Classique

My good friend and fellow music lover Keith, manages (just about) a group called Classique containing ex members of Saxon for one thing. If you are in to loosing your eardrums and having the content of your digestive tract stirred by low frequency output from the guitar section then look them up. They perform around the Keighley/Bradford circuit but may be venturing out as far as Batley (yes, the old Variety Club, chicken in a basket and velvet jackets, Jesus, am I that old). Usually a good bash especially if you can get out of driving and are then able to sample the delights of whichever hostelry they playing in. Keith does try to select venues that have real ale on tap, none of your pop like lagers, this is hairy chest stuff!!!! One of my publicity shots for them are here, Lee has done some advertising posters (with my photos) for Charlie Speed (next gig, Korky's at Otley I think), another master of the craft of music. I failed to pursue my musical talents in my youth, wasting my time on women, engineering and aircraft so I make do with admiring the talents of those who can actually do it.

Things are moving on a pace

First the most important news. The light of my life won her first ice skating competition at the Coventry open in January 2011. This was her first competition she had entered and beat 3 other seasoned campaigners. Last weekend, she entered her second competition at Grimsby and won again but this time beating 23 other seasoned campaigners! Proud or what?

The things that put bread and butter on the table and pay for madam's excursions around the countryside are beginning to increase and I am especially pleased with our new website, designed and implemented by my good lady wife (with a little of my fiddling); the number of weddings booked for next season is encouraging, especially when four of them are referrals from weddings we did last season. So, things are looking up.

Involved with this ice skating photography melarky, check the website as images are loaded or in the process of being loaded daily. Will get everything else on (airshows, bands etc) as we can now take paypal for payment which should make thing a lot easier with sales. Boxing is also coming on, covering another evening event at Barnsley on the 28th Feb.

Tempus fugit

Up to my ears in it, had an end of season rush with weddings and such like, work in Whitby for the Goths, Ellie-May ice skating practice for her xmas show all week and still find time to do university work. Visited and had a very interesting time at Media Museum, Bradford. Searched through some work of a couple of favourite photographers, (Nurnberg and Bloomfield) and had time to revisit and exhibition of a former neighbour of mine (in another life) Fay Godwin. Her work still looks as fresh as it did when she made the images, 25 years ago. Steel project is still ongoing, although with these public sector cuts, no-one I deal with is sure that they will have a job in the new year, welcome to the real world. Should have voted differently or maybe should have voted in the first place. Yes, we're all in it but offering a pay-cut of 5% on 150,000 is a bit different than having one on 15,000. Still not to get political. I have learnt some new things, especially that making your own website and HTML isn't the black art that I imagined it was. Will have a go and upstage the boss with her website design, that should provide for a harmonious home-life for a few weeks.

Had a call late at night Wednesday, could we cover a group of investors meeting in Shipley West Yorks the following evening and supply the images to the Yorkshire Post. Accepted the job (it pays the bills) travelled over and up on t' moortop. It bucketed down, so much so I couldn't see a thing and passed the location about 4 times before eventually asking a local where the heck it was. Invest in a satnav she who must be obeyed says. I point out the couple of hours we drove around San Francisco trying to get out of the city by following the satnav but as we all know you cannot convince a female once its mind is made up, it's not worth the hassle. 'That was hard work' my daughter comments when in the past I have tried to suggest some alteration to the mindset of the Gruppen Feuhrer. Frighteningly she can copy her mothers looks and attitude with an uncanny accuracy and with the menacing air that only a nine year old can exude. If she starts to turn her head past 90 degrees I'll be long gone.

A very good friend emailed me tonight telling me he had pulled the plug on a project he was working on. My friend is a very generous and kind man (well, I don't live with him) and is always willing to help. His project involved him acting as a literary agent to a prize idiot and ended up with my friend being a couple of hundred quid out of pocket. The saga of lottery bid rolls on, at least they are still talking to me, wanting more paperwork and evidence to back up my bid for glory. Read a previous rant and don't get me started, had one-eyed Jim in town today. Kept that quiet or I'd have been up town with a bag of flour. Well I say 'kept that quiet' the boys in blue put on their usual good show with such force, noise and bravado that the OAP home on the route the man who is trying to beat the credit crunch on his own with the amount he has borrowed travelled, now has a few more vacancies.

Off to bed, the princess is up early tomorrow, ice skating again, practice for the Xmas show. Now there's another rant coming on, Christmas or should it be called Autumn festivities since it seems to start in early September. But I'll leave that for next time. Oh one last thing, get to Crossroad Inn Keighley on the 19th Dec. having a rock gig and the mainliners, Classique, (with some ex-excaliber members) is managed by my old mate Keith Parfett, an ex colleague, fan of Mohammed Ali (as I am) and alround layabout. If you want a lift fitted in your house (14 floors minimum) he's your man but watch out for his tool boxes, he used to keep dropping them down the lift shaft.

Have a project to photograph 'Tetley Tea, the tea for everyone' on it's journey from the supermarket to where? My ideas range from in store photos ( thank you Morrisons) to studio shots. I have to use image manipulation within the project so the mind boggles for what is possible. Will post some pictures when available.

Good response to my BBC Radio Sheffield slot. More avenues to explore, trouble is quite alot of them are cul-de-sacs. But hey ho, it's life I suppose. Anyone out there who can help? Still waiting for the lottery people to approve or reject my application for funds, without it I can't get the project done in the time scale I would like.

Here we are folks, running round again like a chicken with its head cut off. On air Friday 9th Oct at 9.45 am, BBC Radio Sheffield, talking about my South Yorkshire Steel Project. What's that I hear you say. I have, for some time, been dismayed at how Great Britain is not so great anymore. We seem to have lost alot of things that, in my mind, put the Great in Great Britain. One of these is our manufacturing base that seems to have been eroded to such an extent that it is no longer visible to the naked eye. Yes I know that the whole world, emerging countries and economies etc etc etc have taken their place in the scheme of things, some may say and rightly so but it still irks me that we seemed to have lost such alot of the things that put bread and butter on the table. What future is there for my kids? With the loss of income to the Government by way of taxes etc and the increased costs by way of benefits there must come a time when outgoings exceed incomings, read Charles Dickens, David Copperfield and Mr Macawber's statement. So, what's this rant leading to? I have begun to undertake a project that will photographically record what's left of the South Yorkshire Steel Industry and the engineering companies that provide employment before they disappear altogether. To this end, I have spoken on BBC Radio Sheffield in May of this year asking for ex and current workers to contact me with a view to me interviewing them about their experiences of working in the industry. These narrations will support an exhibition of photographic images displaying the past and present of the industry, the workers narration being directly linked to each site on display. There will be instances (more than I care to think about) where the industrial site is now a redeveloped shopping mall, Hatfields and Meadowhall to name but one. I have an idea to photograph ex-workers at the site where they used to work, even if it is now a car park or McDonalds or whatever. The exhibiton will take the form of past and present images juxtaposed with a narration explaining the scene spoken by the people who worked in the places shown. A second exhibition will take the form of an audio visual display along similar lines. A third outcome will be an interactive website where people can post their own stories and anecdotes, the fourth outcome will be a published book of images and text.

I have applied for lottery funding to help support the project but I feel that I may have better luck in gaining support if I was an MP claiming expenses. Staff at Magna, Rotherham have offered help, it's a fantastic place to visit, a couple of photos are shown above and Independent Forgings of Hillsboro have done the same. I'm still knocking on doors and trying to get Sheffield Council involved but it's a case of not what you know but who.....So if there are any other people out there who have similar sentiments to mine, then get in touch.