Unholy Lineup

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This unusual view of the former Communist East Berlin TV tower and the beautiful St. Marien Kirche is seen as you walk down Karl Liebknecht Strasse towards Unter den Linden.

Indian Melodies

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This group of South American musicians in Berlin's Pariser platz were wired for sound with every conceivable electronic gadget.

Deadly Transport

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A beautifully restored Mercedes Benz hearse is used as daily transport by a Kreutzberg resident in Berlin. There are lots of cobblestoned streets in Berlin and they are all maintained in good order and definitely never tarmacked over, ever.

First Wall

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9 am. and I am nearly half way up the first wall. Mixing and plastering on your own is no joke.

Holy Smoke

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A study of my brother in law, Joe Dillon. The carboniferous exhalation is frozen by the flash.

The Plastering

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The plastering has begun, or is it more accurately called rendering, when sand and cement are used. It's such a long time since I did any of this kind of work, I decided to start on a small section which is a buttress on the original garden wall. I'm looking forward to the rest now, even though it will be back-breaking work.

Suspense

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A twin-engined propeller plane is suspended over a viewing platform which extends high above the street below at the Berlin Technology Museum in Kreutzberg. The famous television tower in former East Berlin can just be made out in the lower right of the shot. Photographing against a bright sky background is not easy and this shot has had a lot of computer manipulation. I always shoot in "raw" format to allow more latitude for tweaking the shot later.

Kaiser Bill's Monkey Is Missing

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The organ grinder in Berlin's Alexanderplatz is content to use a toy monkey for his performance. The more civilized European countries do not allow the exploitation of animals in this manner, which is a good thing, but the use of animals for medical research and for sensitivity testing in the cosmetics industry is still widely practiced.

Berlin

I've just returned from Berlin. I'll post some nice shots in the next few days.

Mission Accomplished

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My grandson Simon dismounts after a spectacular 40 minute chopper flight over Manhattan last year. Grandad had to sit in the back. Everything in New York is great value, with the Greenback at such a low compared with the Euro, at the moment. We both agree that of all the places we have been together, New York New York beats them all. We can't wait to go back.

The Wall Ties

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Whoever built my shed, soon to become my workshop, didn't bother to connect two of the walls together, which has meant that they have separated by about 3 inches over the 40 years or so since construction. To halt this migration and to prevent a catastrophic collapse, I have welded up a couple of heavy-duty angle brackets, rawl-bolted them to the left wall and through-bolted them with exterior plates on the right. The cemented-up gap can be seen in the middle.