Sunday 21 August 2011

A Captured 'Sprinklersaurus'...

I snapped the image below in early September 09, chasing up north out of Chateaudun in the Eure-et-Loire towards Chartres, and for a number of reasons, it remains one of my personal favourite shots. We were following part of my ancestral trail that has been traced directly back to one of my 'great greats etc' who was born into a Huguenot family in Chateaudun in 1550, and going under the nom de famille of 'Gaucheron'. Several  generations later and with the mass persecution of the Huguenots, aided and abetted by the brutal Dragonnades of 1681 - and my French half were forced to flee from the Normandy coast forever landing in Spitalfields, East London in the grand old year of - Sixteen Hundred & Eighty Three. Jeeeze, what a bummer.

So ... beam back to the future by 326 years and you've got 'little old Franco, Gaelic, Saxon modern me', hurtling out of Chateaudun all over again, along an endless, rod straight empty road flanked by vast ocean like swathes of greeny gold tinged maize, rippling and swaying majestically under a virtually cloudless sky, radiating the most intense, deeply translucid French blue hue - before almost abrubtly, the panorama pitched from its calmly oscillating seas of uncut grain to become an arid, motionless desert scape of post harvest stubble ...and thence suddenly and quite startlingly, appeared this magnificent, linear leviathan.



I was completely entranced by its august, structurally stark lineage, its visual locomotion, the sheer size and scale of it all, as well as the almost overwhelming sense of contrast it presented to the eye against its surrounding agrarian terrain as it trailed off into the dusky haze of the horizon and perhaps onwards further still towards Bavaria, east of the Rhine. A vast, mechanical, mobile crop sprinkler system portraying a stately yet obliquely surreal presence all of its own - almost alien in its ancestry, like a mammoth, tamed beast - a surviving metal relic from some ancient, unrecorded pre ice age society. A ‘Sprinklersaurus’ enjoying a warm afternoons doze. Its skeletal pipework once frozen for several millennium, now long since thawed and revived to dispense its virtual rain to order at the simple twist of a tap.

Just now and again on your travels, you'll fleetingly catch sight of a subject in a setting which is quite overwhelmingly visually striking at that specific moment of lighting and time, becoming impulsively compelled to capture it for prosperity come what may, right there, right now.This powerfully intuitive impulse rides in tandem with the knowing that if you don't make the effort to pause and record it right there and then, you will become haunted by the knowledge that you forever lost the opportunity to preserve a uniquely visual reference of something spectacularly arresting - even if only to you and you alone when your eyes flutter closed a little later that same night.

I've never cared to scrutinise it too deeply. I don't actually need to know the root of the reasons why. I just take comfort in knowing that from time to time if I keep my eyes wide open, and with a camera close at hand, I'll occasionally be rewarded without prior sign or clear warning, just as I was here with this memorably striking vista, during the late afternoon on this deserted rod straight road, pressing north for the sea and home, out of ancient Chateaudun. 

I would definitely journey back here in the future to try and have another pop at it - perhaps by dawn's early light next time. If it's still in that part of France of course - or the Germans haven’t cottoned onto why the Rhine water levels have been dropping so dramatically since 1945 - and rammed a nasty big old Bratwurst up the other end of its pipe. In fact, if I’d been alone that day and without need to catch ferry boats back to Limey, I would have parked my derriere on the crest of a nearby rise next to the enchantingly beautiful cream painted windmill sitting sentry over its pastoral domain, set up my camera and tripod, broken out a chunk of smelly fromage and a fresh baguette, opened up a nice big bottle of local vin rouge, and settled down under a twilight sky to scoff and drink the lot to the sounds of nightjars and chirping cicadas, before passing out blissfully under a vista of stars and distant galaxies to dream deeply of Alexandre Dumas inspired adventures of dash and derring do until dawns early chorus emerged to stir me from my slumbers. No doubt what so ever.

