Union Jacks everywhere. Comments on social media suggest ignorance with people thinking they are patriotic; not symbolising Reform. Maybe its time mainstream political parties claimed them for themselves. Reform are a disgrace and it seems this could be a massive own goal ;-)

Then there were two. My brown leather half case came from china today for my silver Leica X113. I am really pleased with them both ;-)

The black leather half case has come for my Leica X113 and it looks and feels fantastic. I have a dark coffee case on its way for my silver camera. I am delighted ;-)

COP30 over & progress made. I stand by PLAN B. Dont care about the report; the world learned. No consensus; so what? Nothing done for 30yrs. Survivors must focus & act. Forget the selfish they'll fall; you mustn't. 10yrs to ensure our survival; use it well; the post-Holocene waits #6thMassExtinction

I've got a lovely bunch of Leicas. There they are, all standing in a row. Silver one, Black one, Logo nice and red. Give them a click a flick of the wrist. That's what Oskar Barnack said ;-)

COP30: re-hung my SL Party at the End of the World Art Installation with info from the Global Heating Emergency Conference. Will it make the remotest difference to educating people, make them think? You think not? If we think that way we are finished. We do what we can, in hope, because we must ;-)

My COP30 Plan B Linkedin Post in a single JPG. Time for talking & agreements is past; we need serious action now by anybody who is willing; every little will help. We have 10yrs left to make a significant difference. Action in 10yrs time will mean existential failure & cant wait for Governments ;-)

Stopped at Boots to pick up a prescription & found that they had put in a self checkout. Original staff standing around supervising. Thus we see how useless the AI revolution is; deskilling staff & using less of them. Well I wont use them. It isn't saving labour, its getting us to do unpaid work.

COP30 Party at the End of the World (Hate): What you don't think this is true; really? The Rich have never had it so good; private planes & yachts, expensive cars, huge houses full of appliances; why should they share? Globally the Poor are facing annihilation! This is evil #6thMassExtinction

COP30: Yes I have left it very late (sorry been ill) but, surely you didn't expect me to let COP30, during my predicted Year From Hell, pass without an Art Show? Welcome to the Party At The End of the World by Vici. It is a big ask at this late stage but, I am going to try; it's all we can do ;-)

Jamaica & Cuba clinging in the storm as the entitled industrialised west complains about rising prices & their falling standards of living as an excuse not to act to prevent this existential crisis. I'm reminded of the deck chairs on the Titanic. 50s Sci-fi got it wrong; mankind killed themselves.

Sucking on her fingernails: she can't believe what she sees. She seems so engrossed: its what appears on her screen. Use your 20th Century imagination: if you've got any. I think AI and US Corporate greed has destroyed the internet, Install Linux Mint & set yourself free ;-)

4yrs ago & I'd given up photographing spirituality. Then this; a dying leaf on a brick grid. It started my Dark Mirror: Spirituality & Reason Show inspired by COP26, mapping cultural evolution until Extinction. Retirement ended & I started lobbying on the #6thMassExtinction Net Zero 2035 ;-)

2021 COP26 I predicted 2025 would be the year from hell. The Global Heating Emergency Conference suggests we have 10yrs to save civilisation. Most chilling presentation of the day was by David King. The buffers now stand at 2035. This feels like the Bronze Age collapse #6thMassExtinction

I have snapped. I have gone back to using a Filofax in my bag to take notes and drawings. I find the new AI phone culture toxic; its getting in the way of documenting my life & sketching out projects. Besides its a cheerful red colour. I like drawing with a pen ;-)

I think the King should send round the King's Guard to round up all MPs (especially Badenoch) & make them watch this; after coffee they should be given the Environment Briefing again; this time with them ALL present. We might just survive this crisis ;-) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfm...

Flying lessons; the Alton Kings Pond geese were having difficulty in the blustery wind outside learning to fly. We had a lot of Canada goslings this year ;-)

In the evening the moon was eclipsed as it rose. We were lucky to see it at all as there was a lot of cloud close to the horizon ;-)

I decided to see if I could get my Lenovo ThinkPad WebCam to work under Linux so, I ran Fedora Workstation Live which has the latest Kernel 6.14. Yes, it did work. It is good to know that I can get this working if needed in future. Presently running Linux Mint 22.2 on Kernel 6.8.0-79-generic ;-)

In June when this photo was taken I was very optimistic about the future; now I'm distraught. I await 2025 environmental figures with dread. Resignation of Angela Rayner shows lack of Social & political cohesion; a survival pillar I doubt we will survive as a nation if >75%; prove me wrong.

This shocked me to the core; this was the America the world loved. How did it become so degenerate? I can only accept that absolute power without empathy & responsibility corrupts absolutely. America stands on the edge of the abyss but all is not yet lost. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMSG...

Just before dinner I noticed a Sparrowhawk eating a small bird on the shed roof next door and managed to record it with my Sony A7cii with Tamron 28-200mm zoo lens cropped to 750mm ;-)

I have decided to change my lifelong photo format from 4x3 to 16x9HD. I am sick of seeing black bands down either side of my HD monitor screen. All my cameras will record in HD ;-)

Stereo; my new Logitech MX keyboard has arrived. The old one was hammered and is now failing to keep its charge, made worse by the backlight flashing erratically. I love these keyboards as my ThinkStation P3 is on chan 1 dongle with ThinkPad X1 & Chromebook Plus on Bluetooth chans 2 & 3 ;-)

Well I didn't expect that. After processing the photos from my testing last week, I decided that my future cameras would be my Sony A7cii full frame and my Nikon Z50 crop sensor camera. The Sony has more than enough resolution at 33MP to use all my old APSc lenses ;-)

This government is a disgrace. We petition for them to at least discuss CANZUK & we get even less of a response than we did for an MP Environment briefing. All Starmer cares about is some pathetic fictional "working man" & money. He is destroying what is left of our culture & embarrassing the King.

