Category Archives: Photography

Ludwig’s shadow

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Ludwig's shadow-blogsize

Ludwig Wittgenstein is buried in Ascension churchyard, and his grave is visited by many people every year. The old gravestone was very worn and it’s been replaced with this appropriately austere one.

Larger size here

CORRECTION A learned reader emails to say that “it’s the original stone, not a replacement. But it looks quite different in its restored state and, especially, with the lettering picked out in black. An exhaustive account of the restoration can be found here“.

I’ve also discovered that I didn’t know the difference between a gravestone and a ledger stone :-( It’s such a salutary thing to have smart readers.

Just one (more) Cornetto

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Venice, Friday.

I never see a gondola without thinking of that ludicrous (but very funny) ad for Cadbury’s Walls Cornetto ice-creams. On my first visit to Venice, years ago, I was walking along an alleyway when I heard someone singing ‘O Solo Mia’ in the distance. I came round a corner, found myself at a canal and there was a gondolier singing to his American tourist clients as he punted them round the city. For a moment, I thought I must be hallucinating. But it was real: parody made flesh.

The guy on Friday wasn’t singing. Mercifully.

Larger version here.