Painting With Mud

Hokay … No naked and floppy male genitalia for the girls today.
And no jiggly and perky teen boobies for the boys (dammit).

Today we go painting with mud.
I've not done any oil painting for years, but that's what it always felt like to me; sliding around in slurpy mud. I never really got the hang of it.

Here's one of my old ones: the ruins of St.Benet's Abbey (is there a Saint Benaut?), just down the river from my village.

And a slightly closer view (at least it is if you click on it).

I no longer have the spare time to paint in oils, so I gave up a while back.
But Robyn tells me that painting in acrylics is like oils but that you don't have to wait three weeks for the bloody things to dry enough to overpaint, so I might have a go at those.

Has anyone else tried acrylics?
Lynn? You're a successful painter; you know these things.
Advice, please.

Something For The Lay-dees

Well, this is for Lynn and Mme B and I must say you've both earned it with your lovely compliments yesterday.

As it's Holy Week I suppose posting a picture of someone who looks like Jesus is fairly apt.

Click on him for more detail.

And as Lynn would pout (most fetchingly, no doubt) if I kept his genitalia hidden, here's a quick pen study of Gary with his cock out.

Enjoy.
Hee hee

More Stiffy Trouble

Rich has been running an occasional series of posts about his art classes (and the girl he had a crush on), which are not only excellent in themselves but have the admirable side-effect of taking me right back to university and my own art college days (and a girl I had a crush on).

So I dug around in my studio and found some dusty portfolios (I never throw old crap away) stuffed with my college work and fired up the scanner.
Today I present to you a Monday bonus:
Gratuitous Nudity, a pretty girl and a Dive stiffy embarrassment story (what another one, you ask?) … Yes, another one.

Hokay … Let's hit the swirly effects and head back in time to 1978 (cue Kate Bush singing "Wuthering Heights" and a suddenly slim and hirsute college-boy Dive).

And here we are in life class (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays), where we get to sit and chat with Gary (who drums in a rival band to Dive) while he poses, stark naked, for us to draw.
It's either Gary or Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a lovely, middle-aged woman who always starts each session holding herself in; all firm and slim and upright. But we soon learn to anticipate "the sag" and draw accordingly, her body gradually surrendering to gravity until at the end of the session she actually looks like what we have drawn … What looks to me now like a wonderful, soft, rounded and beautiful middle-aged woman's body but back then just looked saggy and old (sigh).

So now we take a quick sidestep back to school and Dive being in the same class as a certain Louise, for whom he has the unrequited hots …

Are you still with me?
Then you'll have already guessed what happens next.

Sure enough; Elizabeth goes on holiday and we get a stand-in.
We're milling around in the life studio when in walks Louise, all jaunty and "Hi, Dive! How are you?"
"Wow! Louise! Are you joining our class?"
"No. I'm modelling today."
Cue what must have been the most comical expression my face has ever made, which reduces her to a fit of the giggles.

And the next three and a half hours pass chatting and catching up, whilst trying desperately to hide my whopping stiffy.
Sitting nekkid in front of me is a girl with whom I have sat in class, mentally undressing her many times in my spotty teenage schooldays.

Of course, Louise knows full well how I feel - and the trouser mayhem I am suffering - and flirts outrageously.

Anyhoo … This is my favourite of the half-dozen poses from that morning, because it actually looks like her.
And because moving round to get her in profile meant that she couldn't keep catching my eye and grinning and staring at my crotch, so I could actually concentrate on drawing her.
Click on the pic for more detailed perky teen … er …

After class we shared lunch in the refectory and had a damned good laugh about it all.
But my feelings remained - inevitably - unrequited so we just stayed on chatting terms.
And she never came back to life class, no matter how much I tried to talk Elizabeth into taking another break.

I wonder where she is now.
And if she's as saggy as me …
Sigh …

Here Am I Floating Round My Tin Can

"Here am I, floating round my tin can,
Far above the moon,
Planet Earth is blue,
And there's nothing I can do …"

I make no excuses for another NASA post because it's fucking brilliant.

Before you do anything else, flick iTunes on and find Bowie's "Space Oddity".
Then sing along as "it's time to leave the capsule if you dare."

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen
and welcome back to The Rick And Mike Show,
coming to you today from Space!
Yaaay!

More screengrabs from NASA TV showing genuine Grade 'A' heroes, Rick Lenahan and Mike Foreman working their socks off to get Dexter the robot up and running.

This is what the sun looks like from space. Wowee!

"Weightless" means what it says on the box.
Watch in awe as Mike carries tons of metal in one hand.
On the right of the picture is one of Dexter's enormous arms and on the left is the socket into which it will fit.
Superman, eat your heart out!

Would anyone here honestly rather watch "Big Fucking Brother"?
THIS is reality TV!

