A walk, some dreadful weather and a double-booking. Also some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
Musical Keys run regular sessions for NAS West Norfolk, and I attend these sessions both as a participant and in my role as branch secretary of NAS West Norfolk. Today should have been a Musical Keys day, and after lunch I set off on an afternoon walk with the Scout Hut in Gaywood as my envisaged final destination.
A LITERAL DAMPENING
Although I was ultimately aiming for Gaywood I decided to lengthen the walk by going along the river bank as far as my regular cormorant observation point and then returning to the route to Gaywood by way of Seven Sisters and the Red Mount Chapel. Unfortunately I was near the end of the riverside stretch when the rain started coming down in stair rods, and it stayed raining all the way to Gaywood. Although Gaywood Library is small there are sometimes good books to be found there, and I did find some today.
A METAPHORICAL DAMPENING
While in Gaywood Library I logged into a computer, and it was there that I saw a facebook post telling me that Musical Keys had been cancelled due to a double booking. As I was still not fully dried out from the walk to Gaywood I was more than usually annoyed by this.
A POSSIBLE CHANGE OF LOCATION
This is not the first time we have had problems of this nature with this venue, so it is natural to be considering new venues. The British Red Cross have a suitable room in thier building at Austin Fields which is close to the centre of King’s Lynn. It is true that the principal approach from outside King’s Lynn, Edward Benefer Way/ John Kennedy Road, is prone to traffic jams, but I think the good outweighs the bad in terms of this venue.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Even in the poor weather I experienced I was able to get a few decent photographs:
This was taken in Fakenham yesterday – this window ledge is immediately outside my work area at James and Sons and these doves have been using it for a few days now.
Two flying cormorants ine one shot – a first for me.My second edit of that same picture, focussing on the nearer of the two cormorants.
A puzzle based on a blog post, a solution to an old puzzle, another puzzle from brilliant and some photographs
INTRODUCTION
Earlier today I put up a post titled “About Autism“, and because that post contained so much stuff this post is going to be much smaller – and with only a few links, all in one way or another puzzle connected.
DERIVING A PUZZLE FROM A BLOG POST
Esterput up a post titled “Year 1729“, which featured the image below:
The puzzle I am attaching to this is: which two famous mathematicians are linked by the number 1,729 and how did that link come about?
Some nature themed links and some of my own photographs. Snakes, butterflies and slugs feature prominently in this post, hence its title.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to this nature themed post on aspi.blog. The title is formed from the initial letters of snakes, butterflies and slugs, all of which feature prominently.
SOME SWEDISH STUFF
Of course when posting about nature and mentioning Sweden, Annais going to feature prominently, but also featured here is the work of two Swedish photographers, Ingrid Benson who specialises in butterflies and John Jonasson who photographs reptiles.
A SERIES OF BUTTERFLY POSTS
Some of you may remember that I reblogged a post from fargaregardsanna about butterflies in and around Trosa that was marked as the first of a series. Well that series now runs to six posts, four posts based on the work of Ingrid Benson and two more featuring some of Anna’s own photographs. I now provide links to all of them:
Anna put up a post titled “Snake day” featuring some pictures of snakes near where she lives… …at the end of it she included a link to the site run by John Jonasson and featuring pictures and information about snakes.
The first four of the six butterfly pics that open this set of photos were taken yesterday.
This was taken today, and I thought even at the time that it was out of focus, but luckily…I then got this.
This was floating along the Gaywood river too rapidly for its progress to be down to the flow of the river (which is sluggish).The slugs (three pics) – today is warm and just a bit damp – and the slugs love it that way.
Two swimming cormorants in one shot – a first for me.This cormorant went into a dive as I was clicking the shutter……but then came up again not much later.
Some recent internet finds and some of my own photographs.
INTRODUCTION
This post features links to some recent internet finds and some of my own photographs.
