cyanophilia

Poison Bottles

2008-06-15T10:30:00.005+01:00

Three Colours: Blue

2008-06-09T16:34:00.006+01:00

French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Finnish, Greek, Russian, Hungarian, Taiwanese

Co-written, produced, and directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, Blue is the first in the Three Colours trilogy

Blue-footed Booby

2008-06-07T15:47:00.006+01:00

Blue that isn't the result of iridescence, as in many butterflies and birds, is rare in the animal kingdom; the Blue-footed Booby, Sula nebouxii, is a glorious exception.

Blue Chip

2008-06-07T14:25:00.005+01:00

A blue chip stock is the stock of a well-established company having stable
earnings and no extensive liabilities. The term derives from casinos, where blue
chips stand for counters of the highest value. Most blue chip stocks pay regular
dividends, even when business is faring worse than usual.

The phrase was coined by Oliver Gingold of Dow Jones sometime in 1923 or 1924. Company folklore recounts that the term apparently got its start when Gingold was standing by the stock ticker at the brokerage firm that later became Merrill Lynch. Noticing several trades at $200 or $250 a share or more, he said to Lucien Hooper of W.E. Hutton & Co. that he intended to return to the office to “write about these
blue chip stocks.” Thus the phrase was born. It has been in use ever since,
originally in reference to high-priced stocks, more commonly used today to refer
to high-quality stocks. In contemporary media, Blue Chips and their daily
performances are frequently mentioned alongside other economic averages like the
DJIA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_chip_%28stock_market%29

What else...a blue chip cookie

The Blue Screen of Death

2008-06-07T14:19:00.006+01:00

http://www.blogto.com/city/2007/11/capture_the_hog_bsod_strikes_the_bay/

The Blue Lamp

2008-06-07T14:13:00.006+01:00

One of a number of films with blue in the title...
I like the way the top of the lamp serves as a punctuation mark.
Blue has always been associated with our boys (and girls) in blue.

KitKat

2008-06-07T13:52:00.007+01:00

Did You Know... KitKat was once blue?
Seriously. KitKat may be famous for its red white wrapper, but it did, however, sport a blue wrapper in 1945 when plain chocolate was used due to shortages of milk after the war. The Blue KitKat was withdrawn in 1947 when the standard milk chocolate KitKat was reintroduced.

If anyone has an image of a genuine 1945-47 "blue KitKat" I would love to see it...

Blue Joke

2008-06-07T09:24:00.002+01:00

Derek Jarman was going to make a sequel to his film "Blue" to be called, "Blue II: this time it's purple"

Rekitt's Blue

2008-06-06T08:34:00.056+01:00

We were on a family holiday in the Lake district, some time in the late sixties I think, when we came across a place called Backbarrow where there used to be a dye works where they made Reckitt's Blue. This was a little block of blue pigment with a cloth covering which people added to their wash, in pre-biological detergent days, to give it that "blue whiteness." The whole area was littered with this stuff dumped by the side of the road, some of it intact in its packaging some of it crumbling to blue powder. The colour was the exact ultramarine of International Klein Blue and it transformed the whole village - basically one street and a river, also stained blue - into an unintentional art installation. I seem to remember we took home boxes of the stuff. It's all gone now and the works is an hotel.

More about the Backbarrow Blue Works

Exported all over the world. Aborigines in Australia, lacking a naturally occuring blue pigment of their own, used the Reckitt's Blue that missionaries brought with them for their rock art.

"For most of the 20th century, root doctors, hoodoo practitioners, and spiritualists who have wanted to work with the blue colour of copper while avoiding toxic side-effects have found it easier to utilize crystalized or liquid laundry blueing such as Reckitt's Crown Blue squares, Mrs. Stewart's liquid blueing, or the hand-made so-called "blue balls" (anil) from Mexico, shown here. Any of these products can safely take the place of copper sulphate; they typically consist of washing soda coloured with an aniline dye.
Some hoodoo and spiritist protection spells call for "blue water" to keep a residence clear of evil spirits. This use of blue water seems to derive from Mediterranean beliefs, in which both the colour blue and liquids such as water are used to keep away and to cure the damage done by the evil eye. Blue water should NOT be made from bluestone, especially if it is to be used for ritual hand-washing or sprinkling. Only laundry blueing should be used for this.
In short, the blue colour of copper sulphate can be safely duplicated in the form of laundry blueing and, in the interest of health, i would recommend that any time you see an old magical spell that calls for bluestone, you substitute liquid blueing, Reckitt's Crown Blue, or Mexican anil balls. The latter are particularly versatile: the small balls can be carried with herbs or roots in a mojo bag, and the large ones are easy to dissolve in water to set out in pans around a location to keep away evil, or made into a purifying floor wash."

"Reckitts Rugby League Club are the oldest amateur rugby league club in Hull. We were established in 1911 and are celebrating our 90th anniversary this year. The club was formed by members of the large pharmaceutical company Reckitt and Colman who, initially, played inter-departmental games prior to having other opposition to pit their skills against."

Reckitt's were based in Hull and have since been taken over by Holliday Pigments "the world's leading supplier of ultramarine and manganese violet pigments and has been established for over 120 years."

A good article about Holliday Pigments and the Reckitt's connection can be found here

Yves Klein

2008-06-05T09:59:00.018+01:00

When I was in my early teens I went with my mother and art student brother to an Yves Klein exhibition at the Tate. It made a big impact on me. You really have to experience the paintings in the flesh to appreciate the intensity of the colour. It is a great shame that Tate Modern's only Klein has to be see behind perspex; I assume this is because some people were tempted to touch the wonderfully velvety surface. Klein used a special formualtion of paint so that it retained the intesity your get from raw pigment, he patented this as International Klein Blue.

CHANEL 'Yves Klein Bleu' Patent Python
More on Yves Klein and fashion

cyanophilia

2008-06-04T12:44:00.003+01:00

Google doesn't come up with much (yet) on cyanophilia, most links refer to the scientific use of blue dye to stain cells, some exhibit cyanophilia...but I did find The Color of Cool

I suppose someone who loves blue is a cyanophile...

Cyanophilia should not be confused with cynophilia which is the love of dogs...