"Day Two of Rick and Mike's spacewalk" and are the two guys sitting by the pool, arguing?
Are they fuck!

I want to be born all over again and be a spaceman.

Rick and Mike carry on a great and funny banter as they work.
They are astonishingly like Tom and Ray off NPR's "Car Talk" radio show.

They also grunt a lot when things get stuck and say "Pass the wrench" and "Good work, buddy" a lot.
And "Hey, Houston! can we use the pry-bar?" when things really get stuck and they have to hit bits of the robot to free them up.

This is the pallet that Dexter's bits are stored in.
The guys' task is simple:
Assemble several tons of metal and make a working robot.
In space!

Let's face it. The pictures from NASA are fucking astounding.

When the sun goes behind good ol' Planet Earth, the guys have nifty headlights on their helmets.

Star Wars?
Bollocks!
This is the real Mc.Coy.

"Planet Earth Is Blue And There's Nothing I Can Do"

Power tools in space!
The ultimate boys' dream!
Woohoo!

This was the pallet before they started work.
And yes, Lynn … For several parts of their mission they are "freefloating",
dicking around in outer space with no tether!
Scary or what?

And this is Dexter when the guys went in for tea.

His body and two arms are ready for placing on the ISS.

Get a hold of your own copy of the NASA TV widget and tune in right now for the greatest show on (or off) Earth.

Unless you really want to watch crap like Celebrity Liposuction.

Can You Hear Me, Major Tom?

Hokay.
You've got to bear in mind the fact that I was a space nut when I was a kid in the sixties.
I had huge posters plastered all over my room of the Earthrise and other shots taken by the crew of Apollo 8 when they whizzed around the Moon.
I was a member of the amateur astronomy club and I still have my spiffy telescope … and I still use it on occasion; it's something I'll never grow out of.

So anyhoo; last night I went on to Apple's widget download site to look for more silly crap to clutter up my dashboard, and there, on the "Staff Favourites" list was something called NASA TV …

So I downloaded and launched it and there - to my unutterably joy - was live TV from mission control!
Sure, it was only two VERY bored looking guys sitting at their workstations going through checklists with the folk up on the International Space Station, but to me it was the best bits of childhood all over again.

Then they showed this …

I thought it was a still photo, but even so, it was as cool as fuck.
To see the shuttle "Endeavour" docked with the ISS! Wow!

But then …

For a second I thought it was another "still" shot …

And then the Earth moved for me!

Non space-cadets could never imagine the thrill I got last night when I realised I was watching live TV FROM SPACE!!!
The Earth was there! Moving round below us! Woohoo!

I tried going to bed but I lay there all fitful and restless until I got up, wrapped a duvet around me, fired up the kettle and sat glued to my monitor for the entire seven hour spacewalk.
This is Mike heading down to the airlock with his cool 3D glasses on.

Here's Bob in the command centre, giving us a commentary.
For a middle-aged geek like myself to see balding old men in space is a great feeling!

Say "Hi" to Peggy.
She's going through the checklists with Mike and Eric in the airlock and making wisecracks with mission control.
Peggy's cool and funny.

Klingons!
There are grabrails like this all over the ISS, but every now and then one of the guys lets go and reaches for something else.
Shit, guys! You're not tethered yet! It's a fucking long way down if you miss your handhold.

Whew! Tethered at last.
This is Mike taking off his gloves.
You heard me … Luckily they are only "overgloves" to protect his thin inner gloves while he makes his way to the cargo bay.

That's us down there. Wave to the nice people in space.

Oooh, looky!
Cute little spacemen.
For someone who watched the very first spacewalk all those decades ago, seeing this live on my monitor was simply staggering.
The guys are installing "Dexter", the "dextrous" robot with two, multi-jointed, eleven foot long arms who will be taking over a lot of the maintenance duties on the outside of the ISS.

Cool as fuck, or what?

No more terrestrial TV for me. I'm hooked.

Eye Candy

So here we are, right on top of the spiffy London Eye.
Boffo!

Kate was mentioning prices in the comments for the first part of this post.
The Eye is dirt cheap. Pop across to their website and you'll find the price of a spiffy, fifty minute ride to be £15.
Fifteen quid! For fuck's sake, you can't buy a round of drinks for that!
I fully recommend the combined ride on the Eye and river trip. For very few groats more, you get a boat to take you from the Eye all the way down river to Tower Bridge and back and - as you should know by all my nagging and photo posts - the best way to see historic London is from the Thames.
So book your tickets right now, Kate, and remember to turn up at ten (it opens at half past) and blag an early ride in a nearly empty gondola.

Good news for Lynn and Utsav and anyone else of a vertiginous bent.
Despite the height, you get no real feeling of vertigo.

Honest!

