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Mount Fuji & bullet train
Loved this picture in the (UK) Independent Mag. today; but not sure whether there is cloud on the lower slopes?
Race to The Clouds
Doh! I omitted the raison d’etre for the previous i.e. Pikes Peak being known as the Race to The Clouds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak_International_Hill_Climb
Andrew10K, good for you; I have often dreamt of doing something like that, usually after the event. There were clouds, albeit quite bright:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/apr/11/grand-national-aintree#img-1The great AP McCoy riding the favourite said he would retire on the spot if he won but had to settle for fifth – I gather he will retire shortly.
Great racers seem to find it hard to slow down. Sterling Moss continued to drive at the Nurburgring Nordschliefe into his eighties before realising he was no longer both competitive and safe; the track has just imposed a 124mph speed limit at some straight sections where a car recently left the ground and flipped over.
Rally driver Juha Kankkunen has recently set a world record speed of 88.88mph in a tractor:
http://www.nokiantyres.com/FastestTractor2015/Rally driver Sebastien Loeb shot up Pikes Peak to see the clouds:
It’s nice to have an indulgence on a long flight, Poth, and you avoided the problems Atoptics mentioned.
Here’s another well grounded above the clouds picture
Skyfaring (book)
The link below looks very odd but seems to work. It is meant not to recommend the book, but for the marketing pictures above the clouds.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=skyfaring&biw=1067&bih=631&tbm=isch&imgil=wqhRCVRYvjF4yM%253A%253BrjCmlA_oKJUu2M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.skyfaring.com%25252Fotherwriting%25252Fnyt%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=wqhRCVRYvjF4yM%253A%252CrjCmlA_oKJUu2M%252C_&usg=__P3LeOb7pm275deBloQ7pkFWwaiM%3D&dpr=1.05&ved=0CGAQyjc&ei=wvwiVbKzMaTU7AajpYCIAQ#imgrc=wqhRCVRYvjF4yM%253A%3BrjCmlA_oKJUu2M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fstatic1.squarespace.com%252Fstatic%252F540486f6e4b0bc1fe0ff044b%252Ft%252F54b1573fe4b0c4db65f87809%252F1420908360365%252FSkyfaring%252B2.jpg%253Fformat%253D1500w%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.skyfaring.com%252Fotherwriting%252Fnyt%252F%3B1500%3B1125The author seems good at publicity. An extract in The Independent is strong on beacon-spotting. An interview with GQ mag includes much Sky Music e.g. ‘”Nuvole Bianche” (White Clouds) by Ludovico Einaudi.’ and says ‘Music has the curious alchemy of salt; it improves a thing not by changing it, but by making it more itself.’
Werewolf plant (as the Independent called it)
BBC World Service ‘Boston Calling, Making Waves’ today q.v., mentioned an exhibition in Boston where artist photographers remember Fukushima, some trying to depict invisible damage.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=48892
I stumbled across this when trying to follow Graham in another topic – for some reason I have a thumbnail/icon (?) permanently on my background of ‘Arctic Oscillation’ and this is the next image, it says.
Private Passions
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ns859I think of this as BBC Radio 3’s version of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. When writer Sarah Hall chose Dvorak’s Song to The Moon, I had that green flash of envy of the astronomical – why not Song to The Clouds? I was surprised, as a jazz fan, that I knew the tune. But imagine my delight when asked how inspiration came, her reply included ‘who knew that the Cloudspotter’s Guide would take off’.
Off topic, just to mention the nonagenarian Clark Terry who recently passed away, one of the greatest of trumpet players. Strangely he may well be remembered best for ‘Mumbles’ with the Oscar Peterson Trio in which only his scat singing featured:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kouyggzsA-AGood stuff, Graham. Is it coincidence that we have a monotone increase since the start of WW1 except for a decade around WW2?
That’s a great link, Graham, thank you.
You can read a lot more on the old CAS forum still, by searching e.g. ‘hole punch’; including Graham’s droll mousetrap cascade.
Testing, testing
Tonight GP-P’s first link to the BBC still works; the second link still does not work (though a seemingly correct address to CAS coronas appears at the bottom of the window); the third link (to Bob Carter in East Yorks) worked once, on the second of five attempts (with something like …..photo-n:2894 at the bottom of the window).
One of life’s little mysteries.
Size matters?
USS Theodore Roosevelt is anchored some way from Portsmouth UK – at 332m x 76m it’s too big to enter the harbour. Some nice pics, but sky rather bland:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3006792/100-000-tons-U-S-firepower-big-dock-Portsmouth-Aircraft-carrier-USS-Theodore-Roosevelt-anchors-Hampshire-coast-arriving-UK-five-day-visit.htmlHMS Victory is 69m x 15m. I asked Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson (1758 – 1805) today what he thought about the American aircraft carrier being too big to enter the harbour. ‘Egads, how say you ‘aircraft’?’ he asked but waited not, grabbed his telescope and vanished towards the Solent. That’s the spirit, I thought.
P.S. I have never heard the Solent referred to as a river, Daily Mail.
