Author: Thomas

I am a founder member and currently secretary of the West Norfolk Autism Group and am autistic myself. I am a very keen photographer and almost every blog post I produce will feature some of my own photographs. I am an avidly keen cricket fan and often post about that sport.

Nature, Music and a Few Other Things

A good news story about nature from the village of Balcombe, West Sussex, a King’s Lynn walk, some stuff about music and a few other things.

INTRODUCTION

This post incorporates a King’s Lynn walk but also features plenty of other stuff.

NATURE

This morning I reblogged a post by Anna about the folk of Trosa and their continuing fight to preserve their nature from greedy road builders. I start this section of the post with:

GOOD NEWS FROM WEST SUSSEX

The small village of Balcombe, West Sussex (and having done a walk in that part of the country some years back I can confirm that it is indeed small) was targeted not so long ago by fracking villains Cuadrilla. Not only have they beaten back the frackers, they are on the way to becoming a solar-powered village. Please watch the video below for more:

This is what new developments for the 21st century should look like – big new roads are so last century!

A KING’S LYNN WALK

Although it was not terribly inviting outside I went for a walk this afternoon, taking in the Great Ouse, our river. Here are a few pictures:

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At this point I saw a rare visitor to King’s Lynn –

A GREY HERON

Here is a picture taken looking across the Great Ouse, and the page of my bird book that gives info about the Grey Heron:

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After the Grey Heron there were no more exceptional sights but a few more photo-worthy moments:

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MUSIC

As part of today’s Hili Dialogue, Grania at WEIT mentioned that among those born on this day (happy birthday Ayaan Hirsi Ali) were Leopold Mozart (father of the more famous Mozart) and Fanny Mendelssohn (older sister of Felix) and linked to this video of a performance of Leopold’s Toy Symphony, which I offer you below:

Also, last Saturday was a Musical Keys session, and I have a few photos from there:

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A keyboard that enables the player to produce the sounds of other isntruments. The coloured patches stuck to various keys come in to play when Kirsten held up a sheet to indicate which colour one should focus on – although I was on a guitar by then and was using my left thumb to press on a coloured patch, shortening that string.
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This instrument, here held for me my Kirsten, one the people who runs the Musical Keys sessions is filled with beads and played by being upended, held until all the beads have fallen and then upended again for as long as you care to.

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I played the red guitar.

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WHAT IS NORMAL?

I found this infographic on twitter and had to share it – I think it is splendid:

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HONEST AND DISHONEST PHOTO EDITING

I have shown you some examples of honestly edited photos already in this post. What follows focusses on dishonestly edited photos. Two “newspapers” whose names I refuse to give, one owned by the fourth Viscount Rothermere and on which the good folk of Liverpool refuse to buy, produced photographs purporting to show Jeremy Corbyn dancing towards the Cenotaph yesterday (Remembrance Sunday). To do this their photo editors had cropped out from their original picture the 92 year-old WWII veteran who Mr Corbyn was accompanying and who hotly denies any suggestion that he was dancing:

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Two incisive infographics juxtaposed
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the individual infographics.

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England Take the Moral Victory in Rajkot

My account of the first test match between India and England at Rajkot.

INTRODUCTION

At just after 11AM GMT yesterday the first test match of the five match series between Inida and England was confirmed as a draw.

THE FIRST INNINGS

Alastair Cook made the first right move of the series when he won the toss and chose to bat (on a plumb pitch, with the only hope of interesting developments being if it deteriorated this was a clear cut decision). Gary Ballance’s wretched form had finally caught up with him, and 19 year old Haseeb Hameed whose family originated in these parts came in for his debut, with Ben Duckett dropping to number four so that Hameed could open. In the two match series in Bangladesh England’s top five had a combined record of three 50 plus scores in 20 innings with no one reaching three figures. Here Joe Root and Moeen Ali (nos 3 and 5 respectively) racked up centuries, and Ben Stokes, for once given a base from which he could build rather than attempt to rebuild added another as England totalled 537, effectively putting defeat out of the question right from the start.

Ravi Ashwin, the offspinner who was expected to prove far too good for England’s batting finished with the less than commanding innings figures of 2-167. Jadeja, on home turf (with that surname he is definitely connected to the old royal family of Nawanagar, who ruled here in the days of the princely states, and produced cricketing legends of earlier times Ranjitsinhji and Duleepsinhji) took three wickets.

THE SECOND INNINGS

Murali Vijay and Chesteshwar Pujara each reached three figures, while Ashwin somewhat redeemed his bowling figures with 70. India were all out for 488, giving England a lead of 49. These two huge first innings scores had been acquired comparatively slowly as both sides bowled tightly, and the fourth of five days was nearing its conclusion by the time India’s last wicket fell. Adil Rashid, given the opportunity to bowl with runs on the board, picked up 4-114, while the other spinners, Moeen Ali and Zafar Ansari each picked up two wickets. None of the faster bowlers were able to extract anything from this pitch, but Stuart Broad, playing in his 100th test, was economical, taking 1-78 from his 29 overs and Woakes who finished wicketless was positively Scrooge like in only conceding 57 from 31 overs.