Once underway again, I spent the next hour or so in a quiet, calmly contemplative state, reflecting on the feelings of distant spiritual connection with my ancestors I’d experienced while ambling around the Sprinklersaurus. Generations of my own blood and kin who had lived and worked in precisely the same neighbourhood over three hundred and many more years earlier, and may well have journeyed the very same trail northward themselves. Who knows? Certainly something warm and all knowing wafted through me while I was stood out in those fields there for a while that’s for sure, and I felt curiously the richer, along with more than a faint sense of belonging there for it. Whispers of "If you build it... they will come". Oh me oh my. Imagine that. 

One day I shall return, probably solo next time around, with a tasty stash of freshly baked bread, some suitably pongy Port Salut, a good bottle of essential vin yummy for personal fortification in my knap sack... and a trusty, rugged, all night coat to keep me warm while I ponder the maxim of 'laissez-faire' in this majestically green and golden province of my ancestral and bucolic sixteenth century French heritage.

Parfait.

27 comments:

Jane and Lance Hattatt said...

Hello Bad Boy Philip:
Now, whilst we can claim to be the only Hattatts in Britain, and most probably Hungary too, we cannot, alas, claim any connection to, with, by or from the Huguenots. Such illustrious ancestry immediately puts us at a complete disadvantage, as does the rest of this post which is, to all intents and purposes, on a virtual par to a visit to Tate Modern [one of our all time favourite galleries] for the excellence of all the superb imagery, for its complete originality, for its individuality and, of course, for the sheer pleasure which it generates.

First, the Sprinklesaurus is outstanding not only for the image itself but also for the way in which you spotted such amazing subject matter, turned the car, and had the presence and skill to take the picture and to publish it in this wonderful, haunting semi-monochrome [if there is such a term]. This is indeed Art [with an intended capital 'A'].

Secondly, what for us must be termed 'Homesick for Hampshire', your beautifully composed video of the coastline which you clearly know so well and which is, most certainly, your natural home. And the soundtrack is so evocative and fits the pictures, in all their varying moods, so well. Is it a tape or do we actually hear the sound of the sea? And which is the huge, most likely totally vulgar, liner and where is the lovely boathouse(??) below the row of coastguard cottages? So sorry, ignore the questions but it is all so intriguing.

We have not been to Bucklers Hard for well on forty years and you show it completely unchanged and exactly as remembered. Thank you so much, Phil, for giving us such a wonderful treat for a Sunday evening. And should our paths cross in real life, we shall of course remember to doff our hats in recognition of such superior forebears!

Enjoy the remainder of your Sunday.

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hello Jane & Lance: Re - “…we can claim to be the only Hattatts in Britain, and most probably Hungary too, “ Well that’s a hell of a fascinating claim to be able to make, and one for which you really should consider posting about, etymology speaking, anyhow. I must admit, I’ve never heard that name called out at roll call time during my long time in incarceration at Her Majesties pleasure here?

Thank you for going to all the trouble to leave such a comprehensive comment too. Your remarks are very kind. My Huguenot link now traces back to 1550 to the Loire valley in France, as well as through several generations of silk weavers in London’s East End, before a joining with an English ‘Kemp’, who was once acquitted at The Old Bailey court in London for shooting and killing a man who was in the process of stealing apples from one of his trees in Bethnal Green. A couple of generations further on still, and my great greats threw their lot in with an Irish mob! Now you know where all my blarney comes from then.

Like you, I much prefer this shot in monochrome. Highlights the grand starkness and the shadows of the Sprinklersaurus, which for me is the main weight of visual interest. It was a lucky find around 5.00pm in the afternoon. I charged on up to Lyon la Foret just east of Rouen, found a tiny hamlet nearby where my ‘Gaucheron’ Huguenot family lived in 1680 just before having to flee France, had a great meal, then charged on again to Calais to escape France ourselves on the last boat back with just two minutes to spare. Not the first occasion I’ve been disappointed not to have missed the last boat home either.

