Funny old world

I'd been out to Egham in Surrey, to wander around Royal Holloway College -- Pevsner describes it and its sister building, Holloway Sanatorium, as "the summit of Victorian High design".

It is, bizarrely, an 1881 confection based on the Château de Chambord of 1519... But more of that some other time.

Anyway, as a result I found myself leaning against a lamppost at Egham station, waiting for my train home, and I was passing the time by taking desultory photos in a rather half-hearted manner. Like this one:

As the train pulled out of the station I kept snapping -- truly dismal photography, if I may say so.

And then something extraordinary happened: in self-defence, a man who had found himself in my frame started taking photos of me...

I was being so pathetic that, at the time, I didn't notice he had done that. I had seen the pair of them earlier, standing at a ticket machine, and noted the photographer's friend in his tight stretchy top (whose very sexy good looks have not been enhanced by my dismal photography, I'm ashamed to say). 

But flip-flop-footed photographer is, now I come to study these images, actually rather lovely. I wonder if he'll see himself on here...?

More Art, Jim

It's been an utter eternity since I featured any Performance Art on here.

God, what am I thinking?

I have no idea what's going on in this sequence, although the preponderance of drool suggests some sort of zombification, possibly.

It's hard to say: my brain is too focussed on the lovely wee jutting cock and dangly balls of this curly-haired lovely...

...with just the right amount of chest hair and a big bushy exuberance...

...though actually his mate is also rather fine. No, very fine, actually:

Performance Art: I just can't get enough.

Any background info would be gratefully received.

Sign of the times

These signs are near-ubiquitous in western urban cities:

I've always found them a bit sad: the whole point of grass is to experience the springy bounce of it under your feet, not to look at it but never touch.

So it was with considerable satisfaction that I stumbled across this double entendre version of that sign:

It makes me smirk in a stupid, school-boy way. Utterly ridiculous. But delicious.

Bath time

It's entirely possible that I have posted this picture before.

But I stumbled across it in my files this morning and fell in love all over again.

At least I am predictable.

Very fine

Just the one of this fine chap, but I am such a sucker for a good torso.

Especially a hairy torso.

Yummy.

RIP

Sad news, with the appearance of obituaries for Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach.

Leach was one of that breed of Nelsonian commanders that Britain throws up from time to time. He found himself in the position of First Sea Lord (what a brilliant title) and head of the Royal Navy at the time Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands.

The Defence Secretary, John Nott, did not believe it was possible to recapture and hold the islands with an 8,000 mile long supply chain. The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, dithered. At a critical moment, Leach pushed himself into a meeting of the two and he was asked for his advice -- could we re-take the islands by force? Famously he replied that we could do it, and that in his view we should.

That last statement went far beyond what was permissable for the military when advising politicians, but Thatcher asked what he meant. He replied that if we didn't do it, or if we half-heartedly did it and were not completely successful, "we should be living in a different country which counts for very much less [in the world]".

Leach had certainly learned the lessons of the Great War, when the two mightiest navies in the world -- British and German -- circled each other like wary wrestlers, never properly coming into contact, both sides more concerned to protect the integrity of their precious forces than actually to use them in combat.

Given the unpreparedness of the Royal Navy in 1914 this was probably a wise thing for the British to do, but in the 1980s the Navy was in much better shape. And Leach was made of sterner stuff than some of his more nervous predecessors: he succinctly expressed his view as "what the Hell's the point of having a navy if you're not going to use it?".

Leach was the prime mover, the leader of the four admirals who, between them, drove Argentina from the Falklands, albeit at a considerable price to both sides. Those four -- Leach, Terence Lewin, John Fieldhouse and Sandy Woodward -- masterminded one of the most unlikely imperial wars of modern times. Credit for their achievements was mostly given to Thatcher, for reasons which remain inexplicable to me, and Leach became a severe thorn in her government's side over the succeeding years as he campaigned against what he saw as unjustifiable and iniquitous cuts in the Royal Navy.

Ironically, after the cuts he had argued against a rather capable navy was left behind, but one which now has major strategic gaps: my own view is that there are still too many ultra-high-tech mega-boats (the vast new Daring Class destroyers, for instance, above) and far too few cheaper, corvette-sized craft and patrol boats, particularly in a world that is moving to asymmetric warfare with a greater emphasis on a maritime policing role.

A few navies have tentatively explored this new approach -- Denmark's "mother" ship, HDMS Absalon, is a fascinating experiment (above and below) -- but the Royal Navy remains utterly committed to the big, complex ship.

That was the Absalon at speed

The helicopter carrier HMS Ocean is a brilliant example of a new sort of warship:

... as are the amphibious warfare ships HMS Albion and Bulwark:

 ...and the Royal Navy's fleet of nuclear attack submarines provide maritime strength that is pretty much unsurpassed anywhere:

So much for the very big guns, the River class offshore patrol boats are an interesting concept, using commercial shipbuilding practices to produce smaller ships which can be adapted to a variety of roles.

