Chipping Norton Theatre (above) was created from a 19th Century Salvation Army Citadel building. Its theatrical history dates back to 1975, when the Theatre was opened by Tom Baker, famed for playing Doctor Who on BBC TV.

The Theatre now features an excellent Bar and Gallery Space next door, and anyone who goes there knows that you can expect to find an interesting and original mix of events. Wherever your tastes run in the worlds of cinema, theatre, and music, CNT manages to put on something enjoyable.

Now it’s the turn of The English Eye to have a go, with a one-man show, ‘Visions of Chipping Norton’, to be held September 4-24, 2013.
A three-part event, ‘Visions’ is being created by Chipping Norton author, artist and photographer David Jefferis, aka ‘DJ’, your host at The English Eye. He’s a media veteran with publishers such as the London Observer, Dorling Kindersley, and Usborne under his belt. In New York, David’s futurist concepts have been displayed recently at the Lincoln Center.


These are three elements of the Visions Show:

Visions 1
Son et Lumiere display, projecting an eclectic mix of words, pictures and video clips, featuring Chippy (as residents affectionately call it) ‘Then’ and ‘Now.’ 


Visions 2
David will be signing new titles, including the full-colour hardback book of the show, ‘Visions of Chipping Norton.’


Visions 3
In the Theatre Gallery, DJ will be showing his latest prints of Chippy and the Cotswolds.

More updates as the Show’s content comes together during Spring and Summer, 2013. Meantime, catch up on what’s on at Chipping Norton Theatre here.

Covent Garden lies in the heart of London theatreland, and continues to be a supreme shopaholic heaven and foody delight, as a recent visit proved.

The place hasn’t changed much since its fruit and vegetable market days. My first time there was to visit a small English publisher, whose offices lay at the top of long, creaking flights of winding steps, lurking at the back of towering piles of stacked wooden crates belonging to Dan Woolley, fruit merchant. It was a delightfully Dickensian introduction to Covent Garden, just before the market traders moved away from the area, leaving room for today’s effervescent mixture of shops, cafes and bars to get going in earnest.

I fell in love with Covent Garden and for several years had offices opposite the ultra-smart Garrick Club, though have to add that the sight of the odd well-known media personality stumbling down the entrance steps after a long, alcoholic lunch was a not uncommon sight!

Today in Covent Garden, you’re still likely to bump into famous faces, or, as I found this time round, street performers continuing a tradition of public entertainment dating back hundreds of years.

It was here in 1662 that the diarist Samuel Pepys noted the first Punch and Judy show in the country. Music and other performances are licensed all year round, except for Christmas Day. Of course, you can book a trad performance from places like London Theatre Bookings, though I’ll leave you to judge whether the people in my pic are fact or fake – tourists or performance artists… your call!

As for shops, well, most tastes are catered for – even computer users get a look in, if they care to visit the splendid Apple Store, carved out of an elegant Georgian building. If you simply want to relax over a drink, you can’t do much better than the Crusting Pipe (below) a wine bar that’s been in the historic Market Hall since 1980.

The eBook ‘The REAL Loch Ness Monster’ is on sale at Amazon and other internet outlets now.

It’s available here for Kindle and iPad, plus other eReaders.

The illustrated ‘Visual Companion’ will be out soon, too.

Background to the ’The REAL Loch Ness Monster’ eBook is our exploration trip to Scotland, the target: to find the true story behind the mysterious water-beast reputed to lurk in the dark, cool waters of Loch Ness.

Did Nessie appear? Was anyone dragged under the surface? Read on to find out how things worked out – and whether there really is a monster there… or something else entirely…

It’s available at Amazon here.

London’s skyline is constantly changing, though perhaps evolving is a better word, as the basics stay much the same. For example, the River Thames – cleaner now than for centuries past – still winds through the middle, for a country-dweller like me providing a breather from the claustrophobic sprawl of the ‘Great Wen’ (pustule), as pamphleteer William Cobbett called it in the 1820s.

The South Bank is probably my favourite spot of all, and just the right place to get some air after the delights of, say, Covent Garden, a few minutes walk away. Just take an easy stroll over the handsome footway spanning the river from Charing Cross station, and once across you are presented with a feast of choices – the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, National Theatre, Hayward Gallery, National Film Theatre… the list goes on. For the arts lover, few things come close to a pre- or post-concert drink with the constant movement of ‘Old Father Thames’ as a backdrop.

