Altern­at­ive London 1969/​70

I found this book in a char­ity shop. It’s a prac­tic­al guide to altern­at­ive living in London from 1969/​70 cover­ing a wide range of topics from rent laws, to sexu­al­ity, drugs and communes to join. This is the first edition, there were yearly updates through­out the 70s.

60s slides: Costi­era Amalf­itana

Here’s some more 60s tour­ism slides from my grand­par­ents’ house (you can see others here). This time from the Amalfi Coast in south­ern Italy, now a UNESCO site. Again I have posted all 36 images. It looked pretty much the same when I was there about 10 years ago, minus the annoy­ing coach party of loud Texans who kept appear­ing every­where you looked and complain­ing there was no Taco Bell and you had to walk places. Further along the coast in Sorrento I bought a very fancy waffle-knit towel that still serves me well for trav­el­ling. The shop assist­ant seemed very confused that I wasn’t buying a whole match­ing set of them like the major­ity of their custom­ers. Afraid I could only afford one small one. 

60s slides of Hercu­laneum

When clear­ing out my grand­par­ents’ house a couple of years ago I found seven pack­ets of these 60s tour­ist slides of vari­ous places around the Medi­ter­ranean. I’ve been scan­ning and restor­ing them. First up, these from Hercu­laneum.

Hercu­laneum is a smal­ler coastal town near Pompeii that was also destroyed by the volcano. It’s not as well known, but there are some magni­fi­cent villas there in a simil­ar but smal­ler archae­olo­gic­al park to the one you can visit at Pompeii.

That Cat’s Some­thing I Can’t Explain

I would describe this as essen­tially a Bond theme about a Siamese cat. I’m a big fan of Syd Barrett, but have a deep pool of loath­ing for Roger Waters. I would call it an irra­tion­al hatred, but I feel like I could come up with plenty of reas­ons for my loath­ing. My moth­er is a big Pink Floyd fan, so I’ve had plenty of expos­ure over my life­time to fuel it.

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Categorised as Music

Daniel Mead­ows, Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr

Recently I went to two exhib­i­tions of Brit­ish social photo­graph­ers’ work of the 60s and 70s. Daniel Mead­ows at the Library of Birm­ing­ham, and Only in England- Tony Ray Jones and Martin Parr at the Science Museum. All three photo­graph­ers were contem­por­ar­ies and friends, work­ing on simil­ar topics of noti­cing the arrest­ing and unusu­al in ordin­ary people in every­day settings. All photo­graphs in this entry are from the photo­graph­ers’ own websites.

Often Inclined to Borrow Somebody’s Dream Til Tomor­row

I’m a big Syd Barrett fan, but I really can’t stand any of the stuff Pink Floyd did after he left (iron­ic, consid­er­ing that my MA project super­visor is the guy who designed the cover for Dark Side of the Moon). Recently I went to an exhib­i­tion of his paint­ings, photos and letters. The gallery wasn’t the most welcom­ing place, but I enjoyed the exhib­i­tion. I partic­u­larly liked the way he would just give his paint­ings to anyone who liked them. There were some pictures I really liked, but they didn’t allow photo­graphs, didn’t sell post­cards (only prints cost­ing sever­al hundred pounds) and the pictures on the website are covered in ugly water­marks. It’s the same as when I went to the Hunder­t­wasser museum in Vienna- an exhib­i­tion dedic­ated to an artist who when they were alive lived in an anti-commer­cial, diy way, is run after their death in the most snobby manner of the commer­cial art world avail­able. (I’m not a fan of the atmo­sphere a lot of commer­cial galler­ies create, art is for every­one)

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