Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts and such like. In general these will be items, events and issues which I feel have no place on my website (which focusses on aviation history and my travel photography).

The item immediately below this would be the latest posting.

Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself. - Charles Baudelaire
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived) ¬Bishop George Berkeley

Not even I understand everything I am ¬Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

In 2013 I started a series of photo albums on Blurb.com, named '36Exp' (a subject adressed in 36 exposures, a reference to the exposures on most common rolls of 35 mm film: 12, 24 & 36.).
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com website or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

In these linked tales, the real Venice is revealed - not the iconic tourist destination the city has become, but the mysterious society that resides behind its elegant doors and shuttered windows.
With an affectionate delicacy, Jane Turner Rylands, an American expatriate who has lived in Venice for 30+ years, portrays a dozen Venetians: a construction foreman, a countess, a gondolier, a postman, an architect, a Baronessa and an English lord. A window is opened in their daily affairs, as they pursue their respective interests.
And in turn, through the perspective of those who live and work in this most alluring of cities, 'Venetian Stories' takes us over canals and inside palazzos, churches and gondolas, large concerns and small rituals.

Jane Turner Rylands is the author of the collection Venetian Stories and has lived in Venice for more than three decades. She is married to Philip Rylands, the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
The short stories are written in a nice flowery prose and offers a very accessable lglimpse behind the scenes as if we were looking over the shoulders of the actual Venetians.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century palace, which was the home of the American heiress Peggy Guggenheim for three decades.
After her death in 1979, it passed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which opened the collection year-round from 1980.
In 2017, Karole Vail, a granddaughter of Peggy Guggenheim, was appointed Director of the collection, succeeding Philip Rylands, who had led the museum for 37 years.

This list explores the instances of which the city of Venice, Italy, has been mentioned or alluded to in various media.
en.wikipedia.org:_Venice_in_media
Non-fiction
(Alphabetical by author's surname)
John Berendt - The City of Falling Angels
Casanova - History of My Life
E.V. Lucas, A Wanderer in Venice
Francesco da Mosto - Francesco's Venice
Francesco da Mosto - Francesco's Italy
Jane Turner Rylands - Venetian Stories
Jane Turner Rylands - Across the Bridge of Sighs: More Venetian Stories
John Ruskin - The Stones of Venice

'Strike' is a British television crime drama series based on the Cormoran Strike detective novels written by J. K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
The series was first broadcast on BBC One on 27Aug2017.

The series stars Tom Burke as Cormoran Strike, a war veteran turned private detective operating out of a tiny office in London's Denmark Street. He uses his unique insight and his background as a Special Investigation Branch (SIB) investigator to solve complex cases that have eluded the police.
Burke's casting was confirmed in late 2016, while Holliday Grainger was confirmed to play the delightful role of Robin Ellacott.
Four adaptations have been broadcast to date, adapting the first four Strike novels: The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014), Career of Evil (2015) and Lethal White (2018).
The first three are discussed on MyBlog 2018Q4.

Lethal White:
Billy Knight, a mentally-disturbed young man wants Cormoran Strike to look into a murder he thinks he witnessed as a child. Concurrently, Robin goes undercover to investigate the blackmail of a Member of Parliament.
Strike and Robin find clues which seem to confirm the story of the strangled child, but Billy has gone into hiding. His protective brother is besides an activist also a blackmailer, which connects the two cases.
Robin goes undercover and creates two magnificent metamorphoses. But since a year she suffers from panic attacks, we see her regretting her marriage since the honeymoon; she put a stop to her medical consults but the panic attacks continue.
The blackmail case turns into the investigation of a suspicious death.
After ditching her husband, Robin and Strike grow closer together but none of them manage to bridge the gap.

en.wikipedia.org:_Strike_(TV_series)
www.imdb.com

TV-series 'Box 21' is based on Roslund & Hellström’s crime novel Box 21.
The script was written by Anders Roslund in the company of Stefan Thunberg and Dennis Magnusson. Premiered on the Swedish streaming platform Viaplay in 17Jan20.

A young Romanian waitress named Lidia is lured to Sweden with promises of a better life, but is instead forced into prostitution.
Police officers Ewert and Anni Grens are expecting their first child, but their happiness is dramatically cut short.
Lidia is severely beaten up for causing trouble by the mysterious Janus and ends up in hospital.
Young police officer Mariana Hermansson, of Ewert's team, is determined to find the people responsible.
In search of revenge, Lydia makes a bomb with help of her friend Alina, who had called the medics when Lidia almost died. Alina does not know she is helping to create a bomb.
Lidia escapes from her ward, her face still heavily scarred. But a grim determination is in her eyes. She takes a class of six hostage in the mortuary where they had lessons.
The respected hostage negotiator Tobias Nordwall is called in to solve the hostage situation at the hospital, he takes the place of the hostages who are released.

In another plotline we see Jochum Lang being released from jail, where he met Sam and who has a life chaning effect on him. A mole in Micke's organization, a major criminal who employs Jochum as an enforcer and killer, keeps Ewert abreast of developments. Ewert's wife Anni is severely hurt in an attempt to arrest Jochum.
Jochum attempts a change of course in his life, reacqaints with his ex/ girlfriend and tries to 'retire' from Micke's employment.

Ewert & Anni and Tobias & his wife Lena are close friends; Ewert considers him ' family'.
But during the investigation dark secrets appear on Tobias' activities, illegal activities which Ewert can't put his head around and he starts withholding evidence on Tobias possible participation in a people trafficking and prostitution network.

www.andersroslund.se/.../box-21-tv-series/
www.imdb.com

In '7 Days' (Benny Griessel Book #3), Benny is allowed a full week to find the killer of a glamorous lawyer, Hanneke Sloet. And given the number of leads and complications that keep turning up, he needs every minute he can get..