There is of course a new sight to see not so far away, and that’s the Shard, a glass-covered pyramid some 95 storeys tall, making it the tallest building in the EU – to be precise, 309.6m (1016ft) high. Opened on July 5, 2012, the public observation deck opened recently, and next time I’m in town, I’ll be up there to have a look at the spectacular view.

The Shard’s name is somewhat ironic, as the English Heritage organization heaped scorn on its designer, Renzo Piano, calling the structure, ‘a shard of glass through the heart of historic London.’ True enough, though I imagine the people at English Heritage gritted their teeth when they found out where the new building’s name came from!

I think there’s room for both old and new in a city the size of London. For me, the Shard seems a handsome structure that reminds me of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, another tower that’s the tallest in town.

Daytime Shard image based on work by EE Paul.

At least one man thought so, the military historian and Oxford University Fellow Sir Charles Oman, in 1898. He certainly didn’t spare his words either, “Broughton Castle… about the most beautiful castle in all England … for sheer loveliness of the combination of water, woods and picturesque buildings.”

Other writers have added their opinions, including, “It is still the most romantic house imaginable. English to the core”… “Perfection, what with moat, gatehouse, church, and gorgeous orange and buff stone.”

In 2003, Simon Jenkins, author of ‘England’s Thousand Best Houses’ gave Broughton Castle a five-star rating, one shared by just 19 others out of the 1000 in his book.

So what’s my opinion of this lauded place a few miles from Banbury? Well, I’ve yet to give my final rating as these pictures were taken recently, when the Castle itself was firmly shut to visitors – only the parklike surrounds were open to visit, and very handsome they are too, even if the day was an icy one – despite some winter sun, the wind was cold enough to slice you clean in two.

Broughton Castle is a mediaeval manor house that dates back to 1300, and has been owned by the Fiennes family since 1451. Like many a country house, it has had its share of playing background to TV and movies, including ‘Oxford Blues’, ‘The Madness of King George’ and one of my favourites, ‘Shakespeare in Love.’

As a final word, my only issue is with the word ‘Castle’ in the title. As a house, it’s amazing, but as a castle, well, my vote goes to any of those more battleworthy mediaeval fortresses such as Alnwick, Bodiam, Dover, Warwick, and many others.

The subject of wind turbines seems to polarize opinion very quickly indeed – people tend to love them or hate them.

Readers of certain popular newspapers are often loudest among the haters, whereas myself and and others I know are more philosophical, as at least the power from a turbine comes ‘free’.

Leaving aside arguments about possible dangers to birds and bats, the biggest difficulty is that wind turbines work best in high, exposed places, and that’s where England’s areas of outstanding natural beauty tend to be.

Having said that, in a future time turbines should not be too difficult to dispose of – one can be erected in just a few days, and dismantled in about the same time. At least we’re not talking about radioactive waste, with a half-life of several thousand years.

In fact, I reckon a gleaming white turbine can look extremely handsome, and we do need power, after all. This one is situated in a part of Gloucestershire called Lynch Knoll, having been there for just over 16 years, and was itself the subject of a five-year planning battle before finally being commissioned on ‘Friday the 13th’, December 1996.

There was no ill-luck in that commission date though, as the Lynch Knoll wind turbine has steadily generated enough power to keep more than 200 homes heated and lit since then. The turbine stands alone in a large field, mostly with just grass and cows for company. At other times, the next field hosts dirt-bike racing round an off-road track – and at a good meet, a hundred or more cars may be parked nearby.

So there’s plenty of action, dust and noise, while the turbine continues to swoosh around in the breeze. Which is worse, dirt racing or wind turbine? Or maybe both are OK in small doses…

In either case, the skies retain their beauty, and the turbine’s shapely silhouette seems pleasing to the eye. Well, I think so, but I leave it to you to judge from this sunset photograph I took while there.

Here in the Cotswolds, it’s been a fairly continuous dose of the white stuff since early Friday – and all day today Sunday. Main roads have been kept open though, so traffic has been light but reasonably free-flowing, ‘drive with care’ being the operative phrase for safe travel.

Chipping Norton’s 17th century alms houses (main and above) look even prettier than usual, while St Mary’s churchyard (below) has been transformed into something resembling a picture postcard.

