Advent 5: Green Men (1)

This is a foliate face, or Green Man, from Norwich Cathedral where it is one of a thousand elaborate and colourful roof bosses which depict biblical stories, people and beasts. This will be one of a number of Green Men which I shall post for advent; the forthcoming pictures will show how the Green Man made his way out of the church and into the City of Leicester. Needless to say there are many more examples to be found on Flickr, while more information on Green Men and the Norwich bosses can be found here: http://www.cathedral.org.uk/historyheritage/art---collections-the-green-man.aspx

Advent 4: Ghost Signs

This 1950s advertisement for Bovril on Beaconsfield Rd, Leicester, is a fine example of what is commonly called a 'Ghost sign'. These painted advertisements can be found on buildings all over the world. They gradually fade over time - hence the 'ghost' - and sometimes reveal older advertisements, often created with more durable paint, underneath. Photos of Ghost signs can be found on Flickr and at this blog: http://brickads.blogspot.com/

Running out of shelf space?

I'm always running out of shelf space, and have recently considered a new bookcase. It's not entirely Gill Willingale's fault, with her 20p booksales, but they certainly don't help. This may be the solution. The BL have spent £26m on a new storage facility, with about infinity miles of shelves and magic robots to store and retrieve books. They even remember where they are: never hunt again for that elusive tome.

Welcome to Colin, and the advent calendar

Inspired entirely by our friends over at the attic, the museums studies blog, we've decided to have an advent calendar too. Our latest Pink Writer, Colin Hyde, will be producing this for us. Colin is a veteran labber, a fan of Leicester, and a fine photographer! Make sure you visit every day to see a super photograph and a bit of explanation from him. Merry Christmas!

Advent 3: Abbey Pumping Station

Leicester's Space Centre is located next door to the old sewage pumping station and visitors to one often go to the other. The pumping station is now Leicester's Museum of Science and Technology, displaying Leicester's industrial, technological and scientific heritage. More importantly for young children it has a working toilet with transparent pipes where you can follow the path of an artifical poo from toilet to sewer.

Christmas and the Co-op

This might be interesting for those of you went to Manchester and saw the Co-op building. Archives Hub are celebrating Christmas at the Co-op.

There's a great selection of photos including this one of the Christmas parade outside the Co-operative Society's store in Bolton in the 1960s.

But for anyone planning their Christmas menu there are these recipes from the 1940s, Christmas under rationing. Imitation marzipan sounds particularly appetizing.

"The Christmas Touch. Be as extravagant as you dare, with what you have got, this Christmas! " December 1943.



"Easy on the Rations Recipes. Christmas is a time when most of us make special efforts to provide fun and gaiety for the children." December 1945.

Advent 2: The Co-op

Co-operative buildings often show either wheatsheafs or beehives as a symbol of togetherness and co-operation. This example is from Hathern, Leicestershire where there is a cottage opposite the Co-op called 'Unity Cottage' which has a plaque showing two hands shaking.

Wellcome collection of AIDS posters

The Wellcome Library has a substantial collection of AIDS posters, which they have digitized and launched as part of world AIDS day. You can view a selection on the BBC website, and find out more on the library pages, as well as see a small sample. Perhaps, most usefully, this illustrates the rich holdings of libraries such as these. Their holdings are vast, and just because it seems specialised, doesn't meant that it mightn't have useful material.

Advent 1: 1 Salisbury Rd

The Squires family pose outside the family home at 1 Salisbury Rd, little aware that the house would later be used variously as a driving test centre, student accommodation, and the home of the History Lab.

A Victorian Christmas

So today is the first day of advent and as a consequence I pressume that most of you reading this will have the residue of your first advent chocolate on your lips and already preparring various christmas eggnog and whisky based cooking activities.

For those that would like to take christmas to an even more extreme and victorian level, I present you the BBC's victorian christmas site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/victorianchristmas/

Various Victorian crafts are explored and video'd for your viewing pleasure over the few weeks leading up to christmas. On a student budget and need a present for a family member? Get some scissors and glue and make a toy theatre. A culinery explorer? Victorian christmas pudd is yours to try.

Who said history isn't fun...

Long exposure photography: light painting

I want to finish off this series on long-exposure photography with a post about light painting. It's got nothing to do with history, but I think it's really cool: how else can you draw in 3D?

Pablo Picasso did a series of light painting for Life magazine in 1950: if the gallery below doesn't work, then you can read the original article here.



Some other nice examples:







Click on the pictures to receive full attribution and copyright info

OLD THINGS ON THE INTERNET

Rob was telling everyone about A J P Taylor's television lectures. If you didn't believe him, you can seen an example on Youtube. Click here to view an example.