At first, a select team known as the (Capetown) Hawks, can find few clues in the Sloet case and the investigation looses momentum.
And that's unfortunate, because an elusive sniper is so preoccupied with the case that he's shooting policemen and sending emails full of Biblical quotes and anti-Communist rhetoric.
Stepping up the investigation, Benny and Mbali are added to the investigation team, Benny becoming the leader (JOC).

Hanneke Sloet (mart, single and ambitious) had  been part of a team negotiating a high-finance deal.
The emails of the sniper mentions a communist involved in the killing of the beautiful lawyer, and the police allegedly knows but is covering up.
The search is on for 'the communist', but he does not seem to exist.

Nude photos of Ms Sloet are found and she had a breast-enhancement surgery shortly before her death. Who was her secret lover?
Meanwhile, the list of dead and wounded cops piles up..
Griessel tries to keep Alexa, a former pop star he admires, from falling for the booze again; he himself  is a recovering alcoholic. He also has feelings for the singer but cannot muster the courage to declare his love for her.

Meyer is good with plot complications and the mysteries of Sloet's murder and the sniper's identity take interesting turns along the way.
Some interesting characters appear as Griessel's colleagues, including Vaughn Cupido, a hot-blooded 'cowboy cop' , and Mbali Kaleni, a strong policewoman who harbors an embarrassing secret from a recent Amsterdam trip (this too is revealed at book's end).
Mbali's confidence is in striking contrast with Benny's self-doubt, he feels every one contributes to the investigation except him.

Griessel himself is no typical action hero: a recovering alcoholic, he's fighting to get over his broken marriage while maintaining contact with his 2 kids, and to build a new relationship with Alexa, a singer trying for a comeback, who's also in recovery.
Griessel is flawed but likable, and his trials give a bittersweet edge to a strong mystery.

www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/
www.deonmeyer.com
en.wikipedia.org:_Deon_Meyer

Kerr's protagonist is Bernhard Gunther is 36 years old in 1934, a veteran of the Turkish Front and an ex-policeman ('Bull').
He's a private investigator who reminded me of  Raymond Chandler novels: hard-boiled and cynical but soft hearted when it comes to dames in distress.

If The Dead Rise Not is a book in two parts: the first part is obviously pre-WW2, 1934, with ongoing construction for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Bernie Gunther works as a hotel detective at the Adlon, meets an American guest named Max Reles and gets involved with an American writer named Noreen. Max Reles is mobster-buseness man and Bernie helps Noreen in her research which should end in a document that would convince the US government cancelling participating with the 1936 Olympics.
Things turn out different, Noreen is blackmailed to give up on the matter and forced to return to the USA.

Suddenly we're on fast foreward...
Now it's February 1954 (page 291) and Bernie has resurfaced in Havana after a few years in Argentina.
Life is relatively peaceful, but the world-weary ex-cop discovers that he cannot outrun his past when he collides with an old lover, as well as a vicious killer, from his life in Berlin.
Alternating between the flamboyant corruption of Batista's Cuba and 1930s Nazi Germany this title is another fine example of Kerr's virtuoso talent.

Among this novel's many strengths is how Kerr (b.22Feb1956 – d.23Mar2018) manages to impart so much detailed information without letting it get in the way of a fast-moving plot.
He is also very good at showing us Bernie's sardonic wit and the burgeoning love affair between him and Noreen.
Even when the story jumps about 20 years -- in the process skipping over other books in the series -- and lands in 1954 Havana with an older (but not necessarily wiser) Bernie, Noreen & Reles, Kerr is still in total control of his story, managing his characters, complex plot and intersections among assorted Nazis and communists, dictators and American gangsters with equal aplomb.
Fine reading.

berniegunther.com/thebooks/
en.wikipedia.org:_Philip_Kerr
See my review of Kerr's trilogy Berlin Noir MyBlog 2020Q1

Each episode has a protagonist:.
1.Claudia - 2.Oliver - 3.Martin - 4.Jackie - 5.Tom - 6.Casper ('Bondy')

Tom Noack (Thomas Levin) must deal with the fact that he has put his childhood friend Bondy behind bars. Claudia (Marijana Jankovic), wife of Casper Bondesen (Jacob Lohmann) who is behind bars, fights for her future, refusing to follow up Casper's instructions to sell the firm, thus interfering with Martin's plans (environmental innovation projects: Waves Energy) for the community of Norskov.
Oliver (Mathias Käki Jørgensen), whose career in ice hockey ended abruptly after an injury, is morose and distant. He takes illegal drugs to soften the pain of a concussion. But another thing weighs heavy on his mind.

Oliver's friends entice him to commit burglary, while Jackie discovers his illegal drugs.
Tom and Brammer (Henrik Birch) work to deal with the rising number of break-ins.
Claudia has difficulty in changing her status in the community from trophy wife to career woman.

Martin is challenged - both at home and at work. Oliver has put in a DNA test, it is rumored he is a child from Jackie but fathered by an abusing grandfather, Claudia's father.
Martin knows and sees complications in his relation with Oliver on the horizon.
The conflict with the fishermen escalates and Martin's plans for Waves Energy are frustrated for deadlines and budget support.

Jackie (Anne Sofie Espersen) is weighed down by Martin's downturn and the loss of Oliver, who is proving successful in his criminal enterprise.
He has an experienced mentor in his big brother Casper Bonden, but Bonden also has his own plans for which he wants Oliver to play a part.
Tom is still trying to build bridges with Claudia, but he hesitates to declare his love for her, who is increasingly frustrated by her hubby Casper.
Bonden has plans for his and his family's future, and Oliver has become a faithful helper. But when Bonden finds that Claudia is slipping away from him, he must intervene.

Tom and the team make a breakthrough with the burglaries, but as the case gets personal for Tom, a new dilemma arises.

