Pig Sty Avenue

My mate Zombizi gave me this link which in turn links to covers of Tom Waits songs .  Which I'll get time to listen to in the next few days. 

I'm re-reading The Jewel in the Crown .  I liked the bit where Daphne and Hari dance to this tune . 

...to all our readers!  Well, the three of yous. 

George Sq December 2009 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . This was a roll of Agfa Precisa 100iso (given to me by my mate Oli ), developed in tetenal chemicals for 5.25mins, (so it was really pushed, the standard time is 3.15mins). It was at 1/25sec, f2.8. I'm saying it was pushed to 1600iso, but that's guesswork because the FED2, of course, has no kind of meter. And the FED2, btw, is becoming the top-dog camera. I think I might be able to flog off all the rest and hang to it and the Holga, and be contented. I can collect LTM lenses. And now that I've got a 40.5<52mm filter adaptor, there'll be no stopping me. Except not having enough time, that's stopping me.

I've got a new allotment, on a site which is itself only two years old, carved out of the side of a hill.  My plot, somebody tried to work it, but soon gave up, so it's never been gardened.  I'm reckoning a year or two to make it presentable.  An awful lot of rocks to shift, and drainage ditches to dig, and raised beds to build.  There was a big hare resting there yesterday - the secretary of the allotment association told me that s/he's become kind-of a mascot. 

I don't like the lighting, but the idea's great. 

FED2 Industar 61 Dockhead St , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . Another test roll on the FED2, which established that the Industar 61 lens works fine - I was wondering if some fault with the lens, coupling with the rangefinder, perhaps, was causing the apparent focusing problems with the FED4. I'm trying to find a 35mm camera that I can use all the time, my main go-anywhere do-anything sort of camera. The Holga's great fun, but I need something more precise. The FED4 is the main candidate because of its light meter and flash synch, but that roll of 1970s Efke came out blurred - maybe that was the film. So I need another test roll in that camera. And/or I might take the FED2 to bits, see what's wrong with the synch, and paint the curtains thoroughly. The wee lugs for fitting a strap are another big advantage of the 2 over the 4 - I don't like those easy open cases. And I can live without a light meter. I've bought a 40.5 - 52mm filter adaptor o...

Swimming is the latest craze in our house, with the baths only five minutes away, and The Bairn being mad for it.  So we take turns each, one looking after her in the paddling pool, the other off to the big pool to do lengths.  Herself's a really good swimmer.  I didn't think I was, but, actually, I'm lanes ahead of most of the other blokes there, with their sedate breaststrokes.  See, I can't do more than half a length with the breaststroke, but find the crawl much easier.  My legs are all wrong though, which is why I've included this gif.  I might go mad and get a hat and goggles.  In the past, one or two lengths was enough for me, but I'm up to ten now.  Maybe if I got to thirty in an hour, I'd be getting somewhere.  It's got to be better than sitting at this feckin laptop.

We listened to this tonight .  How splendid.  I can't consciously recall reading it before, but must have, if it's in lots of anthologies.  It felt familiar. It's reminiscent of another poem I love, Graves Here Live Your Life Out! : Window-gazing, at one time or another In the course of travel, you must have startled at Some coign of true felicity. “Stay!” it beckoned, “Here live your life out!” If you were simple-hearted The village rose, perhaps, from a broad stream Lined with alders and gold-flowering flags— Hills, mills, hay-fields, orchards—and, plain to see, The very house behind its mulberry-tree Stood, by a miracle, untenanted! Alas, you could not alight, found yourself jolted Viciously on. Public conveyances Are not amenable to casual halts Except in sternly drawn emergencies— Bandits, floods, landslides, earthquakes or the like— Nor could you muster resolution enough To shout “This is emergency, let me out!” Rushing to grasp their brakes;...

Herself 1 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue .

Holga XPRO 3rd Roll 12 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . To finish the roll. Best one on it. In fact, best photo I've taken in ages.

In Sainsbury's last night they had packets of rosemary cuttings (can you call them a sprig when they aren't tied together?) which had reached their sell-by and were going for 10p.  So I bought two.   The were about 7" long.  I trimmed off the bottom 3" or so of leaves and put them in a glass of water overnight.   And then this morning I dipped them in hormone and put them each in wee pots with 50/50 cactus compost and vermiculite, and then put them in the propagator.  According to PFAF , they should root in about three weeks.  There are a dozen cuttings, and I'll be pleased if half of them root.  The only concern is that they are quite woody.  We shall see.  And a search on google scholar unearthed this gem: Cypresse Garlands are of great account at Funeralls amongst the gentiler sort, but Rosemary and Bayes are used by the Commons both at Funeralls and Weddings. They are all plants which fade not a good while after they are gath...

