A post about Englanbd’s victory in the third test ,match against South Africa, with as a prequel a video in which Aggers stitches up Boycott.
INTRODUCTION
This post is about England’s remarkable victory over South Africa, which has just been completed. Before I get to the details I start with a highlight from the commentary box…
BEAUTIFULLY BOWLED, AGGERS
BBC Cricket Correspondent Jonathan Agnew with some assistance from statistician Andrew Sampson pulled a classic stunt on Geoffrey Boycott earlier today – check out the video below:
England started today needing six wickets to win and go 2-1 up in the series, while South Africa needed to bat the day out to save the game. Roland-Jones took two of the wickets in successive balls after quiet start to the day, and then Moeen Ali snapped up the seventh wicket with the last ball of the morning session. The second session also started quietly before Moeen broke through, accounting for Dean Elgar for 136. One sensed that Soutrh Africa’s last hopes of saving the game went with the opener. This sense heightened when Rabada edged his first ball to Stokes who made no mistake. Morkel was hit on the pads by the next delivery, given not out by the on-field umpire and instantly reviewed, with all 11 members of the fielding side indicating simultaneously. The technology showed that it was out, and the game was over, with Moeen having a hat trick to his credit.
THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE TERM HAT TRICK
This term, which has been borrowed by other sports for less dramatic associations with the number three dates back to a match at Hyde Park, Sheffield in the 1850s in which Heathfield Stephenson, then captain of the All-England Eleven, took three wickets with successive balls, and the crowd spontaneously recognised the feat by passing a hat around to collect money that was then presented to Stephenson. Thus the feat was termed a ‘hat trick’ and has been so called ever since.
THE PLAYER OF THE MATCH AWARD
Ben Stokes has been confirmed as Player of the Match for his century, plus some useful second innings runs, wickets and catches. The only other appraoch to a contender was debutant Toby Roland-Jones (sometimes referred to as the ‘Sunbury Shotgun’ because he played club cricket at Sunbury early in his career and has a double-barrelled surname) who batted well in both innings and took wickets, including the top four of the South African order in the first innings. Tom Westley also had a good debut, looking composed in both innings.
A couple of classic autism infographics I spotted in the last 24 hours and some photographs of my own.
INTRODUCTION
The photographs which will be appearing in two tranches at the end of this post are mine, all taken yesterday. The two autism related infographics are shared from elsewhere (credit given at appropriate points). I saw the first of these yesterday evening and the second this morning.
AUTISM INFOGRAPHICS
First, courtesy of Patricia, who tweets as @pgzwicker, comes this gem:
The second was originally posted on Our Autism Blog this morning, and I link to that post so that you can comment on it there should you wish:
PHOTOGRAPHS
The first of the two sets of my photographs that I am putting up here were taken while out walking yesterday morning:
The Upper PurfleetA giant slug on the path alongside Bawsey DrainA moorhen swimming in a clear poolThis second pool was covered in water lilies.A town centre section of the Gaywood RiverIn the parkland area – this stretch of river is covered in algae.A magpie on the path alongside the Great OuseNear the end of the walk – some shots of cormorants and boats on the town centre section of the Great Ouse.
The last few pictures for today were taken yesterday afternoon while sitting outside my parents house in East Rudham. These are probably the last shots I will have from there as my parents are moving to Plymouth.
A post focussing on me giving a radio interview. Some mention of a roller-skating session and of the current test-match. And of course some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
The title part of this post refers to one of the things I did yesterday. I also have some pictures to share.
AN AUTISM CENTRED MORNING
Of course, as branch secretary of the National Autistic Society’s West Norfolk branch and an #actuallyautistic person there is a way in which autism is always at the heart of what I do. After three days carrying out my concatenation of roles at a James and Sons auction (operator of the system that enables us to take online bids, database administrator, query fielder, in-house ‘Gordianus’, occasional customer service person – see here for a full account) I had a day on which my only preset commitment was to supervise a roller-skating session at Lynnsport between 11 and 12. In the absence of direct confirmation of a time that would be convenient to speak to Ashleigh at KLFM 96.7 (our local radio station) about our upcoming 10th anniversary I decided that I would set off early for Lynnsport and see if I could speak to her on the way or as a fall-back arrange to call in on my way back.