On Bonden's birthday, with help of other inmates, Bondy escapes. Oliver plays an important role in Bonden's escape plans and they are supposed to be heading to Argentina together.
But things take a different turn.
An excellent drama series that does not need to resort to gruesome killings, car chases or spectacular explosions. Recommended

www.imdb.com

It wasn't until Lee Miller's death in 1977 that her son Anthony Penrose discovered the role his mother had played in documenting World War II.
Forgotten in the attic was Miller's archive of negatives. A selection of her photographs exploring the role of women in the lead-up to, during and after World War II can be found in this remarkable book which coincided at the time with a grand exhibition.
Miller was quite the character and led an eventful life.

Elizabeth 'lee' Miller's father introduced her, and her brothers, to photography at an early age. She was his model; he took even took photographs of his nude teenage daughter.
Miller's subsequent early career was spent as a fashion model in New York, discovered by Condé Nast.
The book includes fashion images of her from the era. The bottom dropped out of her work as a model after she featured in an advertisement of Kotex: menstrual pads were a taboo and no one wanted to hire the 'Kotex girl'.

But she had found a growing interest in photography at the other end of the camera.
In 1929 she travelled to Paris, becoming an apprentice to the photographer and painter Man Ray. She became his lover and muse, as well as collaborator.
After leaving Ray and Paris in 1932, she returned to New York City and established a portrait and commercial photography studio with her brother Erik.
In 1934, Miller abandoned her studio to marry the Egyptian businessman and engineer Aziz Eloui Bey, who had come to New York City to buy equipment for the Egyptian National Railways.
Although she did not work as a professional photographer during this period, the photographs she took while living in Egypt with Eloui, are regarded as some of her most striking surrealist images.
By 1937, Miller had grown bored with her life in Cairo. She returned to Paris, where she met the British surrealist painter and curator Roland Penrose.

But it wasn't until the outbreak of World War II, when Miller was living with Penrose in Hampstead, that she could really put her talent to the test.
British Vogue, a publication of the a global media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast, commissioned her to produce photo essays on the war effort like 'Fashion for Factories'.
She stretched the bounderies of her assignment capturing the freedom and anxiety that came with women's new responsibility at home in Britain while men were off fighting. From fashion photography to photo documentaries.

Then there is he part of the book that focuses on her time spent with the US army's 83rd Infantry Division, one of only four accredited female photographers (obtained through her nationality as an American).
Here Miller comes into her own.
The harsh realities of war resonate - from destroyed cityscapes to intense moments at makeshift hospitals. Liberation celebrations are contrasted with shots of displaced families of Germans and shamed collaborators whose heads have been shaved. One of the most striking images is of Miller in Hitler's bath staged by herself and Jewish photographer David Scherman, who had helped her get accreditation as an official US war correspondent.
Eloquent, stunning and upsetting, these black-and-white photographs are bold observations of the dramatic transformation of conflict. But they came at a cost, exhaustion and PTSS brought her to drinking.

Her youth, her modelling days, looking up Man Ray, going to Egypt as the wife of Aziz Eloui Bey, her ménage à trois with Roland Penrose (an English artist, historian and poet) and war photographer David Scherman... The story of Lee (Elizabeth, Li-Li) Miller is a larger than life and suitable for a grand Hollywood movie!

This book is as much a biography of Miller as it is the women she commemorates and condemns. It addresses her surrealist creativity, her pursuit for equality, her war photography, her inner turmoil and the enduring impact of the war.
A superb book both for the photography as well as the biography, set against a useful timelime.

For a future visit by myself: Farleys House near Chiddingly, East Sussex, has been converted into a museum and archive featuring the lives and work of its former residents, the photographer Lee Miller and the Surrealist artist Roland Penrose.

en.wikipedia.org:_Lee_Miller
www.leemiller.co.uk
www.britannica.com/biography/Lee-Miller
en.wikipedia.org:_Roland_Penrose
en.wikipedia.org:_Condé_Nast
www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk
farleyshouse.com

Today at FOAM visited two exhibitions one of Vivian Maier's 'Works in Color'. Already purchased the book when photo exhibitions couldn't be visited for the Covid-19 'Corona' virus.
Fantastic photography, have 3 books on her work by now. Her life is such a tragic story, so sad she never benefitted from her talent & excellence as a streetphotographer.

Another expo was 'On Earth – Imaging, Technology and the Natural World'. By various (27) artists, some real stunning work there too, very versatile.

Great to be able to visit FOAM again, been too long. Masks were not needed, was easy to keep 1.5m distance; some visitors did wear them.

www.foam.org/. . . ./vivian-maier-works-in-color
www.foam.org/. . ./on-earth-imaging-technology-and-the-natural-world
More on www.flickr.com

When a criminal is shot dead by a police armed-response unit led by Sergeant Danny Waldron, AC-12 gather evidence suggesting it was a deliberate killing rather than self-defense by the team.
Danny's armed-response unit come under increasing scrutiny as AC-12 feed Kate, working undercover with Danny's team, information to help her crack their testimony.

Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) finds his own past catching up with him. The spotlight falls on his questionable conduct in a previous inquiry - the Lindsay Denton case.
Resulting from his inquiries Steve believes there is a dark secret in Danny Waldron's past. 
When suspended from the inquiry Steve finds an unlikely partner in Lindsay(Keeley Hawes), who is acquitted from jail on part of her conviction being overturned and having served over a year in jail. But she remains secretive and follows her own line of inquiry, determined to come up with a result to clear her name.

Fresh testimony launches AC-12 back on the trail of the Caddy, a corrupt police officer with links to organized crime.
AC-12's loyalties are divided when Steve comes under scrutiny from his colleagues, mounting distrust because of alleged sexual relations with Lindsay Denton, which Steve denies.

