What use is mankind?

Are we merely insignificant dots on the landscape? Have we ever done anything as a group to help the world?

Or - are we just like a fungus that is gradually destroying Earth as we know it?

We kid ourselves on that we are masters of our destiny but nature brings us back to reality sharply.   

We conquer plagues and find new ones that inflict us. Bacteria so small that it is invisible to the naked eye, manages to kill us off by the thousand. We invent ever more powerful anti pest poisons that are wiping out helpful insects at the same time as killing off harmful ones

We spend billions of our wealth in an attempt to conquer space. Is it simply because it is there?

What benefits will living on another planet that is airless bring us? 

Even so; nations that have entered the "Space Race" have millions of their population on the bread-line of starvation. Whilst they spend vital cash in an attempt to prove how 'advanced' they are.

Other nations pollute the very atmosphere in which they live, in the race for manufacturing monopoly. Simply to get money so that they can dominate other countries by purchasing control of them.

We poison the seas with plastic rubbish that kills off marine life. Every year more and ever more species are wiped out through the careless actions of mankind as a group. 

We refuse to act as we should as caretakers of nature's wonders and dissipate natural resources in our search for pleasure ever more pleasure.

We are the creators of our own doom, and make no attempt to slow it down. 

And when we go, as go we will; we will have no one to blame except Homo Sapiens.  

The final stage of man that proved he was misnamed as sapiens.

Comments on this posting and blog are invited and welcomed 

A delicious soup.

At a reasonable cost.

Contents:--

2 packets of Lidl Tomato cup-a-Soup 25P

1 small tin Lidl carrots 17P

Optional 3 or 4 closed cup mushrooms. 25p

Total cost? far less than brand names tinned soups 

Start water boiling for the soup, open the tin of carrots and put them in the blender; water and all. Blend into a thick mix.

Make the soup in the saucepan and blend it to mix well. Add the carrot mix and heat. If you use mushrooms, peel them and chop into slices, add them to the saucepan. Heat and blend as it heats. 

This will make around a pint or more (at least 22 fluid ounces) of very thick soup. Can be thinned a little if you prefer it thinner. Salt and pepper to taste and maybe use a little grated Oregano. 

Ideal for a small dinner party, or as a quick warm up after coming in from the cold. Slices of toasted wholemeal bread cut into 'soldiers' for dipping can also be recommended. 

What a surprise. !

Looking through 'Last Downloaded' on Morguefile this morning. Saw the full sized pic and wondered if it would show as used via Google because it had had a fair number of downloads.

Up came this book cover use of the cropped image.

I believe that brings my various book-cover numbers up to eight. I can remember I took the photo when on a delivery working part time for a butcher. It was a crisp morning and I parked in the lane by Weston-in-Gordano church and got some shots across the moorland fields from the churchyard.

Made me laugh a little when, after posting on a Flickr group, one of the members said the distance was out of focus. I refrained from pointing out that I had deliberately applied differential focus to cause the eye to concentrate on the foreground. To some folk everything must be dead sharp even though it makes for a 'dead' photo. 
Probably that same person would say why did the author/publisher use it as a monochrome image. That use alone makes it clear that it was most likely selected as such as a comment, about the times when the book was written.

Sorting through again later. Found that my photo of Christmas Steps in Bristol had been used as a heading for a screen play. That is certainly a first for me. 

Look for one thing - Find another.

Hunting through scanned JPG's of pictures taken many years back on my Agiflex III camera for a picture taken from Clevedon Pier, I came upon this little treasure.

As far as I can see - by the indistinct number - she is Hall Class Collet, Dorford Hall, at that time, running under British Rail and was decommissioned in January 1965. This picture was taken around 1962 or 3. I can't be certain but it look as though she was running a mail train? That is going by the unusual carriages just behind the loco.
I wonder what she would be worth today as a running loco? even as dirty and scruffy looking as she is in this picture?

Pathway at Sunhill Gardens

Decided to post another Infra-red picture on Everything Clevedon. I selected this one as being a place in central Clevedon that people should recognise and be surprised at how bright it looks.

Made about 15% sepia and then edge colours in PSP 8 edit.

Normally this is a drak and murky looking pathway but IR has lightened it up surprisingly. 

Well I'm Blessed.

Just discovered while browsing morguefile downloads. 

I somehow became tangled with Panaramio and Flickr and found that over 250 of my pix posted on the web have been selected for Google Earth picture links. No money in it but I am very pleased to think that my pix have been considered good enough to be used internationally like that. 

One of the pix was one taken when I first had my Sony A350 converted to take Infra-red pictures without the need to use a filter and tripod with 30 second exposures.

There are quite a few colour pix of Clevedon there as well.

I really enjoy doing IR pix, specially editing them afterwards to add colour shadings.

Like this one of Kingston Seymour that I titled "The Golden Village"

Edited by turning the monochrome infra-red picture to 10% sepia to get it recognised as a colour picture. Then selecting Coloured egdes in Effects- Artistic effects  and editing to Luminescence 8
Blur 0
Intensity 9
To try to summerise this peaceful off the beaten track Somerset Village. 

Odd pictures

Funny how some pix get very popular on Morguefile. I checked this morning and uncle Bill Gale's cat stuck on a ladder after climbing it, is suddenly shooting up in downloads. It has now been downloaded over 1,000 times. 

I reckon that cat was as obstinate as uncle Bill used to be. Checked this morning and it has jumped up 2 more places. I only wish uncle Bill was alive to know how popular his cat has become.

I remember aunty Lily Lane telling me how the doctor admired her Michaelmas Daisies and when she offered to let him have a few roots when they skimmed them back he said "Oh no Mrs Lane thank you just the same, but your brother won't let me have them in my garden. He calls them damned weeds."