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Continue reading →: Home again
After a simple but decent breakfast at my Holiday Inn Express in Dijon, I set off in relatively cool air. I decided to try to do the whole journey with the roof down. At 24º Celsius that made sense but by 11.17 am when I stopped for fuel it was…
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Continue reading →: Heading home
I arrived at Cusago, just outside Milan last night in an oppressive 36ºC. I woke this morning to find there had been an enormous thunderstorm. The atmosphere was lighter, the air was cooler and it was not the sweaty chore I had expected to load the car. I breakfasted in…
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Continue reading →: Wine and song
The final critique session yesterday was a revelation. I have been on many photo workshops but have never seen such progress in a week. Valeria, an Italian lady (and an authentic character who has raised smiles all week) had brought her new DSLR camera – her very first. She began…
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Continue reading →: La dolce vita in Florence
Last night I decided to make the effort to go out after all. I was glad that I did. Our whole group was invited to the home of Paolo and Tiziana, a local couple who are friends of some of our teachers. They made us welcome to their beautiful home;…
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Continue reading →: Pasta and Wine
Considering how selectively I shot in the previous day's blazing heat, I was happy with my "selects" for the critique yesterday. After class we adjourned to a restaurant where "Suzie" the chef had agreed to a pasta making demo / photoshoot. The area set up for the purpose was ablaze…
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Continue reading →: On the bus in Tuscany
After morning class yesterday (critiques of photos from each of the fourteen photographers on the workshop) we were bussed to Montepulciano. The idea was not so much to shoot the moderately pretty town, but to find some lunch. The midday sun does not make for attractive cityscapes. I chatted with…
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Continue reading →: Blogger on bridge
After our morning class today our sensei showed us some of his shots. One was of your humble blogger earnestly plying his photographic craft on the Ponte Vecchio. Image courtesy of Joe McNally / @joemcnallyphoto
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Continue reading →: Flagging in Tuscany
We hit the road on Monday morning. We hit it slowly because the bus driver's lean and hungry look did not signal, like Cassius, that he thought too much, or perhaps at all. He was taken by surprise by road works that had been going on for days, by Monday…
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Continue reading →: First full day of our Tuscany Workshop
Our workshop proper began on Sunday morning with a pre breakfast portrait shoot on the street outside our hotel with Natalie, our traveling model for the week. This was followed after breakfast with critiques of past work. Sensei took a look at four or five images from each of us…
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Continue reading →: A pedestrian day in Florence
Today was the first of two full days in Florence. My photo workshop begins this evening and I am looking forward to meeting up with friends from previous such events as well as making, I hope, some new ones. I had breakfast with the organiser, photographer and film-maker Liza Politi. This…
THE LAST DITCH
Your blogger
Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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One can only hope his neighbours, fellow lodge members (?) etc give him the cold shoulder.
The problem is that they already know about the blog and some read it. Why is that an issue? If…
Conversationally, I already operate on NATO “no first strike” principles. I am not going to start a political discussion with…
Why don’t you stick with what you are doing on the blogs but simply withdraw from discussion on politics with…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
They are servants. Just not of the public. He gets a full pension because he did his job for his…