2014 has been a very significant year for me in many ways. Between a return to full-time education, mental health issues and the difficulty of finding employment as someone with Asperger’s Syndrome this is the first year since 1998 in which I have been in paid employment from beginning to end.
It is also the year in which I discovered twitter, first administrating @great_auction and subsequently launching an account of my own, @aspitweets which already after only just over two months has more than 1300 followers.
As a counterblast to the New Year Honours List I have produced a brief New Year Dishonours List. For the sake of balance,, and also by way of thanking the individuals concerned I have also produced a short list of people who have impacted positively on my life in recent times. Undoubtedly since I was attempting to be brief people have been missed from both lists!
I also have a few new pics from today, some of which I shall include below…
These are the people I have chosen to single out in a positive way.This is my personal rogues gallery for 2014!It is difficult to get good pics of small birds with an ordinary camera!
An important press release and some high quality images.
My day at James and Sons started with putting out a press release about a significant development (see added media) and ended with imaging some cigarette cards.
My personal twitter following (@aspitweets) continues to grow at a satisfying rate. I have a special post in mind to usher in the new year but until then enjoy these…
We are in a post Christmas cold snap. There has been nothing yet to approach the icebergs on the Great Ouse of half a century ago, but at 11:30AM today under a bright sun the lower Purfleet was frozen. Birds of various species have been enjoying the conditions in spite of the cold. “Cormorant Platform” where the Nar joins the Ouse had no fewer than nine visitors today.
I have two days worth of pics to share with you (got some good ones yesterday too)…
Gulls and terns walking on water!
This is the first of today’s images.The next two images show the improvements happening at Hillington Square.
In this my last post before the festivities kick in I want to take a look at a quick overview of the Truth Campaign and our reasons for pursuing it.
It all began on April 14 2013, when Debbie Sayers and I wrote an open letter, to Esther McVey regarding her persistent misuse of facts and statistics, we sent this with over 800 signatures, including 4 MPs, a month later. On the back of this, we started our first petition (27/5/13) to the Work & Pensions Committee demanding they :Hold IDS to account for his use of statistics.
We eventually received a response from the DWP correspondence team to our letter, which failed to even acknowledge the questions we had asked, but she did reply to Michael Meacher and Tim Loughton MPs, who had supported our letter with the same reply.
By June 12 our first petition had hit the magic 100,000 signatures…
A quiet Christmas day at my aunt’s house yesterday. We went out at 4PM to watch the new light show that is being projected on to the Custom House. This one is entirely devoted to mechanical devices such as can be seen at Thursford, and is every bit as compelling as the original…
The first of two views of my aunt’s latest creation
Just a few pressies on display.All the rest of the pictures are from the light show…
I have finished my final working day before Christmas. The highlights of the day were in the items I imaged for the January auction, some of which as the accompanying pictures demonstrate were very interesting.
A brief mention of the Strictly final, and Alastair Cook’s replacement as England ODI captain followed by some stuff about books and accompanied as usual by pictures.
Before moving on to the main theme of this post there a couple of other issues I wish to touch on first.
Strictly Come Dancing is over for another year. Caroline Flack and Pasha Kovalev won the vote (in the final, judges scores are given for guidance only, the outcomes resting solely on the public vote) as they jolly well should having clocked up perfect 40s from the judges in each of their last four routines, including all three in the final. Besides these four the only other perfect score of the series was achieved by Simon Webbe and Kristina Rihanoff in the last couple dance of the series. Frankie Bridge and Kevin Clifton with two 39s and a 38 were third best on the night.
The second item on my agenda that England have finally acted over the One Day International captaincy, replacing Alastair Cook with Eoin Morgan. Cook is a magnificent test match cricketer but in limited overs matches, especially on good batting pitches, he does not score quickly enough. Not only do I think a change had to be made, I am certain that the selectors have made the right decision about the new captain.
I have decided to write about something that is important to me but which I have not often covered in this blog: books. I am going to focus my attention on an old favourite and two new discoveries.
Starting with the old favourite, Edward Marston’s “Railway Detective” series dovetails neatly with two of my areas of interest, detective fiction and railways, and as such was a sure fire winner. Even so, i never cease to be impressed by just how good the stories are and just how much I enjoy reading them. I do not know how long a period the series will eventually cover, but it has already spanned most of the 1850s. 1863 would be a significant year in this context, because of the opening of the world’s first underground railway.
My second port of call is another fictional series, Laurie King’s remarkable Mary Russell/ Sherlock Holmes series. I was originally very sceptical because in the original Holmes stories he is very much not the marrying kind. However, in spite of the implausibility of Holmes marrying, the series works spectacularly well, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
Finally, moving away from detective fiction and indeed from fiction we have Clifford Pickover’s “The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles & Stars”. This provided me with reading material for three bus journeys (unusual for a book to occupy me that long) and is of more specialised interest than my other two mentions, but the patterns contained within it are fascinating.
I have some photos to share with you – one thign you will notice if you look at the front cover shots of the books – all are library books, and I am happy to pay a tribute to Norfolk Libraries for continuing to provide a good service in difficult circumstances.
This is what I created to make my 10,000th tweet a bit special!The next seven pictures are from the Pickover book.
A front cover shot of one of the Laurie King books.One of Edward Marston’s Railway Detective books.Cover shot of the Pickover Book.
An important press release made available for you.
A celebration of having reached 1,000 twitter followers.
An announcement of National Autism Day (incl mention of @AutismDay)
An otherwise mundane working day was livened up by creating a post-auction press release with an embedded image. The entire document and every image I used are in the added media. Although mention was made of other areas of interest and of our next auction (Jan 28th) the raison d’etre for this press release was to emphasise the triumph of the U-Boat Commanders Binoculars.
At lunch time today, courtesy of @charity_today, @aspitweets reached a very significant twitter landmark: 1,000 followers (I checked on my personal twitter with one hand while eating sandwiches with the other). I reckon that 55 days to reach 1,000 followers is good going for a non-celebrity.
Linked to the above is an announcement of something I found via twitter: National Autism Day, which will be held for the first time on June 5th 2015. The official twitter account is: @AutismDay and the more publicity the better.
Now for the press release and attendant images…
The binocs lying flatThe binocs standing up.The composite image that went in the press release.The banner type heading used for the press releaseA jpg of the final press release.
The combined Christmas lunch for James and Sons & The Great Centenary Charity Auction took place at the Thai Restaurant in central Fakenham, just a few doors down from James and Sons own premises. This event has already been covered on facebook, @great_auction and @aspitweets but this account will deal with it a little more fully.
A total of 17 people were able to come to the meal, and both the food and the service were above reproach. My spare ribs and sweet & sour pork were both well spiced but not such as to cause problems, while the egg fried rice was dry and not remotely sticky, and offered a tiny amount of resistance to the teeth, so had not been cooked to death. The available range of drinks was narrow and not very suitable for me – I would not generally choose canned John Smiths but nothing else they had looked remotely drinkable. Overall I think it is a perfectly respectable establishment and I hope it survives the arrival in Fakenham of J D Wetherspoon, who as usual have everyone beaten on price. It cannot however even be considered the best Thai in Northwest Norfolk – Thams of West Rudham has that distinction, although they are quite expensive.
In other news yet another exposure for the Union of Knaves, Idiots and Parasites (UKIP for short): Tommy Robinson, former leader of the Evil Dimwits League (EDL) has thrown his lot in with them.
I have some photos to share, as always…
The first shot from the restaurant.
A tree lit up for Christmas, outside Hollywood Central Cinema.An aeroplane framed by lines of Christmas lightsChristmas lights in King’s LynnSingle star, King’s Lynn
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