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I can't take self-portraits. God knows I've tried, but it just won't work. So I admire all the more the chap in these images:

His extraordinary dexterity with the camera is second only the loveliness of his lovely physique.

He also goes in for some arty type shots, too:

Pretty nifty, huh?

Oh, and by the way, I'm off for another week. Prague this time, in case you were wondering (and no, no fun involved). See you when I get back.

I just can't help it...

It goes without saying that the chap who took this sequence is not a particularly great photographer, but he can certainly choose models.

I am in awe of this manly, hairy stud-puppy.

And sometimes the photographer can surprise us with a particularly intriguing angle on things:

The model is playful and apparently very sexual...

This next one places the emphasis on all the right parts...

And sometimes the model himself appears to be unable to resist handling the goods:

The lighting changes dramatically for this next series of close-crops:

I love the emphasis on the fleshly reality, the hairy loveliness, the sexual arousal...

And then something remarkable happens.

The photographer shatters the fourth wall, intruding himself into the shot in a way that I find overwhelmingly erotic.

Let's finish here, with a shot that I find a complete turn-on. I am hugely impressed:

Wow. After decades of carefully studying pornography I can still be blown-away by a sequence like this. I am staggered at just how hard-wired I am to be receptive to porn. Thank God for the net!

Coming in handy

Two brilliant self-portraits from the same photographer:

I love the curly pit hairs in that first image, a strangely sexy contrast to the hand paint job.

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the strongest ones. Great images.

Training

A contrasting pair of train images, starting with a sea of Siemens Desiros belonging* to SouthWest Trains:

And, in complete contrast, an archive photo from British Rail days showing a pair of then-brand new electric multiple units from the 31x family, box-fresh in their shiny new Rail Blue liveries, being towed by an ancient English Electric Type 1 (later known as a Class 20).

They seem like images from different worlds.

*Technically, they belong to one or other Rolling Stock companies (or ROSCOs), and are leased and operated by SouthWest Trains, but that's just too complicated to get into a single opening sentence.

One-r

Only one image of this boy, alas, but what an image:

I am literally drooling. Extraordinary model, great shot. Wonderful. Not enough superlatives to describe, etc, etc.

Crackers Caracas

It was my first trip to Caracas in more than twenty years, but the beauty of the setting was unchanged.

Nestling in the mountains, Caracas is obviously a city that has benefited from unimaginable amounts of petro-money:

Not all of it was frittered on concrete mega-structures -- some went into starting a nifty Metro system (which, alas, remains largely incomplete):

The view from my hotel (the appalling Eurobuilding) across the old airport (now a military strip) towards Las Mercedes and the Avila mountain beyond. Wonderful:

But Caracas has -- has always had -- vast sprawling areas of favella slums:

For mile after mile, seemingly endlessly, these self-build properties cling precariously to whatever wasteland (usually hilly) can be found:

For a country that has had so much cash, the squalor is doubly appalling and, perhaps, goes some way to explaining the popularity of the looney quasi-dictator Chavez, at least some of whose efforts have been directed towards land reform and redistribution of wealth from the incredibly rich middle classes to the impoverished slum-dwellers (some of his efforts have been bonkers, some mismanaged, one or two have worked, and all have attracted the squealing ire of the richest).

Caracas is now apparently the single most dangerous city in the world other than those in war zones. The levels of corruption and crime are equally staggering. The roads are near-deserted at night, an eerie contrast to the overwhelming traffic levels during the day, because levels of express kidnapping (often by the police themselves, administering on-the-spot "fines") are so high.

The British Embassy had moved since my last visit, to a part of the city where the local police were considered to have a reputation as reasonably straight, unlike almost every other district. The middle classes seem to be constantly changing their address as the fortunes of districts alter.

Caracas is, for me, a strangely compelling city, one I really do love despite its almost overwhelming problems.

Party time

A quartet by the same audacious photographer, who seems to like intense close-ups and savage cropping even more than me:

These images, being in black and white are, of course, "Art".

I like them a lot.

I also suspect (but have no proof) that they're self-portraits, which makes the photographer very clever indeed.

