Out & about Summer 2014

In the past, I have used this blog just for those photos where I have something to write about, and put the rest of my non sports photos on Facebook. However, I know a few photography entusiasts who like to see metadata - focal lengths, exposures etc., so I shall put a link on here, as the information is available viewing in Google+, whereas it is not on Facebook.

So, here goes for the first collection, with some from the Giant Spectacular in Liverpool over the summer ...

Grandma Giant & Little Girl Giant

... a wet weekend in Scarborough ...

A Yorkshire special offer

... and a mainly nocturnal walk in London.

Looking east from the Millennium Footbridge

The collection on Google+ can be seen here.

Depicting John the Baptist

We have just come to the end of the Octave of the Nativity of St John the Baptist. The feast is on June 24th, and an octave is 8 days, including the feast, to extend the celebration.

Readers in most of England may need some introduction to John the Baptist, as his feast has been little celebrated since the Reformation. A remnant survives in commerce, as it is a quarter day - a day, along with St Michael & All Angels (September), Christmas and the Annunciation (March) on which many quarterly payments of rent etc. fall due.

Readers in Finland will need no introduction - Juhannus, called Midsummer when speaking in English, is one of the principal holidays of the year, celebrated with bonfires and traditional events, and marks the time when many city residents head to the countryside for a few weeks in the open air.

As the church in which I worship is dedicated to St John the Baptist, we have a number of depictions of the saint.

This statue was designed by Sir Ninian Comper, and was installed as a memorial to those men from the parish who died in the Second World War. It is said to have been modelled on Nijinsky, which unfortunately leads someone of my age to think of a horse.

A prominent statue like this will often strike a balance between depicting  what we know of the saint (a prickly character, denouncing his hearers as a brood of vipers) and producing an attractive work of art - the congregation will after all have to look at it for many years to come. This one may have erred on the side of art, we know from the Biblical accounts that John lived in the wilderness, and ate locusts and wild honey, so our statue is a little well groomed, and his garment, of camel hair, well washed and brushed.

We also have a statue above the north porch, outside the building, which is a more traditional depiction, presumably designed by George Frederick Bodley, as it is a fixture of his building.

The flowing beard, hidden in this picture by the Lamb, suggests a venerable old age, which John did not reach. We know he was about 6 months older than Jesus, and was beheaded before Jesus' Crucifixion, which suggests an age no more than about 30. Again, the hair is in suspiciously good order, and we only catch a glimpse of the camel hair garment under an outer robe.

Of course, it is easier to depict John's likely appearance in paint.

When the south porch was enclosed as part of a corridor to the hall a few years ago, a fresco was commissioned from a Romanian Orthodox artist, Laurentiu Nechita. It depicts Christ in Majesty, flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, so we can see John as he is depicted in the Orthodox tradition. The hair and beard are more dishevelled, although the camel hair garment is, strangely, blue. Instead of the Lamb in the statues, John bears the Biblical text, "Behold the Lamb of God" the words that he uttered when Jesus came to him for baptism.

These very different works endeavour to depict John as he is described in his adult ministry. He also appears in Scripture at the beginning of his life, when his father Zechariah declares (by writing, as he has been deprived of the power of speech as a sign that the events revealed to him in a vision will take place), that the child is not to be named after his father, as would have been the custom, but to be called John, meaning "grace".

I am not sure of the wisdom of depicting the infant John in a statue, but someone had a go.

We know little of the provenance of this statue, but it looks like a classic example of mid Victorian sentimental bad taste, described by a former Vicar as a "hideous little gnome". It once occupied the pride of place now taken by the Comper statue, so I think we have a better lot than our forebears in that regard.

Don't you just hate it ...

... when you go to take a picture of the Liverpool historic waterfront, and find someone has parked a boat in the way?

Queen Mary 2 moored in Liverpool

Queen Mary 2 visited Liverpool in September 2011. The original Queen Mary was registered in Liverpool, but never visited, as the 39' draught was too deep, whereas the Queen Mary 2, registered at the time in Southampton (subsequently registered in Bermuda to allow for weddings to take place on board), despite being over half as large again, has a draught of only 33'.

The Red Ensign - no longer flying on the stern of the Queen Mary 2

The time window for coming in to the estuary is quite tight, but when the tide is right, it allows a liner or cruise ship enough time for passengers to spend most of the day in the city.

Coming in

The best views of the ships using the cruise terminal in front of the City's historic waterfront can be obtained from Egremont Promenade, between Seacombe Ferry Terminal and New Brighton.

Queen Mary 2 and Liverpool Waterfront

From the Woodside Ferry Terminal in Birkenhead, or even better from the tower of Birkenhead Priory, the ship sits beside the Historic Waterfront and the newer buildings to the north.

Large passenger ships should become more frequent visitors, as the City Council has agreed to repay government grants used constructing the cruise terminal, to allow cruises to start and end in Liverpool. The money needs to be repaid, as, under European Union rules, it counts as illegal state aid. The rationale is that allowing cruises to start and end in Liverpool, giving people in the North a convenient location to start their holidays instead of going to Southampton, and allowing people to stay in Lancashire and Cheshire before starting their cruises only benefits Liverpool, and is therefore not allowed. On the other hand, only allowing ships to stop for long enough for a day in Liverpool City Centre benefits the whole region, and is allowed. No, I do not understand either.

Still, there will soon be the romance of people striding across the gangplank, high above the water, on to the promenade deck, on their way to exotic destinations. Well, not quite, the way on board puts function very much ahead of form these days.

Mother church

If I get into a regular pattern with this blog, there will be quite a few pictures of churches, I usually pop in if one is open when I am out and about. There is usually something of interest, even if in some cases it is what some clergy can do to an historic building. So, to start the ball rolling, here are some pictures of the church where I worship, St John the Baptist, Tuebrook, Liverpool.

Traditionally, the term "mother church" refers to the church in which you were baptised, and as I started attending as an adult, I was baptised here.

The amount of decoration in the church is similar to that in mediæval times. Not that it is mediæval: spending most of my time in church in Victorian buildings, when I visit a church that has been standing since the middle ages, I am struck by how plain it is. In the ancient church, the decoration was been painted over at the Reformation, and there is little or no visual evidence, apart from where restoration has uncovered fragments of a wall painting. This church is instead Gothic Revival - the conception of the architect, George Frederick Bodley, of what a 14th century English Gothic church looked like.

We cannot boast any of the scenes of the Last Judgment that adorned the walls in the middle ages, but we have the rather fine stencil work above: as I had been a bit wild with the incense on Easter Sunday, it nicely set off the light coming through the clerestory windows.

We will come back here again to look in more detail at other parts of the church, but for now, this is a taste of what I am used to in a church, to shed a bit of light on my comments on others.