19.
4th December 2008. I can’t remember how many
gigs I have played in
Ahh – the idyllic whatsit!
Since writing the last of these diary entries I have acquired a free travel
pass. Anyone who lives here and is aged 60 or more can get one, which lets you
ride on all the ’buses in the
At this point, I must have
lost my presence of mind, because waiting just a few seconds longer, would have
resulted in a shot without a car in it. I suppose cars are almost ‘subliminal’
to us these days. But as I try to be punctilious in such matters, I apologise
for the car.
Of course, you cannot take
a photo. of a very tall building indeed without some distortion of the shape. I
understand the ancient Greeks were perfectly aware of this, and the columns of
their temples were larger in diameter at the top, presumably in order to assist
future photographers. To some extent, they needn’t have bothered, as early in
the history of photography, there were ‘Rising Front’ cameras (I think that’s
what they were called) which would skew the image so that it turned out OK on
the plate. Mind you, this facility is certainly not present on my digital
camera. I must complain to Yamamoto of Kodak. There is of course an abundance
of information on Lichfield Cathedral available on line, which you will enjoy
reading. Let us supply you with a link…
http://lichfield-cathedral.org/history.html will give you a thumbnail
history of this splendid Cathedral. And from that link you can work backwards
into the entire Lichfield Cathedral website, and read about many other
fascinating aspects of its history, not to mention its current mission. In fact,
there is even a very distant connection between your humble scribe and this
sacred and noble edifice. When I was young, my grandfather told me that when he was a young man, the noted
All too soon, we had to
take our leave, only pausing to photograph the stern old Kings of England
looking down from above the main doorway. We did see the Chad Gospels though,
which are on display in the Chapter House. This is a truly stunning artefact, a
book dating from the 700s, and if you are in any way interested in the history
of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ in England, we can only urge you to learn more
about it by visiting the following page and indeed all the others to be found
on the Cathedral web site:
http://lichfield-cathedral.org/st-chad-gospels.html
Page written 1st January 2009.