Pix Of The Day: Modern City Made In 2,000 Years
CREDITS: © Darren Hoyle/CheshireCAM.co.uk MAP: Chester (and detail).
When clicked, thumbnails popup enlarged versions of the images.

We found these pictures of Chester city center and the city's Festival of Transport in Darren Hoyle's CheshireCAM.co.uk web site archives: the current gallery on the web site was shot in the Yorkshire Dales, and recently we decided that featuring these CAM sites when they were vacationing elsewhere might cause confusion for our visitors from around the world. We thought that the Ford Motor Company's celebration of its 100 year history made an interesting perspective check in a city with a 2,000 year history that hosts the oldest horse, and rowing, racing in the UK.

On the official CCC (Chester City Council) web site we checked out a page entitled 'Chester's Claim To Fame' and found this information:

Chester has a host of great treasures from its 2000 years of history, including:
• The City Walls, the most complete in Britain, offering a fascinating 3 kilometre circular walk around Chester - the best way to see its attractions.
• The unique, world-famous Rows - two-tier medieval galleries with superb shops of international renown.
• The Eastgate Clock- the most photographed time-piece in the world after Big Ben
• The Roman Amphitheatre - the largest arena ever uncovered in Britain.
• Chester's Flamboyant Town Crier declares mid day proclamation every Tuesday to Saturday at the Cross from May to August. Chester is the only City in Britain to boast such a regular spectacle. Visit the Chester Town Criers web site for more information.
• The annual Regatta on the River Dee - the oldest rowing races in the world.
•Chester Races - the oldest in Britain, staged on the Roodee, once the site of the massive Roman harbour - meetings throughout the year.
• Chester Zoo - the largest and best in Britain with an international reputation for animal conservation.
• Chester Mystery Plays - the oldest and most complete cycle of medieval religious dramas in Britain, next to be held in July 2003. See the CCC mystery plays web page for more details.
• Chester Cathedral - the fourth most visited Cathedral in Britain. Visit the official Cathedral web site at chestercathedral.org.uk
• Chester's Minerva Shrine is the only known Roman rock shrine in Britain.
• Chester's Weir on the River Dee was built by the Normans and is the oldest surviving mill dam in Britain.
• The Three Old Arches is the oldest Shop Front in Britain.

For an unofficial web site with plenty of links to all sorts of activities and places of interest in and around Chester, we recommend Steve Howe's Black & White Picture Place, which has a thorough Virtual Stroll around the walls of the city.

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On This Day In 2002: IN•2•IT West Coast Cool - Fri 20 Sep 2002

This picture is of Donna & Robin, who jointly are IN•2•IT. You can catch their next gig in Springdale, UT on Sept. 27+28 2002 from 12-3pm and again from 6-9pm at the Sol Foods Restaurant. Springdale is at the entrance to the Zion National Park, set among awesome scenery.

From the terrace where IN•2•IT will be performing you may watch the sun go down on the Zion cliffs. The music is 'tasty, bluesy, and jazzy'. Being uncultured in such matters, at their last appearance I asked a fan what type of music they were playing, to which he responded 'West Coast Cool, Man'. I thought Donna's voice had more than a hint of Bonnie Raitt, and that the way Robin swings his axe at the end of the riffs was early Claptonesque. That sentence probably explains why 'Rolling Stone' has never featured any of my work. There is a fan size of the picture available for larger monitors.

Perfumery In The Early 20th Century

These delightful Geraniums at Hackett Forge, Little Langdale in the English Lake District, are from Tony Richards' update for today on his LakelandCAM.co.uk website. The essential oil of this plant was a late arrival, though a close relation Herb Robert had been used medicinally for centuries. Adolphe Saafeld of Manchester in England was a surviving passenger on the Titanic, on his way to New York carrying a satchel containing sample ampoules of perfume. The satchel was recovered in 2000 and it is said that the perfume in Adolphe's ampoules is as fragrant today as it was when it went down with the ship. RMS Titanic, Inc. in association with Quest International are planning to create a perfume based on Adolphe's samples. David Pybus, who is a Perfume Historian for Quest International, has a web page with the story of perfumery in the first decade of the 20th century.

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