A bit about leafleting for the Green Party and a photo gallery.
There are local elections coming up in May. As a member of the Green Party I am delighted that they have two excellent candidates standing in the centre of my town, officially known as St Margaret and St Nicholas Ward (King’s Lynn Minster was St Margaret’s Church before its promotion to being a Minster, while St Nicholas Chapel is it’s North End counterpart). I am helping with the leafleting – I did some yesterday and plan to do more tomorrow. The northern boundary of the ward is marked by a railway spur only a few minutes walk from my house, which means that my leafleting area is all within easy walking range.
GETTING STARTED
I got an email about upcoming campaigns on Thursday evening, noted that one of them was for Rob Archer, a former railway worker who was only just short of being elected first time round, and emailed him to say that I would be round on Saturday morning. Having established that his home was somewhat closer to the South Gate than to the town centre, and with a stated start time of 10:00 I set off at 9:30, duly arrived at 10, and was entrusted with a pile of leaflets and a map of the northern part of the ward, at which point I set off. I did two streets, Wyatt Street (too old to have been named after Danielle Wyatt, but there could be a connection to former Warwickshire and England skipper Bob Wyatt) and Kettlewell Lane on my way home, then I took a short break, and set forth again, polishing off Archdale Street (another with possible cricket connections – England Women’s first ever skipper Betty Archdale, and Somerset keeper the reverend Archdale Palmer Wickham), Eagle Yard, Eastgate Street and their side of Gaywood Road.
THE LEAFLET
The current leaflet, a double sided A4 sheet in the form of a newsletter (which means it has to be folded to fit through almost all letterboxes) is highly impressive:
PHOTOGRAPHS
Yesterday’s activity contributed to a splendid photo gallery, and this morning’s walk augmented it. These pictures both showcase some of the natural sights that King’s Lynn has to offer, and in some cases further illustrate why more Green councillors are badly needed:
Part of the boundary of the ward.A common enough sight from bus windows in the countryside, but I rarely to get to see a pheasant close enough to get a really good picture of it.The detritus of this botched tree planting exercise near the Gaywood River Path is one example of why we need green councillors.
The final installment in my account of the West Norfolk Autism Group’s trip to Pensthorpe.
Welcome to the final post in my mini-series about the West Norfolk Autism Group‘s visit to Pensthorpe Natural Park (click here and here to visit the other posts in this series).
AN ENJOYABLE AND INFORMATIVE JOURNEY
The journey on the Pensthorpe Explorer was very scenic, and the guide provided excellent commentary. There was stuff about the area’s wildlife and things Pensthorpe do to encourage said wildlife, some local history and an explanation of the significance of the River Wensum which flows through Pensthorpe.
There were a couple of parts of the route that made use of an old railway line (aeons go part of the Midland & Great Northern, colloquially referred to as the Muddle & Go Nowhere – East Anglia was home at one time to a vast number of railway companies, with in addition to this one the five companies who ultimately amalgamated to form the Great Eastern Railway) which added to the interest of the experience.
The Wensum is of special significance because it is a chalk river, of which there only about 200 on the planet (although about 170 of those are right here in the UK, including another significant Norfolk river, The Gaywood). Unfortunately the bunch of clowns who are collectively known as Norfolk County Council are hellbent on building a new road through the Wensum valley which among other things will damage two important bat colonies (we are talking rare species of bat here). Also, as to the notion that building a new road will ease congestion, I give you one letter an two numbers appropriately arranged: M25. There is a campaign group doing their best to prevent this ghastly project from going ahead, and you can view their twitter page and also sign a petition they are running. The biggest problem that Norfolk has is not with its roads, but with the frankly scandalous state of public transport in the county, which causes people to feel compelled to drive, which in turn feeds into the county council’s ‘cars are everything’ agenda. Green Party representation is increasing in Norfolk, which provides grounds for hope that eventually the county council’s make up will change and it will move into the 21st century.
