J is for the Jockey of Artemision

A-Z Challenge.

Random Sightings No 10.

On a visit to Athens last summer, I stopped by the National Archaeological Museum and was taken by this startling bronze sculpture of a boy jockey on a horse. The first parts of the bronze were discovered in a shipwreck off Cape Artemision in 1926 and as more parts were recovered it was reassembled to it's present state, finally going on display in 1972.

The sculpture dates from around 150-146 BC. The bridle and whip are missing.

I've removed the distracting backgrounds from the photos.

Apologies for posting late, I thought I'd scheduled it in advance but forgot to publish.

I is for Italy

A-Z Challenge.

Random Sightings No 9.

Some random sightings in Italy.

A quiet backwater in Venice

A Roman soldier takes a call on his mobile.

Waiting in line to get into the Vatican

Never mind the Sistene Chapel, this giant pine cone made it worth the wait.

Parking in Florence

Election time.

Taking it easy in Sienna

It's such an icon – what can you say.

House in Milan

H is for Hyde Hall

A-Z Challenge.

Random Sightings No 8.

I'm feeling a bit conventional today, the sun is out and the garden beckons. Not that my garden looks anything like this. These pictures were taken last summer at the Royal Horticultural Society garden at Hyde Hall in Essex.

G is for Going Nowhere

A-Z Challenge.

Random Sightings No 7.

Not long after I bought my DSLR (back in the winter of 2012) I was trying it out in a local country park near where I live when I came across the remains of burnt out motor cycle. Then a year or so later in a different part of the park I discovered a burnt out scooter blocking the path.

As I continued my walk I spotted this toy car abandoned in the grass.

Half a truck hanging on a wall in Nottingham.

A wooden bicycle in the playground of a children’s nursery school in Leicester.

And last but not a least a photo of a reconstruction of a bike designed by Leonardo Da Vinci taken back in 2006 in Moscow.

F is for Four Winds

A-Z Challenge.

Random Sightings No 6.

Last year when I was doing the A-Z Challenge I tried to get a good shot of this clock but it's high up above the pavement in the otherwise nondescript Charles Street in Leicester and all my attempts suffered from huge lens distortion. Recently though I just happened to be on the top floor of a nearby multi-storey car park and suddenly through a gap in the surrounding buildings there it was looking back me.



It's called the Four Winds Clock and I suspect it goes largely unnoticed by the passers by below, though it measure a fairly hefty 3.62 metres by 3.24 metres. It’s situated on the central tower of Halford House which was built for the Leicester Temperance Building Society by Pick Everard Keay and Gimson between 1955 and 1959. The sculptor was Albert Pountney and it is carved in Portland Stone.

A typical view of Charles Street. The clock is way up out of view on the building on the left.

E is for Eternal Damnation

Day 5, Random Sightings. Just a short one today. A random sighting in Birmingham, England just before Christmas. A warning to sinners stands ignored while a stream of eager shoppers pour into the inappropriately named Paradise Forum.

D is for Day and Night

Day four of the A-Z Challenge and some Random Sightings in Leicester by day and night.

Leicester's New Walk by day…

…and by night.

The former Victoria Coffee House in Leicester's Granby Street.

Vintage shopping by day…

…window shopping by night.

For more pictures of New Walk see: http://breaking-cover.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/promenade.html

For more on Leicester’s nineteenth century coffee house movement see: http://breaking-cover.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/eastgates.html