Friday's Ferrari

Today's car was seen at the 1992 Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone. It's a 1952 Ferrari 212 Inter Coupe, serial number 0197EL, with bodywork by Vignale and a 2.6 litre V12 engine designed by Columbo. It was preceded by the 166 and 195 and followed by the 250.

Friday's Ferrari

Some more shots of the Ferrari Corse Clienti cars at Donington Park in September 2004, this time in action on the track. Not particularly good photographs as I didn't have a particularly long telephoto lens at the time. All the photographs were taken at the Old Hairpin, at the bottom of the Craner Curves.

The 2002 Ferrari F2002 driven by the Ferrari test driver Andrea Bertolini

The 2001 Ferrari F2001 driven by Frank Mountain leading the 1993 Ferrari F93A driven by Paul Osborn

The 1991 Ferrari 642 driven by Graham North

The 1991 Ferrari 643 driven by Larry Kinch

The 1993 Ferrari F93A

The 1991 Ferrari 642

The 1991 Ferrari 643

Nearly Christmas?

Took this photograph at Salford Quays on Saturday.

Seven swans a-swimming - Christmas must be getting close.

(Well the Christmas goodies HAVE started appearing in the supermarkets)

Gordon Ford of Stockport - Model T Party (Part 7)

The next group of photographs of this run on 10 May 1987:

1920 1-ton Truck - owned by Seamus Kelly of County Carlow

1923 Fire Engine - driven by Alex Turner

1924 Flat Truck - owned by Tudor Griffiths Fuel Oil

Why it has a different registration number, I don't know

1924 Tanker - owned by Tudor Griffiths Fuel Oil

Guernsey Revisited

Another place we were taken to by Paul and Anna when we visited Guernsey was Hauteville House, the house where Victor Hugo lived when he was in exile there, and Anna posted some information about it and a photograph at the time. Although I'd read Les Miserables when I was at school, the only thing I really knew about him before this visit was the extremely short and to the point exchanges between himself and his publisher when he was on holiday at the time Les Miserables was published. Apparently he sent a telegram asking what the reaction to the book had been and it contained just a single character: "?". His publisher replied in a similar vein:"!", to indicate the enormous success of the book. There's a Victor Hugo Guernsey website which gives details of his life and in particular details and photographs of Hautville House. Below are a few of the photographs I took of the house.

Hauteville House in Hauteville, St Peter Port - which also houses an honorary consul to the French embassy at London. Anna apparently trying to keep out of the picture.

The Billiard Room

View from the house over Castle Cornet towards Herm and Jethou with the outline of Sark visible on the right-hand side

The Red Room

The back of Hauteville House from the garden

Hauteville House, in the centre of the picture, from Castle Pier

Friday's Ferrari

Ferrari Corse Clienti is a Department of Ferrari, based at the Fiorano test track near Maranello, which restores and maintains Ferrari single-seaters and transports the cars to various tracks throughout the season where they can be driven by the clients. They have appeared at Donington Park on several occasions and the following photographs were taken in the pits at the SeeRed meeting on September 2004 as the cars went out for a practice session prior to the demonstration run later in the day.

Paul Osborn preparing to get into the driving seat of a 1993 Ferrari F93A, at one time driven by Jean Alesi

Final preparations before going out onto the track

Frank Mountain in the 2001 Ferrari F2001 - the F93A is going down the pit exit road

Ferrari test driver, Andrea Bertolini, returning to the pits in the F2002, previously driven by Michael Schumacher

The F93A back in the pits

Larry Kinch in the 1991 Ferrari 643 previously driven by Alain Prost

Andrea Bertolini finishes his run in the F2002

Paul Osborn pits the F93A

Caesar's Wife

There's an expression which I think of occasionally when I see or hear about cases where someone in authority seeks to abuse that authority, and it's "Caesars's wife". It's a shortened version of the actual expression, which is 'Caesar's wife must be above suspicion'. I've checked Wikipedia for the definitive meaning of the expression and this is what it says:

In 63 BC Caesar was elected to the position of Pontifex Maximus, the chief priest of the Roman state religion, which came with an official residence on the Via Sacra. In 62 BC Pompeia hosted the festival of the Bona Dea ("good goddess"), which no man was permitted to attend, in this house. However a young patrician named Publius Clodius Pulcher managed to gain admittance disguised as a woman, apparently for the purpose of seducing Pompeia. He was caught and prosecuted for sacrilege. Caesar gave no evidence against Clodius at his trial, and he was acquitted. Nevertheless, Caesar divorced Pompeia, saying that "my wife ought not even to be under suspicion." This gave rise to a proverb, sometimes expressed: "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."