SOME SCIENCE AND NATURE LINKS
I start with a piece from mongabay which argues that “The Sixth Great Extinction” is actually “The First Biotacide“. Below is a picture from this article:
My next piece comes from Vox Political, who got direct from the person whose story it is, Paula Peters. The title of the piece “Bus driver subjects disability activist to humiliating discrimination” gives you a good idea of the nature of the story. British law on this matter is unequivocal – the bus driver is legally obliged to give wheelchair users priority over mothers with buggies (this courtesy of a court ruling in January). Given the completeness of the information Paula provides, the bus company in question have only one option open to them both legally and morally – they must sack the offending driver and must make sure that all their drivers are aware of their responsibilities to disabled passengers.
I started this post with a couple of science and nature related links, and now as we approach my photographs we are finishing where we started with stuff about nature, first of all Cindy Knoke with a wonderful post about a castle that has been dedicated to raptors, titled “Castle Rapture“.
With the last word before my photographs is Anna, who has recently posted part 13 of her amazing Paradise on Earth series, this time focussing on some of the smaller creatures who live in and around Trosa.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I will start this set of photographs with some of the smaller creatures I have recently captured, before finishing with some general pictures. These pictures were all taken yesterday.
Some stuff I have seen recently on the internet, a little teaser of a problem and some photographs from today’s ‘ecotherapy’ session.
INTRODUCTION
I spent most of this morning indulging in ‘ecotherapy’ (i.e. getting out and about in the open air – my thanks to The Gentlemanfor the term), which also provide me with photographs which will end this post. In between times I will share various pieces that have caught my eye recently.
NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
I start this section with a petition that has been set up on thepetitionsite calling for Michael Gove to be replaced as Defra minister (see graphic below, which also functions as a link):
GOVE is bad for the environment. Demand new Defra Minister!
It is pretty much impossible for any replacement to be worse than the Downright Dishonourable Mr Gove, although while this dreadful government remains in office the right person for the job will not be selected. In the hope that Jeremy Corbyn, or someone who can influence him might see this I say, as I did when naming my fantasy cabinet a while back that the right person for this role is Caroline Lucas.
SOLAR POWER IN AUSTRALIA
It makes perfect sense for Australia to be looking at solar power in a big way, just as here in Norfolk we should take advantage of our biggest renewable resource by building many more wind turbines. I am therefore delighted to share this story from the treehugger website titled “Australia will be home to world’s largest single-tower solar thermal power plant“, the feature graphic from which I produce below:
THE DEATH OF THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE
This is the title of a piece in The Economist. After 120 years of dominating the scene the internal combustion engine’s days are numbered, and the end for this pollution generating monstrosity cannot come soon enough. I include their feature graphic below.
A PLAN TO REVIVE AN EXTINCT SPECIES
This one comes from thewildlifeplanet.com and the species that may be being brought back from extinction is the Caspiantiger. The plan involves using DNA from the Siberian tiger, a rare but surviving species that is closely related to the Caspian tiger. A potential living area for the revived species has been identified in Kazakhstan. The map below shows the areas reckoned to have been inhabited by the common ancestor of these tiger species when it was around 10,000 years ago.
ANNA’S CHURCH
I end this section of the post with a nod to Anna and the brief post she put up yesterdya about her continuing fight to protect nature under the title “I went to my church“, one picture from which I reproduce below. PUBLIC TRANSPORT
I am going to present these links as a bulleted list, amplifying some of them a little:
Our government has recently reneged on promised rail electrification programs in Wales and in northern England (yes, largely due to privatisation and consequent neglect our railways are so backward that not all of them have yet been electrified, some services still being run by diesel locomotives). Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has put up a short post outlining how these electrifications could be funded.
The last piece in this section come from the skwawkbox. The first features a video from Double Down News which referring back to an incident from last year is utterly devastating for Virgin Trains, as it shows conclusively that Jeremy Corbyn was telling the truth when he described that train as ‘ram-packed’ and Virgin’s subseqnet denials, including one from the boss, Richard Branson, were lies. The most devastating footage comes about halfway through the video, which is embedded below, and shows the reserved seats filling (as one might expect) moments after Corbyn had walked past them. The skwawkbox piece is titled “DOUBLE DOWN VIDEO SCOOP PROVES WHAT WE TOLD YOU LAST YEAR: #TRAINGATE WAS FULL“.
ELECTORAL REFORM
Britain’s First Past the Post (FPTP) system of electing representatives has had its day. Those who support this system claim that it delivers stable majority governments, but it has failed to do this three times running (no majority in 2010, wafer-thin majority for Cameron in 2015, May running a minority government with the support of the vile DUP in 2017. I have three recent pieces dealing with this topic for your attention.
As well as the voting system needing reform, the results in Northern Ireland showed that it is time for the Labour Party to abandon its pact with the SDLP and field candidates of its own – the recent Stormont election successes of Gerry Carroll and Eamonn McCann have demonstrated that non-sectarian socialists standing as such can win in Northern Ireland.
A PROBLEM AND SOME PHOTOGRAPHS
I generally finish my posts by putting up some of my own photographs. Before getting to those I have a teaser for you:
The above table shows two putative sets of coin toss records, each for one coin tossed thirty times. Which is more like to be genuine based on what you can see?
a) series one
b) series two
If you want to have a public stab at answering this feel free to use the comments, although I will say neither yea nor nay until I put my next post up, which will include an answer to this little teaser.
Now for those photographs…
The junior duck in this picture is just developing her adult feathers, but continues to be chaperoned by her mother.
An eyewitness statement regarding a fire that I regard as highly likely to have been the result of arson, although accident is a possibility.
INTRODUCTION
I am putting this post up as a witness statement regarding an incident that happened somewhere in the region of one hour ago.
THE STORY
I went out for a walk, to take some photos and do some thinking. I set out across the upper Purfleet, on to King Street and thence via the Tuesday Market Place and St Nicholas Chapel to the start of the footpath that runs alongside Bawsey Drain as far as Lynnsport. My initial plan was to cross a bridge that leads into a field, head via Kettlewell Lane to the train station, then through the parkland to Seven Sisters, down past the South Gate and across the Nar to hit the Great Ouse by way of Harding’s Pits and thence back into town along the river. However, I was approaching this bridge when I saw white smoke rising from the field on the other side of the river. A cyclist approaching the bridge from that side was there before me and phoned the fire brigade, who sent people out to deal with it. When the fire engines arrived a few moments later I waited on the bridge while the cyclist went to meet them and guide them to the spot.
The fire was only a small one, though very close to the bridge and to the footpath leading away from the bridge, and fortunately had not yet spread, although the smoke had noticeably thickened by the time the fire brigade got there. They were able to deal with it quickly and easily, and apart from a small blackened patch of burned vegetation there was no lasting damage.
POSSIBLE CAUSES OF THIS FIRE
Sadly Bawsey Drain is treated as an all-purpose dumping ground by those who live alongside it, so there are two possible causes, both human in origin, given in order of where my personal suspicions based on observation lie:
1)Arson – a fire started deliberately by some person or persons who neither thought nor cared about the possible consequences of their actions.
2)Accidental but very stupid and selfish human action (e.g someone tossing a cigarette that they imagined to be out but was not onto the vegetation, thereby starting the fire).
SOME PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE FIRE
As well as this written account I have some pictures:
The first two images sbhow how close to the bridge and footpath the fire was, the third and fourth, courtesy of a telescopic zoom lens focus more closely on the fire.
FOOTNOTE: SPECIES IN THIS AREA
Although I only edited those photos between the first and last fire shot, I captured two of the butterfly species that along with various birds live in this area regularly. I have also seen rabbits, hares and small deer in that location on previous occasions. This fire potentially endangered all these as well as the plants it had already started to burn. Here are some Butterfly pics from that area, taken today, to end with:
These last two pictures were taken while waiting for the fire brigade to arrive, while I was on the bridge.
A personal account of NAS West Norfolk’s 10th anniversary celebration garden party.
