An amazing concert full of energy and great music. Thats all that needs to be said. Support bands were all of an interesting kind. Matt and Kim were fairly unique but made good sounds. Charley Marley had good energy. Fall Out boy were simply amazing.
Charley Marley
Matt and Kim SSE London
Fall out boy SSE Wembley 2015
Fall out boy SSE Wembley 2015
Fall out boy SSE Wembley 2015
English vineyards are making something of a resurgence now. Their major issue is the size of most vineyards being so small that wine amounts tend to be too small from most vineyards to be commercially sold to supermarket chains. A few years ago, one of the best UK vineyards, Three Choirs , in fact sold their whole annual wine crop to Eurostar, meaning that the only way to taste the wine was to have a 187ml bottle on the train.
Denbies vineyard is in Dorking and Painshill is a park in Cobham with a vineyard as part of the park. A few photographs to tempt you to sample English wine.
Painshill Park Cobham Grapes
Denbies is a wine estate or perhaps better termed, vineyard in Dorking, surrey established in 1986.The vineyards of Denbies Estate are situated on the North Downs with its famous chalky soil, in a protected valley of south facing slopes. In size it is the largest in the UK with 627 acres of land of which 265 acres have been planted representing more than 10 per cent of the plantings in the whole of the United Kingdom. This makes it three times the size of any other in the UK and the largest independent vineyard in Europe. Around 65% of the wine is sold at the visitor centre. From a good harvest around 400,000 bottles can be produced of different types from the 18 varieties of grape grown. The main grapes grown include : seyval blanc, reichensteiner, Muller-Thurgau, Bacchus, Ortega, Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Dornfelder.
Painshill Park Cobham Grapes
Painshill Park Cobham Grapes
Denbies Vineyard. Dorking
Denbies Vineyard. Dorking
Denbies Vineyard. Dorking
Denbies Vineyard. Dorking
Swan at Painshill Park. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015
Swan at Painshill Park. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015
messy Swan at Painshill Park. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015
There is only one real car park in Hersham and this is where this caterpillar decided to try and cross, luckily saved from a squashing demise by the good eyesight of a 15 year old. Rescued and placed on a leaf. These humble I Phone photos try and capture the brave if impulsive caterpillar.
Hersham Caterpillar
Hersham Caterpillar
Just a few flowers from the garden shot with a macro lens. Everyone needs a macro lens.
Wild crocus
Wild crocus
Wild crocus
Wild crocus
After the farcical events of the last month we need to briefly recap.
What has gone wrong? Last season the fans were all together as a unit. Crowds were growing. The ground was sold out most games. Away travelling fans increased in numbers. This season that is all in reverse with 126 fans travelling to Middlesboro for a midweek game. My own view is this. The results have been poor but the performances poorer. A definite lack of tempo compared to last season ( this translates in my language to lack of effort), lack of leadership on the field. Would any away fan during the game be able to spot who the captain was? The quality of the play has been poor. The new players have mostly failed to be as good as the departing ones and certainly not better. And the defence has got worse, and frankly it was bad last year. Brentford are regularly conceding two or more goals each game.
So we need this
Anyone who thinks we are immune from relegation please think again. We have beaten only two of the poorest sides in the division so far and lost to sides that frankly are mediocre. But importantly we need to see something from the players. management team and board that we as fans can identify as an explanation for what has happened. We need to be able to get behind the team again and give them support. This is not easy when we have no clue what is going on.
Putting out the fires at Griffin Park?
Putting out the fires at Griffin Park?
The sun going down on Brentford dreams?
Wisley RHS sculpture exhibition
Wisley RHS sculpture exhibition
Wisley RHS sculpture exhibition
Wisley RHS sculpture exhibition
Sculpture in Edinburgh. Princes Street
Essen seems a pleasant enough town with a nice shopping centre and nice cafes. The striking thing about my visit related to the trains and the people on them. So maybe a photographic treatise here is better than so many words. But two questions. Firstly, how common is it to not wear any shoes on a train especially in the rain? Secondly, what wonderful graffiti both on the train and around the station. Far from imagining this as a negative thing I became convinced that it is a positive thing and added value to both the train and the station. Not everyone’s thoughts maybe.