The trip on the Pensthorpe Explorer was a splendid end to a splendid day.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are the pictures from this section of the day:
If you look closely at this oak tree you will see a silver tube protruding from the trunk – this is for Little Owls to nest in.The Pensthorpe Explorer
A look at the T20 World Cup, in which there have been some interesting developments, a gesture of solidarity to the folk of Wisbech, a massive open letter and photographs.
The T20 World Cup in the UAE is developing very interestingly, and this post looks at some of the developments.
ENGLAND DOMINATING THEIR GROUP
England have won all three games they have had so far, and have a huge positive net run rate (+3.694, the biggest in either group). They are in action today against Sri Lanka, and are batting first, which is tricky in the UAE, but as Afghanistan have shown twice this tournament it can be done that way. On Saturday they inflicted a body blow on Australia, winning by eight wickets with exactly 50 balls to spare. South Africa almost came unstuck against Sri Lanka but David Miller rescued them when they needed 15 off the last over to win, and they are well placed to take second spot behind England and with it a semi-final berth.
A 2+ WAY SCRAP FOR SECOND PLACE IN THE OTHER GROUP
Pakistan, with three wins from three, are almost sure to top this group, and they have been mightily impressive. They nearly came unstuck against Afghanistan, but with 24 needed off two overs Asif Ali struck four sixes in the penultimate over, bowled by Karim Janat, to take Pakistan over the line.
Second place in the group just about has three contenders, but the third of them are hanging on by a thread. New Zealand beat India by eight wickets yesterday, with a lot of time to spare, which leaves India winless from two games (they went down by ten wickets against Pakistan in their first game), but with their three theoretically easiest opponents to come. Their net run rate is a disastrous -1.609. NZ have won one game out of two, and the big hurdle for them will be Afghanistan – if they win their remaining games they qualify for sure, but defeat against Afghanistan probably finishes them, since while their net RR is respectable at +0.752, Afghanistan’s is a whopping +3.097, due to the fact that beat Scotland by 130 runs and Namibia by 62 runs. Afghanistan almost certainly qualify if they beat either India or NZ, and even two defeats won’t definitely doom them because if NZ or India come unstuck against one of the minor nations that net RR will come to their rescue. My reading of this group is that NZ are the most likely second place team, Afghanistan second most likely, and India while not out of it are in the last chance saloon with last orders having been called.
BOWLERS MAKING THEIR PRESENCE FELT
There is a good contest brewing between Anrich Nortje (SA) and Haris Rauf (Pakistan) for who can bowl the quickest ball of the tournament – both have been significantly above 150KPH. At the moment Nortje just leads the way on 153.5 KPH (95.5MPH). The next most notable performer among the pacers has been Pakistan left armer Shaheen Shah Afridi who has caused everyone problems.
Afghanistan have two top quality spinners, Rashid Khan (leg spin) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (off spin), and they left Qais Ahmed behind. South Africa have Tabraiz Shamsi (left arm wrist spin), Sri Lanka have leg spinning all rounder Wanindu Hasaranga de Silva who has done the hat trick during this tournament and the young off spinner Maheesh Theekshana. New Zealand have Ish Sodhi (leg spin) and Mitchell Santner (left arm orthodox) who were each allowed to go at less than five an over by India yesterday.
A T20XI FROM BEFORE THE T20 ERA
I am allowing myself one “given man” – a single player in the XI who has actually played T20. I have allowed myself four overseas players, treating this as a franchise type selection. Following these rules this is what I came up with:
G St A Sobers – left handed batter, left arm bowler of every type known to cricket.
Gilbert Jessop – right handed batter, right arm fast bowler.
Frank Woolley – left handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner.
+Les Ames – right handed batter, wicket keeper.
Clem Hill – left handed batter.
*Tony Greig – right handed batter, right arm medium fast bowler, off spinner.
Alan Davidson – left arm fast medium bowler, left handed batter.
Rashid Khan – leg spinner, right handed batter.
Joel Garner – right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter.
Derek Underwood – left arm slow medium bowler, right handed lower order batter.
Alfred Shaw – right arm slow medium bowler, right handed lower order batter.
