INTRODUCTION

What does the title of this post refer to? Here, courtesy of Robert Harris, backed by Edgar Allan Poe is a clue:

The special significance of lustrum in the sense of a five-year period to aspiblog is that today is the fifth anniversary of aspiblog. To view the post that started it all on May 10th 2011 click here.

BLOGGING

There are many approaches to blogging. Some blogs deal almost entirely in original content, some blogs are devoted principally to sharing stuff created by others, and some like this one are a mixture of the two. I create new posts such as this when I feel I have stuff to write about and/or enough good pictures to warrant creating a post to share them.

SHARING ON A BLOG

Sharing can be done in various ways. There is the “Links” section was has been a frequent feature of this blog, which enables one to share lots of stuff in a single post. Other wordpress posts can be reblogged, and some other posts not on wordpress allow one the option of ‘pressing’ a link on to a wordpress blog (I have a ‘press this’ tool for my wordpress hosted London transport themed website www.londontu.be to enable me to post links to interesting and appropriate articles). This morning I used the press this button on Richard Murphy’s Tax Research UK blog to post a link to a piece of his speculating on the prospect of Mr Osborne being reshuffled into obscurity on June 24th and took some screen shots along the way to illustrate the process:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAIN THEMES OF THE BLOG

This blog features many things, but there are several recurring themes:

• Autism – I am #actuallyautistic, and although the Asperger’s Support Group that I ran for some time ultimately became a casualty of Tory funding cuts I am now on the branch committee of NAS West Norfolk.
• Photography – I am a very keen photographer and invariably share pictures in my posts.
• Politics – I am politically very active and I follow many political blogs/ websites.
• Cricket – I am a huge fan of cricket and particularly during the summer months I will frequently have things to say about the game.

CRICKET

I spent yesterday listening to commentary of the fascinating match between Somerset and Warwickshire. While elsewhere in the country vast numbers of runs were being racked up this match was low scoring, and the better for it. The big scoring that has been such a feature of this early season is partly due to a daft playing condition introduced into the county championship whereby the visiting side can dispense with the toss if they wish to bowl first. This has resulted in a succession of pitches on which batsmen can fill their boots. There is no logic to such a playing condition – if you want to absolutely ensure that home teams cannot prepare pitches to suit themselves simply get rid of the toss altogether and award choice of innings to the visitors, although I would personally stick to having a toss for innings. If, as currently seems likely, Somerset win, they will owe it in large part to Peter Trego who in a low scoring game has amassed 94 and 51.

I heard while listening to that commentary yesterday that there are going be matches played between the North and South to give the best county players a chance to play in matches of higher standard than normal county games, taking place in the UAE in March, before the MCC v Champion County match, which I think is an excellent idea.

LINKS

I have three links to share:

First, a petition on change.org calling for a statue of a suffragette to be erected in Parliament Square, which  I urge all of you to sign and share.

My next two links are both related and concern a subject close to my heart: libraries. Libraries in many parts of the country are facing cuts, and one of the areas affected is Lancashire. A campaign is running to save their libraries, and they have recently created a bit of a stir by telling their MP to stay out of it, such is their (entirely justified) lack of trust in the individual concerned. Two links for you:

• The Vox Political piece that put me on to this story and
• A direct link to the petition at the heart of this campaign.

PHOTOS AND CONCLUSION

No aspiblog post would be complete without a few pictures, and I choose to finish with this section…

Finally to end this post a message to all my readers, and fellow bloggers who have helped to inspire me to keep this blog going…