Essen is the 9th largest city in Germany with a population just under 0.6 million. Although it is the (in total) most indebted city in Germany, Essen continues to pursue its redevelopment plans. Notable accomplishments in recent years include the title of European Capital of Culture on behalf of the whole Ruhr area in 2010 and the selection as the European Green Capital for 2017.
The train station is an important hub.Of the Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn net’s 13 lines, 5 lines lead through Essen territory and meet at the Essen Hauptbahnhof main station, which also serves as the connection to the Regional-Express and Intercity-Express network of regional and nationwide high-speed trains.
Essen it can be said is not an obvious mecca for high quality football.The biggest association football clubs in Essen are Rot-Weiss Essen (Red-White Essen) and Schwarz-Weiß Essen (Black-White Essen). Rot-Weiss Essen is playing in the fourth tier of the German football league system, Regionalliga West, and Schwarz-Weiß Essen in the fifth tier, Oberliga Nordrhein-Westfalen. Other football clubs are BV Altenessen, TuS Helene Altenessen, SG Essen-Schönebeck.
Tourism is not such a large aspect to the city but commerce certainly is. At international trade fairs and public shows and exhibitions, Essen international trade Fairs welcomes over 14,000 exhibitors and up to 2 million visitors each year.
There are however some interesting things to see, presumably for those shoe wearing denizens of Essen. The Soul of Africa museum is one such place.
News emerged a few hours ago that Brentford had sacked Marinus Dijkhuizen after only 8 games in charge. The reasons may be fairly clear. Not only poor results ( for which he cannot be soleley to blame), but the insipid manner of the performances with a lower work rate and tempo than under Mark Warburton gave cause for concern very early on. Visually Marinus failed to motivate from the touchline, often giving the impression he was simply a spectator at the game rather than an active component to what was going on on the field. Any coaching that was done,and their was precious little evidence of it, came from his coaching assistant. His failure to bond at all with the fans was also notable.
in hindsight at the Bees forum last week, not only was the atmosphere flat, suspiciously so, but the lack of obvious communication between Marinus and Rasmus Andersen, Phil Giles, Cliff Crown , was obvious to the watching eye. they hardly spoke to each other and some of the questions that were addressed to others normally might have gone to Marinus. This was both before the forum, during and after. The bond I hoped and expected to see between coaching staff was absent. Again in hindsight, a dead man walking. Crowds were also falling, and after 3 sustained seasons of increased crowds with incredible support for the players, this was starting to vanish. Numbers of away fans were frankly minimal compared to last season. Atmosphere at home games was nothing like last year. Put simply we have gone backwards. Where we have exciting talent on the bench, Sergi Canos, there were reasons/excuses why he did not start a game. The interaction between players and coaching staff at games looked poor and minimal. A few tweets from senior players also caught my eye, sometimes what they did not say as much as what they did.
There will be debate over this, and already comment has been made that we do not want to be ” another Leeds” but if something is wrong then it needs to be changed. Marinus seemed an intelligent and likeable man, but did he motivate me or inspire me, not at all, and one wonders if that at the end is the simple aspect that was wrong. Brentford fans demand clear high work rate on the pitch, they forgive mistakes, but will not forgive insipid performances. I wish Marinus well, but do imagine that the Football League is not the right place for his talents and maybe a return to Netherlands might be the best option.
Marinus Dijkhuizen at Bees Forum 2015 Sept
Marinus Dijkhuizen at Bees Forum 2015 Sept
Marinus Dijkhuizen and Cliff Crown at Bees Forum 2015 Sept
Marinus Dijkhuizen at Bees Forum 2015 Sept
Supermoon 2015 UK Copyright Chris Bushe
Supermoon 2015 UK Copyright Chris Bushe
chris1957
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