A BIG THANK YOU

for looking in again, wherever you are.

PLEASE READ ON!

Sadly there will be no more updates here. You will have noticed over the last couple of months my postings have become rarer, and there have been no snaps of 'real people', which are generally my personal favourites.
Ditto with my Cemeteries photoblog, which has sets of snaps from thirty two cemeteries/burial grounds on it.
Briefly: An old/ex friend helped me set up this photoblog, and she did all the tedious work of uploading them. Without her help none of this would have been possible at all. I am truly grateful for all the help & hard work she did for this.
Unfortunately just before Easter she decided to stop, without giving a reason, nor an explanation, and did not reply to my emails. And she has not been in contact since, despite me knowing her for,at least, twenty years. Sometimes, maybe, friends are not quite what you think they are...
Whilst I am saddened by this, it's not for me to reason why, for without her giving an explanation for her actions, I don't feel it was anything bad on my part.
It does mean that I cannot update this blog, as I do not own a home computer, and do not understand them well anyway. I have just published the last (large lot) of snaps I had in draft. Rather than drag this out by posting a few at a time I have decided to publish them all now.

I am still taking photos, another friend is saving my snaps onto disc for me, until I can upload them. When this will be I do not know. But I hope to obtain a computer of my own within a year or so. So I will be back in the not too distant future.

If you would like to be notified when I am back online with my snaps please email me a contact so I can let you know sometime in 2007 or 2008!
You can do so at dulwichrabbler@hotmail.com

In the meantime my wordblog will continue....if you know where to look! ;-)

Thank you all once again!

Love you all!!!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Out of your box

I can't remember what this art
installation was called, or who it was by, but
it was in the main turbine hall of the Tate
Modern, on the South Bank in London.
It's a huge space, and they have a rolling
programme of changing things. Not even sure
what's there at the moment, but I was only there
a week ago, so I can't have been that impressed.

All change!

Two quick snaps of the Old Showgrounds, in Prague, Czech
Republic. I was on a touristy vintage tram trip, & this is where
it turned around.

House of Horror

Where Sir Alfred Hitchcock lived in London, on
Cromwell Road.

On the gravy train

The OXO Tower, on the South Bank of the Thames.
At the top is a rather posh restaurant.

Sit down if you've got the hump

I'm sure there's a great tale behind these
benches along the Victoria Embankment, near
Westminster. But I'm far too lazy to find out..

The Swiss Centre

by Leicester Square, in the West End,
but no longer owned by the Swiss.
Recently sold I believe, & to be
redeveloped in the not too distant
future. The glockenspiel clock will
stay I think.

Jewish Prague

I took these way back in October 2005,
so can't remember which synagogues were
which, in the Jewish Quarter.



















This is the famous Jewish Cemetery, of which you can find
lots more snaps taken by me, by searching here.

Jewish sport:

Not too clear these, snapped through glass cases, on
display in one of the synagogues in Prague.

Just a remnant of rubbish...

No way to describe the Union Jack, but this tattered
bit was on the floor of a Protestant part of Belfast,
shame sectarianism can't really fade away that easily.

Our four legged friends

This memorial stands in the middle of Park
Lane, in central London, remembering all of
those who helped, and died, in past wars, but
had no say in it at all.

An arch through an arch

This is an actual Roman arch, in Cologne, Germany.

Not quite my London Pride

Give me a sculpture of two naked blokes anyday!
This is on the South Bank, outside the National
Theatre.

Meow!!

Samuel Johnsons cat, in Gough Square, in the City
of London, off of Fleet Street.

The dear old GPO...

as our post offices used to be called. This one was in
Devonshire Road, Forest Hill, SE23. The sorting office
now in an ugly industrial estate type warehouse less
than half a mile away. Progress I suppose...















Told you the new one was ugly!

Hidden history

Blink...and you'll miss this, in
Rotherhithe, SE16.

A hardly noticed war memorial...

It's down an alley by St. Martin-in the-Fields church,
by Trafalgar Square. A busy cut through for commuters
dashing back to Charing Cross Station. I've walked along
it, ooh, hundreds of times. Yest never spotted it before
I took these photos.

Bank robbers

I'm not sure, but I think this was the bank where
they had that big £25million+ robbery in Belfast
a couple of years ago. Or was it more? Not that it
mattered...they withdrew all the notes in circulation,
and issued a brand new design.

Another London statue

This one of the composer Henry Purcell,
at Broadway, SW1

Even I was lost for words...

at "The Quiet Room", Belfast Airport, Northern
Ireland. A country divided by religion (albeit two
sects of christians) and they scrap the Chapel for this
load of PC bollocks! (That's political correctness, if you haven't heard
the phrase before.)
It had been pouring with rain, I'd been tramping the
streets looking at murals and cemeteries all day. There were
leaks in my trainers & my feet were soaked to the bone.
I'd bought some socks in the local Primark, just before they shut,
and got back to the airport. This room was empty. I stunk it out
with my smelly feet, wiped them clean, and put some
deodrant all over them. I then made up a packed lunch from the
bit of shopping I'd done in Tescos.
Nobody came in luckily...

