|
Caffs and cafes |
|
|
|
There's been a lot of comment recently about the amazing growth of coffee shops. If you stand in London's Regent Street, apparently, you now have 166 branches of Starbucks within a five-mile radius. That chain only opened its first outlet here in 1998, but has been so successful it is annually adding 50 new prime locations where you can drink its over-priced and insipid lattes. People must like these places, though the demographics suggest they are not visited by either the poor or the old. The trouble is that the rise of Starbucks (and the other corporate coffee chains) means the closure of old-fashioned cafes that have for years served their local communities less glamorously but much cheaper. This week's picture set focuses on the disappearing world of caffs and cafes. They are about life not lifestyle and I suppose, sadly, that's why they are doomed. |
|
Last week's pictures featured horses |
| The picture set last week took a look at horses. Wikipedia describes them as "odd-toed ungulates of the order Perissodactyla, a relatively ancient group of browsing and grazing animals that first arose less than 10 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct". So they'd been around a long time before we learnt to domesticate and use them for everything from ploughing fields to the 3.30 at Kempton Park. An English writer called Naomi Royde Smith, now otherwise entirely forgotten, wrote the couplet that went "I know two things about the horse, and one of them is rather coarse". She never said what it was, which is rather a shame. |
|
Other recent pictures of the week |
|
The subject a fortnight ago was cows. They had been in the news - and none too favourably. First off, the Daily Mail ran a bovine scoop about the arrival in Britain of Dundee Paradise, a calf said to have been cloned from the ear of a champion Holstein in Wisconsin. The advantage of this, as might be expected, is entirely commercial. Cloning can create huge cows producing 70 pints of milk a day (30-40% above the norm). Then, if such monstrous and unnatural gushers were not enough, there's the alarming contribution of the world's cows to global warming and the end of civilisation as we (and the Daily Mail) know it. Because of their four-chambered stomachs, they can fart up to 600 litres of methane daily. That's enough, apparently, to fill 40 party balloons. What with all that milk and fart gas, it's going to be quite a party. A mad world, and we're not talking just about the cows. The pictures three weeks ago were about funny shop names. These can be intentional or unintentional and certain retail trades seem much more prone to them than others. Shoe shops and hairdressers, for some reason, are especially fond of puns. Clothes shops will often go for an amusing moniker to stand out from the crowd. Independents are more likely to risk a funny name than multiples, though that didn't stop Richard Branson with Virgin or Anita Roddick with Body Shop. Undertakers, obviously, are not going to want anyone laughing at their names. That was why, when the first Body Shop opened in Brighton in 1976, the undertaker opposite tried (unsuccessfully) to get it closed because he thought the name would upset his (living) customers. His building now sells army surplus clothing and the place next door is called Wai Kika Moo Kau. But that's another story - it's a restaurant. Four weeks ago the picture feature took a look Royal Mail post boxes. After the Christmas cards it was time for thank-you letters (and bills), so the beginning of January is a busy time of year for those familiar red boxes on our streets. The Royal Mail actually delivers an average of 80 million items every day of the year and it has been in business, astonishingly, since 1656. Some pillar boxes may look as if they've been around as long, but the first one appeared in 1855, reportedly an idea of the novelist Anthony Trollope. Now that the Royal Mail has lost most of its monopoly of postal services in Britain, the days of the traditional red box are probably numbered. Another part of our collective national identity threatened by the dead hand of commercialism and bogus "consumer choice". The pictures in this set were taken between 1982 and 2006 in London, Brighton and other places in England. |
|
|
|
About this site and picture library |
|
There are now over 48000 images in the library and they can all be keyword searched from the picture search page. New or updated subjects include cafes, horses, cows, shop names, post boxes, wrecked cars and graffiti. The site has several ways to help make relevant and fruitful searches, including index pages for both subjects and events & places. There is also a useful search guide and information page. A good showcase of the type and range of photography available can be explored in the pictures of the week series. Published on the site since December 2001, this now totals more than 2400 images. Every week there is a set of ten pictures about a particular place, event or theme. Almost all the library's pictures are available for personal or commercial reproduction. Digital files can be delivered by email or CD, prices start from as little as £8 and there is further information on the prices and terms & conditions pages. You can also contact David Gray for quotations and availability for new photography commissions. |