Ashleigh was able to fit me in straight away, and the interview went well (she will be sending me both a recording and an online article that will accompany the actual broadcast), and I left for Lynnsport with my spirits high – I had helped myself, advertised our upcoming 10th anniversary event and due its connection with the foregoing also made mention of our gardening grant and the allotment on Ferry Lane + plans for a sensory garden in part of the plot. It is because of this gardening stuff that we gained the use of the magnificent garden where our 10th anniversary celebration will be held.
The roller-skating passed without incident and I was able to listen to some of the action from the third test-match (even assuming I had both the ability and the willingness to pay the Biased Bull****ting Conservatives £150 per year I would choose to follow cricket by listening to radio commentaries rather than watching on TV). Yesterday was truncated by rain, but England have had a good day today – first reaching 353 largely thanks to a magnificent innings from Stokes and now bagging a South African wicket before tea – debutant Toby Roland-Jones breaking through.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Being vertical sided these pots should not blow over in the wind (there were two of them).The first of two shots showing James and Sons’ tray of Beatrix Potter coins
I don;t know what the original purpose of this object was, but it has been a feature of James and Sons longer than I have!Wild marjoram is useful as a herb, as well playing a vital role as a plant that bees just love .
An account of James and Sons’ July auction – 1,500 lots over three days.
INTRODUCTION
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had its July auction. 500 lots went under the hammer on each day.
MONDAY
This first day of the sale featured coins, banknotes, cheques, P&N covers and militaria. There were quiet moments in most categories, but also plenty of stuff sold, some of it doing very well. Here are some pictures from this first day:
Along the way, lot 377, one of the P&N covers, was knocked down to me:
As an ardent user of libraries (King’s Lynn and Fakenham very regularly, Gaywood and Norwich when I am in the locality) this had particular appeal. A worthy addition to my collection.
TUESDAY
With stamps, postal history, a few postcards and first-day covers going under the hammer this was always likely to be the quietest of the three days and it was, although there were a few good sales. Here are some pictures from day 2:
WEDNESDAY
With postcards, cigarette & trade cards, ephemera, books, records and some interesting railwayana this was the day that we expected to go best, and it did. After a quietish start with the postcards, the cigarette and Liebig cards attracted in plenty of online bidders, some of the ephemera did very well, and both the large boxes of railway books found a buyer (someone who I had been in email contact with following a query about the contents of one of the boxes – I take the fact that she bought both boxes full as a definitive judgement as to the adequacy of my response!). I was also relieved because of its weight to see lot 1451 find a buyer. Lot 1379 went to me.
After a few minutes spent making the shop look more like a shop and less like an auction venue and a few more minutes spent consuming my sandwiches I finished up by adding details of those who had actually madce bids to the client database and printing out a complete list of those who had registered to bid online (196 of them on this occasion).
Here are some pictures relating to this third day:
Most of the lots going under the hammer on day 3 were in this shotOn the bus home, although exhausted I was still alert enough to accept the opportunity to capture the ruins of Bawsey Abbey when it arose.Lot 1451 (six images)
Lot 1455 (2 images)
Lot 1467 (five images)
Lot 1379 (seven images)
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Overall across the three days the total hammer price for sold items was just over £10,000, and while some of these were owned by external vendors, meaning that our gains are limited to the lotting fees, vendors commission and buyers premium, many were from our own stock. At the end of August we will be having auctions at our shop and also at Fakenham Racecourse.
Some details of the evnt planned to celebrate the 10th anniversary of NAS West Norfolk.
INTRODUCTION
Both the poster, and the facebook event that I have screenshotted and linked to are the work of NAS West Norfolk vice-chair Rachel Meerwald. Something about this may well be going out on our local radio station – I am at least half-expecting to visit them on Blackfriars Street this Thursday for that purpose (I am as my regular followers will be aware both branch secretary and #actuallyautistic).
POSTER AND FACEBOOK EVENT
I will start with the poster:
The facebook event is more detailed, and hence required two screenshots. A left-click or its equivalent will take you to the event in question, while a right-click or equivalent will enable you among other things to view the images individually and at full size:
An account of the PR work I have done for James and Sons upcoming auction.
