scrambrose @scrambrose-blog - Tumblr Blog

Bye for now fb

Just put my fb account to sleep. I liked the passive-aggressive questions from fb as to exactly why I was doing so. Number One reason: it distorts my otherwise good opinions of people.

This is the "before" shot. Taken about 9:45pm NZ 8/10/2014

The "blood moon" Lunar Eclipse from NZ 12 midnight 8-9/10/2014

Going through a minor Stanislaw Lem revival at the moment. Watched the Tarkovsky "Solaris" again the other week (which Lem hated, apparently, preferring the Soderbergh/Clooney version according to Polish radio) and currently re-reading (for the first time in years and years) his last novel: Fiasco, which, in standard Lem style, is an ultra-dry satire of science and scientists (or at least a particular style of scientific outlook) intermixed with utterly haunting narrative descriptions - not the least of which are series of books-within-the-book. Sometimes verging on a series of lecture notes delivered by the 1950's style all-male, lab-coated, mad scientists who make up his spaceship crew it is not an easy read, but one which makes you feel as if it's worth the time and effort.

Manuka Bay, North Canterbury.

Okay, so the world needs more photos of driftwood like a hole in the head, obviously, but Manuka Bay is just one of those special places.

Church near Sefton, North Canterbury New Zealand, Winter 2011. B+W Red filter, with expired 35mm film

#landscape

MV Tuhoe, Kaiapoi NZ

MV Tuhoe, Kaipoi NZ

Some pictures from a trip on the MV Tuhoe, which I took with my daughter, on 20 May. We sailed down the Kaiapoi River, from the wharf next to the crazily leaning old railway station, then on to the Waimakariri mouth. Good, little old ship she is, with her dedicated crew. Still sailing even though a fair proportion of her home port is wrecked. It was pretty cold out on the Waimak, we kept warm with our backs to the funnel.

Not an earthquake post ! really ! Am somewhat in thrall to this vid, the tune and the whole album from which it is taken - Polly Harvey's Let England Shake. Given that at least three of the songs take place at Gallipoli it is appropriate for ANZAC day as well.

#music #PJ harvey

disasterblog

As my wife noted in her blog a few weeks ago there seems to be a danger at the moment that every blog entry is going to be about a natural disaster of one kind or another, of which we've had a fair few in our general part of the world. I'm afraid I am going to have to write a few things though about the past few crazy days in Christchurch NZ.

Before I do, though, here is the one and only post 22/2/2011 earthquake photograph I have taken, on my antiquated PDA , which will give up the ghost shortly as its charger currently lies buried under a great big pile of ceiling tiles, aluminium framing, smashed glass, insulation, wiring and tumbled furniture in what used to be my office, situated on the 3rd floor of a wrecked office building, the constituent parts of which are now slowly pulling away from each other, with each aftershock, in a slow motion goodbye.

The photograph is taken of the old Knox church, past which I have been cycling every day since tuesday on my way to work in the temporary emergency operations centre of the organisation for which I work.

#christchurch 2202 earthquake

Pretty good aftershock at about 5:20am – enough to wake me up anyway and to start bleak trains of thought about the longer-term effects of the earthquake. Also, reflecting, uncharitably (cut me some...

aftershocks

Pretty good aftershock at about 5:20am - enough to wake me up anyway and to start bleak trains of thought about the longer-term effects of the earthquake. Also, reflecting, uncharitably (cut me some slack - I'm in a bad mood), on some less-than-optimal aspects of the TVNZ coverage yesterday. In particular the breathlesss reporting of looting in the city centre (juxtaposed against some visuals of some slightly dodgy looking, but completely innocent bystanders in a different part of the city), long after this had in fact turned out to be a couple of swiftly-arrested opportunists armed with a brick. Also the purblind and slightly comical emergency reporting of a planned motorway detour, for engineering purposes, in Auckland which meant that <gasp> people weren't going to be able to drive up and down AK's southern motorway for the weekend - oh the humanity ! It made for an unfortunate contrast.

On the other hand the reporters actually in Christchurch seemed pretty good to me, especially earlier in the day, before the news-anchor smarm (actually smarm more accurately applies to TV3 ..) machine kicked into gear and everyone starting hunting out various oblig tales of "miracle survivals"...

#christchurch earthquake #TV Coverage #TVNZ

GIS map from Geonet of main quake and aftershocks from the Darfield-Christchurch quake

#christchurch earthquake

As an fan of the above (mexican food that is, not quakes) can't help but notice that the Christchurch earthquake seems to have singled out Mexican eateries for special treatment Alva Rados has been trashed and South of the Border isn't looking too happy either. Hope the lunchtime burrito place on Armagh Street is okay !

Photos as credited from http://www.stuff.co.nz

#christchurch earthquake

The earthquake

Well, I know my tag line talks about being a scraping off a tectonic plate, but this is ridiculous .. We live about 30km north of Christchurch NZ and were woken this morning (4:35am local time) by certainly the largest earthquake I've felt. Apparently 7.4 on richter scale. Our old house (100yrs old) rolled about for quite some time - at least a minute - long enough for us to hop out of bed and for me to put my trousers on backwards anyway ..

No damage I can see in our town, but Christchurch has obviously suffered quite badly - just seen a photo of the old Repertory Theatre on Kilmore Street (I've been in a few shows there) looking fairly trashed, with most of the frontage fallen down into the road. Other buildings with the fronts taken off them - the rooms and floors revealed like old photos of the London blitz.

Just talked to lady from Cust (about 15 mins drive west) at the local garage who was buying a whole load of bottled water - their water is off and apparently the old war memorial there has fallen down.

No serious casualties reported (yet) thankfully.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4094986/Massive-7-4-quake-hits-South-Island

#christchurch earthquake #nz

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