The sensible pet, originally uploaded by jjn1.

One Sunday in August, a couple of years ago, we were driving along the beachfront in Antibes when we saw this eminently sensible dog, who stayed in the shade while his master and topless mistress (just out of shot on the left) sizzled in the scorching sunshine like sausages on a spit.

The Joys of Commuting, originally uploaded by jjn1.

(Which explains why I’m glad I don’t have to do it.)

The Economist has a terrific piece about the increasing tendency to manipulate digital images for fraudulent and other purposes. The trend includes some things that I (naive soul that I am) hadn’t realised. For example:

In around one in 75 insurance claims, photos documenting property damage have been fraudulently retouched, says Eugene Nealon of Nealon Affinity Partners, a company based in London that advises insurers. Liz Williams, editor of the Journal of Cell Biology, says her publication rejects around 1% of peer-reviewed scientific papers after discovering that microscope images have been doctored to make results look good.

An interesting arms-race is developing here. Canon and Nikon embed concealed ‘signatures’ in images taken with their cameras, but it turns out that these can be reinstated on doctored images. So it goes on…

Perhaps the safest policy from now on is never to trust a digital image!

Lovely time-lapse video of one of my favourite parts of the world — the Burren in Co. Clare.

Made using Raspberry Pi too. (As well as a nice Canon DSLR.)

Spring!, originally uploaded by jjn1.

In College the other day.

Lough Corrib at sunset, originally uploaded by jjn1.

Late afternoon in Co Galway, in one of my favourite spots: the jetty outside Oughterard.

Large size here.

Going Up, originally uploaded by jjn1.

A parent summons a lift in the Barbican.

Miniature deltas, originally uploaded by jjn1.

Walking along a Donegal beach at low tide we were struck by the way the combination of water, tides and sand enacts (or mimics) high-speed geological phenomena. A curving stream heading down the beach cuts out mini-cliffs, which it then undermines, precipitating massive collapses. At another point, as here, a slow-moving stream mimics the deltas of great rivers. I suspect that this is why so many people like living by the sea: things are always changing — through the day as well as through the year.

Larger size here.

Seascape, originally uploaded by jjn1.

Taken on a bracing coastal walk in Donegal this morning.

Larger size here.

Legless, originally uploaded by jjn1.

I came on this surreal scene on Friday morning. What the photograph doesn’t show is a frustrated van driver who’d been ordered to deliver these mannequins to a shop in town but found when he arrived that his instructions failed to specify which shop! So he’d ben unloading them in the hope that eventually one of his phone calls to base would be answered.