INTRODUCTION
In amongst polishing off the last of the imaging (I only actually got some lots needing imaging this morning!) for next week’s auction (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, all three days at our shop), resolving queries and such like I have also put out a number of ‘Auction Alert’ emails and a couple of press releases (I did a general one on Tuesday, and then my boss wanted something specifically about some Norfolk postcards today, hence two). I am going to produce screenshots of all the emails and press releases, accompanied by links to original documents, and all images therein.
THE PRESS RELEASES
On Tuesday I put out a general press release to local and regional media as follows:
An account of two recent cricket matches involving England and South Africa, first the England men’s humiliation at Trent Bridge, and then the nailbiter of a Women’s World Cup semi-final at Bristol.
INTRODUCTION
Both of the matches of my title were cricket matches between England and South Africa. The first was the test match between the men’s teams, and the second was the women’s world cup semi-final. A couple of notes about links in this piece:
Some links are in red – these are to video footage.
IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES
England had won the first test match of the series handily, with Joe Rootscoring 190 in his first innings as England captain and Moeen Ali being player of the match for his first inning 87 and match haul of 10-112. Among England’s male players only Ian Botham with 114 not out and 13-106 v India in 1979 has topped Ali’s all-round haul in a single game (Enid Bakewell was the first player of either sex to combine a match aggregate of 100 runs with a haul of 10 or more wickets, hence the earlier caveat).
Thus at Trent Bridge England should have been strong favourites. South Africa won the toss, batted first and made 335 in their first innings and England by bad batting handed South Africa a lead of 130, South Africa extended this to 473 with two days to play before sending England back in, messrs Elgar and Amla having demonstrated how to make runs on this pitch, each batting a long time. England’s second innings was quite simply shambolic, with batter after batter handing their wickets away. Four wickets down by lunch on the penultimate day it worse afterwards, with England being all out for 133 at approsimately 3PM. South Africa, having given themselves two days to dismiss England a second time had required less than two full sessions and were victors be 340 runs.
ENGLAND’S MISTAKES
The first mistake England made was with the selection of the side. According to the powers that be Moeen Ali is happier as a second spinner than as either a sole spinner or as first spinner. However I find it hard to believe that even he could really consider himself no2 to Liam Dawson. Dawson is an ill thought out selection reminiscent of the dark days of the 1990s. For his county he averages in the low thirties with the bat and the high thirties with the ball, so even at that level he comes out as clearly not good enough in either department to warrant selection – the reverse of the true all-rounder. If a pitch warrants two spinners (and no Trent Bridge pitch in my lifetime ever has) the other spinner should be a genuine front-line option such as Dominic Bess (first class bowling average 19.83 per wicket – what are you waiting for selectors?). The other logical alternative would have been to bring in an extra batter (there are any number of possibilities) to strengthen this department. England’s batting in both innings smacked of panic. Other than Root whose 78 in the first innings was a gem and Cook who played well for a time in the second no England batter is entitled to be other than embarrassed by the way they played in this match. The scorecard, in all it’s gory detail, can be viewed here.
IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES
On what should have been the final day of the men’s test match but for England’s spinelessness the women’s teams convened at Bristol for a world-cup semi-final. The final will be played at Lord’s and is already sold out. South Africa batted first and were restricted to 218-6 from their overs, Mignon Du Preez top scoring with 76 not out, and Laura Wolvaardt making 66. South Africa bowled better than they had batted, and the outcome remained in doubt right to the end. Anya Shrubsole who had earlier finished with 1-33 from her 10 overs settled things by hitting her first ball, the third-last possible ball of the match through the covers for four. Sarah Taylor’s 54 and a brilliant wicket-keeping performance highlighted by the spectacular stumping of Trisha Chetty off the bowling of Natalie Sciver earned her the player of the match award. Sciver incidentally is the pioneer of a shot that in honour of her first name and the f**tballing term ‘nutmeg’ commentator Charles Dagnall has dubbed the ‘Natmeg’, one example of which she played in this match. Video highlights of this amazing match can be seen here (runs for just under five minutes), while the scorecard can be viewed here.