Editted copies of police reports seem to block the investigation to a peadophile ring ("Monsters", the title of this series) which include a retired Head of Police.
Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) is suspected by Steve of falsifying reports as result of dubious masonic contacts. Gill (Polly Walker), legal counselor for AC-12, applies romantic schemes as well as professional pressure on Ted Hastings to eliminate Steve from the AC-12 team; what is her motivation?
Steve is arrested on suspicion of murder but continues to protest his innocence. At home his relation with Sam (Aiysha Hart) is becoming unsettling.

DI 'Dot' Cottan (Craig Parkinson) spins a convincing net, and Steve seems set to be made the fall guy as the mastermind behind previous killings and conspiracies. But then Kate (Vicky McClure) has doubts and shows her true loyalty.

Another thrilling season of Line of Duty, the series remains of high speed drama.

www.imdb.com
en.wikipedia.org:_Line_of_Duty_(series_3)

Cologne, Germany-based photographer Dieter Klein was captivated by the image of the man-made machine reclaimed by nature, and became determined to find others like it. A quest got under way
.
Through online research and word-of-mouth referrals, he began traveling Europe in search of other automobile graveyards. This resulted in 'Punk Forest'.
In Belgium, he found a small forest where Allied forces had left some cars after WWII. The owner of the land, he said, wanted to leave the cars there indefinitely, as a sort of time capsule, but he was compelled to clean the place up in 2011 after it became too flooded with visitors.
One of his favorite places he found was only 30 miles from his hometown, Cologne: "A car dealer had a funny idea. When he turned 50 in 2000, he arranged 50 cars made in 1950 as a sculpture park in his garden and threw a big party. Some friends got really angry when they saw, for instance, an extraordinary Jaguar XK-120 left alone on purpose. In restored condition, this car could sell for $120,000."
It is also a joy to read about Klein's encounters with some of the owners.

Strange and isolated places aren't everyone's cup of tea - but they are where photographer Dieter Klein gets to work.
He has been roaming shabby backyards, dusty barns, deserted fields and thick forests across Europe and upwards and onwards he expanded his search the U.S., to find and photograph once-gleaming vehicles left to rust and ruin in peace. The photos of cars abandoned or collected in the United States were compiled in 'The Fabulous Emotion - Retired Automobiles of North America'.
In 'Lost Wheels - The Nostalgic Beauty of Abandoned Cars' 160 astonishing pictures comprise his exploits both in Europe as well as in North America.

This artful book on abandoned cars in forgotten places truly hits the spot with me. A dedication in superb photography, magnificent.

dieterklein.de
www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/...book-Nostalgic-Beauty-Abandoned-Cars
slate.com/culture/.../dieter-klein-photographs-automobile-graveyards

My first photo with new camera equipment: the Leica Q, bought secondhand this pas week.
Good to compare with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-G80, also marked as Lumix L ('L' as in Leica look-alike?). Note that the DMC-G85/G80 ('G-series') today has developed into quite a different camera, more like a DSLR, less a rangefinder compact.

Ever since collecting books of famous photojournalists and street photographers, I am fascinated by the Leica brand. Some 20+ years ago I used a Leica SLR and remember how reliable it was while built as a brick (and as heavy!).
As a hobby photographer I do not have the output nor the ambition to own a Leica M, plus I am not keen on manual focussing ('rangefinder') and using films is a thing of the past for me.

The Leica Q2 has the specifications and price that rekindled my fascination, though comparisons by e.g. DPReview and experts through their YouTube channels indicate that while the Leica scores top marks other similar cameras come close for a (much) lesser price.
A conclusion I heard or read was that the Leica Q and Q2 was more about 'lifestyle' (walking around or merely owning a camera with the famous red dot) than specifications.
While I was saving for the Q2 I thought it a good idea to try the Leica Q first, see if this sort of camera is the right ting for me, while this secondhand one was offered to me in an attractive deal.

I took two similar photos with both cameras today and sat down to compare: the Leica Q ('Typ 116') and the Panasonic DMC-G80.
In terms of sharpness the Leica came out a tiny bit better, but not so much you would notice on my social media- and website photos. Colour rendition on the Leica was more neutral, the Lumix L showed a little browner / warmer. Contrast and grain, under fairly ideal conditions, also a tiny bit better.
Considering my photography the price of a Leica Q secondhand, almost four times as what I once paid for the Pana DMC-G80 new, does not show in the photos (i.m.o.) and in terms of specs the Lumix is considerably more versatile. And for size and weight the Pana is also easier walk around with.

I am not one to go & show for the biggest, best or most expensive camera (or maybe it is too early for me to admit as much). Indeed, I would rather have acquired the Leica Q-P, with the red dot changed to black and placed less conspicuous.
Stubborn as I am I will continue with this Leica Q and will practice to become proficient with it, while saving for a good trade in for a Leica Q2 in due course. The virus has got me, I need to let it run its course but I'll hang on to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G80 too!

en.wikipedia.org:_Panasonic_Lumix_DMC-G85/G80
www.dpreview.com/news/.../panasonic-lumix-dmc-gx85
en.wikipedia.org:_Leica_Q
www.dpreview.com/.../leica_q116

The first series of Line of Duty, consisting of 5 episodes, began broadcasting on 26Jun12 on BBC Two.
The series follows Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), D.S. Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and D.C. Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) as they lead an investigation into the corrupt actions of D.C.I. Tony Gates (Lennie James).
The series' supporting characters include D.S. Matthew Cottan (Craig Parkinson) and D.C. Nigel Morton (Neil Morrissey).

Season 2 is called The Ambush.
A police convoy escorting a civilian under a witness protection scheme is attacked, the witness hospitalized and all the police officers killed, except Inspector Lindsay Denton. She had organized the operation at very short notice and drove 'point' determining the route.
Ted Hastings, head of AC-12, asks Steve and Kate to interview her but Kate pulls out, claiming one of the dead officers, Jayne Akers, was a friend.
Her place is taken by Georgia Trotman.