Except two, all the images on the video were taken within a three mile radius of where I live. The background music came from a ‘Royalty Free’ music website based in Luxembourg. The sounds of the sea you hear are an integral part of the second track entitled ‘Away from the city’. It was a lucky find believe me. Glad it worked for you too.

The vulgar liner is Cunards latest flagship replacement for the QE2, ie; The Queen Elizabeth. This was its inaugural sailing departure following the real Queen’s launch of it a few minutes earlier in Southampton docks. Immediately behind her is the precise spot that ‘Titanic’ once departed on her own fateful maiden voyage back in 1912. You can also see Hythe Pier sticking out to the left.

The spot where I’m stood is where I once rented some factory space while running a small manufacturing business some years ago, and it’s also the exact spot where Sir Christopher Cockerell designed and developed the Hovercraft, sometime earlier. Fifty metres to my left is where the marine artist Montague Dawson once lived and painted in the 20’s, and….another 50 metres behind where I’m stood is the cottage where T.E. Lawrence was in lodgings for a couple of years in the early 30’s while working covertly for the RAF to help develop the fast sea rescue powerboats needed to come quickly to the aid of crashed Flying Boats, and which later in WW2, became the basis for the motor torpedo boats, which were produced from where I’m stood.

The Boat House, which is also known as The Watch House, sits on Lepe beach just south of me, at the entry to Beaulieu River. It was built in the early 1820’s for the new Coastguard of the time to watch out for the smugglers who plagued the area. If you click on this link here, it will direct you to an earlier post which goes into it all in more detail. You may have already read it though. Bucklers Hard is still carefully preserved and looked after as a Heritage site, Many, fine old Navy Frigate’s and war ships from Napoleonic times were built here and eventually sailed off down Beaulieu River to seek out trouble with the French and Spanish Navies. Thanks once again for your kind words Jane & Lance. Tis much appreciated. Delighted you enjoyed the journey here.

Steve said...

Your wife is clearly an amazing woman who knows and loves you well. Or perhaps just likes having all the sweeties to herself. Either way you got yourself a keeper, my friend.

And it is an amazing photograph. The first mental connection I made when I gazed upon it was The Wright Brothers. Go figure. I'm plainly in need of a getaway vehicle this morning. ;-)

Jane and Lance Hattatt said...

Hello Phil [again]:
Thank you so much for taking the trouble to respond to our comment in such detail and for the link to the previous post from which we have just returned! We find it all most interesting, not least because in many instances we at least know of the places about which you write. You do, indeed, live in the most wonderful spot.

Have a good week!

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hi Steve and Thank you kindly. I'd say your bang on with the Wright Bros perspective. Quite apart from the strong visual parallel's between the two, they're both skeletal in their most basic of forms, and respectively ancient in their original fields of existence, so as to speak.

Beware those mafia smiles this morning - and eject out of the nearest window at the first hint of them - remember?

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Jane & Lance on The Danube: The pleasure was very much mine you two's, believe me. Not least because of your own direct connections to this area from some years ago. There has been a lot of TV coverage of The New Forest and its coastline of late, as well as some of the lesser known historical interests surrounding some of it. Maybe it's time for me to buy an ice-cream van then?!

We have certainly been privileged to live in such a place, even though there are a myriad of other equally beautiful and dramatic land & sea scapes to live in around Britain, this one will always be and feel as our true & natural 'home place'.

Likewise, you two have a great week out there in Budapest too.

the fly in the web said...

Like Steve, my first thought was the Wtright Brothers...he must be taking over my mind.

It's a wonderful photograph and I envy you your 'eye', as demonstrated in this and other photographs and the video clip.
I don't have it, but appreciate it when I see it.

That sprinkler system would not have had me reaching for the camera, but muttering to myself about nappes phreatiques, EU subsidies and whatever would Charles Peguy have thought if he'd seen that on his pilgrimage to Chartres.....so I'd have missed something vital...

Bish Bosh Bash said...

“Okay, quick!…Heads up everybody, Fly’s etched another tutorial piece onto my blog! You – grab my notebook - no not that one! – the big one over there underneath the cats. You over there, yes you with the silly woolly hat on, fetch me my satchel and pens – and will some kind soul please break out all of my dictionaries and French translation books, cos it looks like we’re going to have a long night of it this time!!”

So…several hours later and a gallon of black coffee, lets see how I did this time then Mme Fly?! – Re your: “…but muttering to myself about nappes phreatiques, EU subsidies and whatever would Charles Peguy have thought if he'd seen that on his pilgrimage to Chartres....”

a) Nappes Phreatiques – Answer 1 = Ground water ‘and’ the relative geology in the terrain that surrounds it?? Answer 2 = Water Table???

b) EU subsidies – Answer 1 = It’s a trick question isn’t it Fly?! A clever little sneaky one you just threw at me as a test, cos…there isn’t any such thing as an EU subsidy, least of all for French farmers! Answer 2 = The science of decoding the expense claims of MEP’s ??

c) Charles Peguy – Answer 1 = Hmmm, tough one this, I think Charles may have considered this a dark and dangerous symbol of early 20th century Imperial power and yet another alarming move, not only towards mass mechanisation of agriculture, by France’s elite industrialist classes per say, but also in their achieving complete longer term control of the proletariat, and thus to the extreme detriment of opportunity and a truly shared democracy within the wider socialist system of the day?

Answer 2 = Or he may have simply given it a cursory glance as he trudged by, and thought to himself a little ambivalently there for a moment - "Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics." ??

In another sense altogether, it’s ironic then that I envy you your enormous natural depths of richly layered knowledge, gained by not just countless hours spent reading all manner of worldly literature since you were but a baby sage grouse living in the same land as John Buchan, but because you are seemingly equipped with a ‘photographic memory’ as well as top of the range retrieval system to go with it, to help you process all those hard learned facts and details with apparent ease. Unlike Moi !!

Tell you what, I’ll lend you my ‘eye’ in exchange for your ‘memory’ for say a few days each month, and let’s wage a bet on how quickly you demand to have your ‘memory’ returned intact eh?

Now you’ve just gotta bump me up to an ‘A – minus’ from a ‘B – plus’ for all that complimentary approbation Fly. I mean, if that’s not a masterclass in sycophancy, then I’m sadly barking up the wrong mango tree aren’t I ?

John Going Gently said...

bash
now why didnt you put DAN HILL (sometimes when we touch) as the backing music to the video?
why oh why oh why?

Elizabeth Rose Stanton said...

I LOVE the sprinklersaurus !-- but you knew I would, even if, for no other reason, that you named it that. I can see why the brakes were slammed, and I would have done likewise. I even had such a moment this morning when I set foot out the door to walk the dog. I looked down and saw the most amazing thing--So I yanked the poor confused pooch back in to the house so's I could grab my phone and snap it. I will send you an email of it. When these moments come, we MUST take action! Also...relative to your relatives...many of mine had already departed your shores by 1683 (at least on the paternal side. My maternal grandmama hailed from Oxfordshire)--So you can imagine how mixed up my blood must be by now. I can say, tho, is that I share some of the blarney (the great-great grandfather --County Cork-- sea captain who high-tailed it across the Big Pond to navigate the Big Lakes). The rest is a mish-mash of Dutch (this one is a LONG story), English, German and, I could go on...but I will spare you. Finally...your utube photos are amazingly spectacular. I sat mesmerized. My favorites? The MOONS! WOW! I am wondering, however, which two don't belong? Maybe a repeat cow? At any rate, well done and fabulous. You have an EYE (yes, yes I know you have two...but at least one is working it's artistic magic) ;)

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hi John Boyo up there in Leekdom. Evva so sorry JB, but I couldna get a 'royalty free' version of Dan Hills great tune to download, and ah didna wanna go screw it all up by being naughty at my first YouTube video music attempt. Next time you'll just have to play it in the background at your end, while muting out my soundtrack on the video.

