On my way home, I had a huge urge to gorge myself on salty deep fried food. I felt quite virtuous therefor when I settled for a small fries from MacDonald's. I got home and drank about a gallon of apple juice. I was in hospital last year and several doctors remarked to me that I would have to lose weight. They would say this as I lay there expecting a heart attack at any moment and I promised myself that , if I survived, I would exercise regularly and eat less. I weighed 264 pounds. When I was younger, I mean twenty years ago, I weighed about 180. I was determined, lying there being very brave and philosophical about possible imminent death, that I would first get to 220 and then gradually back to 200.
I'd read somewhere that it was not good to lose weight fast. So I didn't. Still, this is a year later and I've only lost fourteen pounds. I joined an exercise club, but I don't go very often. I'm a lazy slob and likely to die younger for it, but I am enjoying my life this way far too much to stop.

Click to enlarge this desolate dam in Tasmania. When I was eleven I found some Nevil Shute paperbacks lying around. I thought Tasmania was the most romantic, exotic and remote place on Earth. I was going to grow up to be a bush pilot in Australia. I still have a thing about Aussies, in fact I devote a whole blog just so as to list their blogs. In the early days of the Internet, I had an Australian friend. We met in a virtual Irish pub funded by the Irish Tourist Board. Later we wrote each other for a while. Unlike a lot of Brits, I love the Australian accents. My wife has a thing about Australia too. Maybe we'll live there for a while when we retire.

Scotland postcard. Soon after they built the bridge. How exciting railways must have been when they were as modern and popular as the Internet. We are off to Gatwick this summer. I wish we were going by steamer and train. Each century the middle class gets less comfortable, although sometimes larger. Certainly healthier. On Saturday morning, I took Cathy, who was in great discomfort, to the local health clinic. Lovely building and she was seen straight away; evidently no charge. With health care like that, we may begin to feel more guilty than smug. How come I get to be so comfortable, despite the cramped conditions of airline travel? Today is the last of three lovely days off work. We celebrate the monarchy as we never did in England. I've been to Costco twice in three days. Otherwise have not been out of the house. Slept a lot, looked at blogs, watched "Entourage", ate well, and lazed as much as possible.

Remembering Marcel Duchamp's joke postcard with the rude letters underneath LHOO- (unmentionable here), Gilberte helped me to find this here.

More pictures of a bygone era in Portugal

Gugenheim archive on flickr commons pages 146 to 206

In his house in France my father had a large drawer full of eight by tens blown up from negatives exposed on a camera just like this. His was from the early thirties. His best friend had bought it for him in Hong Kong. He always said that it had cost twelve pounds. His friend was my god father, but I only met him twice as he lived in Thailand. My father took solid, reliable shots of people and buildings. I don't think he thought of himself as any kind of artist. He left that sort of thing to his youngest brother who wrote, sang, painted and acted. My father was scared of heights and could faint at the sight of blood, but, like many handsome men, he was a man's man, apparently completely at ease in any group of people. With his easy intelligence and big toothed smile, he charmed almost everyone. Once, when I was travelling with him, (and these long drives were some of the best times I ever had with him), he made an enormously complicated request of a hotel porter about how he wanted his morning tea to be prepared. The porter was thrilled to accommodate him and next morning the tea was perfect. He did not need to tip well, because his charm had already pleased far more than any remuneration could.