I have started a new blog, which is really a sub-blog of this one. I wanted to have a somewhere where I could keep all my recipes together, so I decided to set up another blog, imaginatively titled My Recipes. All the recipes on there at the moment have already featured on the main blog.
If you click on the My Recipes tab at the top of the page it will take you to the blog as will clicking on My Recipes in the blogroll. It was mainly done for my convenience, but everyone is welcome to use it.
There is a bit of an argument going on in the art world about how to clean a painting and how much to clean it. It came to a head recently over the cleaning and restoration of the Louvre‘s “The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne” painted by Leonardo da Vinci.
Two French art experts have quit The Louvre’s advisory committee in a row over the restoration of a Leonardo da Vinci painting, according to reports.
Segolene Bergeon Langle and Jean-Pierre Cuzin resigned in protest over the cleaning of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, The Guardian said. The pair claim the Paris gallery has over cleaned the 500-year-old masterpiece. They argue it has left the work with a brightness the artist never intended.
via BBC News – Louvre experts ‘quit over Leonardo da Vinci work’.
There are a couple of points that make me wonder if they have actually thought about what they are saying. I am not disputing the fact that you need to be very careful when restoring a five hundred year old masterpiece. My arguments against them are these. Firstly, cleaning is not going to create new colours, it is only going to expose the colours that Leonardo (or his assistants) put on the wood panel in the first place. Secondly, they presume to know how Leonardo intended the painting to look. Did he leave a set of notes saying that on no account should five centuries worth of candle soot and darkening varnish ever be removed from the surface of the painting? Or are they really saying, “We actually preferred it the way it was before cleaning.”? If they had said that I could have accepted it as their judgement, because that is what it is, an aesthetic judgement. Trying to invoke the ghost of Leonardo to back up your taste is not really on.
Make your own mind up, the un-cleaned painting is on the left, and the cleaned painting is on the right.(Click on the picture to see it in a larger size.)
If you want to see an even better example of the restoration of a painting take a look at this article from the Guardian about Dulwich Picture Gallery‘s restoration of a painting of St Cecilia.
The list of people and corporations who have consulted the Tarot card reader on Brighton Pier impressed me no end.
Still I suppose it’s cheaper than getting management consultants in, and the accuracy of the forecasts are probably about on par.
There has been a lack of activity on my blog recently but I hope to get back up to speed in the near future.
In the meantime Happy Christmas and enjoy the only Christmas No.1 worth listening to.
This strikes me as perhaps just a touch cheeky and optimistic.
President Barack Obama has said the US government has requested that Tehran return the surveillance drone captured by Iran’s military earlier this month.
BBC News – US asks Iran to return captured drone.
Now I can appreciate why the United States would like their spy plane back, what with all the top-secret anti-radar coatings and engines and the like. Not to mention whatever data it had picked up about Iranian nuclear installations and other interesting factoids. But do you think there is much chance? I suppose the Iranians could be a bit like the janitor when I was at primary school, and hold onto it for a day or two just to make a point then give it back.
No probably not.
There are no maps or elevation profiles for today’s journey. There was also very little cycling involved.
I needed to be at Heathrow by 11 o’clock on Sunday the 11th to collect Mrs johnm55 after her trip to Canada. (I also needed to be back at work at 8 o’clock on Monday the 12th). Cycling back home to Wallington unfortunately wasn’t an option. I could have probably thought up an excuse for not being back at work, but not picking Mrs johnm55 up at the airport…. I don’t like to think of the possible consequences.
As I had stayed the night with my sister and her husband, we loaded the bike back into the pick-up for the trip back to Duns to say cheerio to mum. My sister then took me down to Berwick to catch the train back to London. I put the bike in the guard’s van and settled down to make the return journey in fewer hours than it had taken me days to cycle up.
The East Coast Mainline follows roughly the same route as my bike trip, so as we flashed past various places I had been on the bike I took some photos through the window of the train.
The Tyne Bridges
The Angel of the North
York Minster – it is there honest
Having ate, drank and dozed my way back to London, I wheeled the bike out of King’s Cross Station onto the Euston Road ready to ride back home to Wallington. But… after a week of cycling on quiet back roads with about three cars per hour passing me, I decided that dicing with death and London traffic could wait for another day. So I wheeled the bike back to the station and onto the Thameslink train to East Croydon
The Galaxy on the train
I did have to cycle back from East Croydon, but I was up to that by the time I arrived.
The next morning I was up bright and early to make sure that I was at Heathrow in time to pick up a jet-lagged wife back from Toronto. We both had a good week.
Friday morning dawned bright and clear over Wooler. After a breakfast of porridge and toast I set off on the last leg of the trek to Duns (and what should have been last night’s evening meal). I was now back in the part of the world that I grew up in, on roads that I cycled long ago.
It was an easy day, just under thirty miles to ride and while it wasn’t flat there were no serious hills or wind to contend with. I decided to take the back road via Ford and Etal crossing the Tweed into Scotland at Norham. 
For the first part of the journey (as far as Norham) I followed National Cycle Route 68 although I ignored the off-road bits. Once you climb out of the valley of the River Till there are spectacular views across to the Cheviot Hills. Just over half way I crossed the Tweed into Scotland.
Writing about the Tweed and the Till reminded me of a dark little poem that I learned at school. The Battle of Flodden was fought near here and I think that the poem has its origin in the aftermath of battle.
Says Tweed tae Till,
“Why dae ye rin sae still?”
Says Till tae Tweed,
“Though ye rin wi’ speed,
whaer ye droon ae man
A droon twa”.
I was now in Scotland and took a photo of my bike to prove it
I forgot to take a picture of Norham Castle, so you will have to make do with Turner’s take on the scene.
After just over an hour’s ride through the rolling Berwickshire countryside I had reached my destination
By the time I had finished my shower and changed out of my cycling gear, Mum had lunch ready for me. It was a satisfying feeling to sit down to lunch knowing that I had cycled all the way from London to eat it. Later on my sister turned up with the pick-up to take Mum and I down to her house for dinner. I could have cycled there, it’s not much more than fifteen miles, but I was back wearing my normal clothes and I had done what I set out to do, so I put the bike in the back of the pick-up. Later on my brother and his wife turned up and we had a bit of a family reunion over my sister’s excellent food and probably a wee bit too much wine.
A Scotsman in Suburbia 