P.S. - Thanks for posting all the links to your various posts, on my blog here. I really do intend to get around to looking them all up in the coming decade. Especially if they're about film as we spoke of earlier. Do you watch subtitled foreign language films by the way??

the fly in the web said...

AAA plus, I should think...

There's no merit in it...just a youth misspent on books rather than billiards..

What with swapping eyes and memories we'll be like the Norns...or was that a tooth?

We could sell tickets....
Steve could manage us....

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hi 'Eeee' in Seattle: Stage 1 of 2 responses:-

Thanks for your comments and observations here. Tis much appreciated Eeee. My my, your ancestral mob departed pretty early for the brave new world then didn’t they! They must have been among the early pioneer American settlers, and fortunate to survive a hundred different threats to their existence over the ensuing generations. My ‘Murphy’ Irish ancestry came across from Cork to London, from the 1860’s onward.

The members of our family tree who have a direct bloodline descendancy that has now been formerly traced and documented by others, directly back to Louis & Elizabeth Gaucheron, in Chateaudun, in 1650 – amount to over three thousand souls, many of whom are alive and duly re flowering there own clans, throughout all four corners of the globe. That’s an awful lot of Christmas & birthday cards to remember.

Glad you like the ‘Moony’ shots. Thank you. They are still an ongoing experiment and learning curve. ‘The rule of F8’ is still something I need to get to grips with at night under the stars as yet. Interestingly, the two shots that shouldn’t have been there contain moons. One is a contrivance which went horribly wrong – the other is much the same and about 60 miles down the coast in a rocky smugglers cove on the Dorset coast called ‘Kimmeridge’. Stunning place to be at sunset (if you can find it that is!), but it’s not part of my local Hampshire coastline, as stated on the video header intro. The colour changing cows should also have never made it to the final cut either. You get an A+ and a bag of sweets for that then Eeee.

Now scroll on down south to ‘stage 2’ of my response to you, just below ‘Eeee’…

Bish Bosh Bash said...

‘Eeee’ – Stage 2 of 2

Concerning the brakes going on hard moment, and just to expand that part of the tale a little – I was belting along towards Chartres with about 260 miles and a couple of stops to make before catching the boat from Calais around 11.00 that night. We were effectively on the last day of a three week holiday, spent mostly down on the south coast in the hills above Nice. So I was cramming as much as I possible could in, on this final afternoon.

In truth, my eye was targeted on a magnificent cream windmill, sitting on top of a small crest about half a mile up the empty road we were travelling on. The deep blue and gold hues of the late afternoons early autumn light, were as magical as it gets. Totally mesmerising for any landscape photographer. I was cursing that I didn’t have a few more days to take advantage of it, on the way back to the north coast of France, but determined to spend ten minutes banging away at my windmill up the road there.

That was when the Sprinklersaurus suddenly came into view in my right field of vision, and as I tried to take it all in at some ** miles per hour, all my inner claxons and alarms went off at exactly the same moment, and while still gawping at it over my shoulder, I actually took to the big grass verge for a hundred feet or so, before cussing my way back onto the black ashfelt part and standing on the brakes. It was a simple case then of “Okay Mr Windmill…you’re fired.”

Ultimately, yes I’m pleased with the image, but it can never do the real scene justice by a country mile. If I’d been alone at that moment, after taking these pics, I would have grabbed a warm coat for later, parked my butt on the crest of the rise up by the isolated cream windmill, set up my camera and tripod, broken out a chunk of cheese and a fresh baguette, opened up a nice big bottle of local vin rouge, and settled down under the evening skies to scoff and drink the lot to the sounds of the nightjars and chirping cicadas, before passing out blissfully under all the stars until just before day break. Guaranteed. No doubt what so ever. Perfect.

