Last night’s Strictly results show revealed that this year’s grand final will feature Caroline & Pasha (surely favourites to win the glitterball trophy), Frankie & Kevin, Mark & Karen (who came through the toughest dance off of the series) and Simon & Kristina. Missing out by the proverbial hairs breadth as the dance off verdict went against them were Jake & Janette.
Why do I say that Caroline & Pasha are favourites for the outright win? Because not only have the been regularly topping leader board in recent weeks, on Saturday night they proved that Craig does have a 10 paddle by producing a routine that induced him to use it.
A walk around King’s Lynn yielded some interesting pictures including the first time I have managed to capture a water vole on camera…
This screen dump from last night’s results show is of the first two couples whose place in the final was confirmed(Caroline & Pasha and Frankie & Kevin) talking to Claudia Winkleman. From it I then extracted…..this picture of Caroline & Pasha.
Two moorhens and a water vole in the same shot.Focus on the water vole.There’s a mandarin among the mallards!
Getting a good shot of a flying gull is difficult.Custom House projecting a light show.
The December auction of James and Sons took place at the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich yesterday. As the person running the company database it was a particularly full-on day for me, and I have decided to take you through it in chronological order:
5:45AM: Left the flat to be sure of being at bus station in time for 6:00 bus to Norwich (although the sale does not being until 10, with my responsibilities it is mandatory that I be at the auction venue by 8 at the latest and this is the last bus that will enable me to do that)
7:35AM: Bus arrives at Norwich bus station bang on schedule (not even a British bus company can contrive to be running late at this stage of the morning) and I head straight but unhurriedly for the Maids Head Hotel.
7:45AM: Arrive at the hotel and find my way to the Erpingham Room where I will be based for the next few hours.
8:30AM: By this stage the setup and layout are complete and viewers are starting to arrive. My computer is set up in a location that ensures that no punters will have access to confidential information and the internet connection is working, although it will still be necessary to phone the shop in Fakenham every time someone wants to pay by card as the connection does not extend to our portable card reader. Before attending to my own specific tasks I print out a listing of commssion bids that have been registered online via http://www.the-saleroom.com. Between the information on the registrants page of http://www.the-saleroom.com and the written and printed records of bids received in advance I am able to ensure that my database is as up to date as it can be before the auction starts.
10:00AM: Kick off, and the auction starts with a bang as lot 1 sells for £130 against an estimate of £50. This is the occasion for the first of various live tweets I manage to post in between doing the work I am paid for.
The lots come and go very fast, and it is significantly before 11 that the first lot I am interested in, number 171, two postcards of East Rudham and West Raynham churches goes under the hammer. I stick in a bid but then realise I am up against the proprietor of Lynn Gold and recognising that he has much greater financial firepower decide not to bother contesting further.
After 250 lots the auctioneer takes a brief break and I have my first problem of the day, when instead of printing out an invoice as I require my computer wants to print out the entire Auction Form record (fortunately I am able to cancel the job before a single page has been wasted). I resolve the problem by the tried and tested if unscientific method of closing the database down and reopening, and as it happens there will be no further technical malfunctions that day.
Approx 12:30PM: We have now been through 500 lots, and are about to move on to coins and banknotes, with militaria, ephemera and some misecllaneous items still to come. This is a sensible point at which to take a 15 minute break, as planned by the auctioneer. Lot 441 in the meantime had been knocked down to me for £12.
A combination of the speed at which auctioneer David is getting through the lots and the frequency with which I have to produce invoices causes me to fall behind, but with only two room bidders other than myself still left this is not actually as serious an issue as it feels at the time.
14:18PM: Lot 786, the last item in the sale goes under the hammer.
14:40PM: The clear-up is complete and I take my leave. A call at the Glasshouse just down the road for some liquid refreshment and a visit to the library (which I regard as a must when I am in Norwich) mean that I end up on the 16:40 bus back to King’s Lynn. The front of the bus provides a sight I have not previously been treated to: although we are in Norwich and the bus is terminating at King’s Lynn the intermediate destinations listed are those between Peterborough and King’s Lynn! This causes a degree of confusion among my fellow passengers, especially those travelling to intermediate destinations, as you might imagine.
It is just a shade under thirteen hours after setting off in the morning that I finally arrive back at the flat. Come Dine With Me via 4OD followed by Strictly on iplayer complete the day. It was semi-finals week on the latter, meaning that each couple had two dances to perform. The best was saved till last as Caroline Flack and Pasha Kovalev produced the routine that finally persuaded Craig to flourish the 10 paddle.
I have a few pictures for you…
This is the Dereham Christmas tree.Part of the sale as laid out before the start.More of the sale.The Christmas tree in the Erpingham Room at the Maids head HotelThe last four images are of my purchase, taken this morning, this full picture and three close ups.
Today has been devoted to making final preparations for tomorrow’s auction at The Maids Head Hotel, Norwich. To view a full catalogue and/ or sign up to bid online click the following link: http://goo.gl/TgVNCi
I also have dates and locations for all next year’s auctions, which I have already circulated on twitter via @great_auction and a retweet courtesy of @aspitweets. A bit of colour in the form of some catalogue cover scans and a jpg version of the auction calendar…
Today I have both managed to complete the information gathering for our last sale on 29/11/2014 and get the database ready for our next sale this coming Saturday. As part of this I am able to share with you descriptions and images of the lots that did best in relative terms at our last auction. Some of the images included as part of this are not my work. I will mention in the captions I provide when images are not mine.