This XI features a strong batting line up with a good mix of left and right handers (the top seven, who are expected to almost all the scoring feature four left handers – Sobers, Woolley, Hill and Davidson; and three right handers – Jessop (the quickest scorer in the game’s history), Ames (winner of the Lawrence trophy for fastest FC hundred of the season twice in its first three years, sandwiching his Kent team mate Woolley) and Greig. Ames as keeper is top bracket – the “keepers double” of 1,000 FC runs and 100FC dismissals for the season was achieved four times, once by JT Murray of Middlesex and three times by Ames. The bowling has an awesome range of options, with only Ames and Hill not able to contribute in this department.
LINKS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
A few years back we in King’s Lynn fought off plans to plant an incinerator on us. Now, with COP26 just getting under way, another fenland town, Wisbech, is facing the threat of an incinerator. More about this is available here.
Also COP related, there is a massive open letter to presented to the folk at COP26, which you can read and sign here.
Now it is time for my usual sign off…
Tea towel map of Scotland
This is the part of Scotland I have visited most recently (see here for more details)
A look at the London to Glasgow Train vs Plane race organized by Campaign for Better Transport that took place yesterday.
This post is inspired by a contest set up by Campaign for Better Transport. With COP26 taking place in Glasgow the campaign group set up a race from London to Glasgow with one guy using train and one guy going by plane. I will give the details of that contest and then describe how I myself would get to Glasgow from King’s Lynn.
LONDON TO GLASGOW RACE
The train guy had a four stop tube journey to Euston and then a fast train service to Glasgow. The plane guy had to get to Luton Airport, get through airport security and board the plane, and then get a shuttle bus from the airport at the other end to central Glasgow.
The plane guy got to the destination first, by two measly minutes. As against that the train guy had a straightforward, stress free journey, whereas the plane guy did not. The other point is that the plane journey causes seven times the carbon emissions of the train journey. A total gain of two minutes on a journey of that length cannot be worth either the extra stress or the extra pollution, thus although this race did not quite have the result I was hoping for it is enough to say:
>>>
Here for extra evidence is the final tweet from CBT about the race:
They’ve arrived! @Paultuohy on the plane and Norman Baker on the train got to George Square just TWO MINS apart.
Paul *just* beat Norman, but his journey emitted around 7x more carbon emissions.
If I was to travel from King’s Lynn to Glasgow I would do so using two modes of public transport plus of course Shanks’ Pony at each end of the journey. I would walk from my bungalow to King’s Lynn bus station from where I would catch an ExCel bus to Peterborough and would then take the train from Peterborough to Glasgow. The reason for starting the route by bus is that if I use train all the way from King’s Lynn I have to change at Ely, whereas the bus goes direct to Peterborough. From King’s Lynn there is no remotely local airport that would be even vaguely sensible to use – the two nearest, Norwich and Stansted both entail starting one’s journey by travelling in the wrong direction, so even a die-hard plane aficionado would probably be forced to accept that plane is really not an option for this journey.
From my childhood home in south London the best route would be Northern line from Tooting Bec to Stockwell, Victoria line from Stockwell to Euston (the extra speed of the Victoria line justifying the apparently unnecessary change at Stockwell, which also happens to be a cross-platform interchange) and the fast train from Euston to Glasgow.
An account of India v England yesterday, some stuff about the environment, a mathematical teaser and a bumper crop of photos.
Yesterday the third of five T20Is between India and England took place in Ahmedabad. The first part of this post gives an account of proceedings in that match, and then I have a couple of bonus features as well as my usual sign off.
THE PRELIMINARIES
For England Mark Wood was fit again and came back into the side in place of Tom Curran, and that was the only change. For India Rohit Sharma returned to the ranks and Suryakumar Yadav who had not even batted on his debut was benched to make way for him. England won the toss, and with the series 1-1 and both matches won by chasing sides, chose to bowl first, the correct decision (although if he wins the toss tomorrow he should gamble and bat first as there as World T20 Cup coming up in India and England will probably need to win at least one match batting first to lift that trophy).