Once underway again, I went very quiet for the next hour or so. Very inside my shell and calmly, strangely, contemplative. Maybe I felt some kind of distant spiritual connection with my ancestors, who had lived and worked in precisely the same neighbourhood over three hundred years earlier, and may even have travelled the same road path themselves. Who knows? It certainly had quite an effect on me that afternoon, and it felt a lot richer and curiously deeper than when I just was prancing about snapping up shots of my Sprinklersaurus there. Something wafted inside me while I was stood out in those fields there, that’s for sure. One day I shall return…and probably alone, with some cheese and other essential liquid provisions in my back pack, and a good warm coat.

P.

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hi Fly Rica in Costa Rica again. Hey, thanks a whole bunch for the ‘Triple A’ rating. That means I’m more bankable than the United States of America then! Ooooh.

My end had about a hundred percent to do with Googleing it all, and zilch because of anything I might have read on the back of a cereal packet sometime earlier. So thanks for the provocation, cos it made me swot – an that’s swot it’s all about, in it.

As for ‘The Norns’ part...well it’s back off to Google I go then isn’t it.

You’d better hail Steve up and tell him he’s got the job. Then I suggest you run and open the front door as wide as it will go…and be sure to stand well clear, cos he won’t be that far behind will he!!?

Norns? Hmmm.

The Sagittarian said...

Sorry I'm late, had a few things going on (and sideways and up in the air) but have dusted myself off and got here at last. Albeit a bit wobbly on my pins.
LOVE that photo, I have had a thing for black/white photography since I owned my first box brownie (take from that what you will)...the same old thing that I found on the floor amongst rubble in my room after the second lot of earthquakes in February, it is now safely stored away safe from harm. I reckon you get so much more from B/W, you don't get distracted by colour and the colour interpretations if you know what I mean. Fab job, and I suspect your wife probably did want the lollies to herself so she's pretty clever too! :-)

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Sagittarian in Christchurch, NZ: “Sorry I'm late, had a few things going on…” Laugh! Sounds more like an Oscar winning piece of good old English stiff upper lip, stoic understatement if you ask me Sag. I really do think I speak on behalf of the whole human race when I say “Just because you really do live right on top of a major, active quake zone, and just because you’re waiting for your home to be formally deleted and thence rebuilt again, while you and your family live it up in a time travelling toilet cubicle in your garden for the next twelve months…don’t think that automatically gives you the right to simply excuse yourself from blogging whenever you feel like it – !”

But far more appropriately, as well as seriously in all truth, and as the great movie star once said in ‘Gone with the Flatulence’ – “Well frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” ! Cos I’m amazed and encouraged to know you still have the collective emotional wherewithal to even consider blog commenting at all Amanda! And so, in the same breath, I’ll just say a big ‘Thank You’ for taking the trouble to drop in here, when I know you’ve got a few tons of pretty serious ongoing challenges to be reckoning with right now. You really do do me and my blog a great honour by finding the time to comment Amanda.

Thanks for your kind remarks too. Glad you managed to pluck that box brownie from the rubble and secure it somewhere safer. Interestingly and in a way curiously too, when I was an old teen, like you, it was the work of the black & white photo pros that initially lured me toward basic box camera ownership. Yet it’s only been during the last few months that I’ve started experimenting with mono photography again after the three decades of mostly colour. I think it’s because I’ve mainly centred on landscape subjects, as opposed to people, urban, street and architecture, which strangely enough is where I’d much prefer to be with my camera most of the time, but I don’t live close enough to an interesting city right now. I’m a great fan of the work of the late Robert Capa and an amazing guy from Dartmoor called ‘Premgit’, who I met at the Larmer Tree Festival here, last year. His analogue work covers a couple of decades of travelling rough in India & East Asia, before making his home on Dartmoor over here, in our ‘west country’.