DIY XPRO 2nd Roll 1 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue .

That's the first roll through the new FED4.  I'm not impressed.  Nothing is what you'd call sharp.  Mind you, I can't complain, I got the Industar61 lens with the camera for £5.50 the pair.  So I will probably need another lens, maybe a Jupiter8.  I could kick myself now for selling both of those lenses, and all their bloody filters, a few months ago.  Binary thinking, that was.  However, one lives and learns. I've got an Industar26 on the FED2 - I'll maybe try that on the next roll I'm putting through the FED4, which is Agfa E6, which I got from Oli.  I'm going to use that to take a set of portraits indoors.  Maybe half and half with the two lenses would be a good idea.  It's part of a new approach I'm toying with: shoot a roll of film on a given subject, and dev it straightaway.  I've got loads of film.  And the processing works out at about 65p now.

I need to check this out , when I get time. 

Holga 12 16 Mask Blunder 9 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I think that this was the first roll with the Holga. I'd bought a roll of Fuji Reala from a proper wee camera shop in Durham. I think this predated the decision to get the Tetenal kit, so I was for getting it developed at Snappy Snaps, (although that never happened). It was when I got towards the end of the roll, I realised I was on the wrong numbering system - I had the wee sliding door at the window set for the 16 frame mask, whereas it had the usual 12 (6x6cm) one in. So there are some wonderfully weird overlapping exposures, like these. Cool, eh? And this is nice film, if I was doing something straight. The backlog of film is nearly all dev'd now - just one roll of E6 to go. And then I've got a drawer full of film, both 35mm and 120. I've got the technicalities of this thing about nailed down now. Time to get out more.

It gets you sacked , even if it's your job to talk about them.  "The home secretary's action is a bad day for science and a bad day for the cause of evidence-informed policy making." Silence is the code.

This should have been disconnected yesterday...

We sacked those bastard Murdochs, from who we were getting phone, broadband and telly. And what a chore that was, just giving them a month's notice over the phone. You've got someone trained to piss you off and talk you out of it. Which was the cherry on the cake. Anyway, usual long story short. Bit of a fuck up with getting the new lot (AOL, probably another shower of bastards,) in, so I'm more or less offline until (they say) 6th November. Until then, or wtf.

With Herself at Work, and The Bairn at nursery, I was able to give my Tetenal C41 kit its first outing.  I'd lost the instructions, but got the basics here , and a whole lot more here .  I used a plastic bowl in the kitchen sink, and warmed the chemicals there first,  (I made up 500ml of each - developer, blix and stabilizer, and put the first in an elderflower cordial bottle, the second in a tomato sauce bottle, the third in a brown sauce bottle).  I used an electronic thermometer, the sort you use to see if you have a temperature, so it was very accurate. It was 39.5C when I started.  The developing is the most temperature crucial part, but it's only 3m 15s, so it wouldn't have dropped by more than a degree or two, I'd guess.  The counter-intuitive part comes when you add the blix straight after the developer, but then, heigh ho.  Then the rinse, then the stabilizer, and then...  no final rinse.  The stabilizer is a bit sticky, so it seem...

I didn't realize there was a new editor thingummy.  Maybe that would explain why I've had to edit in photos manually in the last few weeks?  Anyway, sorted now.  Gawd bless 'er!  

You know, every team has a bad day once in a while. But let's keep a sense of proportion, we've had three iffy games. It's not the end of the frigging world. We're only second on goal difference.

This is the best photo I've seen in ages. The way the sun illuminates her lower face, (the eyes can take care of themselves), and then again the cross, whilst the watch is in darkness. And then the middle ground, the hands writing the bill... And the old lady at the back. It's a peach.

For that long winter night when I start to take lenses apart, there's this . And I've not seen Commie Cameras . Thanks to Macredeye for pointing the way. The camera landed yesterday. It is quite heavy, but it's not going to give anyone a hernia. The light meter works, and so does the PC flash. Enough blether. Photos!

I got a FED4 on eBay, mostly because it had an Industar61 lens attached to it, and was therefore a bargain. And, I'm hoping the flash will synch properly. AND it has a light meter, which is said to work. This is the manual. I was wondering about the actual mechanics of the shutter curtain, and this has the craic, here . There's lots more useful stuff at SovietCameras . It's said to be a "beast". Would come in handy for street photography, if set upon.