THE INDIAN INNINGS
England bowled magnificently in the Power Play overs, restricting India to 24-3 from the first six overs of their innings. After 15 overs India were 87-5, but they then had what would prove to be their only good period of the match, plundering 69 off the final five overs of their innings to post 156-6 from their 20 overs. Half of this total came off the bat of Virat Kohli. Mark Wood, at his best, had 3-31 from his four overs, and 16 of those runs were hit off the third, fourth and fifth balls of his final over. Every other bowler contributed to a fine team effort, with Rashid being wicketless but bowling his full four overs for 26 runs.
THE ENGLAND RESPONSE
Roy fell cheaply after successive good scores in the first two matches, but Buttler underlined his status as England’s finest white ball batter, looking in complete command right from the start of his innings. Malan got a start, but on this occasion did not turn it into anything big, though he still managed to contribute to a fifty partnership. Bairstow, a superb white ball batter, joined Buttler, and these two players were still together when the match was won in the 18th of 20 overs, Buttler 83 not out off 54 and Bairstow 40 not out off 26 balls. None of the Indian bowlers looked terribly threatening, and Yuzvendra Chahal, their chosen leg spinner, looked leagues below Adil Rashid. Washington Sundar is an economical off spinner, but what India desperately needed and could not get were wickets. A total of 180 might have been defendable by keeping things as tight as possible, but 156 was never. likely to be defended unless India got wickets, and a lot of them. Buttler, who had also done well with the gloves, was the only conceivable candidate for Player of the Match.
THE REMAINING FIXTURES
Although some people either through mischief or through idiocy were questioning Malan’s place in the England side based on two comparative failures the truth is that there are only two changes at present that would make any real sense, and I would be disinclined to make either while the series remains live: Moeen Ali to replace either Sam Curran or Chris Jordan, giving an extra spin option, and/or Liam Livingstone to replace Stokes as no5 batter and sixth bowling option (he can spin the ball both ways, although he is not a regular bowler).
For India things are more complicated – their top order batting has struggled in this series, with fatally poor starts in the first and third matches and an indifferent one in the second, and the bowling attack as currently constituted is simply not good enough. He did not fare too badly this time, but for me if he is going to be worth his place Hardik Pandya needs to be batting in the top half of the order and being India’s sixth bowler, not their fifth. I do not see how Chahal can retain his place – he is leaking runs consistently and rarely threatens to take wickets. The obvious struggling batter is KL Rahul, with one run in his last four innings (note to Malan bashers – that IS the sort of form on which you can talk about dropping a highly ranked batter.
ENVIRONMENT THOUGHTS
The Green Party candidate in the London Mayoral election, Sian Berry (please, Londoners, do the right things this time and elect her) has proposed the creation of a ‘habitat crime unit’ which would tackle habitat and ecological crimes in the capital. I think this is an excellent idea. You can read full details of it by clicking here.
The London Parklet campaign today tweeted out a superb graphic created by Emma Paxton on redesigning cities to be greener. You can see the tweet by clicking here, and I present a screenshot of the graphic below:
A MATHEMATICAL TEASER
I have not presented one of these for a while, but I enjoyed solving this one this morning:
This was originally set as a multiple choice question, but I am not giving readers that luxury, although you can see it in it’s original setting by clicking here. Solution in my next post.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Now it is time for my usual sign off, including my first blue tit of 2021…
An account of England’s victory over New Zealand in the 4th T20I, some thoughts about General Election 2019 and lots of photographs.
INTRODUCTION
As well as some thoughts on the T20 series in New Zealand I am going to mention the General Election, and my constituency in particular. As usual I have plenty of photographs to share.
ENGLAND ROAR BACK INTO T20 SERIES
In the third match of this five match series England had seemingly been cruising to victory before a collapse in which they lost five wickets for just 10 runs handed the game and with it a 2-1 series lead to New Zealand. Thus in game four in Napier England needed a win to keep the series alive.