And he also has a very nice winkie, which I think we should acknowledge and, indeed, celebrate.

The world's shittiest airline?

Well, now, that's interesting -- a corporate video that American Airlines now plays on all its planes as you get ready for take-off (there are actually a couple of variations, but not of any great significance):



The trouble is, American Airlines must be in with a shout of being the World's shittiest airline, so these lovely, smiley people just show up even more how the rest of the staff are surly time-servers who patently don't want to be there (or, rather, perhaps they do, but only if all the passengers will please just disembark right now, leaving them to it).

I can understand the staff's attitude. Everything is pared to within a grudging inch of its life, like the cheapest (and I mean that in all senses) budget airline. Headphones on this 5 hour flight? Yes, sir, that'll be two dollars. A glass of wine with what they laughingly think of as "food"? That will be no less than seven bucks.

On the short haul service (and that was the 5 hour job) you had to buy any food you might want except that, er, there was no food on board for you to buy other than bucket-sized packets of synthetic chips served with buckets of Coca Cola (diet, obviously...).

Having just connected to it from another shitty American Airlines flight (two hours, sir), which also had no food, but which also contrived to arrive so late that there was no time at the connecting airport to buy anything from the shops, that was a total of 8 hours in the "care" of American Shitty Airlines, all with no food. God Bless America(n).

On a subsequent intercontinental service, tiny portions of stale "food" were served up in some sort of plastic ashtray, along with two Jacob's cream crackers (not Jacob's, actually, although I can't remember the brand) and a triangle of, er, Kraft Dairylee "cheese". I am not making this up. A small bread roll was, obviously, stale. Just to provide the finishing touch.

I hear there's a sporting chance that American will enter Chapter 11 in the coming weeks. With luck they'll be taken over by someone who actually knows how to run an airline.

PS: Here's what it's really like:



Yep, that's uncannily accurate.

Delicacy

I warn you now there are no full-frontals in this post, just a trio of images of a rather lovely hairy-chested man/boy:

There's something about him that reminds me of a youthful Maxwell Caulfield. I have no idea why.

How I yearn for a full-frontal, something that reveals the doubtless exquisite mysteries that lie tightly packed within the stretchy fabric of his rather vulgar Armani pants:

But like most vulgar or ugly clothes, a beautiful man/boy can pull them off. Er... I mean, they can wear them with panache. Though in this instance, obviously, I would have liked him to have pulled them off.

It's all Academic

I suppose the obvious theme of this post is "nudes against a dark background".

They are, kindof, Academy studies...

We've always liked those, haven't we, for the way they provide an excuse for respectable ogling of naked man-flesh in all its detail:

This next image is my favourite in this sequence:

Which is unusual for me, since obviously there is a lot more hidden there than is revealed.

But I think it's the model, his beardy youthfulness getting me all worked up...

The model in this next pair is something else altogether:

"Modern porno", I guess is the theme of this intervention...

Let's go back to the gentler world of the Academy and end with this...

Floating above the fray. How lovely.

Oh, and I'm off for a week, into the sun/tropical storms of the Caribbean. Pip pip!

Archer

This is East Finchley Underground station (which, as the photo makes plain, is, in fact, above-ground):

A glorious piece of Art Deco loveliness, it features this magnificent piece of public art:

It makes me feel all warm and glowy every time I go past it. Why isn't modern public sculpture of that sort of standard?

Wrestling with my conscience

This cheeky-looking chap has featured on here before, but now seems to be engaged in some sort of strange wrestling ritual:

I find him intensely sexy, it has to be said, although here the boys seem to be engaged in something closer to a pietà than a traditional Greco-Roman hold:

I was banging on the other day about Physique Pictorial and Athletic Model Guild, those pioneer pornographers who used wrestling as an excuse to show cute chaps getting physical:

There's something almost abstract about these entwining limbs...

At the end, of course, there is always a victor, and I'm pleased my sexy chum appears to have come out on top:

I was toying with getting tickets to the Olympic Greco-Roman events, but I decided that my pervy fantasies would be much more fun than the sweaty reality.