Help: TKO goes to England

Freddie of course brings to mind Fred the Conure, sole parrot in charge of Dys and Diane's abode. Oh, probably they wouldn't get along.

Janusz Korczak

there are several striking memorials to him

Oh...I had lost this thread...we now have stories and pictures to enjoy?

Great!!!!!!

Only crazy or very dumb folk would judge a country by one person!!!!!!!


I am unsure re your reasoning about not putting someone who so negatively affects your A2k experience on Ignore.


In such situations I see no value in worrying about how people post when you don't see them?

People make their judgments of the worth and validity of a poster over time.

There are probably folk who enjoy Spendi's posts and get a laugh from them....some perhaps even see things his way....but people who would take his more perverse posts seriously would not be open to rational persuasion anyway.


May I suggest, quite humbly really, that you put him on Ignore and enjoy yourself on what seems to be a fun and interesting thread otherwise????

I am an over-reactive and irascible sort...and I find the Ignore function is SUCH a sanity protector!!!!!

Listen to the Dlow.






Not to suck up. I'll probably send a few corgis after rabbits.

Really great photos!

(It's the Prince Albert [Saxe-Coburg-Gotha] statue at the Albert Memorial - close to the longest subway connection for underground stations I've ever been.)

I haven't done too much with these photos. Most any editing software will let you achieve these simple effects.

When I shoot, I use a few techniques.
1) Low to the ground, tilted up, rotated with a wide angle (or fisheye) lens to make long visual lines of sight in a photo.
2) Waist level shot, no tilt, less dramatic rotation or level with a wide angle or default lens.
3) Above the head, tilted down, no rotation, fisheye lens.

I always use a UV filter, and normally use a polarized lens filter (but it's broke right now). I also am trying to learn how to use the tele macro setting on my camera to achieve new effects. The Chopin statue picture is an example of experimentation.

After I have all my photos I use software. Everything I did was done on Windows Photo Gallery, a default windows application.

To artificially age a photo...
Contrast +
Brightness +
Saturation - (only slightly)
Tint - (until you're in the greens)
Color temp + (to make the flesh not green)

If you've got a good sky with clouds, I like to do this though.
Contrast +
Brightness (don't change)
Saturation + (you'll notice quickly that the sky starts to pop out)
Tint -
Color temp - (at this point the sky will look very blue and your clouds will look puffy and white but still have lots of shadow to them)

The second technique is how I make things look really green as well. Makes the moss look green (not grey)

For black and white photos of people
Contrast ++ (as high as I can usually go or just slightly under the max)
Brightness +
Saturation -- (all the way down... this makes it B/W)
Tint -- (I find that in the lowest settings the tint being all the way down will bring out more lines/shadows on a face)
Color temp (move as needed. you can make someone's face seem very clear or rough... you decide)

I only know a few tricks. I'm constantly trying to find new ones though.

T
K
Other than that, it's all experimental.

I'm s mess re all the new photo stuff. I mostly get the quik routines. I'm drawn to my memories of photography. This is usually of little interest. But, I'd like what I'm interested in to be notated.

That's too obvious to be worth saying.



Have you tried fetching a stick back?

Hi dwollie-- has your thrumming indignation died down yet? I never thought you were one to line yourself up with people who threaten violence everytime somebody doesn't do what they approve of. I always thought of you as a sort of angel of mercy.

The trouble with being nice to people all the time is that after a short while nobody believes anything you say anymore and you have to find some new people to be nice to. All the time. You end up irascible and have to find ways to flatter yourself with sophistries. Avoid cricketers.

Anyway --TK has got England done and dusted. That's the main thing.

TK did say on page one-



And it couldn't have been irony because Tico was trying to be helpful and is not the sort of chap to say things like that.

So I thought I would try to make TK laugh. I'm sorry it has turned out that he hadn't actually meant it. That it was a mere affectation. As a person open to rational persuasion, if I may borrow dwollie's fine feminine phrase, I assumed Tico's advice was unfunny along with all the other helpful advice which, collectively, might be thought of as a guide dog seeking some patting and stroking with the occasional affectionate ear pull.