THE ROLE OF EXTRAS
To set the scene for the rest of this section here are the extras (a cricket term for runs scored not off the bat) from both innings:
When South Africa batted:
Extras
(w 4)
4
When England batted
Extras
(b 5, w 17, nb 3)
25
A note on the designations within extras: Byes (b) stands for runs scored when there is no contact made with the ball but either the batters are able to take runs, or the ball goes to the boundary unimpeded, legbyes (lb), of which there were none in this match, are runs scored when the ball hits the pad but not the bat. Wides are deliveries that are too wide for the batter to be able to play, and no-balls are deliveries that are ruled illegal for some other infraction (bowler overstepping the crease, high full-toss etc). The 21 run difference between the two tallies shown above is of major significance given that England reached the target with just two balls to spare, and there is yet a further point.
WIDES AND NO-BALLS – WHAT APPEARS IN PRINT DOES NOT TELL THE FULL STORY OF HOW EXPENSIVE THEY ARE
England bowled four wides in the match, South Africa 17 and three no-balls. That is a 16-run difference, but the actual costs are likely be even more different because:
When a delivery is called wide, as well as incurring a one-run penalty an extra delivery must be bowled to replace it. Thus a wide costs the original penalty, plus possible extras (if it goes unimpeded to the boundary it costs 5, the original 1, plus four foir the boundary) plus any runs scored off the seventh delivery of the over, which the bowler had they been disciplined would not have had to bowl
When a delivery is called a no-ball, the batter can still score off it, the delivery immediately following it is designated a ‘free-hit’, meaning that the batter cannot be dismissed off it, and as with a wide an extra delivery must be bowled to replace it. Thus a no-ball actually costs the original penalty, any runs hit of that delivery, the lack of a wicket-taking opportunity on the next delivery and any runs of the seventh delivery of the over (which would otherwise not have needed to be bowled).
Therefore the discrepancy between the sides in terms of wides and no-balls is probably much greater than shown on the score-card, and this in a very close match. Sarah Taylor certainly deserved her player of the match award, but the much tighter discipline shown by England’s bowlers than their South African counterparts was also crucial to the result.
PHOTOGRAPHS
After over 1,100 words those of you are still with me deserve some pictures, so here we are:
This puppet theatre is in town for the Lynn Festival
Greyfriars TowerKing’s Lynn library
The Red Mount ChapelThe unedited Red Mount chapel picture.The Guanock Gate
The first of three pictures featuring the Custom House
West Lynn ChurchJust as a bee pic was worthy start to this series of photos, another bee pic is a worthy finish to it.
Originally posted on Annas Art – FärgaregårdsAnna: Så här funkar allemansrätten – how right of public access works En del på ja-till-förbifarts-sidan säger att exploateringen är bra eftersom det gör det möjligt för fler att bo nära naturen. Jag har svårt att få resonemanget att gå ihop av två orsaker. Om vi bebygger…
Anna’s latest offering about the campaign to save Trosa nature. Having visited Sweden myself it is particularly obvious to me that she is on the right side. My posts about Sweden can be found here: https://aspi.blog/?s=Sweden.
This is Anna’s piece, so to comment please visit the original.
En del på ja-till-förbifarts-sidan säger att exploateringen är bra eftersom det gör det möjligt för fler att bo nära naturen. Jag har svårt att få resonemanget att gå ihop av två orsaker.
Om vi bebygger naturen finns den inte längre kvar. Exploateringen innebär alltså inte framtida naturnära boende. Om vi bebygger natur som idag är tillgänglig för alla enligt allemansrätten minskar vi ju i själva verket tillgången för många att vistas naturnära.
Allemansrätten är en av de bästa rättigheterna vi har. Den öppnar för alla att uppleva naturen när som helst alla dagar om året. Både fattig och rik har samma tillgång till naturen. Ingen behöver äga egen mark för att få vistas där. För varje kvadratmeter vi tillåter till exploatering förlorar vi naturtillgänglighet för alla till förmån för några få.