England batted first and made a slow start, with only 18 coming from the first four overs. Even when Eoin Morgan joined Dawid Malan in the eighth over the score was not looking that impressive. However Malan and Morgan shared a vicious partnership, Malan reaching a 48 ball century will Morgan outdid him for run rate by monstering 91 off just 40 balls. In among the carnage Ish Sodhi got slapped for 28 in the 17th over of the innings (and was lucky it was not even worse – 26 had come off the first five balls. England finished with their highest ever T20I score of 241-3. New Zealand got away to a flying start in response and were briefly threatening to chase down this imposing total, but Matt Parkinson showed New Zealand just what a real legspinner could do in the conditions. In spite of two chances not going to hand he bagged four wickets in the spell that consigned the Kiwis to defeat. England claimed the final wicket off the penultimate ball of the 17th over with the total at 165, giving them victory by a massive (in this format) 76 runs. I now make England favourites to win the decider – it will not be easy for NZ to recover from this blasting. I suspect that Yorkshire will not be seeing all that much of their new signing Dawid Malan next year as after this he has to be considered an essential part of England’s white ball plans. Parkinson, the young legspinner, has a huge future in (for my money) all formats, and although it would be hard on Leach to be dropped I would consider (especially if he takes more wickets in the final match of this series) picking him as first spinner for the test matches that conclude this tour, or maybe even, unlikely as a such a suggestion seems for a series in New Zealand, going with both specialist spinners. Full scorecard of the game here.
GENERAL ELECTION THOUGHTS
The Tories are lurching from one gaffe to another in this election campaign. Whether it is an empty chair subbing for James Cleverly (the chair certainly fared better than Mr Cleverly would have done), Johnson’s launch taking place in a near empty room or a succession of candidates standing down for various reasons they have been having a shocker. The long standing Tory MP for Northwest Norfolk, Sir Henry Bellingham, is one of those not standing for re-election. I think this is good news for Jo Rust, the Labour candidate, for two reasons. Firstly Sir Henry undoubtedly garnered some votes that were for him personally and not for his party as such. Secondly, and more important, the Brexit Party, who may well have stood aside for Sir Henry will now undoubtedly contest the seat, further cutting into the Tory vote. Overarching these two factors is that rather than being a seat with a Tory incumbent it is now a vacant seat. If you are in Northwest Norfolk and want a non-Tory MP voting for Jo Rust on December 12th is your chance, and it is a better one than in some considerable time. A couple of links to end this section, both from Tax Research UK:
Some thoughts on the recently concluded India – South Africa test series, some stuff about the environment and climate change and some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
This post looks at the just concluded test series between India and South Africa, and also features a couple of other things plus some photographs.
AN APPROPRIATEÂ END TO AN EXTRAORDINARILY ONE SIDED SERIES
India had already settled the series by winning huge victories in the first two games, but they did not rest on their laurels. A batting performance led by Rohit Sharma (212) and Ajinkya Rahane (115) saw India rack up 497-9 declared over most of the first two days. In the last stages of day 2 they captured two cheap South African wickets. Day 3 was the day the match was settled – South Africa were rolled for 162 in their first innings and then by the close were eight down in the second with stubborn opener Dean Elgar injured and unlikely to resume his innings. The final wicket fell at the start of day 4, with Elgar as suspected not resuming his innings. The second South African innings mustered a mere 133, making the final margin a whopping innings and 202 runs.
India are traditionally hard to beat at home, but there were two factors about this series that should be seriously concerning for the rest of the cricket world:
Historically, although they have had some great opening batters down the years India have not had many great opening pairs – their main batting strength has always been in the middle of the order, and they have tended to struggle against quick bowling. In this series a key feature of their success was that Rohit Sharma and Mayant Agarwalboth had excellent series at the top of the order, with Rohit producing a string of scores that Bradman in his pomp would have been proud of.
India’s successes have historically been dependent on spin bowlers taking wickets, with genuine pace bowlers few and far between. In this series, even with Jasprit Bumrahunavailable due to injury it has been the quicker bowlers who have done the most damage.
In short not only have India made South Africa look very ordinary indeed, they have also shown massive strength in what have been historically their two greatest problem areas – fast bowling and top order batting.On fast bowling the following graphic from cricviz analyst further emphasises the point:
The good average recorded by Ireland’s pace bowlers was of course assisted by one of England’s most ignominious recent batting collapses (85 all out at Lord’s).
