Friday, March 26, 2021

Fear of Foley

Note for readers

This story sprang from an idea:

https://jameshigham.wordpress.com/the-writing-of-observe-and-record-stories/

... and even had a comment from "Ralph" before it was really underway:

Mr. Higham, it is fascinating reading a story as it is coming alive. I will continue to check back in to see how Miss Magnolia fares.

Story now completed.

Monday, May 25, 2009

The Problem with Linfield


The stately home is in fact Shiwa Ngandu, in Zambia.  Gives a rough idea of the layout, gallery will be added in sidebar later.

Cast

Lift

This is a true story in that it happened, we were trapped in there – there were embellishments in the story about the food but overall, it was as you read.  The picture just below here is not of a Russian lift – far too swanky.

fixing-the-lift

I

To leave your flat in Russia for any reason, there’s a convoluted process.  First you lock the inner door, then the middle if you have one, then comes the metal outer with its deadlatches – were you to want to burgle a Russian flat, you also sometimes have a metal landing door with lock as well, then the lift or stairs down, then an outer door at the end of the ‘foyer’. Despite all that, most security is via neighbours being about … if they’re good neighbours, that is.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Moon Over Sedna



Foreword

The 2005 Outer Reaches conference in New York had reached the last day and the topic was Sedna. The hall was packed. This slide [later part of a Wiki entry] was projected onto the large screen:

Sedna (provisionally designated 2003 VB12) was discovered by Michael Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), and David Rabinowitz (Yale University) on 14 November 2003. The discovery formed part of a survey begun in 2001 with the Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California using Yale’s 160 megapixel Palomar Quest camera.

It was question time:

Monday, May 18, 2009

The fallen woman of Modica


[Hotel Palazzo Failla]

I

With nightfall had come the welcome drop in temperature. 

Another scorcher today – they’d been here three days now – a phone call to the proprietors of the hotel down the hill had confirmed that the electronic board in Piazza Garibaldi near the hotel had registered 41 degrees at 10 a.m., a mindboggling temperature for many in cooler climes but their own thermometer now had it down to a tolerable 29 degrees, early evening, which had people opening shutters and venturing outdoors, doing what needed doing.

On the second day, Robyn and Tom had met up with a former employee of the hotel, actually studying English with hopes of working in England, so that explained that.  Giuliana was still welcome around the place it seemed, did some waitressing in fact, much banter and repartee going on with staff. 

Upshot was that she’d scribbled out a list of hotel staff, guests for the conference and had dropped it off by car last evening – her shiny new Rav4.

Tom and Robyn had gone through it all today, stuck in their ‘Cava’ set in the rock some distance up the hill from Hotel Palazzo Failla, working out possible allies, partners, ways they could approach the workshops, getting the game plan sorted … this was Giuliana’s list: