Archive for December 2010
December 30, 2010
I never had a chance to take a Christmas shot of St George’s Hall this year. This is from 2009.
December 30, 2010
Much easier to take a shot from Exchange Flags than it is from Castle Street 
December 18, 2010
I made the big mistake of advising my wife and son to visit one of our local florists to buy flowers to celebrate our son’s 12 month anniversary with his girlfriend. Big mistake! The gentleman was rude and sullen to my wife and son. I phoned up to complain and as soon as I heard the miserable greeting on the other end of the phone, I had a feeling this was the person concerned. I explained that he’d lost business from my wife and son and explained why. His reply was ‘Lost what from who?’ – so I had to explain veeeeerrrrryyyy slowly ‘Lost business from wife and son’. LOL! I’m laughing now, but not then. Perhaps he had a busy day, but my wife works in a vey busy hospital and even on her really bad days, she’s a little ray of sunshine compared to the gentleman in the florist
The shop concerned is Roses ‘N’ Buds, 28 Sundon Park Parade, Sundon Park Road, Luton. Keep well away from it and spend your money at the many other Luton florists instead.
December 16, 2010
The following description of the 11 minute film is by Richard Koeck from the BFI Screenonline website
Survey of Liverpool Corporation’s housing programme, introduced by L.H. Keay, architect and director of housing in Liverpool.
Beginning with a prologue that sets the heroic tone that permeates the rest of the film, Homes for Workers “aims to illustrate the vast amount of work done by the Liverpool Corporation to re-house tenants of insanitary [sic] houses”. The film has particular architectural significance since its commentator was Liverpool’s foremost authority on housing at the time,L.H. Keay.Keay illustrates how various Housing Acts, such as the Slum Clearance and Rehousing Act of 1930, enabled local authorities, including in Liverpool, to implement concrete plans to improve the poor state of working-class housing. To prove his point, Keay provides impressive figures indicating that the number of those re-housed by the Corporation, grew from 11,000 in 1914 to 122,000 in 1938. At the same time, over 29,000 houses were erected on the outskirts of the city, many in so-called self-contained communities such as Speke, which provided, in close proximity to local industry, social facilities such as schools and libraries.
Homes for Workers includes impressive aerial shots of Liverpool that show the extent to which the city had engaged in a housing programme. Two of the inner-city tenement courts mentioned are Gerard Gardens (also shown in Basil Dearden’s Violent Playground, 1958), and Myrtle Gardens, both of which are excellent examples of modern architecture in Liverpool. Gerard Gardens, whose foundation stone was laid in 1934, is also interesting because it refers, in architectural terms as well as in the way it addressed a particular social agenda, to similar housing programmes in continental Europe, such as that of the Karl-Marx-Hof (1927-30) in Vienna, built by Karl Ehn. A particular highlight of the film is the testimony of an ‘ordinary’ Liverpool housewife who, with a noticeably non-Liverpool accent, dutifully recites the benefits of Keay’s housing programme, such as the use of gas appliances, hot water and other amenities of modern living which provide her with a ‘happier and healthier’ way of living.
Richard Koeck
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December 12, 2010
Nick Broomfield’s first film about slum clearance in Liverpool
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December 11, 2010
My ‘virtual’ Christmas card video to all Scousers who live home and abroad. Music is by Frank Sinatra – ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’.
Click image to start video
December 10, 2010
Shot through a window from the 24th floor of Liverpool’s Beetham Tower. Thinking back, I should have waited a little longer until the sun rose up further from the back of Liverpool.
December 9, 2010
Playing around with Photoshop again to give the impression of a toy car. Pretty easy to do considering the actual size of the thing. How do people fit in cars like that? Shot on the corner of Leeds Street and North John Street, Liverpool.
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December 9, 2010
A little animated gif I cooked up. Good luck to the students today in London. Behave yourselves please!
December 8, 2010
Playing around in Photoshop to give the Royal Daffodil Mersey Ferry the tilt-shift effect and it’s turned out pretty good. I also boosted the colour saturation to give it a ‘plastic’ feel.