The second part of this post is a response to the following tweet (I did not think I could do it in 140 characters):
As briefly as possible: this was an atrocity committed by an atheist not an atrocity committed in the name of atheism. This is in direct contrast to the almost innumerable list of atrocities carried out not merely by religious people but in the name of religion.
Now for those images (and a PDF file – I have taken care that no personal details of anyone are included)
This is lot 13 – the first item to do significantly better than expected
This is the last image that is not my work.
Again, not imaged by me.Another of the ones I did not image.
The next three images are of the sewing machine which astonished us all be reaching £140
In going above estimate this item also went out of my reach.
This was one of the items I did not image .
We were delighted when this sold – and it going for above estimate was a bonus. The weight of this item meant that we had specified that the buyer had to collect.
No images with this post I’m afraid, as I did not do any imaging today. However, I am going to be getting my Nikon Coolpix P520 back from repair this evening (they are delivering it to me at my flat), so I will soon have some really good pictures once again.
My day started with a vigorous warm-up (much needed in view of the weather) consisting of an hour and a quarter worth of fetching and carrying (bringing an entire auction down two floors so it could be laid out in the shop for viewing), continued with some work on the database as I plugged on with the Sisyphean task of simultaneously wrapping up one auction and preparing for another, and finished with polishing off a cup of James and Sons style iced coffee. What is James and Sons style iced coffee? Well it is made in this way:
1)Make yourself a cup of coffee at the start of your working day
2)Be so busy that you don’t get to drink it until the end by when (at this time of year) it will be a more than passable impersonation of iced coffee!
Twitter continues to go well, with @greatauction approaching 300 followers in spite of a certain lack of material and @aspitweets not far short of 800.
(Note to non-biologists: “sexual dimorphsim” refers to any trait or behavior that differs between the sexes, like the ornamented tail of the male peacock, the brighter color of the male painted bunting—and of many birds—and the bower-building behavior of male but not female bowerbirds.)
There are some science-friendly folk (including atheists) who simply dismiss the entire field of evolutionary psychology in humans, saying that its theoretical foundations are weak or nonexistent. I’ve always replied that that claim is bunk, for its “theoretical foundations” are simply the claim that our brains and behaviors, like our bodies, show features reflecting evolution in our ancestors. While some evolutionary psychology studies are weak, and I’ve been a critic of them, the discipline as a whole is growing in rigor and should certainly not be dismissed in toto.
Those who still do, though, should answer this question:
Why are human males, on average, bigger and stronger than females?
Today at James and Sons I have moved ahead of where I expected to be. Not only have I produced proper copies of all paid invoices for the last sale, I also have a complete and checked stock database for the next one, have produced those pre-auction Vendor Advice Notes that I had sufficient information to do and I amongst all that also spotted and resolved a small but serious problem with the December images.
Lot 109 is a piece of Hungarian Postal History which is unlikely to make a fortune, while lot 601 is a pair of binoculars specially designed for use on a U-Boat which will make a fortune. The image for 601 was with lot 109 while there was no image with lot 601. A quick renumbering of the binoculars image and a scan of lot 109 followed by an apologetic email to the people at the-saleroom.com did the job.
I have a few images of lots that exceeded their estimates (in one case spectacularly so) at the last auction, as well as two items mentioned earlier.
My personal twitter account, @aspitweets continues to thrive, having recently passed 700 followers.
Now for those images…
This sewing machine was estimated at between £15 and 20 and actually made £140 – and with the successful bidder being Tunisian the postage was nearly as much!
This whistle managed only to double its estimate!Lot 109 scanned in by me today as part of the3 resolution of a problem.These binoculars were the bigger issue since they carry a four figure price tag.
Owing to the decision to have James and Sons December auction a mere two weeks after the November auction I am currently in the position of simultaneously attempting to deal with the post-auction side of November and produce pre-auction paperwork for December.
I have two other topics to mention, firstly the appalling behaviour of the Right Dishonourable Stephen Dorrell who in spite of admitting to a conflict of interest between his role as an MP and his employment by one of the companies who are looking to profit from a carve-up of the NHS has refused to stand down. A petition regarding this is being run by 38 Degrees. To view and/or sign click here: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/david-cameron-force-stephen-dorrell-mp-to-pick-a-job-now#petition
Finally a brief comment about Englands performance vs Sri Lanka yesterday, only their second win in nine ODIs. It was not nearly as conclusive as the final margin of five wickets with an over to spare suggested, the match being decided by a flurry of boundaries immediately after Joe Root had been reprieved by the TV Cameras spotting an overstep by the bowler. Since Root, along with Buttler, was one of the two batsmen who carried England victory more than a little was owed to fortune. England looked second favourites for substantial periods, notably between the end of Moeen Ali’s innings (brought about by his partner Alex Hales) and the flurry of boundaries already alluded to.
A somewhat frustrating day today, as just when I was about to start making really serious progress with the invoices I was required to switch to imaging (this is just one of the problems that arises when there is only a two week gap between auctions).
However, I did get to image some interesting stuff as you will see.
Also some good news from my online contacts – a petition which I had signed and shared via both facebook was handed over to its intended recipient Mr Cameron with no fewer than 300,000 names on it.
Here some of the lots that will be going under the hammer on the 13th…
aspiblog 