Amsterdam Russ

A friend's band - Working Voodoo Club - in action at Amsterdam's North Sea Jazz Club.

Yes, you can see it's like… Whoa! Where's that big chunk of wood going???

Taken at a jousting tournament in Amsterdam. I took quite a few shots looking to get the moment a lance broke after impact and the effort, I'm pleased to say, eventually paid off.

At the same time, people are still reliving the days of the Wigan Casino (etc). You just have to look at the volume of threads and posts on Soul Source to see that's true. If even the more progressive die-hard keep on about "the old days" what are people outside of the scene supposed to think?

When it comes to Nostalgia cults, most participants want to wear what their mums and their dads wore when they were 15! And, whether people on here or elsewhere like it or not, the reality is the Northern Soul scene is also partly a Nostalgia cult.

With deals that include shipping at $20, $40 per item, I'm not surprised US sellers are becoming "reluctant" to sell to the UK and Europe. The negative feedback on shipping is too damaging. I just paid nigh on $20 to have a very slim newspaper shipped to me in the Netherlands. I queried the seller and they said it'd be sent in LP packaging so that it was extra secure. All I got for that 20 bucks was literally that - an LP carton and a newspaper. There was no actual protection whatsoever. Increasingly sellers are ripping buyers off through extortionate p&p. Craig Moerer and plenty of others can still ship 45s to Europe at under 10 bucks. Why then do others have to charge double, triple that? Enough is enough - and I think rip-off US sellers are getting the message. Sadly though it's ultimately to our own detriment!

You got it. Technology mastered.

If it's possible, can people try and resize their photos and make them smaller? Some of them posted are absolutely huge and are way too big to be seen properly on screen. It's just a suggestion, but if you can reduce the width of images to somewhere between 700 pixels and 1200 pixels then I reckon most people should be able to see them ok.

Had a good look at your blog yesterday…

Nice - I do like these mountain landscapes. My older brother's close to completing the Munros and he regularly sends spectacular shots from his excursions.

Priceless!

Another jetty and another church. Both pics taken early the same morning in the woods of Amsterdam.

He hasn't got one - he just picked it up, looked at it and put it back down again! (Only joking)

Must have been amazingly exciting being around all those splendid aircraft back then!

That's cool - can't quite make out where the pier touches the water and the reflection begins.

What age were you - 30s-40s, something like that?

You're right, Steve. Really great to see so many contributions already - and lots of terrific photos. Looking forward to seeing how it develops (pun intended)!

Very nice parish church all round. It dates back to the 16th century, apparently, and was built at a time when there were only something like 90 houses in the village. Of course, much of it has been rebuilt over the centuries and it had to be expanded as the local population grew.

The Olympics - Good Lovin' - Brazilian release.

Staying with churches, here's two photos of our local house of worship as seen in different weather conditions.

Great shots! Amazing what you can do with a telescope and a camera!

Looking forward to getting a copy and reading this! Such a long career and still going strong and doing regular gigs! Hopefully her autobiography will help give her some of the recognition and respect she's still missing. Ila has a Facebook page here, by the way... https://www.facebook.com/IlaVann

Stunners, Andy. More like that, please!

Really brilliant (in both senses of the word) - thanks for sharing!

Very impressive - and it's always eybrow-liftingly interesting to find out what people have in the way of hobbies! I did have a look through your gallery earlier, but to be honest, beyond knowing that I'm looking at the sun (and the occasional jet flying across it), I'm not sure what else I'm looking at. You mentioned sun spots. Do the pics tell a story of sorts about them?