An account of the three meetings at Marxism 2017 that focussed exclusively on climate change.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to this latest post in my series about Marxism 2017. This post deals with three meetings from the event and also features some external links as well. This post features green body text because of the subject matter – headings still in red. This post features pictures in ’tiled mosaic’ form – to view them at full size left-click/ single finger push an image to open the gallery, and if you right-click/ two finger push you get a drop down menu that enables you to open a single image.
MEETING 1: FACING THE ANTHROPOCENE – JEFFREY HALL, SATURDAY – IAN ANGUS
The Jeffrey Hall is the second largest venue in the Institute of Education, with a seating capacity of 500. It was pleasingly full for Ian Angus’ talk about Facing the Anthropocene. This talk was accompanied by numerous slides. Here are the first few pictures:
Due to the size of the venue a speaker slip system in operation, and Martin (crouched) was assisting the chair to decide what order speakers should be called in.
From this start the speaker went on to define the anthropocene:
This what the Anthropocene is NOT
Note – current CO2 Levels are at 409-10ppm, with almost no one reckoning they can be stabilised below 450ppm and some talking in terms of 560ppm.
Before the Anthropocene the earth had seen five mass extinction events, and all evidence points to the fact that a sixth is upon us. Here are a few links to recent articles about this:
MEETING 2, SUNDA: A REDDER SHADE OF GREEN – MALET SUITE – IAN ANGUS
This was conducted in an informal style. Martin, chairing, asked Ian questions about his latest book (it is a good read btw) and Ian answered. After about half an hour questions were taken from the floor, and they were mainly excellent contributions. At the end of the meeting Ian signed copies of his book for those who were interested. Here are some photos:
The book – the only one I purchased at Marxism 2017 (there were many others I looked at)
PART 3: BUILDING THE MOVEMENT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE AFTER TRUMP WITHDRAWS FROM PARIS – SUZANNE JEFFERY
This meeting was in the session immediately after the second Ian Angus meeting, and before the closing rally. This was a really excellent meeting, with many people speaking from the floor about campaigns they were involved in, and the mood generally confident. Here are some photos:
Chair Jasmine and main speaker Suzanne before the meeting.Jasmine opening the meeting.Suzanne giving her talk.
AFTERWORD
This post being about climate change and by extension nature I have decided to end with some links courtesy of Anna who has produced some excellent stuff about nature:
James and Sons July auction catalogue is now ready…
INTRODUCTION
Yesterday the catalogue for James and Sons July auction (24th – 26th, all three days at our premises on Fakenham town centre) was uploaded to the-saleroom and despatched to the printer. Before moving on I ask readers to note that some of the images in this post have been presented in ’tiled mosaic’ form – a left click on your mouse/ single finger push on your control pad on one of the images will open a gallery showing you the images at full size.
TUESDAY
Between locating images of stuff that had already been imaged and imaging other stuff I made significant progress, although the amount that had not been done was still greater than the amount that had been done. Among the new images I created were those of some Confederacy bank notes, including the item selected to be on the front cover of the catalogue:
Images of this and the other banknotes of ithe same type are created using the scanner (200dpi only for these). Here are some more of these banknotes:
Having shown the scanner at work, here are some photos to finish this section, the full gallery of lot 1479:
THURSDAY
Most of the images on this day were transferred, but there were a few new ones, including lot 405 and some lots in the low 1,000s:
This little lot intrigued me.
A few lots of cat themed covers, including some with coins.
FRIDAY
I started this day by imaging some lots for the cover:
Of the rest of the stuff I imaged yesterday the most interesting lots were some police helmets:
LOOKING AHEAD
While there remains some imaging to do for this auction, and stuff for August will sloon be ready for imaging I will also have to put out various auction alerts and press releases next week. I will definitely be contacting buyers of banknotes, cigarette cards, railwayana, stamps and postcards. The railwayana email will feature lot 1451:
If I have scope (i.e. have not reached an email sending limit) I will also send out an email to militaria buyers. Our best item in this category this month is a camera used by the Luftwaffe:
are deliveries that are too wide for the batter to be able to play, and no-balls are deliveries that are ruled illegal for some other infraction (bowler overstepping the crease, high full-toss etc). The 21 run difference between the two tallies shown above is of major significance given that England reached the target with just two balls to spare, and there is yet a further point.
aspiblog 