The witness is killed in the hospital by an assassin. Steve discovers that a nurse on the witness's ward, Claire Tindall, was threatened into giving the killer access by a man she knows as Joe, but whom she is unable to identify.
Lindsay is reassigned to investigate cold cases of missing persons, as her colleagues consider her a pariah for the botched job she was responsible of, taking with her 2 unarmed policemen for the escort in which both were killed.
She picks a vanished teenager Carly Kirk to investigate.
As circumstancial evidence mounts, Denton is put in custody where she is victimized by both staff ('screws') and prisoners.
Meanwhile Steve and Kate discover the identity of the dead witness. He was known as Tommy, and this is the first link with the first series.
Another link is DI 'Dot' Cottan who gets assigned to AC-12, now outranking Steve and Kate.
Dot believes that Jayne Akers, his liaison officer, was the real mole who betrayed the escort. A tracking device was found underneath her burned out car.
Denton's accusations cause friction between Hastings and Steve.
Ted's superior DCC Dryden is grilled by the media for a driving offence. Slowly but surely facts appear showing Dryden seemingly connected with the convoy ambush. Was the speeding ticket some kind of alibi for Dryden?
Rich Akers, husband of murdered Jayne and in an exramarital relationship with Kate, is pulled in after £20,000 of which he claims ignorance is found under the floor boards at his house. Jayne's account shows an unexplained deposit of £50,000.
Was the bribe given to Jayne to betray the escort?
 
Lindsay Denton is kidnapped while on police escort after visiting her demented mother in a carehome.
She is questioned by her abductors, both policemen in vice.
It is unclear if Denton knows these policemen, but video footage recovered shows Dryden is at least on good relations with one of these policemen.
Lindsay manages to escape. Steve slowly becomes convinced Lindsay is innovent, esspecially when found that
Dryden had sex with Carly Kirk, a minor, shortly before she vanished.
Hastings charges Dryden for the driving scam but has insufficient evidence for the weightier charges as Dryden apparently proves that the last he saw of Carly was when he put her on a train.
So who goes to prison and who is set free?

www.imdb.com
en.wikipedia.org/:_Line_of_Duty

Vivian Dorothy Maier (b.01Feb1926 - d.21Apr2009) worked for about 40 years as a nanny, mostly in Chicago's North Shore, pursuing photography during her spare time.
She took more than 150.000 photographs during her lifetime, primarily of the people and architecture of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, although she also traveled and photographed worldwide.
The remarkable thing is; she never shared her photographs with a wider audience!
Even though she visited art museums, she never aspired to claim fame for her photography during her life.

Maier was privat to the extreme. Also in her presentation and dressing she was seen was as 'typical'. She remains a bit of an enigma for she passed on before she became famous for her photography and can't be asked for what exactly motivated her.
She was well known for carrying around a camera, everywhere she went on privat exploits and yes, also while with the children she cared for.
She was also a hoarder and moved from employer to employer with an increasing amount of boxes.

When she ran out of employers (who all had been well off), money became tight.
The Gensburg brothers, whom Maier had looked after as children, tried to help her as she became poorer in old age. When she was about to be evicted from a cheap apartment in the suburb of Cicero, the Gensburg brothers arranged for her to live in a better apartment on Sheridan Road in the Rogers Park area of Chicago.
In November 2008, Maier fell on the ice and hit her head. She was taken to a hospital but failed to recover. In January 2009, she was transported to a nursing home in the Chicago suburbs, where she died on 21Apr09.

She had hoarded so much stuff, she needed to rent storage space, but she failed to pay the rent for a number of years so the contents were sold at an auction for a minimal amount of money, sight unseen. This included her negatives, prints, audio recordings, and 8 mm film. Some 150 rolls of film had been exposed but never developed.
Three photo collectors bought parts of her work: John Maloof, Ron Slattery and Randy Prow.
Maloof had bought the largest part of Maier's work, about 30.000 negatives, because he was working on a book about the history of the Chicago neighborhood of Portage Park.
In a roundabout way Maier's photos landed on desks of art directors and collectors. And thus became famous!

Mostly known for her black and white photography, Vivian Maier is now an icon in American street photography. Maier’s observant eye as an unknown outsider and as a woman makes her work a significant addition to the canon of photography.
This massive photobook 'The Color Work' (by Colin Westerbeck, 240 pages, text & foreword by Joel Meyerowitz) focuses on a lesser-known aspect of her work: 130 marvellous colour photographs from the period between 1956 – 1986.
It depicts street scenes in Chicago, - the city where Maier lived for much of her life.
Her work in colour is playful and tongue in cheek: we don't see beggars or dereliction. It is a study of human behavior, the flash of a gesture, street portraits, shopwindows, contrast in abstractions but also
of black people and white people, postures, selfies, the kids she was a nanny for, et cetera.
A very versatile book of streetphotography in terms of subjects. A joy to browse and indeed to admire its contents.

en.wikipedia.org:_Vivian_Maier
www.vivianmaier.com/vivian-maier-books/vivian-maier-the-color-work-book/
Vivian Maier, A Photographer Found on MyBlog 2017Q4

Rarely do I feel the urge to laugh out loud when reading a book: Bill Bryson does that to me as well as Marcel van Roosmalen.
Van Roosmalen (b.10Feb1968) is a Dutch journalist, columnist and writer. He writes fiction as well as journalistic contributions and columns for various publications.
His prose is characterized by a dry, somewhat cynical undertone.

