venta | Colour me once, colour me twice

Current Music: The household arguing about Mandarin vocabulary

Colour me once, colour me twice

So. Colour bars.

So,

secutatrix has been offering to make people colour bars, to suit the topic of their choice. I think this refers to the sheep a while ago which drew a pretty rainbow bar for you, and and said "x is love" where x was something from your interests list.

I requested a colour bar for "north". Secutatrix made me one, for which thank her very much:

Which is nicely executed, but it's a bit, well, grim.

So, I thought I'd try and construct one myself out of images which I associate with home, and try and demonstrate that actually there's some quite nice bits.

Now, allowing for Secutatrix being a lot more ept with her graphics software than I am, and having made her colours much nicer, wouldn't you agree that mine's a much better north ?

I'm curious as to whether any of my images are identifiable, given the size and colour shiftedness.

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My eyes naturally focus on your rightmost image. (Not that I drink the stuff.)

Well, I can't be very specific, but for yours I get:

Beach (with some kind of jetty or pier, or those wooden things they build to stop the sand washing away, although I thought that was more of a south coast thing), waterfall, rather splendid door-knocker, hill, church, beer.

I'm pretty puzzled the the third (yellow) image in

secutatrix's version anyway. My best guess is a sloping roof with some kind of dormer window or chimney, possibly in the process of falling down.

I'm pretty puzzled the the third (yellow) image

That, she tells me, is a cokery. I'm think it was a top hit for "dark satanic mill" on google image search :)

I'm glad you can recognise the waterfall - I wasn't sure it was identifiable! I was hoping people could actually name the locations. Shame on you for not getting the beach :)

My belief, inherited from my father, is that this is is a misreference. His claim is that the Dark Satanic Mills referred to in Jerusalem are actually Mills of learning: specifically Oxford and Cambridge. The Dark Satanic description has a moral base, rather than a literal one, As Blake did not approve of the academic syllabus.

Really ? I didn't know that. I'm not very well-educated in my Blake, though.

Take with a pinch of salt: I don't know how true it is. Can't ask the bugger. :(

How can one be "among" two things?

Pedant!

Maybe I've not included precisely the right list in my comment: maybe there's a third relevant university I don't know about; maybe it's a reference to the colleges themselves?

Nah, it was Oxford, Cambridge and Hull.

As in "Go to Hull"?

Or are you winding me up?

Nope, that was me making a reference to a televisual entertainment programme.

I don't do it very often, so make the most of it :)

Nope, don't recognise it. Probably something ... Northern!

Rubbish. It's very well known.

I'm sure

onebyone will back me up on this.

Quite right. They don't let Northerners on the telly, do they? At least not without training in RP and promising not to bring their whippet.

Blackadder IV (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Blackadder)

(Rowan Atkinson went to Hull university)

I shall consider myself darkened.

Naming locations, no - although I think that's just general ignorance of The North, rather than problems seeing your pictures.

But I take it the beach is Whitby, then? *loses goth points*

Whitby it is, yes. The west pier, looking down from just along from the Spa, near the whalebones.

Mill which looks more Yorks/Lancs than Durham; old Darlington coat of arms (the newer one is actually recognised by the College of Heralds); coal chaldron tipping off staith; Anthony Gormley's angel of the North; Locomotion No 1; Whitby pier and extensions; High Force; Durham Cathedral sanctuary knocker; Roseberry Topping; (?)Fountains Abbey; foaming tankard of oh-be-joyful (?made by Paul Theakston).

Look, nobody likes a smart arse :)

I thought the coat of arms looked a bit weird, but it had the right motto on it, so figured I must just be misremembering. Secutatrix tells me the motto ("floreat industria", for other readers) is very bad Latin.

I like the way your one tapers in image width as it goes along - I try to keep my images the same in width, just cause I'm of the vague opinion it looks nicer.

Mmmm... uniformity...

Well, do bear in mind that my moving to Newbury was a bit of a great trek Northwards for my family. But I don't do this North/South thing; I am English, dammit!

So you wanted to know how recognisable the images are: pier, waterfall, Durham Cathederal, hill, rather splendid church, beer.

The only instantly recognisable place to me was the Durham one. That door knocker is rather famous, but I might not have known that if I hadn't been. To someone who does know the cathederal that image is a splendid icon for the whole, but it's a bit abstract to someone who doesn't. Lisa and Sarah at Durham Cathederal (http://www.broadmeadow.plus.com/durham.jpg) (you can just see the door knocker; the picture was taken in September 1989).