Here's an extract from the Highway Code:

244

You MUST NOT park partially or wholly on the pavement in London, and should not do so elsewhere unless signs permit it. Parking on the pavement can obstruct and seriously inconvenience pedestrians, people in wheelchairs or with visual impairments and people with prams or pushchairs.

[Law GL(GP)A sect 15]

Note that it says 'should not do so elsewhere unless signs permit it', and not 'are allowed to do so elsewhere unless signs forbid it'.

In Dowson Road in Hyde there's a Shell filling station and there doesn't appear to be a notice in the vicinity saying that parking on any part of the pavement is allowed. Here's the 'Caesar's wife' photograph:

Judging by the sign behind the car the officer concerned is questioning the people running the filling station about a reported case of daylight robbery.

Please note that the above section of the Highway Code probably doesn't apply in Guernsey!

Sunsets

Everyone seems to feature photographs of sunsets on their blogs, so I thought I might as well join in with a couple of my own:

This was taken on Saturday night, September 8th, looking from the back bedroom window towards Manchester.

This was taken from the same place on 21 September 2009

Friday's Ferrari

These cars were seen at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2004. They are 1980 and 1981 Ferrari 512BB LMs, a car which was initially developed in 1974 by the North American Racing Team of Luigi Chinetti from the 365 GT4 BB. Ferrari began their own development of the car in 1978 and the final version, with the original pop-up headlights replaced by fixed units and the tail lengthened to the maximum allowed by the regulations, achieved a fifth place overall and first in the GTX class at the 1981 Le Mans 24 hour race.

The first three photographs were taken in the pit lane prior to a practice session

Massimo Sordi's 1981 car, serial number 38739.

These two photographs are of Francois Degand's 1980 car, serial number 28601.

The car driven by Massimo Sordi at McLean's Corner in the Shell Ferrari Maserati Historic Challenge race followed by a 1964 Ferrari Dino 206S (serial number 0834) driven by Harry Leventis.

Gordon Ford of Stockport - Model T Party (Part 6)

Some more photographs from the Gordon Ford Model T Party of 10 May 1987.

I've found the programme since posting the earlier photographs and so can add some information about the then owners of the vehicles and pictures of the vehicles from the programme.

1924 Tanker - owned by Tudor Griffiths Fuel Oil of Shrewsbury

1912 Rumble Seat Tourer - owned by Jack Chasteauneuf of Norwich

1912 Runabout - owned by Eric Bamford of Shropshire

1914 Tourer - owned by E.C. Everard of East Sussex

Bridges and Meccano Sets

This footbridge across the Huron Basin at Salford Quays always takes me back to my childhood because it looks like the kind of thing you could build with the Meccano set with which I used to play - particularly when you look at the bridge end-on as in the photograph below.

It's a truss bridge which Wikipedia tells me is 'a structure of connected elements forming triangular units'.

It also takes me forward a few years from my childhood, because I remember that the bridge has not always been in its present position. It originally carried the dock railway line across the canal midway between Trafford Road and what is now Water's Reach (the continuation of Sir Matt Busby Way), behind Sam Platt's pub. The two pictures below are from an excellent 1997 book 'Manchester Ship Canal' by Edward Gray and headed 'Sutton's Photographic History of Transport.

The photograph above shows the bridge, at the bottom of the picture, in its original position taking the railway line from one side of the canal to the other.

The picture below shows, I think, the original single track bridge of 1895 which was replaced in 1943 by the current double track version.

The bridge used to sit on this structure in the middle of the canal about which it used to pivot when opened.