Being in England myself, Yanks Go Home! was the equivalent of TK's suggestion that inviting him not to come back to the US would be amusing. And there was the added bonus that if I made TK's short stay, and it was that, as uncomfortable as I could, which I hardly tried to do really, he would return home and dissuade his countrymen from coming here.

But I'm a provincial. It was probably a little insensitive of me to forget that Londoners subsist to a fair extent by "opening doors" for colonials and whatnot, as an ex-government minister once had it. He was speaking of our growing service enonomy. I should have made more allowance for Londoners buttering up TK so he would take a positive message of the natives here back home and persuade them to come over and see the sights. That's an even better trick than having to ship the wrong bridge over there.

Putting him up on the cheap was a betrayal of London's economy. The hotels are the backbone of that. And as for entertaining him that's another betrayal. The theatres are for that.

I must admit that I would be kindly disposed to anyone who put me up and entertained me for nothing.

London's economy is partly based on opening doors and curtsying to foreigners. The other part is pillaging the provinces. All we get are the blast waves from the latest virus and lessons in elementary camera work. We can't even bask in the effulgent radiations of TK's actual person and be rendered awestruck by having the privilege of being in the presence of a member of a superior race of men.

Another crass error I made was to speak of TK's insulting me on the evolution threads. It was actually the Prop 8 thread where I went into bat against state sanctioned homosexual unions which I consider to be not only an insult to women but to their economic disadvantage as well. He didn't insult me so much on the evolution threads.

I am at a loss to understand Australians trying to make TK's "on the wing" visit to England a pleasant one. One might think an Australian would wish to see TK's dollars exhausted in Australia. Or then again??????

I suppose dwollie must be on the government payroll and thus has no need to sully her mind with capitalistic grubbing in the muck. It's a wonderful place to visit is Australia. I've been told that.

Hey- I saw a Beach Boys performance on SKY Arts. I never laughed so much in a long time. Bourgeois rock and roll. It's hilarious. They had pullovers on. V-necks. No wonder I didn't know any of the songs.

Spendi - Your jealousy is flattering.

T
K
O

I have envied Americans all my life up to coming on A2K. I no longer do.

I had only ever seen the PR before coming on here. Getting my feet under the table has revealed something else.

Thanks for taking the time to share your travel experiences with us, TKO. I've really enjoyed following your adventures & sharing your photographs. Sound like you had a terrific time! I guess you're planning your next trip now?

Sorry I caught this thread just today; too late for any suggestions. However, the places I would have recommended in no particular order are:
National Gallery
British Museum - a must
all the shows in the theater district plus
Greenwich: Maritime Museum, Greenwich museum, walk around town
the Cutty Sark is parked on the river - good for a visit
both Tates
London Eye
Winstminster Abbey
Parliament
-Churchill museum
Buckingham Palace
Victoria and Albert
Covent Gardens - transportation museum
Hyde Park
London zoo
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese - the oldest pub off Fleet St where luminaries frequented - also try other pubs and have some of your meals there

Outside of London:
York
Bath
Stonehenge
Stratford Upon Avon - Shakespeare country

I'm sure more will come to mind as I think about one of my favorite haunts.

great shots, TK....

TKO said:


I suppost that's easy to say, but that's the Swedish, rather than Finnish, flag!

Oh ****. LOL. He told me the joke, and I didn't even look at the flag. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

T
K
O

I liked these Poland pics, a place I've never been.

Next weekend we're going to Oxford, and if I get any nice pics, I'll post them just to annoy Spendy.

McT, you should go and visit spendius - that would scare the heck out of him.
Then you can take a picture of him - all dressed up - in his favorite pub.

rofl

CJ, I don't know how you were able to get that photo of Spendi, but it really is a knee slapper! He's finally been "exposed."