The other two matches don’t read much if any better for South Africa than this one – the first match saw India score 502-7 declared and 322-4 declared while SA managed 431 and 191, to go down by 202 runs, while the second saw India tally 601-5 declared against 276 and 189 by their opponents, for a margin of an innings and 136 runs. India in this series have thus tallied 1922-25 for an average of 76.88 runs per wicket, while South Africa have scored 1382-59, for an average of 23.42 per wicket. At the back end of 2019 India soundly beat Australia in Australia, while this summer England were more than a little fortunate to emerge from a home series against Australia with a 2-2 scoreline. The series just concluded shows that India are now even better than they were a year ago. Can England with what looks like a sensible test squad manage an impressive series in New Zealand?
For more detail about the recently concluded India – South Africa series start by clicking here.
ON THE ENVIRONMENT
I have a number of things on this important issue to share with you. I start by drawing your attention to Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK on the subject of Sustainable Cost Accounting:
Here is a map showing what The British Isles could look like in the year 2100 if we do nothing:
I end this section with a note about the London Mayoral Elections. The incumbent Sadiq Khan is failing to help himself, the Tory vote will be split between the official Tory candidate Shaun Bailey and the nominally Independent but actually thorough-going Tory Rory Stewart, which all leaves Green candidate Sian Berry (3rd place in 2016) in with a very good chance of winning the election. I have already indicated that if I had a vote then under the system used for these elections my first preference would go to Sian Berry, and my second to Sadiq Khan as an insurance policy against either Tory getting in and my message to any one who is reading this and does have a vote is to do likewise – let’s get London a Green mayor.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
Three shots of a swan taken in pitch blackness on my way home from an evening event at the library.
Cars parked on the PAVEMENT on the approach to the clinical psychology unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital – ugh (note that this necessitates pedestrians walking in the road, and that a wheelchair user would have to be in the road all the way as there no way back on to the pavement after one has passed these cars if one cannot mount a step.
A water vole peering out of its hole in a King’s Lynn riverbank to see if the coast is clear (nb I was on a footbridge crossing the river, would not set foot on that bit of riverbank even id I did not know od the existence if this hole).
Predictions at the half way stage of todays Royal London Cup matches, some links and plenty of my photographs.
INTRODUCTION
There are four matches taking place in the Royal London Cup today, which means that even if all of my predictions turn out incorrect I will still have more right than wrong at the end of it, as I am currently on 12 out of 19.
THE ROYAL LONDON CUP TODAY
This is what is happening so far…
Surrey v Essex – Surrey 278-8 50 overs At 220-3 in the 42nd over Surrey would have been entertaining hopes of getting close to 300. At 241-8 Essex would have been hoping to restrict Surrey to no more than 260. In the end the difference was almost exactly split, thanks to some late hitting from Jason Roy who had suffered a back spasm earlier in the day. Ben Foakes top scored for Surrey with 82. Sam Cook took 3-37 from eight overs, Dan Lawrence bowled his full allocation of 10 and took 2-52 – Surrey will be hoping for something similar from their nearest equjivalent, Will Jacks. I predict that Surrey will defend this total.
Hampshire v Middlesex – Hampshire 301-9 from 50 overs Until the last over Middlesex were faring quite well in this one, buit topping 300 is big psychological boost for Hampshire, albeit that 300 is not the mountainous total it once was in this form of the game. A South African, Aidan Markram, top scored with 88 and a renegade South African, Rilee Rossouw made 64. Tom Helm, right-arm medium fast took five wickets but was made to pay for them (71 in nine overs). I expect Hampshire, with their bowling spearheaded by another renegade South African, Kyle Abbott, to defend this one.
