through Time

So there is a new series of the A House Through Time starting 7th September, 9pm BBC Two.

I really enjoyed the previous three series. The series on the house in Bristol was really interesting, though I think I preferred the first series on the house in Liverpool.

This one is set in Leeds.