Rogues’ Gallery: Hundred Year Old Rare Scrapbook of Criminals Up For Sale
A rare collection of pictures and handwritten notes from convicted persons, describing their physical appearances, criminal records and aliases, belonging to Inspector Robert Mather of the Manchester Police has been put for sale in London. The collection will be available for auction on 27 March.
The 57-page scrapbook contains details of 65 convicts and old-time crooks and will be auctioned by Bonhams. The details were reportedly collected between 1909 and 1912 and include some notorious names like “Safebreaker” Thomas Frieth, Michel Riley aka James Dolan and a “half-caste” criminal from Martinique Cuba called Jose Dias, aka Joseph Dejouru.
The book is expected to fetch around £1,000. Continue reading »
George Clooney Gets Pre-Oscar Makeover at Madame Tussauds
American actor George Clooney has been nominated in the Best Actor category, for the forthcoming Academy Awards, for his role in “The Descendants”. Meanwhile, his wax figure at Madame Tussauds is getting a makeover. Hair stylist Gemma Sim and colourist Gemma Fee are working their magic at Tussauds. Apparently, as the actor is preparing for the Oscars, his wax figure’s attire is being changed from a suit to that of a Hawaiian. The actor plays a Honolulu-based character in “The Descendants”. Continue reading »
Alpine Crop Circles: The Snow Art of Simon Beck
Simon Beck has spent a lot of time at Arc2000 in the French Alps this winter, but he hasn’t been skiing. Beck spends his days doing something entirely different: making snow art. Many compare Beck’s work to “crop circles,” but this is not the labor of “aliens” who’ve chosen a wintrier medium. This “snow art” is the work of a lone artist who spends hours trudging around the French ski resort to fashion his designs.
Beck’s intricate creations come in a range of forms from spirals to cubes, snowflakes, and abstract figures. These snowy “crop circles” are created by the simple act of walking in the snow wearing raquettes.
“They aren’t hard to do,” Beck boasts on his snow art page. “Good exercise, yes, but not particularly difficult. I’ve placed it in the walking category as they are made by walking about in snowshoes.”
The Oxford-educated self-employed map maker typically walks for about five hours or until he gets too tired, using a headlamp if it gets dark first. The shapes are created by a kind of reverse orienteering. The main lines and points are surveyed using a sighting compass with distances measured either by pace counting or string. Continue reading »
Photo of the Day: Cocoa Puff
“Cocoa Puff” sits on the welcome desk at The Cat’s Meow. Bikini Beach Cat Rescue of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, hosted a low cost spay/neuter clinic to bring awareness to World Spay Day, an international campaign of The Humane Society of the United States and The Humane Society International which will be officially observed on February 28. (Steve Jessmore/The Sun News) Click image to zoom.
Surfer Rides Standing Wave in Icy German River
A man surfs on the wave on the small man-made river Eisbach with snow and temperatures around freazing in the English Gardens in Munich, Germany on Thursday. The standing wave in the Eisbach is a favorite spot for daring water sports enthousiast the whole year round. (Peter Kneffel / EPA) Continue reading »
Boynton Beach Peacocks: When is Beauty Bad?
Anybody want a peacock? How about 200?
The Fox Hollow community in Boynton Beach is considering paying a trapper $6,000 to round up half the neighborhood population of peafowl and kill them.
“I want every one of them out of here,” said resident Dorothy Laswell. “They bang on my French doors, throw themselves at my windows, and wake me up every morning, jumping on my roof at 6 o’clock. And during mating season, they scream and holler.”
Similar complaints have led Fox Hollow to invite a trapper to spend weeks in the neighborhood assessing the population and figuring out what can be done. There are an estimated 400 peafowl living in Fox Hollow, and they have their defenders. So the homeowner’s association is considering a compromise of sorts: eliminating half the bird population.
Story by Frank Cerabino.
Photography by Allen Eyestone/The Palm Beach Post.
The Fox Hollow community in Boynton Beach is proposing to remove a couple of hundred peacocks that live on the gated community’s property. They apparently escaped years ago from nearby Knollwood Groves, where they were an attraction until the groves were torn down for another housing development. Continue reading »
Miniature Gardens of Steve Wheen
It reminds me a street art. Londoner Steve Wheen brings greenery and miniature scenes to the streets of East London in his ‘the pot hole gardener’ project and it looks fantastic! Continue reading »
Britain’s Big Freeze Continues
Visitors to the Fenlands in eastern England take advantage of sub-zero temperatures to enjoy skating on the frozen fens. Some areas of the region have seen temperatures plunge to as low as -18C in recent days.
The sun rises over a frost-covered scene in in Earith, Cambridgeshire. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Continue reading »
Animal Carnival in Rio de Janeiro
The animal carnival parade at Copacabana beach in Brazil rivals its human counterpart for colour. Photograph: Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images, Silvia Izquierdo/AP. Continue reading »
Finalists of Miss Helsinki 2012
I love Helsinki so much, but I’m… confused. Continue reading »
The Bedouin Skate Crew in Tunisia
Bringing peace through skateboarding and street art. Photograph: Nathan Gray. Continue reading »
The Nissan Production Line
Nissan’s factory in Washington, near Sunderland, in Tyne and Wear, builds the Qashqai, Juke and Note models. It produced 480,485 cars in 2011, a record for a UK car plant. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian.
Nissan’s production line in Washington, Tyne and Wear. Continue reading »
Spectacular Images of Northern Lights Captured from Space
The aurora borealis steals the show in this nighttime photograph shot from the International Space Station as the orbital outpost flew over the Midwest recently. Cloud cover makes it difficult to identify the cities that are within the captured area. The spacecraft was above south-central Nebraska when the photo was taken. The angle of the look is northward to northeastward. (ISS030-E-061267 http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/) Continue reading »
Inside Ciccolella, Italy’s Leading Producer of Cut Flowers
The free movement of goods in Europe has allowed a flower producer to bloom in an area of Italy with 15% unemployment. Photograph: Mario Laporta/Controluce
Ciccolella has about 100 hectares of greenhouses at its production sites in Italy. Continue reading »
How to Make a Doner Kebab
1. You’ll need 500g of lamb breast, an onion, some salt, garlic, cumin and coriander for this first phase. Yes, that is a 1lb tin of spinach purée in the background. Bear with me and it will all make sense. Continue reading »
The Sony World Photography Awards 2012: Student Focus Shortlist
The Danish School of Media & Journalism: this image is entitled Escaping the Heat
Photograph: Nikolai Linares/Sony World Photography Awards 2012 Continue reading »
Photo of the Day: Walk Alone
A man walks along a snow-covered railway track in Shimla, India’s northern state of Himachal Pradesh. (AFP)
World’s Largest Textile Created from Golden Spider Silk Dazzles
A four-metre-long woven textile made from the silk of more than a million female Golden Orb spiders collected from the highlands of Madagascar is on display at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum in London. The hand-woven brocaded textile, which is on display at the museum till June 5, 2012, is naturally golden in colour and took over four years to create.
It will be shown together with a new golden cape, currently being woven and embroidered in Madagascar, which will go on public display for the very first time at the V&A. The clothes have reportedly been made by Englishman Simon Peers, who lives in Madagascar, and American Nicholas Godley, and are the only large textiles in the world to have been made from spider silk.
Yellow woven spider silk cape. Continue reading »