When the ride starts, the chickenshits tend to huddle together on the big seats in the middle, but as it goes up I invariably find more and more of them tentatively approaching the edge and going "Oooh! It's not scary at all. You don't get a sense of the height."
Because you're fully enclosed it feels safe.
So no excuses!

Anyhoo … It's the view you've come up here to see.
And of course to wave at me in my office.

So come and join us at the window and we'll take a look see.

Upriver, you can see Battersea and Chelsea and Westminster, with the Houses of Parliament (anagram: The House Of Rampant Lies) just across the Thames.

Here you can see Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence with St.James's Park behind.
My walk to work takes me along the riverside or through the park.

A bit further round and we find Somerset House and Charing Cross Station.
Follow the road up and you'll reach the Mecca of tourist tat, Oxford Street with the Telecom Tower in the background.

Right in the middle, far in the distance you'll make out Tower 42 and The Gherkin.
A few hundred yards the other side of them is Liverpool Street Station, where Old Dive starts his walk to work in the mornings.
Flick back up to the Big Ben shot and you'll see why I'm still remarkably fit.
It's about a five mile hike and I don't hang about.

Terroni was asking what Londoners think of the Eye.
We are a cynical bunch; probably even more bitter and twisted than those most English of Americans, our brothers in Noo Yoik, and so we heaped scorn on the Eye while it was being constructed.

But then we had a go and "Whee!"
We love it.
We're actually quite proud of it and feel that everyone who visits should take a ride.

It also looks pretty spiffy.

So there you have it.
Kate and Shazza are both visiting the UK this year.
Come an take a ride on the Eye.

Coffee and sushi is on me.

Old Dive's Friday Crap Hunt

Being unable to post the second half of my Eye piece today (a big "thanks for nothing" to the kind folk at Blogger for eating my photographs), I have been inspired by Shazza's marvellous Friday "Drippin' With Cheese" series to offer up a plea for help.

In a long and strange life I've managed to track down just about every obscure and trashy piece of music known to mankind, yet one alleged "song" still eludes the grasping clutch of Dive.
Perhaps some of you out there in the Colonies might be able to help.

I heard this a few times on good ol' John Peel's show back in the eighties.
I'm sure I did … yet the BBC seem to have no record of such a record.
It was a country song.
It was sung by a trucker, in the form of a prayer as he races his big-rig back across the States to make it home in time for his little girl to die of some amusing disease.
Only he doesn't make it and finishes up bawling by her grave (hey, it's a country song; what do you expect?) …
Anyhoo; I think the name of this yee-haw abomination was "Eighteen Wheels For Jesus" and I must have it! I MUST!

I thought it was by the poetically monickered Bing Hitler, but apparently this is not the case.

Please help a desperate man to find this lost chunk of crap for my collection.
There will be a reward, but knowing me it will be obscenely biological and best avoided.

Bummer

Dammit!
Stupid fucking Blogger!
I loaded up all the photos for the second part of the Eye post before I left home this morning and now I am in the office I find Blogger has lost most of them.
Bastard!
I'll have to post it when I get home.
Hey ho.

Whee!

"Ooooh! You'll never get me up in one of those!"

Ah, but I will!
Strap in and hold tight if you're afraid of heights.
If not, then jump on board!
For the next couple of days, Old Dive is going to take you for a ride on this:

The good old London Eye.
Hoorah!

It's all held together with bits of string.

Just like a bicycle wheel, except much more of a bummer if it gets a puncture.

Even from ground level it can induce vertigo.
The bastards wouldn't let me go up those steps.

For anyone who has been afraid to have a go on the Eye, you can see from here that it is indeed all made out of drinking straws and string, so it's nice and safe.

You get to ride in one of these.
Cool, huh?

This bit is for those who don't like heights.

And this is for those who do.

I sometimes sit and watch this thing out of my window, down there behind Big Ben.
Tomorrow, we'll take a look at some more scary views.
Fun!

My Cheeks Are Cracked, My Cock Is Drown'd

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, and germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!"

In case you'd not guessed, it's still fucking windy here.
Most of an elderly elder tree is currently having a lie down on my back lawn, yet the blossom on my plum trees and the stupidly early flowering cherry still clings on for dear life.

They say the gales will die down tonight, which means Old Dive goes apeshit with the chainsaw tomorrow morning.
Any passing minibus full of unfeasibly attractive college kids better watch out!
Perhaps I'd better play Puerto Muerto's "Lost Soundtrack To The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" loudly to warn them off.

Anyone paying attention will have surmised that I'm still too busy sorting out repairs to our storm damaged schools to post anything coherent.
King Lear and Leatherface … Hmm … An odd combination of post subjects but when I'm too busy to write you'll have to put up with whatever seeps out the cracks in my mind.
Sorry.