Diary entry Aug 1992; to Manchester UMIST train 1st Class for my PhD Viva. Torture for 3hrs followed; Harwell chose the examiners a FRS to maintain standards. Returned 2nd Class & bumped into Prof Elio Desimoni from Barrie who had shared my office. Told off by ticket collector for using wrong seat.

Garden is very wild at the moment (I usually trim the central path area up to the pond & leave the rest wild). Tansys are doing well this year & we probably had the best Lodon Lily & Bluebell year too. Very few butterflies despite the buddleias doing well. In September the middle will be mowed ;-)

I took Elizabeth to Hospital yesterday for an eye operation & we found this ridiculous sign on the Toilet door. Its a bloody toilet!!! This worries & angers me. How much money is being wasted by Starmer's bigoted stupidity. And this is terrifying for the most at risk social minority (45% at risk).

New Computer Wallpaper; Church St Alton ;-)

Where my obsession started; Woolworths Berwick-upon-Tweed 1959. Where my parents bought me a plastic Ukulele. New school 1962 & I found from a friends guitar that all my chords worked on it. By 1964 playing electric guitar in a band followed by organ 1965. Keyboards in Swinging Klink nightclub 1969.

Dr Vici is alive!!! The gloves are off. I'm sick of the forces of despair that are destroying our planet & civilisation. I'm sick of popularist woke appeasing politics. I'm buggered if I care about your cosy polite life; our existence is threatened. We will survive; whether you do is your choice.

This should be a mandatory watch for everybody; especially users of social media. It doesn't address a bigger problem I have identified; the removal of real information by search engines. The internet is becoming useless for research ;-) www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5_P...

A well earned break watching Jethro Tull on the laptop in my OSGRID Vici's Attic Gallery reception area after hanging my Dark Paths Poetry Show ;-)

Go and sign the petition, we only need about 300 people to get this going. Details in this video ;-) www.youtube.com/watch?v=u06q...

The bears have got their paws on Elizabeth's new Vortex fan and wont give it back. The Beaks are particularly taken with it he he ;-)

Leaving my OSGRID Gallery on Sat left me feeling sad as a big part of my life was gone. Strangely, I was already missing my fishtank. That could be remedied. So I tracked down a fishtank on MarketPlace and installed it in my Second Life cave, the Nest, at my Havanna Bay Vici's Attic Gallery ;-)

Happy Canada Day. All I ever hear about from Starmer and the BBC is Trump & Labour rubbish; they are an embarrassment to the King & Commonwealth. I turned to the BBC for coverage of Trafalgar Square Canadian celebrations; plenty on CBC News and it isn't even British. Have a great day Canada.

Not the photo I expected. The new red Artist & Artisan strap that I bought for my new Nikon D780. You may notice that its on my lovely D610. When the D780 arrived from Amazon it had no packing, was used, missing warranty & the image quality was awful. I am sticking with my D610, Z5 & Z50 ;-)

Sitting at my ASUS Chromebook Plus eating breakfast and wondered what the webcam was like? Not bad at all ;-)

Oh gosh! I have been processing some unseen photos from a 2018 holiday in Dorchester & loaded two uninspiring images into the Hugin panorama generator & this image came out. Amazing free software. Mind blown ;-)

I have always hated AI since the early messiahs like Marvin Minsky raving on the media in the 80s. Now it is just annoying me by getting in the way like a snotty nosed aunt. I keep stripping it out of my computer tools but it keeps sneaking back. I hate it more than media trolls ;-)

I really enjoyed this documentary by David Suchet exploring the work of his presstog Grandad. I had a similar relationship to my society photog father. I also have his Leicas IIIg & M3. Alas would rather have had the Rolleiflex which I used a lot for street ;-) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5tE...

It has been a rainy day. When out shopping I saw this image and couldn't resist. More than a nod to my 2021 Dark Mirror: Spirituality & Reason Show ;-)

I just signed the CANZUK Petition and sent a letter to my MP informing him and giving my reasons. I think it may be worth sharing it here ;-)

Last time I looked, Palestinians were a Semitic people. The only evidence I see for antisemitism is from the genocide of the Israeli Government & their progressive provocation & destruction of the Palestinian peoples who have lived in this region from before the Exodus. Time the world sorted this.

It is easy to hate on America when it is MAGA & Trump you are angry with; yes Trump is childish & evil. But, so many Americans are suffering too. Trump has destroyed America for a generation or more. We need to be there for them when they rebuild. MAGA needed this pain to grow up & develop.

Comments from people on the streets of Canada are pointed; what the hell is Starmer doing chasing useless treaties with Trump? We are at root members of the Commonwealth with links to the EU. The treaty Starmer should be cementing is for CANZUK; this is the new world order. Starmer is a disgrace.

I am totally sick of AI & go out of my way to get rid of it. Nothing in this image was generated by AI; just digital artistic skill. So much on social media now is just AI generated images or video. It is worthless & misleading; we are living in the matrix & I am ruthlessly removing it from my life.