THE THIRD INNINGS

While it would have been nice to see England go on the all-out attack and see if they could make a genuinely challenging declaration I can fully understand, especially given events in Dhaka not so long ago, why Cook took the safer option of batting the game into oblivion before declaring to see if his bowlers could take a few Indian wickets at the end.Cook himself made 130, his 30th test century, while the debutant Hameed made 82, and Ben Stokes, promoted to have a bash before the declaration made 29 not out in quick time. England called a halt at 260-3, leaving India a purely nominal target of 310 off 49 overs. Ashwin took 1-63 in this innings, giving him match figures of 3-230.

THE FOURTH INNINGS

Given that four and a half days of action had produced a combined 1295-23 it was most unlikely that any result other than a draw would eventuate, so the real question was whether England could nab some wickets and thereby claim a moral victory. In the event, India finished on 172-6, with only Virat Kohli, 49 not out, emerging from the innings with real credit. Rashid took 3-64, emerging with comfortably the best match bowling performance on either side, while Woakes, Ansari and Ali all picked up wickets.

THE FINAL VERDICT

A total match score over the five days of 1467-29 makes the truth about this game obvious. The pitch, which never offered serious assistance to any kind of bowler, won hands down. For England almost everyone emerged with some kind of credit, with most of the batsmen making runs and the bowlers sticking well to the Sisyphean task inflicted on them by the groundsman. India, although never in serious danger of losing this game have less to be happy about – although he is a spinner rather than a quick bowler Ashwin’s 3-230 in this match have a bit of a look of Gillespie ’05 about them. England have bounced back well from their disaster in Dhaka. Haseeb Hameed has made a splendid start to his career, and has probably settled the question of an opening partner for Cook – in a few years time England will probably be faced with finding someone to replace Cook as Hameed’s opening partner.

PICTURES

These pictures are from work…

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The first ten images here are of framed sets of cigarette cards, the first two bieing crickets from 1938 and 1934 respectively.

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These two images are of the last of the collector’s models

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Not an auction lot – this collection of brass taps and fitments are being sold on ebay!

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For love of Trosa nature

More from Anna on the battle to protect Trosa from the road builders (the letter itself is in Swedish, and as it is in the post as an image I have no way to translate it, but I know that will be powerful and well written).

Anna's avatarAnnas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

For love of TrosabygdenFor love of Trosabygden

Today I´ve been workning for saving Trosa nature. A letter to our politicians who are far too stuck in old thinking from the 1900 century.

It was too long to translate, but here is the Swedish version. Maybe you can translate it in some parts by yourself. I’m sorry for not being able to publish the text in English.

It´s about how the building a new road through almost naturereserve nature is a very bad and unmodern idea. We don´t need the road, we need the nature.

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I don´t want our future to look like this

Avbryt projekt Trosa förbifartAvbryt projekt Trosa förbifart

In the letter to the politicians I tell them to take a look at the project with the eyes from outside perspective. So far they only…

View original post 63 more words

FÖR VEM BYGGS FÖRBIFARTEN? SAVE TROSA NATURE!

An important post from Anna…

Anna's avatarAnnas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

For English version, look below the Swedish text

FÖR VEM BYGGS FÖRBIFARTEN?

Trosa kommun har meddelat att förbifarten ska finansieras genom exploateringsintäkter från västra delarna av Trosa.
I Trafikverkets samrådshandlingar redovisar man trafikflödesberäkningar som indikerar att den största exploateringen kommer att ske söder om Trosa, inte västerut.
Trafikverket beräknar en trafikökning på 129% på Utterviksvägen, vilket indikerar att exploateringen är tänkt att ske på Tureholmshalvön, som uteslutande består av skyddsvärda naturlandskap med höga naturvärden.
Endast en marginell ökning redovisas för Västerljungsvägen i samma beräkningsredovisning.

I samma samrådshandlingar redovisar Trafikverket en karta över tänkta bebyggelseområden invid förbifarten. Dock utelämnar man Ekebonäs, som är föremål för pågående detaljplanering och Gillbergsvik, där också ett förarbete till detaljplanering har inletts av kommunen.
För Ekebonäs lämnar Trosa kommun inte ut några uppgifter om hur många bostäder detaljplanen kommer att rymma. Planförfrågan för Gillbergsvik innehåller 100 tomter och 100-150 båtplatser.

I översiktsplanen 2015 anger man på…

View original post 479 more words

The Four Legendary Kingdoms – Book Review

A review of Matthew Reilly’s latest masterpiece.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my review of Matthew Reilly’s latest thriller. The book is a continuation of the Jack West series, which started with The Seven Ancient Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones and The Five Greatest Warriors.

