Owling at the moon

Final set from the Etruria Canal Fair. There was an owl stall: presumably rescued ones which can't be released into the wild, I hope. 

Pygmy owl. Very cool. I could have one on my shoulder in class. "Wrong. Peck out his soft little eyes. Fly, my pretty".

Bengal Eagle Owl

Pygmy owl again

'Free badger stroking'. An odd way to promote a town council.

Barging in

Some more pictures from my day at the Etruria Canal Fair. Click them to enlarge, or see the whole set here.

The top two chaps are reflected in the window: the one at the bottom is inside.

I was trying to capture motion with slow exposures. Lots more in the main set. Without a tripod, it's really difficult. 

A right hook

Looking up the flint kiln

Caught speeding…

Potter's hands

This is the real Stoke

'Owling mad…

Of badger-stroking and other activities…

You already know that I like to take photographs. But when I see sets like this, I feel like giving up: here's someone with a fantastic eye for composition and lighting. I'd love to go on an urban decay photography tour.

Talking of weird exploration, Cynical Ben has yet another website to which you're invited to contribute. It's called wehatewords. Authors and sentences are hated too. Try it. I'm going to.

Anyway, back down at my level, I had a very busy weekend. Spent a day in a Sheffield hotel's seminar room preparing for the UK School Games 2011. Mostly efficient and matter-of-fact, though one individual's speech resulted in a quite good doodle and a list of phrases which I may well donate to We Hate Words: 'empower', 'baggage', 'key learnings', 'in a good place', 'operational delivery', 'dynamic' and 'interactive'.

Then it was off to see a not-very-good play supposedly about maths called Proof: it turned out to be sickeningly soapy. Finally, the Map Twats visited the Etruria Museum's Canal/Steam/Random Stuff fair in the town Prince Philip called 'ghastly'. Truly, there was a child lost in the Tunnel of Goats.* So I took some pictures and we had a great time.

Stoke-on-Trent always seems monochrome to me

Portrait of a stoker-engineer with the saturation reduced

Mill engine detail

Ripping Yarns: textiles volunteer group

Rag rug detail

McCormick Farmall tractor. Lovely typography

*Father Ted reference for the uninitiated.