Photography
Colourful and poignant memorial to the tragedy of the HIV/Aids pandemic, which took so many people in the Eighties and Nineties, many of them my closest friends and fondest playmates. I liked the panel with the motto “For those we dare not name” which encapsulates the ethic of gay promiscuity before HIV/Aids. Most of my friends requested that mourners wear white or colourful clothes for their funerals. Several times I played out one last time a deceased’s favourite HiNRG music and gay anthems like “I am what I am”. The diversity of styles and the colours of the Quilt community art project reflect that mentality of life lived to the max then snatched by disease.
I first remember seeing panels of the Quilt at the Body Positive Centre, the London Lighthouse and the Mildmay when visiting various friends, some for the last time and some who are named on a panel in the Quilt. Revisiting today the complete tapestry exhibited in all its tragic extent is a raw experience. I celebrate being a survivor of those times, and several other events since. Fantastic that “I’m still here” (as the song in Sondheim’s Follies runs) and with that there’s a duty to “smell the flowers while you can”, a great motto that’s a reminder of those cruel times.
AIDS UK Memorial Quilt at Tate Modern continues until 16 June 2025
More photos: Smell the flowers while you can... UK AIDS Memorial Quilt at Tate Modern
Spring flowers on the South Downs Way around Ditchling Beacon (248 m.). The abundance of colour is striking on the green of the grassland, a surge of spring after the bleak straw of winter. No particularly rare species, the orchids aren’t flowering here yet.
More photos: South Downs flowers - South Downs National Park
Cambridge ahead by more than a length at Hammersmith Bridge
Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race 2025
Rowing Eights on the Thames are a wonderful sight and sound: athletes working as a team. I was lucky to see the winning overtakes by Cambridge Women and also Cambridge Reserves; Cambridge Men’s boat had already pulled clear of Oxford before Hammersmith Bridge and also went on to win. Oxford have more uniform style amongst the oarsmen but Cambridge’s greater individualism is clearly a winning strategy.
Of course it’s about winning (Go Cambridge!) but it’s also a day out, either in the organised Fan Zones or the vernacular picnics on the Surrey station, ie the Putney/Barnes bank of the Thames: strawberries and fizz with smoked salmon dips or just beer and BBQ treats. Today’s total crowd estimated to be more than 300,000 people.
April showers after the Men’s boats had passed cleared the banks but sent many on to a Post-Boat-Race party.
Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons.
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns!
(traditional Nursery Rhyme)
Fresh and spicy: hot cross buns still warm from Ravens Bakers in Preston Park, Brighton. Traditionally, hot cross buns were only baked as treats on Good Friday. We now get ours the day before - Maundy Thursday - as there’s usually a long queue on Good Friday for these because they’re hand-made and scrumptious!
The three-kilometre-long exuberant Boulevard de Garavan, lined with fragrant trees and hanging from the cliffs, takes a contoured and panoramic route from Menton Old Town to the border with Italy at Pont Saint-Louis. .
Sylvain Jaffret was the architect of the Boulevard de Garavan, where the mountains meet the sea. Construction started in 1882, completed in 1888. The people of Menton soon nicknamed it the “Babylonian dream”. The Boulevard de Garavan continues to attract the world’s elite to its heavenly setting with mild winters
More photos: Architecture of the “Babylonian dream”: Boulevard de Garavan, Menton