An appropriate title, perhaps, for the first post of a new MA-done-and-dusted era. (NB, whilst at Durham I was delighted to hear from my mate Ben an Australian take on that phrase, home-and-hosed.) Anyway, I'm re-collecting the 60s music. The latest thing is the Stones' eponymous first album , the remastered version, which is the US version. It's great fun - Molly loves dancing to it. NB: there's a glitch with the picture uploads on this blog. I added this one manually. I don't know the HTML for insetting, though.

zawiya garden , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I sat in this chair, in a garden in Libya, whilst reading for the first module (methodology) of the MA. Spring of 2005, four and half years, for goodness sakes, and I've just finished the final dissertation in the last hour. I'll do a final proof and then submit it tomorrow, but, essentially, that's it.

Editing. Fine-tooth comb job.

The tape is not just in sight, it is almost touchable. Mind you, I'm not coasting along to it: there's still a lot of heavy-duty conceptualizing to be done.

I've got three, solid (hopefully), days to write up the Discussion section, tidy it all up, proof it... And, voila! Four years of lost weekends will be at an end. Meanwhile, last night I relaxed by getting the chemicals from the press to make up some fixer , and some Beutler high acutane developer . The fixer and Solution A for the Beutler was straightforward. Solution B is simply washing soda, or Sodium carbonate. But the recipe says anhydrate, whereas the stuff from the shop is decahydrate. I made it up proportionately as directed in a 750ml wine bottle, and it hasn't dissolved properly. I'm trying to puzzle out the an/deca difference, and to see if I can make anhydrate from decahydrate. This APUG thread might hold the key, but I need to get back to the Dissertation. I've skimmed the first two or three pages. Perhaps I can make it from bicarb? Or just heat up the decahydrate? In the bigger picture I think I'll swot up on basic chemistry, and get that ...

By this time next week, I should have finished the dissertation. I need to check this out later...

Avivamagnolia this morning blipped this: Splendid. I need to check these lads out.

I got this from via the Flickr Glasgow Photo group: A map of greater Glasgow , which references demolitions. Future photo opportunities.

It's like re-encountering a former lover, and then remembering why you used to enjoy their company so much: the nice clunky shutter, the feel in your hand, the pure functionality, the oh-so wrongness of its beautiful lines which you know are stolen... The fact you could get it onto the kitchen table and take the bugger apart , without a qualm. What that link doesn't say is, how to deal with a faulty flash connexion. That's what this has. But I'll give it a go with tripod, ambient light and slow exposures until I get to grips with Soviet soldering.

The Shirelles - Baby It's You Please Please Me has become the album of September 2009. I was Molly's age when it came out, and my infancy was saturated by The Beatles, through my Mam's three teenaged sisters, dancing around their bedroom in Hebburn, with the ever present odour of hair lacquer. Baby It's You is one of The Beatles best covers. The original is great too.

I've gotten involved on Flickr in something called Old Film Project . The story so far is that a nice man from Seattle had a load of old film, and offered to send eight rolls of it to various photographers around the globe, and I'm one of them, (whether on the strength of my photo stream or a first-come-first-served basis, I didn't like to ask). It got my interest because one of the types of film was EFKE 100 asa. The only downside was that the film is 35mm, which I'd sworn off in favour of medium format. But never say never again. Whilst in Durham, I went to an art shop and bought a wee bottle of black fabric paint. Back home now, I've got the FED2 in this picture out of the press, and painted its leaky curtain. I'm going to put a roll of cheap colour film through it and have that developed at a shop, just to see if the light leak's mended. And then I'll get down to it with the EFKE. Which, I should point out, was manufactured in Zagreb in...

I could almost feel sorry for that twat Keane . Almost. Not quite. But not for Polanski . He's been a walking affirmation of every paedophile's sustaining belief that having sex with children isn't really wrong. He lured this 13 year old would-be model with talk of a photo shoot, gave her alcohol and Quaalude, and then penetrated her in several ways. He was 44 at the time. It's really difficult to think of anyway on earth to mitigate that one very much. In the UK, that would be, what? Seven years?

And a bloody funny one . I was thinking of maybe giving it all up and getting an M9 myself, coincidentally.

http://www.last.fm/ When I've the time.

Today is the day when I get to grips with this beast. A few weeks ago, the dissertation was launched, and sat in the river like a big empty ship; now, with the entrails of the beast, I'm building the engines. It's on schedule to sail out of the river in four weeks' time.

"...we will take every step to ensure our staff are fully aware of current legislation and protocols" , originally uploaded by monaxle . Taking photos? Doesn't he know there's a war on?

Street photography video . For when I've got time.

One of The Old Man's favourite sayings, referring to the only recourse open to someone who's suffered a setback. "All you can do, is shake your head and box on". It's what you do when boxing if you've taken a good punch. It's a phrase much on my mind as I search for paid employment.

When going through (Chinese, post graduate) students' essays with them in tutorials, I will point to a sentence which is so garbled as to be meaningless. I ask the student what it means and they explain it to me very well. They use a different structure and lexis in the explanation. "Write it like that, then", I tell them. This happens with the majority of my students. None of them can explain why there written sentence differs so much from the spoken one. What's all that about, then?