INTRODUCTION
Yesterday saw the celebration of NAS West Norfolk’s tenth anniversary. We had a garden party in a quite magnificent garden in Castle Acre which we had been very generously allowed to use for the occasion. Here as a reminder is the poster we used to advertise the event:
MY ROLE IN THE CELEBRATIONS
As branch secretary of NAS West Norfolk I was involved in running the event – I helped to set things up at the start and with the clear up at the end. As an autistic person I was also delighted to take part in the event in between times.
THE GARDENS
These gardens are truly amazing – this is where the original fortified village that adjoins the castle was located, and at one point there is a steeply sloped bank that leads down to a section of the old town moat. There are some amazing plants and grasses in these gardens, some excellent garden sculptures, a pond with ducks of various breeds and dragonflies around it, many fowl which run free and a swimming pool the excellence of which I can personally vouch for having spent an hour there. Near the pond is a summerhouse which was our designated Quiet Area (an absolute necessity at events for autistic people, or if you want autistic people being comfortable attending your event). There was also a house that was open to the public in which cakes (some baked by our wonderful hosts and some by members of our group), raffle prizes and such were set up.
The hosts had provided a few games for us, and one of our members brought along a swingball set as well.
THE DAY
Once the set up had been accomplished there was plenty of time to enjoy the day, and it went excellently. For me the magnificent setting was one half of a superb equation, the other being autistic people enjoying themselves without worrying what anyone else was thinking because everyone present had some sort of connection to autism, and therefore some degree of understanding. Everyone present was at least at the ‘Understanding’ stage of the Awareness-Understanding-Acceptance-Appreciation line. I was regularly taking photographs except for the hour I spent in the swimming pool and we had a photographer from Your Local Paper present as well. The raffle prizes were presented by the Mayor of King’s Lynn.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are my photographs from the day…
The bank leading down to a section of the old town moat – an entangled bank worthy of the closing words of On The Origin of Species.
The only one of many beautiful butterflies that I was able to capture.
Half of this brickwork Tudor Rose has disappeared.
A watering can sculpture (it is huge – one could not actually use iut.I saw this bird early on, but it kept itself to itself later in the day.
Wire sheep near the pond
What used to be the dovecote – the brick nesting boxes are still in place.
The pond.
The designated Quiet Area.Inside the summerhouse we assembled the Dark Den – the framework is a little like Quadro except with that the plastic tubes have a smaller diameter. Initially we had failed to notice that the tubes have to go through the tenting, so we took longer to get this assembled than we should.An interior shot – once I pulled the second door flap at the back into place and someone else had added a blanket to soften the base it was ready for use.This was in the summehouse.
The swingball set in use.The swimming pool.
wire ducks – there were also wire sheep near the pool.
This post will be every bit as varied as its title suggests, featuring a mix of politics, mathematics, music, nature and photography (and possibly more).
SOME MATHS RELATED STUFF
I start with one of more recent followers, RobertLovesPi, and I have several pieces of his to share:
I start with the first piece of his that I read, which is titled “The 15-75-90 Triangle” – a graphic is reproduced below:
If the illusion defeats you, you can find out where the circles are by going to the original post.
I finish this little section with a nod to the mathematical website Brilliant, which I am a regular visitor to (I am currently on a 64 day problem solving streak). As a sample here is a problem I solved today, rated at maximum difficulty by the site, pretty close to minimum by me:
You can look at solutions to this problem on the website, and I will reveal the answer on this blog tomorrow.
My second link is to the petitionsite, regarding a young women in El Salvador who having been raped and then had a miscarriage has then been jailed for 30 years due to the Catholic church influence anti-abortion laws of that country. The screenshot below is formatted as a link to take you to this petition to sign and if possible share it:
I finish this section on a lighter note, courtesy of whyevolutionistrue. This little piece titled “Where is North Korea? Some Americans have no idea” reminds us how unacquainted USians are with that area known as the rest of the world! Here is a screenshot of the opening paragraph:
PHOTOGRAPHS
I usually end my blog posts with some of my own photographs, but this photograph section has an additional feature – as a nod to the principal subjects of many of the photos that follow I offer you a musica prelude – Ottorino Respighi’s “The Birds”:
I did not notice the white bird on the far side of the river until I was editing this one – I think from the shape and colour that is a Little Egret but the image is not clear enough to be sure.
