Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the tag “art”

03 Jul 2015

Lilacs in the United Kingdom

Lilacs have been naturalized in Europe (UK, France, Germany, Italy, etc.) as well as much of North America.Lilacs were introduced to USA in the 1750’s .Rochester, N.Y. undoubtedly is the Lilac Capital of the World. It’s love for Lilacs dates back to 1892, when Highland Park horticulturalist John Dunbar planted 20 varieties and is the scene of an annual, two week long Lilac Festival, with over a half a million people attending the event each year. This park has over 500 varieties of lilacs. However there are in fact over 1000 different varieties. In 2006 New York State Governor George Pataki proclaimed the Lilac as the State bush.

I seem to have two plants in my garden grown from small plants sent by post bought from the Daily Telegraph. And them seem to have done well.

Lilacs in New Malden. Copyright Chris Bushe

Posted in lilacs, plants and tagged art, daily telegraph, george pataki, highland park, highland park lilac festival, image lilacs, images lilacs, john dunbar, lilac, lilac capital, lilacs, lilacs UK, new york state, north america, photos of plants, photos plants, plants, rochester, USA, where lilacs grow | Leave a comment

01 Jul 2015

Incredible Wood Carvings

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged art, cobham, dragon, hobbit, painshill, painshill park, surrey, wood carving | Leave a comment

30 Jun 2015

Foxgloves. Beauty , a potential cancer treatment and a Murder Weapon

The common foxglove is also known as Digitalis Purpurea. They tend to be fast growing biennials in Western Europe and are very distinctive flowers. They are long spires of essentially tubular flowers but contain Digitalis, also known as the medicine Digoxin, which is used to treat certain heart rhytmn problems. They produce flowers in their second year and tend to seed freely liking light shade.

The digitalis is poisonous in small amounts with dangerous cardiac effects, essentially slowing the heart rate, but the raw plant material is, emetic and eating a large amount may produce vomiting thus expelling the cardiac poisons .

In 2006, Charles Cullen, a nurse who worked in New York and New Jersey hospitals, was convicted of killing 29 patients with an overdose of either insulin or digoxin, and digoxin is a potential murder weapon. The converse however is also interesting in that there is some speculative evidence that it may have a use in treatment of breast and prostate cancer as it can dramatically slow the migration of malignant cells to other parts of the body.Research reveals that digoxin, can block the production of a protein called HIF-1, which has been implicated in the spread of breast tumours.

So a curious CV of effects, some good and some very bad.

Foxglove. Copyright Chris Bushe 2015

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged ADHD, art, biennial plants, breast cancer plants, cancer treatment, cancer treatment by plants, charles cullen, common foxglove, digital, digitalis, digitalis purpurea, digoxin, famous murderers, foxglove, harold shipman murder, HIF-1, murder by plants, murderer, new york, painshill, painshill park, plant murder weapons, plants cancer treatment, prostate cancer plants, purple plant, surrey, surrey murder | Leave a comment

28 Jun 2015

Nice Food Photographs

Garlic pizza bread. A nice starter

Chicken with asparagus and peppercorn sauce. Courgettes and oven potatoes.

Tiramisu

Apple Crumble. The Italian version.

Posted in food, food photos and tagged apple crumble, art, asparagus, beer, chicken and asparagus, food, food photos, garlic pizza bread, good restaurants, good restaurants worcester park, italian apple crumble, pinot grigio, pinot grigio blush, pizza, restaurant, restaurant surrey, rosmarino restaurant, rosmarino worcester park, surrey, tiramisu, worcester park | Leave a comment

27 Jun 2015

Lily Ponds in Birmingham

Just next to the NEC are a few small man made lakes and these ponds were looking quite photogenic.

Birmingham looking nice

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, art, aviation, BA, beach, beautiful flowers, birmingham, birmingham airport, birmingham hilton, flowers, hilton, hilton hotel, hilton metropole, lily, NEC, photos flowers, ponds | Leave a comment

26 Jun 2015

How to make Birmingham look nice. A fairly comprehensive challenge

Anyone who has travelled to Birmingham will understand that it is as far from idyllic sandy beaches as is humanly possible. The road systems are enough to induce any kind of serious mental disorder, the many industries create novel pollutants and car parking is nigh on impossible. A little bit cruel but you get the picture. So in the few hours that I had there my challenge was to take photographs to make Birmingham look nice. To make it look a place that the tourist industry might promote, in the same way that this was attempted (?achieved) with cities like Bradford.

An hour walking around the car parks of the Hilton Metropole hotel at NEC and the car parks of the NEC found these photos below, well maybe the fruit and the Raspberry Bakewell came from inside the hotel. But this proves that niceness can exist in Birmingham after all.

Birmingham with Pylons

Birmingham looking nice

Posted in architecture, city of culture and tagged ADHD, airport, art, aviation, BA, barcelona, beer, birmingham, birmingham holiday resort, birmingham nice, bradford, city of culture, hilton, hilton hotel, hilton metropole, leeds, m42, M6, M6 toll, mental disorders, novel pollutants, photos birmingham, pollutants, pollution, sandy beaches | Leave a comment

24 Jun 2015

A 45 Second Rant against Slow people in airports.

Written by the 14 year old and made me laugh.

One of the things that really annoys me is when people walk very, very slowly in front of you. Sometimes these people realize that there is in fact, somebody behind them and obligingly let you go past but most of the time they remain completely unaware, even if you do politely ask them if you could “just get through.” Apparently, this category of people tends to be both ignorant of your polite pleas and also surprisingly very slow indeed. As well as this, these people often seem to appear right when you are in a hurry, in airports for example. You have just gone through the whole rigmarole of trying to find your boarding cards, had your bag checked by security because there was some dangerous hand cream that was over 100mls and not in the plastic bag provided, and finally you settle down on the hard plastic seats before you realize that the departure screen for your flight is reading LAST CALL and you rush off to your gate which is not where the signposts state it is, and just as you are hurrying through those corridors, you are stopped by the people in front as they are walking as slow as is humanly possible. Possibly even slower than that in fact. Unfortunately for the fast walker type of people, the slower people not only can always be located directly in front of you, but also have the tendency to walk in large clumps of slow walking people. The only way out of this situation is to push through and apologize profusely, and hope that no other person has the misfortune to be stuck behind these people at any time that day.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged ADHD, airport, art, aviation, BA, barcelona, beach, beer, bees, benalmadena costa, birds, birds of prey, carshalton, clumps, clumps of slow people, gatwick, Heathrow, slow people, terminal 5 | Leave a comment

27 May 2015

Rapeseed Fields

Not everyone has heard of rapeseed despite its unfortunate name.Rapeseed oil was produced in the 19th century as a source of a lubricant for steam engines.Rapeseed is grown for the production of animal feed, vegetable oil for human consumption, and biodiesel .According to the United States Department of Agriculture, rapeseed was the third-leading source of vegetable oil in the world in 2000 with Canada and China being the top producers.

Rapeseed pollen contains known allergens. Whether rape pollen causes hay fever has not been well established, because rape is an insect-pollinated (entomophilous) crop, whereas hay fever is usually caused by wind-pollinated plants. The inhalation of oilseed rape dust may cause asthma in agricultural workers.

In the UK around May the fields do look stunning in their bright yellow colours. These fields are just outside Middlesbrough