There are some basic numbers here , but to get the meat I need to check out the library. Monday, that'll be. Weekend off.

This is another MA Dissertation note to self. If anyone's still reading, sorry about the navel gazing, but that's just the way it is: for the next month, I will be my MA. Then I will be free. However, just now, HESA are the people to consult regarding statistics for International Students. I need these numbers: 1: Overall Studying UK by PG and UG 2: Information regarding course, conditionality of offers. 3: Numbers who returned in less than 16 weeks, (and therefore [probably?] did not meet course requirements).

I've read about this in Weigle 1999 . I need to get hold of FACETS. Rater severity (or leniency) and what we do about it is an interesting area. There's no time for this now.

Things have come to a pretty pass when I start thinking wistfully of my own dissertation as I plough through fourteen of my students' 3000 worders. At least, as I tweeted , it's raining: splendid weather for those chained to a pile of scripts. Anyway, here's a note to self, as I've been contemplating the dissertation and not had the space to do anything with it for a few days. I'll be back onto it tomorrow. There are three things I need to do: begin to process the data that I've got; read up and review the literature on "norming"; read up and review the literature on the CEFR. And next week I've got to get to grips with the data available to me. I couldn't really chase up the teachers whose students are providing it this week (we've all had a big marking burden), but I can do that next week. I'll be following the fortunes of six students and two teachers through the assessment process. I need also to get consent forms printed an...

The Old Man has for years followed his own stable of horses: those whose names refer to our family's names, especially his grandchildren. I follow them too, on-and-off. We never back more than fiver each, normally a couple of quid. Anyway, here's a new member of the stable I found yesterday in the racecard at Yarmouth, Suzy Alexander . As you can see, it didn't cover itself in glory, exactly . Anyway, he and Mam are on a bus trip to Scarborough, and I rang him up to tell him about this horse. He was in the local British Legion club and went outside to talk to me. The old club doorman had heard the conversation, and realized it centred around a horse. So he asked, half-jokingly, with his gambler's eye to free information, "Was that a tip you were getting?" Now, the Old Man could hardly say, well, not really, it's just a bit of horse-related family humour, because he would have looked a bit cagey, as if he was holding back, so he said it was and gav...

Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall This would be good for teaching tenses. Or maybe just reviewing them in an end of term lesson. The way different tenses are used throughout. You could teach the concept of aspect with it: where's he standing as the narrrative progresses. And how his tense use depends on the question prompt at the start of each verse. Here's the text of the lyrics . EDIT: you could use a power point or wtf to look at a time line. Image of Bob, different points on the time line. Images to illustrate the lyrics.

And here's another Holga site .

I read on the lomography site (I think... it's a commercial site so I'm not giving a link to the buggers), that Holga is an anglicization of ho gwong which, they said, means bright light . Hmm. One of my Mandarin speaking students discussed it with her Cantonese speaking chum, and they agreed it actually translates into something like you have a bright (healthy looking) face . Which is much nicer. The gwong syllable is pronounced in a charming way, reminiscent of the ringing of a bell or, well, gong.

I'll buy the Tetenal kit to get me started, but I want to make my own in due course: here's a starting point from the DIY Color group on Flickr . There's also the Dignan Divided C41 Recipe . And here, God bless him, someone called Ahock has done a lot of work and set it out nicely .

I've shopped around and this seems to be the best price . I'm budgetting on £20 with P&P. I'll need a new thermometer, too. I'm also thinking, we just don't have the room at home to do enlargements, so I'm going to compromise and get digital enlargements done. I can seek out somewhere to do proper wet darkroom prints in due course: I have, as they used to say in the films, the negatives.

Just a link , note to self.

Is what I've got, the doctor told me today. It's not rocket science, she kept saying, it's about diet. Hmm. The veg you buy in shops is shite. So I need to get an allotment, exercise and proper vegetables. A bike. Go fishing. Take the Holga. Less drink. Less pies. A proper job nearer home would help these plans.

It's all just gotten on my nerves. I'm going to have a holiday from it. Life's too short. In-jokes and arseholes. Etc. Mind you, I'm really looking forward to getting the Holga. I'm a hopeless romantic for cameras: maybe this will be The One? It's been a long journey so far, from Brownie Reflex when I was 8, via SLRs, a point and shoot, DSLR, one of the original SLRs, a FED2, a Leica, several Ilford Sportis, several folders, to a Holga. Which is not a million miles from the Reflex, except for the built in flash. It's the vignetting and the spontaneity I'm after. I can get a flash on the Agfa, but by the time I open it, put on the flash, do the settings, cock the shutter... It's a great camera, and I'll use it for set-up or formal situations, but it's not down and dirty. Whereas, a Holga, just carry it around, the flash is built in, away you go if you meet someone or something happens or wtf. And there's the possible effects of ...