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A NEW TWIST

Previously in this series we have seen the re-erection of the capstone of the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the rebuilding of a great machine which saved the world from the Dark sun. In the first adventure West and his team faced two sets of foes, a catholic church led group and a US led group. Having been beaten in the first quest, the catholic church played no role in the second, but a new set of foes in the Japanese, determined to end the world, appeared.

Now, eight years on the world faces another threat – a potential collision between the Hydra Galaxy and the Milky Way. The four kingdoms of the title are four shadow kingdoms who rule the world between them, Land, Sea, Sky and The Underworld.

The first stage of the process to save the world from the Hydra Galaxy is the staging of the Great Games of the Hydra, for the fourth time in history (the three previous champions being Osiris, Gilgamesh and Hercules). West is kidnapped so that he has to compete in these games on behalf of the Kingdom of Land.

This means that he faces a series of challenges (along with 15 other competitors) that passed into legend as the Labours of Hercules. It transpires that among the other challengers is Captain Shane Schofield of the US Marines, aka the Scarecrow, whose participation is also not voluntary.

Eventually West and the Scarecrow face each other in a fight to the death (West wins, but Schofield has taken the same drug that Caesar Russell used to cheat death in Area 7…). West then has to take on the younger son of the king of The Underworld plus Mephisto, Fear and Chaos all fighting on behalf of their king’s son. He emerges victorious from this fight, and then faces the final challenge of delivering Cerberus to the king of The Underworld, which he accomplishes by dint of asking permission to so.

He then prevents his own king from receiving hidden wisdom that will make him all-powerful. To save the world and prevent it from being in the grip of a tyranny West mus now find the three hidden cities (there is the title of the next book in this series ready made) and extract their wisdom. I did not see any pointers to the the title starting with two, but I would be fairly confident in reckoning that the last book in the series will be titled The Omega Event.

Given that Scarecrow has put in an appearance in this book what of other Reilly leads? Well I could see roles for William Race and possibly C J Cameron somewhere along the line. Another possibility would be a now grown-up Kirstie Hensleigh (from Ice Station) playing a role somewhere along the line.

This is a fabulous book, which I heartily recommend to everyone.

Before showing some internal illustrations a final speculation: I reckon the Japanese still have a final intervention in them before this series is done. For more on Matthew Reilly’s books check out this post.

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The Trumpocalypse

A post about the outcome of the US Presidential Election.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to what I promise will be my only post about the result of the US Presidential Election.

‘ELECTABILITY’

Right up until the result was confirmed many reckoned that Hillary was guaranteed to win – indeed late last night Jerry over at WEIT was still confident enough to follow his schedule of posts and put up one bearing the title “Hillary Wins!”. Many of those who were so confident of a Hillary win were not especially enamoured of her as a candidate, but reckoned that alternative was so gruesome as to be ‘unelectable’. At approximately 8AM GMT this morning that notion of ‘unelectability’ was consigned to oblivion when it was confirmed that he had been elected.

LINKS AND INFOGRAPHICS

I will start this section with a link to this very detailed break down of voting patterns (I draw particular attention to the breakdown of voting patterns by income – this makes it clear that the poorest people voted for Hillary – the only brackets in which she was ahead were those with incomes of under $30,000 per annum and those in $30-50,000 bracket).

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Some detail on voter breakdown
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A good visual representation of who voted which way, found on twitter.
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Another twitter find.
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This map was produced by http://www.independent.co.uk, and accompanied this article.

Next come some links to longer pieces from various people:

I end this section with this sage advice tendered by Catherine Mayer on twitter, which segues into the next and final section of the post:

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DOING SOME RIGHT THINGS

I will start this section by referring you to the 50:50 Parliament petition on change.org, which I made a point of sharing again today, given some of the things that the new POTUS has had to say about women.

Also in circulation is this petition regarding the education of disabled children.

Next comes this petition against the third runway at Heathrow.

The last petition I am going to link to calls for better protection for victims of domestic violence.

To finish, some good news from the Let Bristol Breathe campaign:

Congratulations!

Following the Let Bristol Breathe campaign and the petition you and over 4000 people signed, Bristol City Council has voted unanimously to support a motion calling for urgent steps towards establishing a Clean Air Zone in Bristol.

Two of Bristol’s MPs and the Mayor have also asked to discuss a Clean Air Zone for Bristol with government ministers.

These are just the first steps, but they are in the right direction.

We’ll stay watching to make sure they stick to their promises. If we need your help again with this campaign, we’ll be in touch.

Meanwhile, give yourself a pat on the back or raise a glass to clean and healthy air!

Thanks again,

Jane, Deb, Steve, Sandy and Clare

SPLC Responds to my Complaint re ‘Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists’

Heather Hastie takes on the SPLC and lands a series of knockout blows…

On 25 October the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a ‘Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists’. The guide includes a list of fifteen people, two of whom have caused a great dea…

Source: SPLC Responds to my Complaint re ‘Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists’