The start of mixing the ‘My London Diary’ cocktail
I’ve never really understood vodka. Or cocktails. But I did enjoy an evening yesterday in the company of other bloggers at Smirnoff’s London HQ, and the special cocktail concocted for me there – and it was a pleasure to watch someone who so clearly enjoyed his job crushing the strawberries and root ginger, shaking and pouring, stirring and decorating… But the ‘My London Diary‘ cocktail was far too labour intensive ever to challenge the ‘Moscow Mule‘.
Another completed cocktail
For my Polish friends (and James Bond) the true home of vodka was of course Poland, and on my visits the only way for my liver to survive was to refuse to drink it, although there are sometimes few alternatives on offer.
Serious vodka-free photography with an international cast (Russia, USA, Czechoslovakia and Japan – with Germany and the United Kingdom out of frame) in Poland – more from Alcatraz
I went to Bielsko-Biala for the first FotoArtFestival there in 2005, showing work – “post-industrial landscapes” – which you can see some of on my London’s Industrial Heritage site.
Bielsko-Biala and the people were so charming that I was delighted to return last year for a second time, this time giving a presentation on photographers who had worked on the streets of British cities. Which of course concluded with some of my own work from ‘My London Diary‘.
Although for copyright reasons I’m unable to post much of that and other presentations on line, you can get an idea of the place and the events there in my two illustrated diaries from the events in 2005 and 2007.