Arnavutköy, Istanbul

"The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end."
Alan Rickman (1946-2016)

I don't post Istanbul district street scenes very often - with or without people in them - but this afternoon, with no class to teach (Finals have started for all but the preparatory year students whose focus is English) I left campus and walked to my local bank in Arnavutköy in painful sunshine, taking a few photos on the way, one of which is my pic of the day.  Painful because it was so, so, so, January sunny bright, yet there was a cold playful wind so my eyes were constantly watering.  

Back home, financial mission accomplished and shattered to learn that we have lost my all time favourite actor, Alan Rickman, to the dreaded C.   Like David Bowie at the weekend, he was a mere slip of a thing at just 69, and he should have been amazing me, us, everyone, with that VOICE for many more years to come.   Truly, Madly, Deeply,  distressed, I will mourn him and feel the loss of this master craftsman, a very fine performer.  

The voice :
“For whatsoever from one place doth fall, 
Is with the tide unto an other brought: 
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.” 
 -  "The Faerie Queene" - Edmund Spenser 

The look :
Weep You No More, Sad Fountains
Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains
Heaven's sun doth gently waste.
But my sun's heavenly eyes
View not your weeping,
That now lies sleeping
Softly, now softly lies
Sleeping.

Sleep is a reconciling,
A rest that peace begets:
Doth not the sun rise smiling
When fair at even he sets?
Rest you then, rest, sad eyes,
Melt not in weeping,
While she lies sleeping
Softly, now softly lies
Sleeping.

- John Dowland (1563-1626)