This squirrel is clearly an impressionist – and his meerkat is very good!
A post for the #Inglorious12th, featuring the right kind of bird shooting – that done with a camera.
INTRODUCTION
Today is August 12th, which is for well-heeled British hooligans the start of the grouse shooting season, known to them as “The Glorious 12th”. For folk like me, who view those who derive pleasure from taking pot shots at birds with utter contempt it is therefore the #Inglorious12th.
SHOOTING BIRDS THOMAS STYLE
I choose to mark today by posting pictures of birds shot the only acceptable way – with a camera. Most of these are from this morning, but I am also including some older pics.
The Little Egret that featured a couple of weeks back.A magpie on the path alongside the Great OuseI was at the racecourse before my colleague arrived with a key, and this wagtail caught my eye while I was waiting.
The first of the new pictures – this and the final cormorant pic are in their correct positions, but some of the rest of the cormorant series are out of order.
I finish with this Jay – two live photographs and the relevant page from my bird book.The close-up shot.
A post largely devoted to nature, featuring links to Anna’s “Paradise on Earth” series of posts, a couple of infographics, a petition and some my own nature pics.
INTRODUCTION
This is the first of several posts I will be putting up today. I will start by bringing you up to date with Anna’s magnificent “Paradise on Earth” series which now runs to 12 posts, then I have a couple of twitter images to share with you, and at the end I will include some of my own photographs.
PARADISE ON EARTH
I covered the first three posts in this series in The Fight To Save Trosa Nature, reblogged part 4 in full here, and then put up another postfeaturing parts 4 and 5. Since then Anna has continued to showcase the Tureholm Peninsula’s wildlife as follows:
Part 6 – continuing to feature birds. I include the Mistle thrush picture below as a sample:
Part 7– another post about birds, including this crane:
Part 8– focusses on slugs and snails, including the beauty below:
Part 9– A more general pieces showing a wide range of local animals, including the moose pictured below:
Part 10– focusses on the butterflies that live in the area, including the rare Apollo butterfly shown below:
Part 11 – A few more butterflies, including the one below:
Part 12 – focusses on water creatures, including the stickleback below:
INFOGRAPHIC 1: ICE-FREE ARCTIC?
This is by way of a warning of what our species is doing to this planet, and since it concerns the Arctic it follows on naturally from the stuff about the Tureholm Peninsula:
INFOGRAPHIC 2: ON SPECIES
This one shows an illogicality in our classification of species by showing side by side three species of cat that share 95.7 of their DNA, and are therefore quite correctly considered members of the felidae and two species that share over 98% of their DNA but are classed as members of different genera. The reason the second pair of species are classed as more widely split than the first trio has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with religion (and Carolus Linnaeus, also known as Carl Von Linne, the pioneer of our system of classification admitted as much in the 18th century btw):
A PETITION REGARDING UK ZOOS
UK Zoos are still treating their animals badly, and there is now a petition on thepetitionsite calling on DEFRA to crack down on misery in UK Zoos. As one who cannot remmeber when I last visited a UK zoo (the last zoos I visited anywhere were those in Melbourne and Adelaide, both of which treat their animals well and give them space to move, in 2009-10) I urge you to sign this petitionand help increase the pressure being applied.
SOME OF MY OWN PHOTOGRAPHS
I finish this post with some of my own recently taken photographs:
This grasshopper being on the path frather than in the grass made it easier to spot and photograph.
Steller’s Sea Cow holds the the world record for rapidity of extinction. Illustration from “Extinct monsters,” London: Chapman & Hall, 1896. Photo via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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