Minor roads in Chipping Norton have seen a mini-snowplough trundling up and down – a most impressive sight, after personal experience of village life, where such things were unheard of!

Also, large hoppers of strategically positioned grit have allowed locals to keep driveways and paths to their front doors reasonably clear.

Whatever difficulties it creates, snow is of course, a magical substance that transforms the mundane into a thing of beauty, and heavy frosts have given many plants, especially their leaves, a Kirlian-like fringe of glittering white.

I saw a headline yesterday saying that the ice and snow we have at the moment is nothing, compared to the frozen depths of 1963, all of which sparked a hunt through some old school sketchbooks from that time.

Found! I don’t recall 1963 being especially cold, more like standard winter fare in the East Midlands of the time, but I do remember that outdoor painting and sketching expeditions had to be fairly brief affairs, as it was a case of icy chill vs. warm fingers.

The trees were painted in a footpath next to the rail line adjoining the grounds of the then newish Guthlaxton Grammar School, Wigston, near Leicester. The orange-brown square patch to the right is a part of the buildings erected for the new school. I thought they were an example of architectural ordinariness then, and haven’t changed my mind since – workaday nondescript blocks describes them well.

The cast-iron and granite Victorian fountain in Leicester’s Town Hall Square is a far superior piece of work. Described as, “a handsome ornamental fountain” it was unveiled in 1879, and was donated by a former Mayor of Leicester, Israel Hart.

When I came to draw the fountain in January, 1963, there was cracked ice across the square, and the waters of the fountain were frozen solid. I had planned to draw the Town Hall as well, but had to stop when the chill reached my bones!

That winter was tough for Leicester’s pigeons too, and you just had to feel for their feet as they strutted across Town Hall Square in the icy chill, looking for morsels of food.

Not that they starved, as there was at least one old lady, nicknamed ‘Baggy’, who came to Town Hall Square regularly, armed with a paper bag full of stale bread to feed her avian friends.

And that wasn’t all, for there were whispered stories (never proven, it has to be said) of a secret chamber, somewhere high in the Town Hall Clock Tower, where a cull of excess pigeons took place.

There was supposed to be a large wooden box with a one-way door to doom, and once an inquisitive pigeon went inside, the last thing it heard was the ‘zzzt…’ of an electrocution device…

It’s extremely chilly in England at the moment, so to relieve the misty winter gloom, here are some shots I took in the summer.

The venue is Cam Peak, on the western edge of the Cotswold escarpment, which overlooks the Severn Valley, the hills of the Welsh borders in the distance.

The cows at Cam Peak were at their curious best, the place itself a gorgeous hilly spot near Cam, a fair size village nearby. For walkers, it’s a good spot too, for the Cotswold Way follows the line of the escarpment and gives stunning westerly views for mile after mile.

Coaley Peak (bottom) is another beauty spot. It’s just a few miles from Cam Peak, and also lies on the Cotswold Way. Nearby are beech woods, and a neolithic burial site called Nympsfield Long Barrow.

Come Spring 2013, there’ll be an expedition to both these spots again, and also to view the spectacular surge of the Severn Bore, of which more anon.

Ever since the earliest days of photography, this question has been raised from time to time: “But is it art?” So to think on the subject, here are three versions of the same image, taken recently at the ancient Long Barrow neolithic site, near the ‘English Venice’ village of Bourton-on-the-Water, in Gloucestershire.

“Art is what you make of it” is the obvious riposte to that question, so with these images, the answer – and preference – is probably best made by the individual in all of us.

From this point the thought process can be fairly straightforward, allowing for the fact that surroundings make so much difference to how, where and why an image like this – or any other – is going to be used.

For example, the ghostly semi-abstract (top) would perhaps look best on the wall of a modern apartment, while being a little less suitable for a fireside-snug traditional environment.

Conversely the colour image – which has already had some of the brightness of its colour range reduced a little to avoid garishness – would look highly suitable hung in that traditional backdrop.

The black-and-white mono image combines old and new. Filters allow the clouds to look their best, while the simpler appearance of mono provides a calm, quiet flavour, and simply looks so good, wherever it goes.

So am I a mono man? Not to the exclusion of alternatives – like I say, we’re all individuals and every image is an individual, too!

As for the rest of this isolated Long Barrow site – the barrow is actually the hump in the middle of the trees, dug originally as a burial mound – I’ll be presenting a short photo-essay on it soon.