D is for Denmark

 

2013: Rock Music (Design - Kasper Eistrup)

I thought at first the DK was for Denmark however this is possibly not the full story. The guitar belongs to Kasper Eistrop who is also the lead singer of the Indie Alt Rock band Kashmir and the designer of the stamp. For all those David Bowie fans out there he performed a duet with Eistrop on one of their albums.

1998: Post and Tele Museum (Design L Skovbo Carlsen)

Maybe one could listen to music while waiting for a postal delivery. What was the Post and Telecommunications Museum holds thousands of portraits of postal employees and this is a postman from 1922.  The museum also holds Denmark's largest stamp collection. Don't head there yet because there has been a relocation and rebranding to become 'Enigma - Museum of Communication' and it will reopen in February 2023.  Seems a certain lack of stamps on their website.

1989\: Centenary of the Danish FA (Design - M Sturup)

Dansk Boldspil-Union (DBU) the Danish Football Association will be willing their country on in the World Cup but things are not going to plan

1994: Save Water and Energy (Design - T Skov)

No need to save water here on the west coast as we have had weeks of Atlantic weather systems rolling in with days of rain. Good weather for ducks. Not completely all gloom for between the storms, like weather punctuation marks, have been, a day at a time, amazingly clear blue skies.

This is a picture puzzle stamp saying 'Save Water'  but of course in Danish so - 'Spara på vand' . Two clues  - Duck in Danish is 'And' so + V would make water. What we call the club card is 'Spar' in Danish 

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - The Letter D - See It On A Postcard

United Nations

1991: ECE - For a Better Environment (United Nations - Vienna)

A trip to the seaside with this stamp set although I suspect that the FDC envelope illustration is the same one used for the New York headquarters stamp which featured an alpine lake. The blue water looks inviting although it would be rather more chilly

Mediterranean Coastline and Wildlife

than the balmy Mediterranean in summer featured on the UN Vienna stamps.  The perfect vacation destination.  Unfortunately I don't know who the artist is but the 

postmark deserves a feature of its own.  More fauna

1993: Endangered Species (1st series)

on the first of United Nations stamps series on endangered species, although we do not seem to be running out of species to feature on this ongoing stamp issue. The 2019 theme is "below the water" another environment in trouble.

1993: Endangered Species (Design - Steve Brennan)

But lets take a moment just to enjoy the animals - Grevy's Zebra, the largest of its species sometimes called the Imperial Zebra which can be found in Eastern Africa.  A pair of Humboldt penguins come next who can be seen along the coast of Chile and Peru, their rocky habitat has made them into excellent climbers and they jump with both legs using their flippers for balance.  News recently that London is projected to become as hot as Barcelona prompted a discussion of the best animal to be reincarnated as to cope with earth's rising temperature, maybe this one, the Desert Monitor, they are good swimmers so rising water levels would be no problem either.  Lastly we have of course a wolf gazing over its territory.

Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the Letter U - here for United Nations and as I am about to go on vacation there is a - V for Vienna - for next week too - See It On A Postcard  

Go Green

2016: Europa - Think Green

 As the weather gets warmer my thoughts turn to days on the coast not bundled up in layers of clothes and the 45p stamp shows a sunny day on the beach, or does it?  Perhaps there is a short sharp rain shower going on in the background.  The stamp celebrates the Isle of Man being awarded UNESCO biosphere status. The middle 77p stamp I think will be instantly recognisable as the universal design chosen for the 2016 Europa theme of  'Think Green' designed by the Cyprus Post artist Doxia Sergidou, the grey for environmental pollution and the green for environmental living and hope. The right hand £1.13 stamp is as it says, 'energy from waste' and refers to the plant that produces ten percent of the island's electricity which opened in 2004.

The Isle of Man is famous for the annual TT, so you may be thinking, as I was, what is green about a motorbike?  The stamp shows the TT Zero, an electric powered machine which first raced around the Mountain Course in 2009.  Nearly a decade later they are still still zooming around the course with the outright lap record of an average speed of 119.27 mph around the circuit, comparable to the speeds achieved by petrol fueled motorbikes. Lastly is the £2.33 stamp inspired by the hydro electric power plant in Tholt-y-Will powered by water from the two nearby reservoirs.  This small plant in the Isle of Man is dwarfed by the huge plant on Russia's Angara River .

1962: Heavy Industries

This Russian stamp depicts the construction of the Bratsk Hydro-Electric Station in Irkutsk Oblast. It was briefly the world's biggest single powered producer when it was fully commission in 1967 until Canada's Churchill Falls opened in 1971.

2012: The Manx Missile - Mark Cavendish

A green machine, Mark Cavendish wearing his Tour de France Green Jersey, the sprinter's great prize which he won in the 2011 and the stamp shows him doing a lap of honour in Paris after the final stage of the Tour.  I'm looking forward, all things being well, to this year's Tour and his exciting sprint battles with Marcel Kittel.

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme - Green - at See It On A Postcard