Visiting The Place Theatre, Bedford; melancholy trees, Campylodiscus photography and the deceitful U-Turn in willingness to take in child refugees.
The Place Theatre in Bedford was hidden away on the outskirts of Bedford in a residential area. Apparently, it used to be a youth club with a boxing ring, before its transformation into a popular venue for local artists and theatre groups. Graham Frost had hired it for Sunday's Speaker event, where I was to video five speakers giving their talks to an audience invited over Facebook. I was checking the joint out today, to see what I would need at the Weekend. Laura, the site manager told me with delight, that the show had been mentioned on an American TV station as part of the weird and wonderful things that you could do in Bedford, England.
The Place is a lovely little theatre. Behind a curtain that was reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz, was a metal ladder leading up to the lighting control board - a real adventure to climb with my long legs in the confined space. To be on the safe side, I videoed Laura's instructions on how to manage the lights.
The following hour was then spent testing out the lighting, best positions on stage and the three different cameras I had with me. I wanted to use at least two for Sunday's videoing; one for a widescreen shot of the stage floor and the other for close-up head and shoulders of the speaker. I'd also record the sound separately. I was performing a strange sort of repeated dance of going backwards and forwards and side to side as each camera was running, such that when some random visitors popped their heads through the door to the theatre, they thought I was a puppet master on strings.
On my way back, I stopped off at S's place in St Neots for great conversation and, more importantly by then, a toasted pitta bread sandwich and a cup of tea.
Setting off at 3pm, the sky was a leaden grey, silhouetting the branches of solitary trees beautifully in a melancholy way. I therefore turned off several times from the main A14 to try and photograph single trees against the sky. The 25 minute return journey turned into a 70 minute one!
Only just back, I had a student visitor interested in doing a photography project with objects through the microscope. We had a great preliminary conversation and planned to have an afternoon at learning the ropes next week. This prompted me to open the most recent Postal Microscopy Society Box that had arrived a week or so ago. Some of the samples had dried up , being quite ancient. However, there was a beautiful strew of the diatom Campylodiscus. I spent the evening taking over 500 pictures to combine in 9 photostacks for a panorama. I'm currently assembling the fifth stack as I write this blog.
The British government is coming under some stick today for having buried some less favourable news with the Brexit vote yesterday. We had promised to take in 3000 child refugees from France last year, after the closure of the Calais camp, to safeguard them from traffickers and exploitation. Yesterday, the government quietly announced that the program would be finished after a mere 300, 10%, with the explanation that not enough spaces could be found with local councils. Lord Dubs, a former refugee himself when he came over with the Kindertransports during the Nazi purges, railed against this deceitful action, as did the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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