A few personal highlights from August 2023, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
This is my latest monthly selection of snapshots of things that caught my eye over these past few weeks, comprising the month of August 2023. As you will see, sunflowers figure heavily this month, as August will likely prove the peak month for this, my first ever year of growing sunflowers! I am indebted to my lovely friend Liz Kentish for her ingenious and delightful idea of gifting sunflower seeds to me and everyone who attended my 50th birthday lunch in March, so that we could all try growing them… and compare progress via social media! Thank you, Liz.
1 August 2023: Ragnar rocks!
The arrival of August 2023 meant that we fortunate souls found ourselves living in the time of my good friend Sean Jones KC’s learned companion (as depicted in the excellent BillableHour16 Law Paws calendar for 2023).
Find out more about the Billable Hour campaign and consider making a donation here. This past month has also seen the launch of an incredible new piece of Billable Hour merchandise (with all proceeds going to this exceptional cause): An officially-sanctioned (by 2000AD publishers Rebellion) t-shirt of Judge Dredd’s arch foe Judge Death! I will be putting in my order soon.
Sunday 6 August 2023: The stages of sunflower life
Looks my lead sunflower may have peaked…
But its two nearby compatriots look like they might be just about to flower! Please forgive the 1960s Batman TV series-esque camera angle – it was the only way to cram this trio of sunflowers into the one picture.
Monday 14 August 2023: Turn and face the strange
A newly budding sunflower, just about to unfurl its wonders unto this world! (NB: This is the one furthest from view in the previous picture.)
Tuesday 15 August 2023: Judge Death lives!
Dark justice in Mega-City One! This signed Brian Bolland print of Judge Death and the Dark Judges from the truly classic cover to 2000AD prog 225, which was originally published this very day (15 August) in 1981! Please note that I originally tweeted this picture way back on 15 August 2019 – but I am resharing it here to mark the 42nd anniversary of this cover. If you’ve never read it, Judge Death Lives comes highly recommended!
Wednesday 16 August 2023: New rose
Wednesday’s rose.
Friday 18 August 2023: Petals in the dark
A sunflower by night.
Wednesday 23 August 2023: Carry on don’t lose your head…
Poor sunflower!
This being my first ever year growing sunflowers, I have just learnt that it is sadly quite easy accidentally to knock off their heads…
Having made just such a blunder, I am seeing what happens if I float the sunflower head on a bowl of water.
Your snapshots
What about you, gentle reader? What has made or is making your month memorable? I would love to know! Post a comment below, drop me a line via Threads, or send me a tweet with your snapshots of August 2023.
May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.
May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.
IMAGES
- All photography by MJCarty.
MJCarty 
Hi Michael – I seem to have forgotten my WordPress password and have now been locked out…so here is what I was trying to post…maybe you can post it or something!
‘Hi Michael
You’ve had more success growing sunflowers than I ever have ! Well done, and what a great idea for a gift too.
This month has been very busy for me. At the end of July we were at the latitude festival (Jarvis Cocker, Paul Heaton, The Proclaimers, and a new discovery, Panic Shack – an amazing feminist punk band from Cardiff were some of the highlights), then I came back to Edinburgh and I’ve been reviewing in the Fringe and Book festivals ever since. I’ve now been to my last show, but still have a few reviews to finish, so today i will be keeping my head down. Last night my elder daughter and I went to see the Barbie Movie, which was such fun – and it was really quite wonderful to realise I had no need to take notes!
As ever I’ve seen some good and some not so good stuff in the festivals. Highlights for me have been Tom Robinson ‘in conversation’ – brilliant, such a trooper and so funny, and I also saw Jeremy Corbyn and Mhairi Black in the same series – they were both great.
I saw a fabulous ‘queer punk pirate musical starring Shakespeare’s ultimate love interest’, ‘Antonio!’, performed by Butch Mermaid, a company from New Zealand and New York City; one of the funniest, wittiest and joyful shows I’ve seen all month, with head-banging songs, completely over the top acting, and a tambourinist the likes of whom I’ve never seen before and probably never will again.
Another excellent play was ‘Godot is a Woman’, a very clever and again very funny look at Waiting for Godot and a demolition of the reasoning behind the Beckett estate’s firmly held-to rule that no woman will be allowed to perform Godot (unless dressed as a man, and that’s a concession only rarely granted.)
My top Book Festival events by a mile were the sessions with (1) Jeremy Deller and (2) Don Paterson, both fascinating and immensely personable and, again, so witty.
There was lots more but I’ll stop now! I’m looking forward to going back up to peaceful Deeside tomorrow, I’ve now had enough of Edinburgh, or at least festival-ridden Edinburgh, for a while.
I hope you’re having a good weekend.’
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What a spectacular and event-filled August you had, Rosemary! The Jeremy Deller event sounds particularly interesting… what was he discussing, please?
I hope that September is off to a lovely start for you, and that this month will prove even more eventful, and tending more towards the good than the not-so-good stuff!
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