I've been meaning to get a copy of Macdonald's Revolution in the Head since it came out. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was only £3 in HMV yesterday, and I got a copy. Later I realized that the price drop is no doubt connected to the release of the remastered albums coming up on 9th September (9/9/9, geddit?) Hmm. So I've also pre-ordered the remastered Please Please Me, as the first step in another collection. Much more than that, if one was born in 1960, this formed a big part of that soundtrack of childhood. And The Beatles phenomenon was always at the interstices of musical genius and capitalist greed. The 60s nostalgia has been going on for a week or so: I've been listening a lot to the BBC Hendrix CD. Probably not the best performances, those sessions didn't have the thoroughness of a full studio recording or the energy of a live one, but they're great fun nontheless.

Well, I managed to write much more than 1500 words, in particular an outline, much of which will serve as the introduction, and note on the methodology. It also meant I had to think it all through, the bigger picture, and I've done that now so I'm about ready to rock and roll with serious work on it. So I won't be blogging much for a couple of months. Meanwhile, I treated myself to that Holga, which will probably take several weeks to arrive from Hong Kong. And here's a rather wacky Holga site . In just over two months I will be free of evenings and weekends of study, and I can have lots of family time, photography, gardening, cycling, walking... I swear I will never again set about studying something formally in my own time.

When you've set aside the whole day, it seems a bit daunting. So amidst the mostly mindless surfing and noodling around, I spent a bit of time back in my old playground, DMU, in particular this thread . It quickly goes off-topic, of course, but the start of it got me thinking again about getting a Holga. A wee bit of research this morning tells me I want an FN, that is, 120, plastic lens, built-in flash but no silly colours. Less than £25 on eBay, with free postage from Hong Kong. All of which got me thinking, when I was first starting on the MA, more than four years ago now, I told myself, when I'd finished it, and got a good full time job as a result, I'd treat myself to a la-di-da camera, which at that time I imagined as a semi-pro DSLR. How things have changed, because I'll settle for the Holga now. Not that the MA has produced the full time permanent job yet. Here's a carrot for today, then: If I have 1500 words by the end of the day (that's 10% of th...

Provisional thoughts on methodology: The students have nine pieces of assessed writing over eight weeks. These range from 1 hour timed writings to a three thousand word essay. Teachers are paired. I've already secured the co-operation one pair, I'll get another pair at the staff meeting tomorrow. For the first (timed) essay, teachers have been asked to select their class's top, middle and bottom essays to pass over to their co-teacher for double marking. They are the ones I'll select for data, (two pairs, three per teacher, so that's 12 examples, times nine over the whole course, that's 108 examples of writing and marking. [Too many?]). And I'll stick with those twelve students throughout, whether or not they lose their high/middle/low status. That should give the data continuity. And the marking of four teachers will also guard against anomalies. Four teachers and twelve learners will also be good numbers for other data: interviews and questionnair...

I've never heard of this until tonight . Where blueprints come from. I'll have to give it a go. This explains how to .

Hmm. Lot of psycholinguistics in the library here.

Working Title: Adapting the CEFR for Assessment of Academic Writing Ability I won't use the phrase in the actual dissertation, but there could be the start of a paradigm shift here. When I applied to NEECU for their pre-sessional last year, they turned me down: "...you do not appear to have the relevant experience or qualifications. EAP is very different from ESOL (and also very different from IELTS) and we require experience of the former, preferably in a higher education context." I was a bit narked at the time, but now I can see that there was a conscious effort going on here to separate their EAP from IELTS. It's a rather bold move, because on pre-sessionals throughout academia everyone is focussed on getting their magic 6.0. 6.5 or 7.0. (Well, I'm saying that... But I have no data for it. It was the situation at Glasgow. A survey of practice across UK Universities might be a good idea for a future study). I still need to read up on the details - I...

L. Ravelli, & R. Ellis (Eds.), (2004) Analysing academic writing in context: Contextualised frameworks London: Continuum Coffin, C., Curry, M., Goodman, S. et al. (eds) (2003) Teaching Academic Writing, Routledge, London.

I'd never heard of the TESL Canada Journal until this morning. It's a bugger to get access to. This article on faculty involvement in testing might be useful. The European Framework of Languages: A Piloting Sample of Cross-curricular Strategy might be good stuff, too, if I can only get access.