1659

1662

1663

Belfast 'limo'ad

Who says the Irish don't have a sense of humour?
An old police riot wagon instead of a stretch limo?
Pure class!

A Tram Hut...

I'm not entirely sure what they were, but this is
apparently a very rare, obviously disused, one.
In Peckham, at the top of the Rye, near Cheltenham
Road,SE15.

A wonderfully weird museum

This is the Sir John Soane's Museum,
at Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2



No photos allowed inside, unfortunately.
So check out the website.

Democracy (in)action

There were more banners than people on this
protest opposite the Houses of Parliament at
Westminster!

Ugly or Icon?

Depends on your view of modern/brutal architecture
I suppose.
This is the National Theatre, on the South Bank of the
Thames, by Waterloo Bridge.





With St. Pauls' Cathedral in the background, across
the water.

I can't remember the name of this...

but it's in Prague, and rather grand.
They have classical concerts & that
sort of thing there.

This is to the left of it. An expensive (by Czech
standards) eaterie. I've been there once. A normal
meal is about £7 0r £8 elsewhere. Here it was about
twenty quid. Pricey, but enjoyable! I think I was
the only working class tourist in there.

Your flag's a bit out of date...

the Olympics are coming to London in 2012, not
Paris, where this boat was on the river Seine.

Cox's Walk

At the top of Lordship Lane in Dulwich. You
really wouldn't believe you're only yards from the
busy South Circular where I took this.

On yer bike!

somewhere in Paris.

Lovely signs

in Parisien parks.

Groundhoppers paradise.

An English style boozer in Paris.
(Groundhopper is an English term for people who like
to visit different football grounds, visiting them once,
not supporting a particular team, & generally are
social misfits, who get on everones nerves)
Unlike myself, who just loves football, & occasionally
visiting new places! ;-)

Offices

of the Belfast Telegraph. No need to say what
city really!

What's that smell?

The great cheese shop near Covent Garden, shame
it's all too bleeding expensive. Delicious mind!
They have a branch near where I used to work down
Borough High Street.

Getting ready for the hunt....

A shop in central London for toffee nosed members
of the Tally Ho! brigade.

A nice little boozer...

This is the Hobgoblin, in Forest Hill SE23.
It has comedy nights and live bands. Thankfully
licencing laws in England are a bit easier now, and
boozers can open later. But back in the 'bad old days'
I often ended up in here because it has a then rare
2.00am licence, rather than the standard eleven o'clock
and out the door one.

I took these snaps walking home from the
cemeterery where my parents are buried
last Christmas Day! (Hence the reason for this
on the roof!)

Not very cosy

Someone's been dossing under the
arches of this railway bridge, near
Shoreditch.

A few snaps from the Louvre

the great museum in Paris, more
willie spotting! ;-)














Couldn't take many photos, as there were large
areas you weren't supposed to take snaps.

These are for real

in a Republican area of Belfast, and not just for
show for tourist buses on the main road. These
were tucked away in backstreets, totally safe to
walk around, but I was still very nervous!















It's not all political, but STILL brainwashing!








I just find these street murals amazing.

She's got a street named after her...

Ayres Street, SE1 is in her honour.
This plaque is from the tiles at Postmans Park,
in the City of London.

The troubles are over...

that's all I kept hearing about when in Belfast back
in December. It's us Brits that's fascinated by it...
maybe, but if there's no 'troubles' why does this
'peace wall' still stand to divide two rabidly mad
communities who hate each others guts?
A sort of urban, wesernised, inner city Gaza in
Palestine...



Non sectarian murals on the road gates, pretending
there's an air of normality...

Any playground, anywhere...

Except this one is atop the Dawsons Heights Estate
in East Dulwich, SE22. And where I had a pre-arranged
fight with someone from schoolwhen I was about 14.
I didn't want to fight him, he didn't want to fight me, & I
lost. Not hurt though. I went up to the top of the block
(about 8 or 10 storeys high) and chucked the contents of
a milk crate raining down towards him. Luckily none hit
him, or I'd have been in Borstal on a manslaughter
charge. The stupidity of youth...

The Lion Roars...

this one stands proudly near the underground
catacombs entrance in Paris.

A lovely piece of old history

tucked away in Rotherhithe, SE16 in St. Marychurch
Street.

Sunday School

in McDermott Road, Peckham,SE15. Where we
went as kids. It wasn't Catholic, but they had a
youth club we also went to, and more importantly had
a summer camp in Broadstairs. Taking over a local school
down there the whole Club went, and slept in sleeping bags
classroom floors. They were the only summer
holidays I had a child.

