Picture of the Day: August 2007

We’re back for another trip down memory lane. It’s a busy summer this one, I cannot believe how much flitting around I used to do. The banner image is from down near Marseille.

This is from a cowboy theme park near Aix called ‘El Dorado’. The hot climate and general dustiness of the area made it quite a good fit for such a place. I used to like it there because you could buy cap guns in all sorts of weird shapes and sizes. I don’t know why they had a pirate ship, I suppose there aren’t that many types of ride available.

Unfortunately now it is called ‘magic park land’ and it sucks. Although I’m sure the health and safety has been improved and they probably don’t sell guns for kids.

This was my Sony music player. It was an incredible piece of hardware design — the lovely 1-bit screen used to sort of glow through the top cover, so when it was turned off it looked like there was no screen at all. The buttons were satisfying to press and well placed, you just wanted to pick it up and use it.

Unfortunately in every other regard it was really fucking shit. You had to use Sony Connect software to transfer your music onto it. A lame pastiche of iTunes. Took days to get the transfer done because they insisted on converting everything.

They recommended you use a different older program instead, SonicStage, but didn’t supply it anywhere so you had to basically trust some rando off a forum.

That and inside the player was just a spinning hard drive, so it was brutally slow to actually load and find stuff. iPods at the time had a clever hybrid system and were way way faster to use.

The grey thing next to it is one of those FM tuners. You plug it into whatever, and it broadcasts and mini radio station so you can play songs in the car. My car is old so I probably could still use one of these.

This is probably a Canadair fire fighting plane. Wild fires have been in the news this year but down in the south of France they were a yearly occurrence. The planes would fly over the lagoon, just low enough to scoop up water, then fly round and dump it on the fire. We were lucky to avoid the worst of it, but one year it got as close as the next village.

A terrible photo! My dad and, I think, our old friend Peggy. My dad died a while back, I think Peggy died more recently. Interesting how much VHS there is even in 2007. I remember my brother used to have a TV with a built in tape player so I guess we kept it around to watch old tapes.

There was a TV guide in France that along with movie listings, had a page of cut-out labels with the movie name on. So if you recorded the film off the TV you could have a nice label for it!

Back on the plane. I think going home to collect exam results.

As a family we rarely went to big cities. When Selfridges opened in Birmingham it kind of blew our tiny minds, it was like something from outer space.

My uncle Serge on his birthday.

This is in the Pyrenees so it implies I got back on a plane to France. To be honest logistically this is a very confusing summer and I am really having to dig deep to figure out what the fuck I was doing.

Most years we would be there for his birthday, and every time we would have to argue with my dad to insist we got him a present — usually a bottle of champagne. My dad was a boozer and not always in a fit state to look after us so I always felt like we owed Serge a lot for actually shouldering responsibility.

The view from the window again. Perhaps an indicator how of often I couldn’t be arsed leaving the house.

Back with Pierrot who we have seen before¹. Frequent hours long visits for “l’apéro” which often meant an extremely late actual dinner. As a kid I dreaded it, when I took this picture I was probably at a stage where I quite liked it. You just sort of sat around eating snacks, drinking booze and talking shite for a few hours.

My dad and my uncle. The house in the Pyrenees was a self-build and was in a persistent state of DIY, there was always something being done.

Er yeah same view again I guess.

I think this is from a nearby village. Everywhere has a little water fountain and it tastes incredible.

This is off the north coast of Spain. My dad and I got bored and decided to road trip the Camino de Santiago. We amused ourselves sometimes by telling people we were walking it.

I think this is the final cathedral in Santiago where the pilgrimage ends.

I can’t tell you where this is, I think it’s in Spain and probably in one of the cute border villages up in the hills.

This was a long one! But it was a long summer. Next time: back to England and off to university.