Getting Out More…

Well, we are in one sense, at least.

We finally put on our first exhibition as the ƒ.action group, having been invited to exhibit for a month at the Artrix in Bromsgrove.  We opened there at the end of April with a small private viewing, all very convivial!

It’s been a bit of a mini-project, with all of us taking on different aspects from setting up a website (thanks, Darren!) to sorting private view invitations & catering, sorting hanging plans, producing handouts and labels, and planning the book of the exhibition (coming soon!). We had fun taking some tongue-in-cheek publicity shots and Pam put together a super slide show of the work on show. All this on top of choosing, printing, mounting and framing the photographs means we had a busy few weeks, hence an even longer gap than usual in the blog!

Organised chaos!

Organised chaos!

Stew's job - mirror plating

Stew’s job – mirror plating

My job - mounting & framing

My job – mounting & framing

It’s one thing to put a couple of images in an exhibition as part of something much bigger, and something else again to set one up in your own right, I have found. We feel quite big brave girls and boys now!

Foyer at the Artrix

Foyer at the Artrix

A quick phone snap of the end result.

A quick phone snap of the end result.

2015-04-27 13.49.31

We are planning our next ‘outings’ with much anticipation. I hope at least some of our viewers are too!

So to finish this quick post, here’s your ‘private view’ of ƒ.action at the Artrix.

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Charlie Hebdo. A Seven Year Old’s Reaction.

Out of the mouths of babes…

Laura Quick's avatarThe Daily Think

I didn’t get to switch the radio off in time this morning. She heard, and understood (it seems). This was her response. charlie Hebdo

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Festive GF Baking

A batch of Christmassy fruit & nut chocolatiness for daughter Bec (er, I confess we hung on to some too…) using Doves Farm’s recipe for gluten-free Celebration Brownies which seems to have since disappeared, to be replaced by this version, which uses spelt flour. You can replace this with a GF flour. I would add a teaspoon of baking powder or use an SR flour.

I’d made this recipe before, soaking the fruit in orange juice and a dash of whatever hooch was to hand at the time, but this time went for the recommended Amaretto, and it certainly works, as do brandy and kirsch.

Fruit duly laced with amaretto…

Prunes might not sound particularly festive these days but they make a wonderfully moist and rich-tasting addition, and are of course very traditional.

I was irked not to be able to get the dried sour cherries I’ve used before in place of the cranberries, as they are just delicious, but went with blueberries instead and they worked OK. I think the cherry/amaretto combo will take some beating, though, so will have to find an excuse to make them again before too long!

Ready to bake...

Sprinkled with extra macadamia and pecan nuts, ready to bake…

I  found you need to bake for rather less time than they originally suggested – start checking at 30 minutes and make sure you keep that essential fudgy middle!  I have also not yet found a way to keep them from crumbling , but they don’t last long enough round here for that to matter much – and they taste delicious!

The finished product!

The finished product!

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The Imitation Game

Maquina Turing

Artistic Representation of a Turing Machine

 

Whatever else may divide opinion on this film (not having read any reviews) I am pretty sure most viewers and critics alike would have to agree that Benedict Cumberbatch holds it together with his excellent, quite mesmerizing performance.

It’s not quite sure if it’s meant to be a biopic about Turing or a ripping yarn wartime thriller, and I think the attempts to make it into the latter do a disservice to the former. Liberties are taken and there is a bit of a gallop at the end to gloss over some of the more unpleasant aspects of Turing’s life and death. I’m also never quite sure about the use of captions to tell the end of the story.

Another little niggle – there were a couple of bits of dialogue that made me wish someone old enough to talk without terminal rising inflections had proof-read the script. I’m pretty sure that ‘stellar’ would have jarred as used here, and the modern, redundant ‘even‘ would have stood out as anachronistic (e.g. what does that even mean?) in what otherwise is a conservatively handled script.

Niggles aside, I should say that three of us with very differing tastes and interests were all thoroughly engaged by the film. I think it tried to do too much and didn’t make it as a great film, which is a shame, but it is an entertaining film.

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Aux Invalides

This gallery contains 6 photos.

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Paris Snapshots

Paris-1284 Conversation Paris-1288 Bride Paris-158-2 Paris-159 Paris-172 wedding couple waiting for Batobus Paris-321  Notre Dame Paris-334 spugs Paris-331 spugs Paris-348 Paris-355 Paris-363

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“It really shouldn’t be up to a patient to know….”

thecancergeek's avatarthecancergeek

Today was a slightly less busy Monday than usual since I was at lab for a gazillion hours this weekend (ok slight exaggeration but longer than usual, and got a bit ahead of usual). This meant not only I had time to mull some things over while doing cell culture less hurriedly than usual on a Monday, but I had a little half hour or so before lunch to look at my weekly pubmed email updates.

A new paper in the Annals of Oncology caught my attention since it was a large population on IBC patient outcomes study regarding ~7700 patients diagnosed between 1990 and 2010. This caught my attention because there hasn’t been much written on this lately outside of single institution studies (such as MDACC’s own experience) – which have limitations including positive bias (places with terrible outcomes less likely to write academic papers vs centers of excellence…

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Double Vision

This gallery contains 9 photos.

I’ve had a couple of brief sessions making myself twiddle buttons I don’t normally fiddle with and try out a few things on the camera.  Some interesting faux reflections in pictures from Clive Haynes and Malcolm Addison in our camera club … Continue reading

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Documenting the Physical Legacy of the Home Front 1914 – 18

Documenting the Physical Legacy of the Home Front 1914 – 18.

You’ve had the citizen science, now for the citizen history…  See the invitation via the link above and the website below. Why not contribute if you can?

 

 

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At last…

Shame on me – not only are the thoughts random but becoming even more intermittent! Just a quickie for now…

It was so nice to see some signs of spring and have a day of sunshine. I know the flooding is still with us and it is such a shame for those affected, but just for today I’m going to Pollyanna it and enjoy the snowdrops and hellebore from the Commandery gardens today in Worcester. More of that anon… Snowdrop watercolourish-6102 Signs of spring - hellebore-6105 Signs of spring-6096

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