'Het Is Nooit Leuk Als Je Tegen Een Boom Rijdt' (EN": It Is Never Fun If You Collide With A Tree') is a series of columns first published in 2011; I read a 7th print copy which was published in 2018. It goes to show how popular van Roosmalen is.
The title is an observation in one of the columns, of which I counted ca.90+
They were published in (a.o.) Intermediair, Het Parool, VARAgids, PS De Week, Mikebode, NRC.Next, NUSport, DWDD Magazine, Nieuwe Revu, Goed TV, Volkskrant magazine, Veronica magazine, HP/De Tijd, Voetbal Magazine, Torpedo magazine, Rails and Geert.
By this time Marcel van Roosmalen has published ca.20 compiled editions such as this one and monographs.

In this book we read about a weekend with 'the common man' in holiday park De Kempervennen, on safari with a group of journalists through the open-air museum Volendam, on the train on the way to the wedding of Frans Bauer.
The reluctance drips from his pen, but Van Roosmalen is always there for the effort, quite often a little late for he does not drive a car and seems a little uncoördinated. He describes things a little grumpy as well hilarious, often asks the wrong questions. He shows the embarassing publicity appearances of BN-ers (NL: Bekende Nederlanders; EN: well-known Dutchmen), inadequacies of public relations people and frustrating governmental bureaucracies.
He declares his disgust for meetings and why he resigned with HP/De Tijd, becoming a freelancer: no more meetings! He has a style of his own, his columns are to the point and hilarious. It is not about the event but rather in his bone-dry way of detailing his observations and dialogues.
The title tells it all, really!

nl.wikipedia.org:_Marcel_van_Roosmalen (NL)

Åsa Larsson (b. 28Jun1966) is a Swedish crime-fiction writer. Although born in Uppsala, she was raised in Kiruna in the far north.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Larsson was a tax lawyer, a profession she shares with the heroine of her novels, Rebecka Martinsson
If Wikipedia is to be believed  'The Second Deadly Sin', published in 2014 was the last crime novel by her hand. Pity, only 5 books.
I did notice that she was involved as a co-producer in the 2nd Rebecka Martinsson (2020) tv-series which I recently watched.

The first series, which I watched in 2018 (MyBlog-2018Q3), had Ida Engvoll in the leading role of Rebecka Martinsson; this 2nd series has Sascha Zacharias in the role of Rebecka, equally convincing! Sascha also featured in the first series (Till offer åt Molok, 1 & 2) but in another role, as Jenny Häggroth
.
Jakob as Krister Eriksson and Lars Lind as Sivving Fjällborg as well as Ville Virtanen (Bordertown, Thicker Than Water) as Lars Pohjanen seem among the few that participated in both the 2017 as well as the 2020 series.

At the start of this 2nd series we see Rebecka as an Assistent-District Attorney (to van der Post) getting a feel for the Kiruna area, having made a choice to leave Stockholm for the north of Sweden where her roots are.
A feud among the Sami population, who will do everything they can to keep the Swedes out of their business, finds Rebecka struggling with this culture. Krister helps to clarify certain aspects to her.
The feud escalates to the killing of a young Sami, whom Krister knows well.
Drugs play a part in another episode, with Lova and her boyfriend involved. She is the daughter of police inspector Anna Maria Mella (lovely role by Eva Melander, also in both series).
Mella's marriage is under strain as she can't always leave the policeperson at the office and her husband Robert Mella is very laidback in his parental role.
Rebecka and Krister have a complicated relationship; Rebecka has increasing doubts if the coice to return to Kiruna was a wise one.
Tommy, a police officer in Mella's team has feelings for his superior. Anna Marie and Robert seek marriage council.

It is a true Scandi Noir series, with murder mysteries that are quite gshocking and there's a fitting ending to 2nd series of Rebecka Martinsson, with tears and sorrow.

Over the past few years I've read the superb books by Åsa Larsson.
Some are reviewed on my blog: MyBlog 2016Q1 for 'The Black Path', 'The Blood Spilt' on MyBlog 2016Q2 and on MyBlog 2013Q 'Until Thy Wrath Be Past'.

www.imdb.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Åsa_Larsson

It seems the proper spelling is Ryōhei, but I think most gave up on finding the proper code for the Latin letter O with macron... I found it on altcodeunicode.com/alt-codes-letter-o-with-accents. My usual favourite for html keyboard characters is www.freecodecamp.org/news/alt-codes-special-characters-keyboard-symbols-windows-list/ but it failed me this time.

So... Ryōhei's Etchings of Rural Japan. It is the first monograph in English dedicated to the life and oeuvre of Tanaka Ryohei (b.1933).
Mostly self-taught, Tanaka excelled in the medium of etching. He used this technique to depict the
scenery of rural Japan and its gradually disappearing thatched-roof farmhouses.
Tanaka made no less than 770 etchings and printed the vast majority of the editions himself - a total of well over 100,000 prints. They found their way to many collections, both public and private, all over the world.
Over 130 representative works have been selected for this publication!

Japan has a long and rich tradition of printmaking. Whereas 18th- to early 20th-century woodblock prints have been the subject of extensive research, postwar printmaking and etching in Japan have received considerably less attention.
While focusing on a single artist, this publication aims to shed light on these lesser-known aspects of Japanese print history.
'Etchings of Rural Japan' includes an elaborate introduction to the technique of etching, enabling the reader to understand and admire Tanaka's skills as an artist-craftsman. Very informative and a 'must read' for sure.