I reckon this is as valid for a typing test as it is for a speaking one, of intoxication. Dismisseth is as big a bugger to type as it is to say when you've had a few. I would suggest. God is good. NEECU does a CEF related assessment and evaluation. 1st ever to do this. It's a wee peach of a thing for a subject-hungry language tester and critical pedagogue. It's also a thing to be left until the drinks's gone. In despite of which, one might like to consider... The origin of IELTS dominance with UK universities. When? At NEECU, what materials were used before? [Hobby fucking horse?] Go down to the micro-level, subtextual even, with every fucking phoneme of their descriptors. That might be the point of a CDA - where the ALTE > DIALANG CAN DO s are the fuck taking us. (And the history thereof). It's a fucking cracker. One promises to be more circumspect when one returns without "drink taken".

I went a bit wrong around -olly old g- , as it happens.

This buy-a-bike-and-ride-it-to-get-some-exercise idea is very slow burning, I'll admit, but it is burning. I will have a bike before next Easter. I need to think about essentials, and I'm looking at frame size to begin with. It's very complicated, according to Sheldon .

That's North East England Collegiate University, which is such a poor disguise, I don't in know why I bother, except that I've got into the habit of not blabbing my employers' names all over the Avenue. Anyhow, here I am on their pre-sessional. End of the first day, and it's looking hopeful so far. We get two days induction, which is quite an interesting investment on NEECU's part, and means one goes into the actual teaching next week with a fair idea of what's what, as opposed to the usual vague emails and first morning classroom debacles. The other teachers all seem ok, except for the usual middle-aged TEFL lady who pretended, over a coffee first thing, that she couldn't understand the name of my accommodation block, "Pine", because of my accent. I bit-off a reply about hoping her students speak more clearly than me, and said (somewhat peevishly, looking back), that I hadn't lived in the north east for most of my life so my accent co...

...then you must get my mate Daniel to do the photos. That's quite a good advert for what's likely to be a small demographic, New York based Avenue readers, planning their Big Day. But every little helps. And he's very good.

5th Roll 12 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . 5th roll with the good agfa isolette, that is. Not bad, eh? Getting to the sort of look I'm after. This is HP5+. Next, in the camera now on frame 10, is ADOX 50.

...is what I'll need for the ADOX films. Here's a recipe .

Heard her on Late Junction. Will come back when have time .

I got the final ingredient to dev ADOX , Sodium Chloride Carbonate ("washing soda", or as this was called, "soda crystals"), in Fullertons for 83p a kilo this afternoon. Not bad, eh?

Two and a half weeks at St Andrews as a Course Director, and now I've got to get back in the saddle with this dissertation. The research project I'd begun, comparing pen-and-paper with keyboard writing test responses has run into the sand through a shortage of respondents. Maybe that's a blessing in disguise, maybe I was on the wrong track with language testing, and should get back to Critical Pedagogy and Discourse Analysis. I purely practical real-life terms, I think I must. So, the title of this post is the working title - I need to sharpen it somewhat. I'll do this at Durham, where I've got time, a library and access to EAP students to interview. I'll hammer out the details this weekend and seek my tutor's approval on Monday. I can always pick up the reins of Language Testing again if a promising research scholarship rears its head.

only an idiot uses Flickr - so can you! , originally uploaded by only an idiot . There's a bit of a story going on, and I'm blogging this to help it into Explwhore.

Here's a link to the formula for Beutler Developer . I need to get some sodium carbonate. This is said to be the best developer for ADOX single emulsion films. Some similar recipes here. I need to do some research on the film and the chemistry of this - but it seems that ADOX is more like the sort of film used in the 50s, and more able to give the kind of look I'm trying to get. I've got a couple of rolls to try out, (a 25iso, and a 50). I seem to have stumbled into my own genre. This is the Flickr set . Both the content and the title are provisional, but the idea is engendered.

Developing times in standard developers: ISO 100 35mm, roll, or sheet film: If exposed at film's regular speed of ISO 100, the following developing times apply: Kodak D76/ID-11: 8 Min If ISO 100 film is exposed at ISO 200 for increased speed and optimum differentiation of highlights, the following developing times apply: Kodak D76/ID-11: 11-12 Min. ISO 50 35mm, roll, or sheet film: If exposed to films regular speed of ISO 50, the following developing times apply: Kodak D76/ID-11: 7 Min If ISO 50 film is exposed at ISO 100 for increased speed and optimum differentiation of highlights, the following developing times apply: Kodak D76/ID-11: 9-10 Min. ISO 25 35mm, roll, or sheet film: If exposed to film's regular speed of ISO 25, the following developing times apply: Kodak D76/ID-11: 6 Min If ISO 25 film is exposed to ISO 50 for increased speed and optimum differentiation of highlights, the following developing times apply: Kodak D76/ID-11: 8-9 Min. Copied f...

Thanks to mammara for blipping this earlier today: Múm "Rhubarbidoo" Fatcat Records Lovely.

