Rod Fleming's World

05/12/2023

Arbroath January 1972

Originally posted 2016-08-16 17:43:12.

Arbroath January 1972 . I was living in the house at 9 East Grimsby. My Dad had died the previous year and I was still struggling with it. But I had a few things going for me: music, a camera and my books. It wasn’t a lot but it helped.

Russ Black, the art teacher at school encouraged me to use its darkroom. I had lost my own a couple of years before when we moved house. This is one of the earliest rolls I still have from then.

The camera was a Leica Model III fitted with a Ross Xtralux 50mm f2, an excellent lens. I used the name ‘Xtralux’ for a band some years later, in Exeter. Film was Ilford FP3.

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05/12/2023

Strömholm’s Beautiful Transsexuals

Originally posted 2016-08-14 10:15:42.

Strömholm ‘s Transsexuals: Les Amies de Place Blanche

Christer Strömholm (1918-2002) was ‘the father of Swedish photography’. A talented and influential photojournalist, he favoured direct contact with his subjects. He never ‘stole’ candid pictures and instead always had a relationship of some kind with the person or people he was photographing.

For over a decade, beginning in 1958, Strömholm documented the lives of a group of transsexual women (male-to-female) living in an area of Paris called the Place Blanche. His body of work is remarkable. In 2011 Aman Iman Publishing in Paris republished it as Les Amies de Place Blanche. The price is a very reasonable 45 Euros.

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05/12/2023

The Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari

Originally posted 2016-07-25 11:58:15.

The Hadith constitute the third pillar of Islam. They are ‘commentaries on the life of the Prophet.’ They are second in authority only to the Qur’an itself. The other pillars are the Qur’an and the Sirah . Together with the Sharia these form the ideological basis for the ‘religion of peace’.

Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the literal word of Allah. The Angel Gabriel transmitted it, exactly as spoken, to Mohammed. He memorised it because he couldn’t write. You make your own judgements as to how accurate his recall was likely to have been. (The Qur’an was not actually written down until some 80 years after Mohammed’s death, which is also worth considering.)

The Qur’an is confused.

The Qur’an is at best confused and mysterious.

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05/12/2023

Philippines 2016: Markets and Mountains

Originally posted 2016-07-21 12:30:35.

The Philippines has become very important to me over the last four years. It’s now the focus of much of my life and I want to spend more time there. The winters in France are just too cold for me now.

When you visit a country for longer periods, months at a time, as I do, you can’t do quite what the holiday tourist does. It’s partly to do with budgets but also with burnout. You have to learn to chill and take it easy.

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05/12/2023

Gay child: a pederast’s fantasy.

Originally posted 2022-04-30 14:20:57.

It horrifies me that in 2022 I still have to say this: There is no such thing as a ‘gay child’.

Even what is meant by ‘child’ as been deliberately obscured. As a result we have to specify what one is, since some USicans apparently think it’s anyone under the age of thirty. Well, the USA is the motherlode of bad ideas, after all. But we can’t really discuss the concept of a ‘gay child’ without knowing what a child is. Seems fairly basic.

A child is, specifically, a young person who has not yet reached puberty. Age of puberty varies, but it is usually in the eleven to thirteen age range in males, with a few outliers. So we are talking about individuals — in this case, male ones — under the age of twelve or so. And note, only those. Adolescents are not children.

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05/12/2023

Reflex-Reflection: Photography’s Genius

Originally posted 2016-07-19 19:21:49.

The unique mechanism by which photography distinguishes itself from every other visual art is something I call reflex-reflection.

Photography, although shunned by the establishment in its infancy, became the quintessential, defining art of the twentieth century.

This was not simply because photography’s roots were in the five decades immediately preceding the year 1900, nor that it blossomed, came to maturity and ultimately transformed with the ageing of the century itself.

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05/12/2023

Qandeel Baloch: killed by Islam.

Originally posted 2016-07-17 12:37:38.

A prominent Pakistani Facebook personality, Qandeel Baloch, has been brutally murdered by her own brother, in an ‘honour killing’. She was 26. To be an independent woman in an Islamic place is to invite your own close relatives to kill you.

Not only was Qandeel killed by her own brother, her parents, who were present, did nothing to stop him. They have been arrested.

Horrifying as Qandeel’s killing is, such murders are commonplace in the failed state of Pakistan. And why is Pakistan a failed state? Because Islam.

Nobody should be under any illusions now: we are at war already.

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05/12/2023

Muslim kills 84 in Nice terror attack.

Originally posted 2016-07-15 12:04:47.

We wake to a morning of black tragedy in Europe as it has, again, been scourged by a Muslim terror attack. This great continent with its myriad and vibrant culture, that has given so much to the world, is on the long march to its final Calvary. And all I can say, my heart breaking, is ‘I told you so.’

Yesterday, the 14th of July, a Muslim terrorist hired a truck and drove it at speed through the crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice. Weaving from side to side to kill as many as he could, the driver, a Franco-Tunisian, brought death and horror to a 2-kilometre long section of the Promenade des Anglais, on the seafront. At least 84 people were murdered and another 18 may not survive their injuries. The killer’s name was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. The attack is typical of those carried out by Daesh, aka ISIS or ISIL.

Bastille Day is as great a family celebration in France as Christmas is, perhaps even more. Children, among the dead and maimed, were out having fun with their parents. Whole families were run over. Wives were murdered in front of their husbands as they shared a brief moment of happiness.

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05/12/2023

Explaining transsexualism

Originally posted 2016-07-14 12:19:18.

Transsexualism is high profile these days. But what actually causes it? Who are transsexuals? Since there is clearly a deal of ignorance over this, I’m going to go over the explanations again, in a short series of articles.

Women trapped in men’s bodies?

Many people are familiar with the idea that male -to-female (MtF) transsexuals, or transwomen, are ‘women trapped in men’s’ bodies. At the same time, they probably have heard the inverse about Female to Male (FtM) transsexuals or transmen. That is to say, they are ‘men trapped in women’s’ bodies.

A moment’s reflection should make anyone with a brain ask a pertinent question: how can they possibly know that?

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05/12/2023

Mishcon de Reya: Scene from an Imaginary Western

Originally posted 2016-07-05 13:38:24.

In the little white-painted town of Santa Westminstera, havoc had broken out.

The town was ruled by two gangs of ruthless bandits. But both of these had begun fighting amongst themselves. The rule of the bosses had collapsed and anarchy reigned. Of the fabled heroes, Los Companeros de Mishcon de Reya, there was no sign.

In an adobe house in the main street huddled one of the last remaining families. Little Angelina was cuddling into her grandfather’s chest.

‘Oh papacito, what will become of us?’ she sobbed.