Best Friends

[Photos via Vintage Photo.]

Rainy Day Beauty

It's been a dull and rainy day today in Sydney, fluctuating between drizzle and downpour it essentially hasn't relented all day. As a consequence I've been relentlessly sedentary all day. It was the least I could do. The most active thing I did was get started on knitting a new scarf for myself, while I watched Season 4 episodes of Mad Men or surfed the web.

While I was surfing the web I came across a fantastic UK website choc full of visual arts and design collections, VADS: an online visual arts resource. Wow. Designed as an educational resource it is a compendium of collections owned by various educational institutions. I'm still trawling through the thousands and thousands of images, but some of my early favourite collections are:

The British Library's Russian Visual Arts, 1814 - 1909 collection.

Zhar-ptitsa’ by Polenova, Elena Dmitrievna, (1850-1898)

I'm also loving two of the London College of Fashion's collections, firstly the Woolmark collection.

Hardie Amies, 1956.

Chloe, 1966.

Secondly, the awesome Paper Patterns collection.

McCalls, 1936.

Vogue, 1957.

Next I plan on staring open mouthed at the loveliness in the Central St Martins Museum & Study collection, the The Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (Medieval Stained Glass in Great Britain) collection and the Charles Rennie Macintosh's Northern Italian Sketchbook collection. To name just a few...

After The Boys Of Summer Have Gone

While all the weather forecasts here are full of stats about higher than usual rainfalls, and the days are steadily marching towards their shortest and coldest, all I want to do is think of the boys of summers past.

August Sander

In between hacking up a lung or two (see my previous post) I've been watching DVDs, knitting,and making nice with the internet. In my travels on the information superhighway (remember that?) I stumbled across some photographs by the German portrait and documentary photographer August Sander (b 1876 - d 1964). It has to be said that his subjects are a pretty dour lot, but there's something about that direct and fearless gaze into the lens that has always intrigued me.








C'mon, say "cheese".

Pleasure/Payne

Meet one of my new obsessions, handsome vintage actor John Payne.

Born in 1912, Payne started life as a wrestler and Vaudeville singer before starting out in B-grade movies for Sam Goldwyn. His early career included quite a few musicals, before he moved into dramas and westerns. His best known film is "Miracle on 34th Street" with Maureen O'Hara and Natalie Wood. Payne's career ground to a halt after a serious car accident in 1959, and he passed away in 1989, aged 77.

1930s promo shot.


With Betty Furness in "Fair Warning", 1937.


Payne in "Kid Nightingale", 1939.


1930s beefcake shot, check out that swimsuit!


On the beach, 1930s.

I haven't seen many of his films, I'm not to proud to admit that my interest in Payne is largely physical. So handsome!

You can read more about Payne at Brian's Drive-in Theatre.

Buns On Parade

There's some junk in those trunks, honey.

[Photo via Shorpy. As always, give it a loving little click to enbiggen.]

Ducks & Chicks & Geese Better Scurry

When I take you out with the hussy...



...with the fringe on top.

Give Me Your Hand My Love, And I Will Give You Mine

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.
~Benjamin Disraeli

At Some Point In Every Parent's Life...

...this thought has crossed their mind.



It just takes one too many arewethereyet?s

Good Clean Fun For Boys

July 3, 1913. "Fun at camp." Boy Scouts in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.


Washington, D.C. "Boy Scout training demonstration, 1912."


"Boy Scout training demonstration, Washington, 1912."




"Boy Scout training demonstration, 1912."


"Boy Scout Training demonstration, 1912."


"At Camp Tobin - July 19, 1914"


June 16, 1937. "Walk 800 miles to attend Boy Scout Jamboree. Two Venezuelan Boy Scouts, Rafael Angel Petit, left, and Juan Carmona, examining their boots after tramping 25 miles a day for two years in order to attend the Boy Scout Jamboree in Washington. They left Caracas Jan. 11, 1935, arriving in Washington today."

[All b&w pics courtesy of Shorpy.]

When It Comes To A Line-Up...

...like this...


...one thing I can always be certain of...


...no matter who is up the 'tall end'...


...I'm always first in line!