Saltcoats Sea Front 4 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . Click on this for a lovely comments thread. There's them that know, and them that don't know, and them that don't even know that they don't know. Or something.

I've ordered a couple of rolls of ADOX 120 - one each of 25 and 50 iso - from retrophotographic .

The Sporti 4 I took to London developed a light leak through the red window, and the whole roll of 35mm turned bad. Bugger. I'll shelve it until I can get some 127. The flash is working (though we need to wait to see if it's synching) on the Sporti 6, and I'll finish that roll today if I get time.

This was the real highlight of a weekend in London, far outshining Godot . I've been meaning to get to the Globe since it re-opened, but this was the first time. Splendid, splendid, splendid. It reminded me a little of the community theatre companies who came to our secondary modern school - that sense of being involved in the drama which was being specifically staged for you . The Capulets were all brilliant, giving that sense of a domestic crisis rapidly escalating to tragedy. Mercutio was an upper class rugger bugger, funny for a while but you probably wouldn't want to meet him. And there's so much going on: a tragedy indeed where the cause is people not minding their own business, on the one hand, and being young and foolish on the other. The line that stuck with me, though, made me wonder if it was placed as light relief to an Elizabethan audience at the death scene: "O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop/To help me after?" The Archbishop of ...

Last weekend was in London, and I managed to get a ticket for Godot at the Haymarket, Theatre Royal . Brilliant cast, of course. Someone said the next day when I was telling them, "Oh, isn't that the 'happy' Godot?" Well, yes. Inasmuchas it could be. It troubles me, though, the grip that Becket keeps on the play from beyond the grave. That in itself is a marvellous piece of theatre. The Gallery was infested with posh Sixth Formers. Most were enjoying the play but one of them spent the second act typing on her Blackberry when she wasn't whispering to her neighbour. And an American gentlemen next to me left after the first Act, bored or believing it was over, I don't know which.

I don't agree with this list . But it's interesting.

The Ilford Sporti six that I got this already exposed film from , I put a roll of HP5+ through it and got nothing out of it. So I put it on a shelf. And then I realized whilst tinkering with the newer Sporti 4 what a dramatic effect a wee bit of WD40 could have. So I got it off the shelf and began tinkering. It's a bit less primitive than the other Sportis, and most of the shutter mechanism cannot be got at because it's moulded into the bakelite lens housing. However, I managed to dab some WD40 onto the back of the shutter, and it trickled down and stopped it from sticking open - which it had been doing. However, it still stick open when the camera's upside down, which enabled me to clean the inside of the lens (with a damp low fibre cloth on the handle end of a paintbrush. Test roll's in now. We'll see.

Language Testing Online Table of Contents Alert A new issue of Language Testing is available online: 1 July 2009; Vol. 26, No. 3 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ltj.sagepub.com/content/vol26/issue3/?etoc Are two heads better than one? Pair work in L2 assessment contexts Lynda Taylor and Gillian Wigglesworth Language Testing 2009;26 325-339 http://ltj.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/26/3/325 Interacting in pairs in a test of oral proficiency: Co-constructing a better performance Lindsay Brooks Language Testing 2009;26 341-366 http://ltj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/341 The influence of interlocutor proficiency in a paired oral assessment Larry Davis Language Testing 2009;26 367-396 http://ltj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/367 Co-constructed interaction in a paired speaking test: The rater's perspective Lyn May Language Testing 2009;26 397-421 http://ltj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/397 A...

So may I introduce to you the act you've known for all these years… , originally uploaded by Lawrie M . That's DMU.

Will be cycling. I've set up a DMU spin-off group . And this bloke 's supposed to have loads of good craic. Now I just need the actual bike.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Late Junction is the heighth of civilization. Starving Weirdos is the latest thing I've discovered there.

I appear to have moved to Tehran .

"I'm buttered and mashed with pins" (7) I've been in touch with a couple of teaching establishments, emails courtesy of Important Exam Board, about the data for the dissertation. (IEB don't want to be involved further because "we have had a lot of problems doing this sort of thing in the past so are now not going to do so – sorry." Hmm.) So I emailed the people tonight and got the idea when they were asking about the details that it would be an idea to have a wiki for this, where candidates or teachers could download the test questions, to print for the written tests, and to do electronically for the keyboard tests. So here's the germ of it . I'll sleep on the idea and build it tomorrow.