It is not only the Americans like Daniel Kelly or Sarah Brayer or the French like Paul Jacoulet who came to Japan to learn the art of artistic printmaking. Also a Dutchman stepped into this path. His name is Chris van Otterloo.
Today Chris van Otterloo's works are to be found in such museums like the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Chris was born in 1950 in the Netherlands. He studied Fine Arts at Leiden University from 1970 until 1974, when he made his graduation.
From 1974 until 1975 he studied Japanese literature, as a post-graduate research student at Kyoto University.
And the next 3 years Chris became student of the famous Japanese etching master Ryōhei Tanaka. He was the only student that the great printmaker ever took!
This printmaking 'apprenticeship' lasted from 1975 until 1977. He surely is the expert to publish this tribute to the works of Tanaka Ryōhei!

www.artelino.com/articles/chris-van-otterloo
www.roningallery.com/artists/ryohei-tanaka
www.sieboldhuis.org
en.wikipedia.org:_Ryohei_Tanaka

Donkere Dagen ('Dark Days') - nieuwe berichten uit het land; Martin Bril

Martin Bril (b.21Oct1959 – d.22Apr2009) died in 2009 from the grueling work of esophageal cancer; he was only 49 years old.
He was probably the most popular columnist in the Netherlands in his time. His work is still sold well, I picked this book up only recently in a secondhand bookshop and read it with newly found pleasure.
A lovely edition by Prometheus, I must add.
After his death, 18 compilations of his columns have appeared (afaik) and with those books, Bril was
more often in the top 60 bestsellers than with the work that appeared in his lifetime.

See also MyBlog 2014Q2 and MyBlog 2019Q1
nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bril (NL)

This is a book I recently acquired for the subject of nostalgic streetphotography, for I had not heard of Paul Almasy before. And so pleased I ordered this book! Ca. 116 amazing photographs, a book that will be forever a pleasure to pick up and browse!

Paul Almasy (1906-2003) was a pioneer of photojournalism. For more than six decades he traveled the world with his camera and during this time took about 120.000 photographs.
Almasy termed his oeuvre an "archive of the world", cataloguing the photographs by country - and for each country he visited he then sorted the photographs by category: state, economy, culture, everyday life, animals and plants, being but a few of them. In this way, he established a detailed and comprehensive picture archive that today constitutes a unique document of 20th century history.
This particular book focusses on Paris, but I will be on the lookout for other books by him!

At the tender age of 17, Paul Almasy left his native Budapest and after various interludes, among others in Vienna and Munich, he ended up in Paris.
It was the city that was to become the second home and main point of reference for the self-taught photojournalist - and it was likewise his gateway to the world.
It was from here that he set out on his countless world trips on behalf of WHO, UNESCO and UNICEF. For a time, Paul Almasy was a visiting professor lecturing at the Sorbonne.
He became French citizen in 1956. In September 2003, Paul Almasy died at the age of 97 in Paris.

His black-and-white work focuses almost always on people.
Almasy is not concerned here with social class or milieu: he photographed the powerful men of his time, Bohemian artists in Paris, but also midwives in Africa, rice farmers in Indonesia and street children in Mexico. Even where Almasy addresses poverty and distress, he never does this as a voyeur but participates respectfully in what he sees while preserving his distance as an observer.
It was an approach he internalized: "When I took photographs, I never crouched down like a cat about to pounce on its prey. I never attacked with my camera." Paul Almasy always viewed himself as a photojournalist and never as a photographer.

www.deutscheboersephotographyfoundation.org/en/collect/artists/paul-almasy.php
www.artnet.com/artists/paul-almasy

'Go No Go' is photographer Ad van Denderen's acclaimed project on contemporary migration and European border politics.
In 1986, while shooting a story in eastern Turkey, he saw a then brand new phenomenon: the start of the great contemporary migration. In 'Go No Go' Ad van Denderen leads us along the edges of Europe where immigrants try to reach the West along smugglers' paths, with varying success.

Over a period of 12 years Ad van Denderen photographed migrants and refugees who were under way to the rich West. He stayed for weeks in squalid pensions in Istanbul, where Pakistanis wait for the human traffickers who will bring them to Greece. He joined police patrols along the border between Greece and Turkey, where it was primarily Sri Lankans who were arrested, and watched how men and women stepped soaking wet from their small boats at night near Tarifa, in Spain, after their rough sea passage from Morocco.
The result is this photobook 'GO NO GO', published in 2003.

Ever more people make the decision to leave house and home. Aided by their families, they will journey for months, sometimes under dreadful conditions.
Van Denderen saw a shadow world arise, of people who are willing to do anything to make a living.
They work in the fields of Greece, as prostitutes along Italy's roads, in the greenhouses at El Ejido, in Spain. Van Denderen recorded their lives.
He photographed them in the places where they sleep, the fields where they work, in the prisons intended especially for aliens.
'It's a hard life,' says Van Denderen of the migrants. 'I want to give them a face.'

Sad to note so little progress has been made to this day by the EU on the subject of this immigration problem. A solution seems not in sight.

Ad van Denderen (b.1943, The Netherlands) has worked as a photographer for Vrij Nederland, Stern, NRC Handelsblad, GEO and The Independent magazine, among others.
He has received a number of prestigious prizes for his work, including the Visa d'Or at the international photo festival Visa pour l'Image in Perpignan in 2001 and The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts' (Fonds BKVB) oeuvre prize in 2007/2008.
Go No Go, his book on migration in Europe, was published by Actes Sud, Mets & Schilt, Lunwerg Editores, Edition Braus and Paradox in 2003.
For the 2008 SteidlMack/Paradox publication 'So Blue So Blue', Van Denderen photographed the 17 countries around the Mediterranean Sea.
Earlier publications include 'Peace in The Holy Land', a book about Palestine (1997) and 'Welkom in Suid-Afrika', about Apartheid (1991).
Ad van Denderen is a member of VU agency, Paris.

www.paradox.nl/project/go-no-go/
nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_van_Denderen (NL)

Cardinal is a Canadian crime drama tv-series, which was 1st broadcast on 25Jan2017.
The series adapts the novels of crime writer Giles Blunt, focusing on police detective John Cardinal (Billy Campbell) and his partner Lise Delorme (Karine Vanasse), who investigate crimes in the fictional city of Algonquin Bay.

