Given the way they have played all through it, it was appropriate that the England men’s team should end their winter with a particularly humiliating defeat. They were not merely beaten by the Dutch (bad enough), but the margin of 45 runs is in a T20 context a thrashing.
England had already failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the tournament, but this final surrender was shocking nonetheless.
Hopefully New Zealand and Sri Lanka will provide better cricketing fare later on today.
The March auction took place yesterday, and went very well overall, helped by a couple of militaria lots that saw the bidding reach colossal levels, and formed the basis of a press release that I put out today. A general press release focussing on more than just militaria will go out on Tuesday.
Incidentally, the Prince of Wales Suite is far superior as an auction venue to the Long Bar (I got a reminder of just how uninspiring the Long Bar is in the final stages of the tidy up operation, when the two of us who were clearing up had to take something there).
I now have a confirmed appointment at Cambridge for the research project I am taking part in. Also, one of the researchers will be present at KLASS’s next group meeting to explain about her research.
Although the database was my chief focus today, I also put out an events calendar for the rest of the year and did some more imaging for the April main sale.
If anything, hectic is an understatement. First of all I had some image editing to do from Friday, then I had to check the April T-Bid folder and make sure that the images were all there, and of sufficient quality (to be fair, only four were so ghastly that they had to be redone, but a few others needed extra editing).
Then, as soon as we could so so without leaving the premises entirely unattended, a colleague and I finished off filling up the first van load of stuff for Thursdays auction (there will be at least one, possibly two more).
The third major event of the day was a problem with some of the medal images being attached to wrong lot numbers for the March sale.
Add to that a couple of small items needing imaging for the April sale and you have a very full day indeed.
All of today’s images are of lots in the April T-Bid sale, mostly the stuff from Friday that I edited today…
This is a new record for an auction as opposed to press release image – a nine parter.Possibly distant connections of mine, given where my Sutcliffe ancestors are buried.This is now an ex-atlas!Maps that relate to some of my interests (must check the estimate to see if I dare bid)
In the world T20 yesterday the Dutch were in world record setting form…
…unfortunately it was of the wrong kind as they were bundled out for 39 (the lowest ever total in a T20 international) by Sri Lanka, who added insult to injury by knocking the runs off in just five overs.
Earlier South Africa and New Zealand had played a thriller of a match, won by South Africa, with Dale Steyn (4-17) being edged out for man of the match by J-P Duminy (86).
Meanwhile in longer form cricket, the annual curtain raiser for the English domestic season between the MCC and the Champion County (Durham on this occasion), which now takes place in Dubai, is under way, and very evenly poised, with Monty Panesar having taken five wickets in the Durham first innings, and Rushworth and Borthwick in the wickets for Durham.
As I prepare for a busy week at James and Sons I leave you with these pictures…
The World 20-20 is under way, and there was one cracking game today and one deeply frustrating game.
The cracker was between Sri Lanka and South Africa, won by Sri Lanka. South Africa needed 19 of the last two overs, but Kulasekara conceded just four in the crucial 19th over, to leave SA needing to take 15 off Lasith Malinga in the final over to win the match, a task that proved beyond them, by rather more than it ended up looking. With the match already lost the final ball was hit for six to reduce the margin.
The frustrating game was between England and New Zealand. England had scored 170 from their 20, only for the weather to intervene. New Zealand had just gone ahead on Duckworth-Lewis when the weather closed in and never let up. Therefore NZ got the points, which they probably would not have done had the match gone the distance.
As usual I have some pictures for you…
Information board at Seven SistersThese are the first swans I have ever seen on the Nar
This view of West Lynn Church was taken from the Nar Outfall.
Last night I attended a meeting in Norwich, and went out afterwards for drinks with the others. Earlier in the evening outside Norwich library I seen an inventive usage Henry C Beck’s famous schematic diagram – see attached media at the end of this post.
Today began with a minor disappointment when Your Local Paper did not contain anything on the Floricultural Cabinets, in spite of the fact that they had been sufficiently interested for a colleague to phone my on my day off to get the images to them.
However, thereafter it was successful all through. On the database side I have definitely perfected my method of catalogue generation, and on Tuesday I should be able to produce a bid book that will bear some semblance to reality. I did a lot of imaging, although much of that will have to wait until Tuesday as although I took all the pictures I had very little time left for editing.
Enjoy the following…
I think Mr Beck would have appreciated this almost as much as I did.A great medal set.This image will form the centrepiece of a poster (I have created but not yet printed it)
I spent the whole of today doing database work, and should be able to move on from inputting to design and refinements early tomorrow morning.
I have decided that with no new images at my disposal I will provide a glimpse of the database (front end only for obvious reasons). Tomorrow I should have some new images and some stuff from King’s Lynn newspapers.
For the moment…
This is the “Front end of front ends” from which you can access……the client database (already fully operational)…the Stock Database (in progress)….and the Auction Database (in progress)
I can now confirm for a certainty that something regarding Joseph Harrison and the Floricultural Cabinets will be appearing in Your Local Paper, the new free publication for the King’s Lynn and West Norfolk area. Yesterday afternoon I emailed them the entire photo gallery for that item including a greatly enlarged version of the press release image (this in response to a phone call from a colleague).
Yesterday, having sought expert advice I cooked a lamb shank, which will also do Friday’s supper. I did not follow the advice given to the letter, but I believe that my interpretation was in keeping with the spirit of that advice, and it did work. Briefly, I put the shank in the centre of my stewing pot, distributing around it chopped leeks, potato and carrot, added some salt and in an unorthodox but undeniably successful hunch some dark soy sauce. To prevent the whole from drying out and burning in the course of a long cooking period I added a small cup of water (believing that the meat and the leeks had plenty of their own moisture and that no more was needed). I then placed the pot in my main oven, set at 125 degrees (cool enough for seriously long cooking, hot enough to be sure of finishing off any microbial nasties). I checked hourly, stirring and also regularly pouring liquid over the top of the meat, and six hours later at 7:30, the appointed time for my supper the moment of truth arrived. The result was delicious, although one more moment of truth awaits, when it comes to time to clean the stewing pot.
Included among my pictures accompanying this post is another of the book lots I imaged on Sunday, on which note…
This lot was so vast that I took two images and having edited them separately then used my skills to meld them into one.
After a productive morning working on the database I switched tack post lunch to other aspects of my job. Having loaded the book images from Sunday on to the computer, and got the OK to send off the now complete press release that I mentioned in my last post I imaged some more lots for the April sale.
The new lots were yet more books. The majority were obviously not going to be making big money but as you will see from the media attachments at the end of this post there were some gems sparkling amid the dung heap.
I expect to see something from my press release in the Lynn News because they went to the trouble of asking for a resized image that they could work with, which I duly supplied.
Next week I will be working on Wednesday to help prepare for the auction, and will be at the auction early on Thursday.
A couple of hours ago Fakenham was hit by an epic thunder/ hailstorm which had me very worried as I would have been a sitting duck had it still been raging when I finished work. However, in the sort of rapid transformation that English weather is uniquely capable of providing the sun was shining again by the time I left the office.
As usual, plenty of pictures….
This bound collection of magazines had points of interest.
This was undoubtedly the pick of today’s book lots, and I have included all three images that I took.
The binding is respectable if nothing else.The resized image sent to the Lynn News
aspiblog 