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Jan 4, 2012 England, London, UK
Cricket to an Indian is what weather to a British – a conversation starter. If I’ve to be a bit superlative, I can say Cricket runs in most of the Indians’ blood. For a person like me who is one of those millions who follow cricket, visiting Lord’s cricket ground was a must. During my six months stay in London in 2009, I set out visiting places on weekends. At last when I roamed around in the Lord’s stadium, I was delighted. But at the same time, I was a bit disappointed to not to see Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid’s name on the honor board – who missed scoring a century by just five runs.
While it took fifteen years for Dravid to get a century at Lords, I was back again in Lords within 2 years – just to see Dravid’s name on the ‘Honor board’. But I chose a wrong day to visit the stadium – which was a match day and visitors are not allowed in the pavilion on match days. The match was between Berkshire and Hertfordshire counties.
Instead of getting to see the honor board, I had an opportunity to witness few deliveries from the commentary box. While there was a buzz in the commentary box taking in the beautiful view, it died down as the bowler started his stride for his delivery. The batsman tried chasing a wide one and edged it effortlessly. The ball flew between the wicket keeper and the first slip, amid the oohs and aahs coming out from everyone in the press box. The next delivery was a similar one to the first delivery and the batsman repeated the mistake again and edged it for the second time. This time the keeper was quick to react and pouched the ball. Watching a fall of wicket form the press box compensated with the missed chance to roaming around the pavilion.
Here is a view of the good old Lord’s pavilion from the stands.
Catalina, the flying boat
More than the display of Vulcans and F16s at the Luechars airshow, what interested me more was the slowest of all the planes, Catalina. Used widely during World War 2, Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat – capable of land/take off both on land and water. Here are couple of photos of Catalina which I captured during the airshow.
And it took me a while to realise of all the flights, why the slowest one got me interested – it reminded me of the animated series Talespin :)
Leuchars Airshow
Despite staying in Bangalore for a long time I never managed to go to Aero India, a biennial air show held in Yelahanka Air force station, Bangalore. When I got to know about airshow by Royal Air Force at Luechars, I couldn’t stop myself going there besides the bad weather. The day started with rain and visibility of just 100 meters when we started from Aberdeen. But we were fortunate enough as rain gave away. Though the parachute display was cancelled due to bad weather, we had a glimpse of a range of flights – The Red Arrows, Hawk T1 and Tucano T1 – all three from Royal Air Force, F16s from Dutch Air Force, Vulcans, Pitts, Catalina (flying boat) and Dornier Alpha Jet from French Air.
The excitement of witnessing my first airshow made me mess up with my camera settings and on top of that light was against us along with overcast sky. That resulted in very few considerably good photos of the metal birds. A friend mentioned that this RAF Leuchars Airshow was no where close to Aero India which happens every two years in Bangalore (Leuchars airshow is an one day event which happens every year, where as Aero India is a five day event).
Statues and the sea gulls
Sep 15, 2011 England, Scotland, UK
One of the common sights one gets to see in cities and towns of England and Scotland is statues. Statues of Kings & Queens, Dukes & Duchesses, royal family members, war heroes, prominent historical personalities, literary giants and many more. These statues blend into the surroundings so well as if they are integral part of the place. During my first visit to England, I failed to notice a statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel for almost two weeks. But at the same time some of the statue stand out and command ones attention towards them. The intricate details on the statues, be it a stone one or bronze attracts and makes anyone to ponder about the effort & time taken to bring out such a beauty.
When you are living in a city and you are to see the same statue almost everyday, the interest gradually goes down. But what makes these statues more interesting are the flying artists aka sea gulls (or pigeons if you are not staying in a coastal city). They sit on these statues day in and out to come with their own art. Be it head, shoulder or forehand. and when there is a heavy rain, everything gets washed out and there is a fresh canvas for the sea gulls. And the painting begins again. :)