Gloucestershire v Kent– Kent 282-8 from 50 overs
The early stages of the Kent innings saw Zak Crawley make 85 and Joe Denly56. At the end Harare born wicketkeeper Adam Rouse hit 45 not out off 28 balls to boost the total. Benny Howell took 2-39 from his 10 overs, 28 year old right-arm fast medium bowler David Payne had 2-45 and slow left-armer Tom Smith had 2-47 from seven overs. I expect Gloucestershire to chase these down – Kent look to me like they are a trifle short of bowling options (they will almost certainly need Denly to bowl his full ten overs).
Thus my predictions, with varying degrees of confidence, are: Surrey, Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire.
PHYSIO SESSION AT TAPPING HOUSE
Today I attended my second full physio session at The Norfolk Hospice, Tapping House. The exercises I did today as part of my recovery from cancer include a stair exercise, an arm exercise involving weights, three minutes on the treadmill, a set of arm exercises involving a punching action and three minutes on the bicycle simulator (I was particularly pleased with this one, since I managed to average 26kph, or approx 16mph over the three minutes). While there I also augmented my photo collection:
LINKS AND PICTURES
First three related pieces. Richard Murphy has added two more to his Taxes To Save the Environment (Taste):
There is also a piece on devonlive, which I was found by way of twitter headlined “Shock and anger as entire Devon woodland is chopped down“. The piece makes clear that not only had planning permission for this atrocity not been granted, the arrogant and unscrupulous developer had not even bothered to seek it. My own opinion is this developer should be punished by both a hefty fine upfront and by being made to replant the woodland at his own expense. My hope would be the combined expense of these two would put him in serious financial difficulties to teach him a lesson.
Now for my usual sign off…
I think the tiny bird featured in this picture and the next is a house sparrow – but I have not yet got a picture of it from a really good angle so I cannot be absolutely certain.
A look at my predictions in yesterday’s Royal London Cup matches, some important links and some of my photographs.
INTRODUCTION
In yesterday’s post I ventured predictions on the outcomes of the five Royal London Cup matches that had reached their half way stage at the time I was posting. Today, with the next Royal London Cup fixtures taking place tomorrow I am going to use the main body of this post to reveal the actual outcomes of yesterday’s matches.
PREDICTION VERSUS FACT – HOW I DID
Some people (especially fans of whyevolutionsistrue) will recognize that this section heading is a riff on the title of Jerry Coyne’s second popular bestseller, Faith Versus Fact. I will start with the two matches I called incorrectly:
Gloucestershire v Surrey – Gloucestershire 235, Surrey 88, Gloucestershire won by 147 runs An unconscionable collapse by Surrey. The two bowlers who did the principal damage, slow left-armer Tom Smith with 3-7 and medium pacer Chris Liddlewith 3-17 do not have overall records that suggest them to be destroyers, so it is hard to understand how Surrey who appeared to have done the hard work by restricting their oppponents to 235 could make such an almighty hash of their own of batting.
Essex v Glamorgan – Essex 326-7, Glamorgan 146, Essex won by 180 runs I made my prediction for this one based on the ridiculous scoring that had happened during the championship game at Cardiff a few days earlier. Unfortunately, having demonstrated in that one that they cannot bowl or catch, Glamorgan this time showed that they cannot handle pressure, with only a late 36 from Marchant de Lange reducing the margin to under 200 runs (he came in at 82-7). Siddle and Bopara did good work with the ball for Essex.
Now for the ones I called correctly:
Durham v Northamptonshire – Durham 342-5, Northamptonshire 270 A comfortable enough win, although one of the less one-sided results of the day. Jason Holder (86) and Alex Wakely (66)_batted fairly well, but no one else did. For Durham 20 year old medium pacer Matty Potts took 4-62, 26 year old medium-fast bowler Matt Salisbury 3-51 and 19 year old slow left armer Liam Trevaskis partially redeemed himself for his blob with 2-65.Â
Yorkshire v Leicestershire– Yorkshire 379-7, Leciestershire 166 An obvious call, but not even I was expecting the final result to be this much of a thrashing. Four of Leciestershire’s batters got into the twenties, but the highest score for them was Cosgrove‘s 42. South African born fast bowler Matt Pillans took 5-29, England left-arm medium pacer David Willey had 2-26 and legspinner Josh Poysdentook 2-26 to outshine England man Adil Rashid who went wicketless.