Season 4: Until the Night --
We return the the winter wonderland of Algonquin Bay.
After a prominent politician's husband is abducted and then left to die from exposure, Cardinal and Delorme suspect that a hired killer is targeting those close to four people, out of revenge for a cover-up in their past.
Cardinal and Delorme grow closer but this case will be their last together as Delorme takes a new job in Toronto.

Sheila Gagne and Barry Leblanc meet in secret and discuss something in their past that connects them - something they haven't told the police.
Cardinal and Delorme try to link Barry and Sheila to Ken McNider, a wealthy local businessman involved in forestry and mining.
As the detectives close in on the secret from her past, Sheila goes into hiding at Taj's trucking company but believes they should go to the police.
Scrambling to find young Mena and Taj in time, Cardinal and Delorme learn what really happened in the woods twenty years ago.

en.wikipedia.org:_Cardinal_(TV_series)
www.imdb.com

Iceland’s Yrsa Sigurdardottir surprised me with a stunning crime novel not featuring the main protagonist from the two previous books I read by her: Thora Gudmundsdottir.
The Legacy, with detective Huldar and child psychologist Freya, is referred to as 'Children’s House Series, Book 1'.
It was originally published in 2014, under the title DNA. This translation by Victoria Cribb (of course!) was published in 2017.
Four out of five Freyja & Huldar (Children's House) series have already been translated into English so I have something to pursue here!

The Legacy is equal parts 'police procedural' and suspense narrative.
Weaving together dark family secrets both present and past with a chilling investigation, Sigurdardottir delivers a standout Nordic thriller with which, in my opinion, she has proven to be as good an author as Arnaldur Indridason.

Plot Summary:
The only person who might have the answers to a baffling murder case is the victim’s seven-year-old daughter, found hiding in the bedroom where her mother died. Severely traumatized, she’s not talking.
Newly-promoted and quite out of his depth, detective Huldar turns to Freyja for her expertise with traumatized young people.
Freyja, who distrusts the police in general and Huldar in particular, isn’t best pleased. But she’s determined to keep little Margret safe.
The unusually violent serial killer is leaving them strange clues, but the victims don't seem to have any connection.
Truly a page turner with that special gripping Icelandic atmosphere!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yrsa_Sigurdardottir
crimebythebook.com/blog/2017/..
Other books here by Yrsa Sigurdardottir on MyBlog2019Q3 and MyBlog2019Q2

The story of 'Sunshine' (a.k.a. 'The Sunshine Kings') follows the life of Jacob, a young, aspiring South Sudanese-Australian basketball player who is on the cusp of being picked up by US scouts for the US College league.

Sunshine is based in Melbourne's outer-western suburb of Sunshine and its surrounds. The Sunshine Kings is a basket ball team, initially led by a pastor to keep kids on the straight and narrow.
Jacob and his friends go joyriding in a stolen Porsche, which Jacob return in the dark of night but the car (with their fingerprints) is found connected with a molested young girl who is hospitalized in a coma.
So they get caught up in a police investigation involving this teenage girl, daugher of an influential white owner of a large construction company.
There is a good development of narrative against a backdrop of institutional racism, a very current subject (it has always been there of course) with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement again in the media spotlight. This 4-episode Australian miniseries was created in 2017.

www.imdb.com
en.wikipedia.org:_Sunshine_(Australian_TV_series)

Before We Die (Svenska: Innan vi dör) is a Swedish thriller tv-series which premiered for Sveriges Television on 15jan2017.
Hanna (Marie Richardson) works in the Stockholm policidepartment in the Fraud department, but gets involved in an investigation by the Organised Crime Dept (housed on another floor in the same building).
Hanna is divorced and while working with Organised Crime had her son Christian caught dealing drugs for which he was convicted to 2 years in prison.
The first episode sees Hanna and Sven, a police detective with Organised Crime, getting dressed for each making their seperate ways to work. Sven is married and their relation is also hidden from their colleagues.
Sven parts with a remark he has a visit with a police informer named Inez. He subsequently does not arrive at his work that day and it is found that he has been kidnapped.
Organised Crime was working on an investigation into a killing involving 2 motorcycle gangs and they seem connected with Sven's disappearance.
A search for Inez starts.

Though some of the plotlines seem to disappear without a trace the 10 episodes have plenty of twists and turns, with dark aspects making it worthy of the label 'scandi noir'.
Excellent roleplay, btw!

www.imdb.com

Not the best of Scandinavian crime series I thought, dialogues are not always convincing, the love triangle is a bit corny, entertaining nevertheless in a summer romantic sort of way.

www.imdb.com

Leisure, in all its manifest forms, has occupied Martin Parr for his entire career. But from funfairs to food to flower shows, nowhere is the pursuit of pleasure more nakedly apparent than on the beach.
Parr’s most enduring photographs of the British coast were taken between 1983 and 1985, when he visited the Liverpool beach resort of New Brighton.
His now characteristic use of saturated color and on-board flash illuminated a country in a state of decay, but still finding pleasure where it could.
The deterioration of the British economy—and society as a whole— seemed to be writ large in the litter-strewn, concrete promenade of New Brighton.

Martin Parr (b.23May1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world.

Another book by Martin Parr, Small World, is discussed on MyBlog 2020Q2.

www.magnumphotos.com
ww.martinparr.com
en.wikipedia.org:_Martin_Parr

A few days ago I visited this fine estate, Markelo (also referred to as Castle Markelo) near Diepenheim, in the province of Overijssel (The Netherlands). The grounds are open for visitors and upon our visit there was the special attraction of 16 sandsculptures on the theme of Dutch proverbs.
Wonderful.

nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warmelo (NL)
kasteelwarmelo.nl (NL)
More images on flickr.com