Cheeky bastards!

I was doing my nut when I saw this shop in
Covent Garden! It's Sarf Lunnon anyway ;-)

Mural near Gare de Nord

Just round the corner from where
you get off the Eurostar in Paris.

Willies galore!

A bit of classical homo-erotica here.
Thanks heavens the French aren't
as prudish as the English. No strategically
placed fig leaves here! (Once again
from the Louvre, in Paris)

These weren't suppposed to last

This is a prefab home. Built as temporary
structures after the Second World War to last
for ten years, some are still lived in today!
This one stands in the Duxford branch of
the Imperial War Museum in Cambridgeshire.

Do you know what it is yet?

It is actually a genuine piece of A 17th Century
skull I stole from these catacombs in Paris.
I don't think they'll miss it...

London's jewel

Another snap of St. Pauls' Cathedral from the south
bank of the river Thames.
Take a second look, in case you never quite spotted
the hoardings, covering the renovation work.

Cowboy Cake shop...

Wonerful pastries, if fresh, but I worked here
in Hampstead, NW3, in the mid eighties, and
Louis who owns it is the tightest rich git I ever
knew, and some of storiesI could tell about this place....
But I'll leave that for another time.

Ah the 'bird shit' cakes!

I used to love the domino cakes.

You would not believe what old shit went into
the pretzels...

Innocent or guilty?

Shamed in your own community...this piece of
nasty graffiti was in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
If that was my boozer I'd keep a tin of yellow paint
to hand...

Watford play Prague

Not quite! A play, whose name I can't remember,
obviously about football, Watford & Elton John, somehow
ended up trnsferring from the London stage to the
floorboards of Prague in the Czech Republic!

Urban art

in Coronet Street,N1, leading up to Hoxton
Square.

This is what I'll end up like...

if ever I burn the house down...
I came close a couple of times in
my drinking days. Don't cook drunk!
This was a sculpture from the
Pompidou Centre, in Paris

Outside the Army Museum

in Paris.

It was the year that caught my eye

1893- the founding year of Dulwich Hamlet
Football Club.

The posh end of town...

This church is in Hampstead, NW3,
one of the richest areas of London.
You can catch some more snaps here
of the churchyard, if you're not
familiar with my cemetery photoblog.

Street artists

in Paris.

A church hall in North Dulwich...

the houses on the left weren't there when I frequented
the hall. It was an old church. I went there in the
early nineteen seventies with my two sisters, & hated
it. Ballet & Tap lessons. Billy Elliot I wasn't.
I don't think that's what 'made me' gay! ;-)

An Islamic Centre in Shoreditch

Redchurch Street, E2. I snapped it because the fresh
graffiti looked so stange on a clean frontage.

Car clamped

in Paris. It's not just our traffic wardens then...

Peek a boo!

On a college wall in Old Street, EC1

Old and the new

Snapped in Peckham,SE15.
It seemed like a 'good idea' for a photo, but it
didn't really work out.

On the banks of the Seine

in Paris.

The Catholic Cathedral

in the religiously divided city of Belfast.

Speakers Corner

Not a patch of what it was in years gone by, when it
really was a hotbed of political & social debate, along with
the god Squad. But Speakers Corner can still be entertianing.
Now it's only got a few soap box orators who attend, and they're
mostly either Bible Bashers or Muslim Morons.
I used to pop up here most summer Sundays to be entertained,
& take part in the banter, in my mid to late teens, having seen
a free,obscure film at the Imperial War Museum, earlier to make
good entetainment for myself before I discovered pubs!
Ah, those were the days...

City Hall, Belfast

Back to Northern Ireland, a few more from my
trip in December, I guess the sign is a bit
of a givaway, datewise. This was a grand Victorian
building. Unfortunately I never had time to
go on one of the free guided tours around it.

Any idea?

This is the Methodist Central Hall, in Westminster,
SW1. A fine building, and one they often hire out
for political rallies, veering towards the left.
I've been inside many a time, just to hear political
orators like Tony Benn, Arthur Scargill &
Dennis Skinner in the past.

A street sign in East Dulwich

as it says Colyton Road, SE22. that's Peckham Rye
Park in the background. Not the reason I took
the snap, I just wanted to remember what the
sticker was about on the sign, I assumed it was some
local wannabe musician, but I couldn't have been
more wrong.

St Clement Danes Church

The Church of the RAF, in
The Strand,WC2





Sir Arthur Harris: dear old 'Bomber': Patron
Saint of Dresden!

And inside...

Don't tell them your name Pike!

The Odyssey

Home of the Belfast Giants...the only senior ice hockey
team in the whole of Ireland-both sides of the border.

Remembering your own...

I stumbled across this statue in the
backstreets, on the green outside the
Western Marble Arch Synagogue, on
Seymour Street, W1. It commemorates
Raoul Wallenberg, who I had never
previously heard of.