Seemingly trivial things that cheer you up

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Comments

  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661

    That feeling after the performance of the overpriced most expensive purchase justifies the hefty price tag.

  • focuszing723
    focuszing723 Posts: 8,096
    edited January 22

    ...

  • focuszing723
    focuszing723 Posts: 8,096

    I've said it before and I'll say it again a person who can only play a three button instrument shouldn't disparage greatness!

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224
    edited January 22

    Just happened to look at my French FB stats... not quite sure how that happened, but I guess they've picked up my Christmas photo spamming. Still, whatever, a one-in-ten viewer to actual interaction is probably better than the spammers on BR got. Perhaps I ought to sell English love potions on the side.


  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 21,852

    I think there is a good business to be created which offers people like you completely hassle free merchandise sales. All you should need to do is pick 12 photos and take a commission on calendar sales that another company produces and delivers. This would also work for schools and just about anything where people might like to a buy a product which someone else can't be bothered to manage.

  • veronese68
    veronese68 Posts: 27,800

    There are businesses like that, my dad used to sell prints and calendars through a website like that. I think it may have been Etsy but would have to check.

  • pangolin
    pangolin Posts: 6,645

    Yeah there are a few. Redbubble for example

    - Genesis Croix de Fer
    - Dolan Tuono
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224


    Yeah, I'd thought about that. Because it's just something I do for fun, I don't want it having even the whiff of work... I turned down the chance to do a talk at some university in the Avignon direction about 'an Englishman's view of the area' through my photos, flattering though the suggestion was. As have been suggestions I could write a tourism book.

    TBH, I'd be happy if some charity used my photos for a calendar, or touristy guide or similar, to raise funds for them. I think my photos are of tourism value ("Isn't it all so pretty!") but not on the creative photography side, which others with keener eyes do so much better. It's just that I'm there a lot, in all weathers, know the area inside out, with the time and the opportunity (ease of stopping in odd places on a bike) to take lots of reasonably well-framed snaps. Obviously there is a market for that.

    I suspect that the only 'commercial' advantage I'll get is if and when I come to sell the house. I won't need an estate agent to get plenty of interest, and I've given Romeyer a lot more positive publicity than it would have had otherwise.

  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 21,852

    Unless I am mistaken most businesses just do the printing based on an ordered quantity. They don't do the customer interface bit. I tried to find somewhere to do school ones and was disappointed how much effort it would involve.

    You could easily take the same concept and use it for charity fund raising.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224
    edited January 22


    Yeah, that's exactly it. In another life I might have been interested in all that, but it turns it all into a work-like faff if you're going to do it properly and make money out of it. I just wanna ride my bike and take pretty pictures that bring a little bit of pleasure to others now.

  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,257

    My thinking too.

    I am sometimes asked if I'd make money out of my hobby but I think the pittance that would be earned isn't worth the hassle. It only comes into its own if you run it as a proper business offsetting costs etc. Cameras and lenses aren't cheap!

    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • capt_slog
    capt_slog Posts: 3,972

    How nice trees look when viewed from above, particularly pines.

    This revelation has come from frequent use of drones to film for TV in the past couple of years. Sure, we saw aerial shots before, but we tend to get a lot more static ones now and looking straight down.



    The older I get, the better I was.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224

    Still being able to smell the garlic chicken thing when I open the fridge door, despite my having a stinking cold. Mind you, that might be because of just how much garlic I put in the garlic chicken thing.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224
    edited January 23


    Thanks for the prompt to see if I could find any of my French playground. Bingo, a very short and beautiful film I hadn't seen before of places I know well on the bike & by foot.


  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661

    Little one reminding me how fun Where’s Wally is.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224

    Having an ex-pupil-now-doctor notice from a photo of my eye on Facebook that I've got 'corneal arcus' (having Googled it, he's right) and him thinking I was still in my 40s, not almost-60 (which is relevant to the corneal arcus thing).

    Mind you, his maths can't be that great, as I would have had to have been about 20 when I taught him if I were only in my 40s now. Tempus fugit, whatever.

  • monkimark
    monkimark Posts: 1,925

    Probably not so much poor maths as denial about how old he is 😁

    Despite being entirely logically aware that it is 2024, I am still astounded when I get new starts at work who were born after 2000, which in my head makes them toddlers.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224

    Ha, I'm now cheered up, as I've beaten the SNCF's website and bought my discounted ticket for over-60s... saved about £25, so that's over half of the railcard cost saved already. The technique was to log out, go through all the buying stages, manually put in the discount card number and only then log back in to link the ticket to my account before making the payment.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224

    Ha, wrote to a few local councillors as there was a meeting about a local LTN where one councillor was tring to get the trial scheme abandoned early based on partial data (e'g' "Increased times for buses" = eight seconds on average over 3km) and misleading graphics (the colour coding he used used red for worsening, and orange for improving, so the overall chart had the impression of nearly everything being worse, rather than most things (active travel increase etc) having improved, some quite markedly.

    Anyway, much to my surprise a few of the councillors returned personal thanks before the meeting , and I've just had one this evening not only thanking me for my useful email, but saying that the meeting decided that the trial would last its full course to see if attitude change will embed further, and to get a fuller set of data.

  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,469
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661

    Andrew Neil is really worth listening to, not because he’s particularly correct but because his transition from classic respectable conservative to a sort of Trumpian Brexiter is, I think, relatively representative of the transition we’ve seen in his generation.

    The advantage of him is that he’s quite articulate so he is quite good at outlining the position.

    All his political anxieties about institutional takeovers of non-conservatives is I think a real fundamental pillar of the culture wars which, of course, I argue is partly a generational thing - the cohort/political viewpoint he represents no longer runs the institutions as they’re too old.

  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,469
    edited January 26

    I generally will go quite a way to try to understand someone else's viewpoint, but I'm not sure I have the patience to listen to people essentially bleating that the world has moved on and they're no longer a mover or a shaker.

    Change or die.

    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,257

    Retirement is the easier option. In other words, go away and shut up. 😉

    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,469

    I was speaking figuratively rather than literally.

    Change is more interesting.

    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,257

    Oh, I don't know. There are some I wouldn't be upset to read an obituary about. Mostly a flippant comment.

    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,460

    What beggars belief is that he considers The Telegraph and Spectator to still be 'centre' right.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 20,224


    He used to be worth listening to. Too much disingenuousness to bear these days: his insistence that CNN's boss obviously is a Democrat because they called out Trump (I assume he must think that Liz Cheney is too) suggests he's lost his compass.

  • orraloon
    orraloon Posts: 13,227
    edited January 26

    Couple of seemingly trivials:

    • Turkish barbershop has re-opened in town, has been for some time but I only clocked it recently. Good pro trim today, rather better than the series of self inflicted ones
    • finding that one can edit a formatted pdf document without losing the format by using Microsoft Edge. Thanks BG.