At this juncture, when I've nearly settled the gear I'm going to be using, and am a couple of months away from finishing the MA and having more time, it's worth reminding oneself of Mr Ray-Jones' eleven notes to himself : * BE MORE AGGRESSIVE * GET MORE INVOLVED (TALK TO PEOPLE) * STAY WITH THE SUBJECT MATTER (BE PATIENT) * TAKE SIMPLER PICTURES * SEE IF EVERYTHING IN BACKGROUND RELATES TO SUBJECT MATTER * VARY COMPOSITIONS AND ANGLES MORE * BE MORE AWARE OF COMPOSITION * DON'T TAKE BORING PICTURES * GET IN CLOSER (USE 50mm LENS {or LESS, hard to make out in notes}) * WATCH CAMERA SHAKE (shoot 250sec or above) * DON'T SHOOT TOO MUCH * NOT ALL AT EYE LEVEL

Sporti 4 35mm test roll 7 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I put a whole roll of 35mm (Ilford Pan F 50) through the Sporti 4, with the flash, and it didn't synch once. Perhaps it would with a flash gun, but I'm hoarding my 20 or so flash bulbs. What I'm after is a kind of flash-gun look, where the background is in deep shadow, and the foreground overlit. And I want to do that with a very simple camera like the Sporti 4, to get the vignetting and other distortions. The irony is, to get this, I'm probably going to have to buy a sophisticated electronic flash which is programmable and has a PC connexion, all to put on top of a plastic box with a plastic lens with a cardboard shutter.

Sporti 4 35mm test roll 1 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I had the front off the "new" Sporti 4 last night. The shutter was sticking - especially if you used the camera sideways. A quick squirt of WD40 seemed to do the job, but only the next test roll of 35mm will tell. Everything was well overexposed, and was rescued in Photoshop. Still, I really like this one. Hopefully the next one will be better, and will justify buying some Efke 127.

I've got a roll of Ilford Delta (?) 100 iso in it now, as a test - 35mm of course. But I'm pretty sure the shutter's sticking a bit - which means it lags behind the button being pressed by a second or two. The flash goes off immediately, so it won't be synching. I remember taking an original Sporti to bits last year and that my first thoughts were that the mechanism was made of cardboard. It's not, of course, but it's not robust, either. But I may as well give it a go - try some WD40 perhaps? - because what I really want this for is lo-fi flash shots. This site refers to the shutter mechanism being "a bit flimsy". Indeed. I've also done something which would be unforgivable in a better quality camera, and rubbed a finger over the lens: I'm pretty sure it's plastic. Which, in a postmodern world, is a bonus.

Found Verichrome Pan 5 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . This is from the roll that was in the Ilford Sporti 4 I got yesterday. I'd love to know what that liner is. I'm going to use the Sporti 4 to do 35mm sprocket hole pics - I've got five rolls of 35mm in the press, anyway. A 35mm cartridge fits in very snugly - more so than in the Coronet 4x4 I was using for sprocket hole pics. AND the Sporti 4 has a cold shoe and flash pc link. Mind you, whether the flash synchs or not is another matter. All these things I do when I should be writing exam items or my dissertation. I ought to be idle and rich, me.

Lest there be any doubt about my feelings. I had told anyone who'd listen when he first took over: He's made a packet in business, he'll know what to do. The scale of my error in saying that is breathtaking. Not only has he made a complete arse of owning a football club, he's now making an arse of selling one, for the second time . Say you'd spent quarter of a million on a house. It turns out to have dry rot AND subsidence problems, and there's a recession, so now it's only worth £90,000. Would you cut your losses? Personally, I'd get a bank loan, deal with the problems, wait for the economy to pick up, and then sell the fucker at a tidy profit. Newcastle United's situation is a lot like the Labour Party's, or even UK PLC. The wind turns and the people in charge are fucked. Stumped. Clueless. The culture of capitalism is that fuckwits, cowards and twats get to be in charge.

Just to complete the Ilford Sporti experience, I've gone and got a Sporti 4. It takes 127, so I need to spend over a fiver a roll, here - five times what the camera cost. Efke film comes from Croatia, and I bet it costs buttons there.

2nd test roll 5 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I've been looking at these again, and this one seems to be the business. Sharp and properly contrasted. That's the orange filter. Next step is to go out and get some sky in the frame. I really want a red filter, but this one will do for now.

2nd test roll 11 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . That's the Agfa, with yellow filter.

Note to self. Check this out .

I've had an epiphany or something. The Australians are right: the British, especially the English, DO whinge all the time. Complain, complain, complain. For example, a man was on telly about his business partner who was missing over the Atlantic in that French plane , and all he could talk about was how no-one appeared to be answering the phone at Air France. Once you realise this, and open your ears, all you hear is whinging. Nobody ever gets a cloth out to clear up the spilt milk, they just stand around crying over it. Like that Caroline Flint. She doesn't get promoted so she alleges mysoginy . She'd been singing a different song the day before. I wonder if there are any ESOL or Language Testing jobs in Australia?