The last picture isn't quite so geographically specific, of course. I do like a pub, but I couldn't tell you which one that is the inside of! But I honeymooned a couple of miles from Masham in 1992 when, it transpires, the Black Sheep brewery was being built. We visited the Theakstons brewery, of course! A great inclusion on your montage!

Although I don't know the other places they give a great impression of the area, and presumably, the parts you like.

I do like a pub, but I couldn't tell you which one that is the inside of!

I wasn't a specific pub, just a pint glass and a hand pump. The image was swiped off the Black Sheep website. Masham is near enough Darlington for me to claim it as local - I considered using the badge of the Village Brewer, which is much closer to home, but figured it wasn't nearly so recognisable.

I never have been a pub.

I don't know who stole the extra 't' out of that sentence :(

the blue piccy looks a bit like Kirstall Abbey, though is a certain "smart arsed" responder above is correct, then I guess it isn't. Brought back a few memories of Leeds, though.... ;O)

I say, that's a fabulous escarpment, I've no idea where it is. I almost got Fountains Abbey, and did get Whitby although a lot of seaside looks like that, and the waterfall might be one near Malham but might not and in any case that's probably not useful.

The escarpment is in the Cleveland Hills; you can see it if you're driving near Middlesbrough - and face it, if you're driving near Middlesbrough, looking the other way at some nice hills is a smart move.

The hill in question is called Roseberry Topping - a lovely name, which I've always mentally associated with Dream Topping on account of it looking like a peaked dollop of some kind of dessert. At least, it does when you're four.

I'd like to climb Roseberry Topping one day. I never have, because it's been shut for years. Too many people shared my ambition, and the poor hill was getting worn away. I think it might be open again now.

I don't think High Force is near Malham, no. Though googling to check did provide me with the information that Malham Cove did used to be a waterfall - that must have looked stunning. I wonder where we'd have to flood to get it back.

Try Wales first.

You, sir, either have a vindictive desire to flood Wales, or a very poor grasp of geography.

Or you know something hitherto undiscovered about Britain's flood plains.

Re Secutatrix: It wasn't only bad Latin (which the council translated as "let industry flourish") but also very bad heraldry. The new device, crest, bearers an' all, has the motto 'Optima Petamus'(allegedly "we seek the best"). As a council tax payer in the borough, any comment I make on that would be defamatory. The Smart Arse.

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Who are you and why don't you get yourself a lurker's LJ

This journal's resident lurker is my mother - I suggested that she set up an LJ, her main objection to which seems to be "but I wouldn't have any friends!" :)

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Are old bats allowed to have LJ's? I'm tempted as it's a wonderful place for a rant and I do enjoy Venta's contributions. As for the heraldry, I should have said supporters not bearers. My Pa was the heraldry buff, brother inherited his Boutell's. What I like about heraldry is the language = gules, fesse, rampant, passant et al.
Venta's Aged P (and I have worked out who you are!)

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the only academic area where you can expect to be ambushed by Norman French, bad Latin, Welsh and even some Gaelic at a moment's notice.

How about here?

the "common usage makes it right" rant

Surely that should be "common usage make's it right"?

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Shrewsbury makes me uncomfortable

Um. I think I must have missed a meeting.

I don't know where you live, but I can find out.

I have a l33t ninja housemate (

_yakumo_), so bring lots of mooks.

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OK, just as long as I know that my failure to meet expectations is irremediable.

I don't often get to say "irremediable".

Evil global mastermind? Sweeet. Have her call ahead so that the two of them can make sure they have contrasting costumes.

I don't often get to say "irremediable".

And I nearly spoiled it by reading it as "irredeemable" on my first pass.

Isn't "fesse" French for "buttock" ?

I only know this because a friend's Rough Guide to Paris included "Cela me fait-il de grosses fesses?" on the one-page essential-phrase list.

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With her mother about, too? Come on, would I worry? Not so much "Rough Guide to Paris" either, i suspect. as a wonderful book called "Merde, Genevieve" (or all the French you never learned at school, with asterisks to denote degree of rudeness/obscenity).

No, it really did come out of the Rough Guide to Paris. That's what made it so funny - a book which only provides one page of essential French phrases considers "Does my bum look big in this?" important enough to include.

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