Their primary purpose is fisheries protection, but they have also been designed with Antarctic patrol work in mind (one of them, HMS Clyde, is larger than the other three, and may be a useful model for a future corvette):

But there are just four of them (and the three smaller vessels are more suited for offshore work than deep ocean).

The Navy did do some interesting thinking on a future corvette sized craft, and a prototype -- the RV Triton -- was built to test some of the new ideas.

A trimaran design (intended to provide much greater stability in rough seas, to make it a surer weapons platform and provide easier landing for a helicopter), Triton proved rather capable. It now works for the Australian Customs Service as an armed patrol vessel:

Radical though this thinking is, it is on a par with what some other navies have also been considering:

 And ships like this:

 However, there seems little prospect of such new approaches forcing the Royal Navy to abandon its solely "big ships" policies for something that may be more flexible and adaptable.

But a ten year absence of aircraft carrier capability will be sorely missed, now the government has scrapped the Navy's existing carriers and fleet of Sea Harrier aircraft, and the new Queen Elizabeth class carriers currently under construction are more than a decade away (with planes not yet ready for them, either, and one of the two now due to go straight into mothballs, assuming it can't be sold).

A Falklands War today would be unlikely to fall so easily in Britain's favour, no matter how many Henry Leaches we had in command.

Rule Britannia, etc, etc

Who says Adventures in Beige is anti-monarchist? To celebrate today's royal nuptials, here's a montage stolen from somewhere else which reveals William's, er, crown jewels:

Yes, yes, I know I've posted them on one or other of my blogs already. But, perhaps surprisingly, relatively few images of this royal cock have surfaced on the web. Let alone pictures of William's penis.

Bushy, man

Pubic shaving has reached such absurd levels among porn stars that I am now even prepared to feature men with Giant Mutant cocks provided they have a gloriously effusive bushy exuberance.

In truth, this is no real sacrifice -- chaps like this one are quite lovely anyway.

But all that hair is so enticingly lovely, whether with water cascading through it or, post-showery, all dry and crinkly/fluffy.

There's something manly and mysterious about a thickly be-pubed bush. I remain perplexed that everyone seems to have decided shaving is the way to go.

Down the line

Cheddington station is about 35 miles (50km) north of London's Euston station, firmly in commuter country.

It's on the old London & North Western route, what today is the West Coast Mainline. The station was rebuilt in the 1960s, at the time the WCML was electrified, so it's in the standard BR(M) form of a low, flat-roofed brick pavilion, with a large island platform in the middle of the four-track way.

This preamble is by way of introduction to a trio of rather atmospheric night photos taken by some talented yet anonymous photographer.

I like these images a lot, despite the fact (or possibly due to the fact) that there's almost nothing to them:

The absence of any people adds to their charms, I think.

I have never succeeded in taking decent night-time photographs. I am jealous.

Only two

A pair of images by a hugely talented photographer whose work has appeared on here before:

I love this style, the easy, naturally naked poses of the playful model contrasting with the harsh, industrial setting:

I only wish there were more.

A lot more, actually: I'd buy the book.

Topping

This is, apparently, a "legitimate" (ie, non-porn) Top Model.

His name is, apparently, Trevor Donovan.

I have never heard of him, but apparently he thinks that this is an entirely appropriate photograph to sell the merits of Abercrombie & Fitch garments:

Top Models, eh? Doncha you just love them?

This is the end of the line (soon)

For those of us who live in these here parts, this is a familiar-enough sight: a London Underground train of the District Line waiting at its Kensington (Olympia) terminus to start its short journey, via Earl's Court, to High Street Kensington:

The journey appears as a weird wee "U" on the tube map (though the implication that you can get a through train from Olympia to travel north of High St Ken is utterly wrong):

But it's been a restricted service for some time now, as the legend on the Tube Map attests:

In a massive shock (for weird people like me), Transport for London has announced that, from December, it is minded no longer to run any weekday District Line trains to or from Olympia. Instead, they say, with the revived London Overground service, passengers can use those more frequent trains (every 15 minutes from May, allegedly) and buses instead of the District Line.

The only problem with this fine sentiment, of course, is that the Overground from here doesn't easily connect with central London whereas the District Line does.

The other problem is that Overground trains on this section are already hideously overcrowded at almost all times, as we worship at the temple that is the Westfield shopping complex at Shepherd's Bush.

The service currently operates with three trains an hour (delightfully asymmetrically organised rather than being at the 20 minute intervals you might expect), and this is supposed to go up to 4/hour in May.

Still, after the fiasco of turning the Circle Line into a tea-cup (in the interests of providing a "better service", apparently, despite then actually reducing the number of Circle Line trains from 7/hour to 6/h, and forcing all SW-N passengers to change at Edgware Road. A notorious Hell-hole of inefficient operation)... who knows what TfL is capable of?

Could this really be the, er, end of the line for weekday District Line services?

Yeah, I don't think I quite managed to make that as dramatic a post as I had intended. Maybe this is not really news at all, actually.