When you have a moment, take a peek at some of his work via his website link here, especially his overseas stuff.

Best looking colour slide film shots I ever took, were on a Yashica 35, up and over, 2”x2” format, ‘upside down’ view finder box camera. It cost me about £15 second hand when I was 23 years old, and nothing I’ve done since in modern digital, comes close in terms of pin point focus clarity and colour richness. Not a practical camera to capture images with, but hugely rewarding results when you get it all right from behind the viewfinder.

I sincerely hope you and your family are making out through all your trauma and adversity down there these past several months Amanda. Just hope all that pretty white crunchy stuff is a welcome distraction from some of it, and not yet another pain in the butt for you all. Best wishes from a wet UK summer up here. P.

Bish Bosh Bash said...

John: Read you loud and. The pleasure was mine mate. Now go and kick back a bit, play some happy tunes, slurp on some liquor of choice, and as you begin to wind down for shuteye time ce soir, try and dwell on something bright and cheery. You owe yourself that much now. Say a big 'Hi'from me to all the other happy creatures up there too - whether with wings, paws, hooves or trotters!! Peace & Love from us all tonight JB.

The Sagittarian said...

aw shucks, Bad Phil - t'ain't nothin' I'd rather do than kick back here...in fact, I have discovered that if I stay home there is always something to be going on with, or tidying up....so am venturing far and wide in Blogland in the hope of avoiding housework! :-)

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Sag-in-Christchurch-NZ: Observe the masses and do the opposite - lift carpet, sweep the Tv, a comfy cushion and at least two bottles of yummy wine under with you, let carpet fall...and enjoy.

It's called 'almost plausible denial'. Almost.

John Going Gently said...

My my my...that's an impressively big organ, hisn't it. Takes one's breath away does that'n. So what does one do with ones time when one is not polishing organs and pues, might one ask?
By Bish Bosh Bash on Church Therapy at 23:24

now THAT WOULD make an interesting blog if I told you

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Har Har Har! But...just so's I'm sure we're both singing from the same hymn sheet so to speak, and to make absolutely sure that nothings been lost in translation JB, I'm genuinely impressed by how busy, industrious and 'everywhere' you clearly are, every single day. Hence my seemingly conflicting comment just then. I'm sure you 'Rogered that' though!

Ho Hum.

Gardener in the Distance said...

Phil, your gargantuan sprinkler could almost be a Theo Jansen piece. Whatever I think of technology, seeing this in a field is more reassuring than seeing the backs of labourers breaking...

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hi Faisal! And a wet and windy welcome to you down there, from a typical early autumn English weather day up here in north west Europe.

Many thanks for your kind comment Faisal, and also for alerting me to the existence of Theo Jansen, who'm I''d never heard of in all truth. Having Googled the man now, I'm quite in awe of his various works and achievements. A truly brilliant and gifted creationist, as well as engineer extraordinaire. Individuals like Theo are a rare and special breed on this planet of ours. Never afraid to push the boundaries right out there beyond most peoples creative horizons.

There's something of the 'Gaudi' genius in him. I completely agree with your keen observation of the Sprinklersaurus comparison. Perhaps one day we will be able to marvel at the sight of wind and solar powered Sprinklersaurus's roaming freely across vast crop fields, around the world, tending to various duties and workloads, as a direct result of his engineering evolution's.

It would be like something out of Jurassic Park, but without the danger of a T-Rex. Just the notion of seeing such a sight gives me goose bumps, cos thanks to Theo, it no longer looks beyond the realms of fantasy and fiction, let alone hundreds of years away from becoming a reality.

I've been away from blogging for a bit of late with other commitments, so I have much to gradually catch up on with reading and commenting generally, so I'll be popping back in to you and yours as soon as I've got a bit of time to read your posts properly. Best wishes for now.

The Sagittarian said...

Hey you....anybody home?

John Going Gently said...

another blog soon philip x

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