Lancashire v Worcestershire – Worcestershire 367, Lancashire 242 Even more one-sided than the final margin suggests, given that Lancashire were 191-8 at one point – a tail wag from Steven Croft(32 not out), Jimmy Anderson (4) and Matthew Parkinson (10) assisted them. The real batters failed to provide a single really major innings between them – five of the top six got into the twenties, but the top score was a mere 54, from (I hope) ex-England man Keaton Jennings. The wickets were widely shared around, with no one having outstanding bowling figures.
That leaves the match that I did not call as it was too early, which was:
Kent v Hampshire – Hampshire 310-9, Kent 220 While saying it was too early to attempt to call this one I also said that if Hampshire could get up around the 300 mark I would make them favourites, while if Kent held them to about 250 I would make them favourites. The first scenario happened, and Hampshire duly won, but there is no way be sure (especially given that every side that batted first won on the day, and that batting first tends to be even more advantageous when floodlights come into play) that Kent would have been successful chasing the lower total. Therefore I do not claim this as a correct call but also do not accept it as a wrong call – I said it was too early to call, and I hold to that. For Hampshire Sam Northeast (ex of Kent) scored 105 not out, while List A debutant Matt Milnes took 5-79 for Kent. For Kent Zak Crawley top scored with 49, while the margin was reduced to double figures rather than treble by the lower-order efforts of Stevens (30), Podmore (40) and Milnes (26). Chris Wood, Kyle Abbott and bits ‘n’pieces manLiam Dawson each took two wickets.
Thus I was right with three predictions out of five. These results demosntrate the danger of formulaic thinking – many one-day captains on winning the toss put their opponents in without even thinking about it, but every single team who batted first on this day ended up victorious.
LINKS AND PICTURES
First, a teaser from brilliant, although I make it more difficult than they did by removing the multi-choice element:
To lead into my usual sign off we have a selection of closely related pieces, starting with two from Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK.Â
I do not often link to Newspaper front pages, but this from the Mirror, which I saw by way of twitter (which I have formatted as a link so that you can read the article) had to be included.
Finally, for those of my readers who are UK Citizens there is a petition about this issue on the official government petitions site, which I urge you to join me in signing and sharing – screenshot/link below:
Now for today’s photographs:
A preview of my birthday present – on display in the shop. It has a terabyte of storage.
Good to see a polinator at work.
This creature appears to be missing a leg – I see only seven and it sjurely have eight.
Solutions to my last two maths problems, some sciencey pieces, a petition and some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
This post includes solutions to the problems I posed on Saturday, and a few other things from various sources.Â
SPACE STATION DODECAHEDRON
Here is the question as a reminder:
Here is the answer:
Here is a splendidly concise solution from David Vreken:
A VARIARION ON THE MALFATTI THEME
Here is the question:
Here is the answer:
In the 19th century Malfatti conjectured that the way to maximise the area of a triangle you could fill with three circles was to fill in the three largest circles that touch specifically two of the three sides. Although he was not alive to be humiliated it turned out that he was not merely wrong, his proposed solution has been proved not to work for a single triangle. The solution that always works is first put in the largest single circle that touches all three sides that you can, then fill in the largest circle you can in the remaining space and then do so again. In an equilateral triangle the difference is small, but in a long thin isosceles triangle it is quite substantial.Â
Here is Jeremy Galvagni’s published solution:
SCHOOL REFUSAL SYNDROME PETITION
This on the official site for petitions to the UK government, which means that you have be a UK citizen to sign it. Please click the screenshot below to sign and share it if so minded:
David Quammen, a good writer and a useful scientist to know about if you are planning an A to Z post, has a new book out on the subject of evolution, and Jerry Coyne of whyevolutionistrue has provided a very detailed review of it.
Finally, a letter to the Guardian signed by 60 well known environmental campaigners declaring their unwillingness to debate with climate change deniers, and why they are unwilling to do so. Below is the opening to the letter (please click to visit the original) and a list of signatories:
aspiblog 