Midweek Mixture

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 Gentleman for 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 Caspian tiger. 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 title of my next piece, from Buzzfeed, should be sufficient: “People Who Use Wheelchairs Are Being Forced To Crawl On To Trains And It’s 2017“
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.

Setting the scene for the other two a post on theconversation.com titled “Wasted votes, hyper-marginals and disillusion: reform group issues damning report on election 2017“
The Electoral Reform Society’s introduction to their full report titled “June’s election was the third strike for Westminster’s voting system. It’s out” and…
The full report itself, titled “The 2017 General Election: Volatile Voting, Random Results“.

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…

Mother and child — The junior duck in this picture is just developing her adult feathers, but continues to be chaperoned by her mother.

Witness Statement Re Fire At Bawsey Drain

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:

Fire4 — 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:

TB4 — These last two pictures were taken while waiting for the fire brigade to arrive, while I was on the bridge.

NAS West Norfolk 10th Anniversary Celebrations

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…

Moat — 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.

Butterfly — The only one of many beautiful butterflies that I was able to capture.

decorative brickwork2 — Half of this brickwork Tudor Rose has disappeared.

Watering can — A watering can sculpture (it is huge – one could not actually use iut.

big bird2 — I saw this bird early on, but it kept itself to itself later in the day.

Dovecote — What used to be the dovecote – the brick nesting boxes are still in place.

summerhouse — The designated Quiet Area.

Dark den — 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.

Dark den interior1 — 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.

wire ducks2 — wire ducks – there were also wire sheep near the pool.

Monday Miscellany

A mixed bag of an offering this Monday afternoon!

INTRODUCTION

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:
Next comes “The 43rd Stellation of the Snub Dodecahedron, and Related Polyhedra, Part One“, the first part of a series the whole of which I heartily recommend. It features some very impressive graphics, one of which I reproduce below:
My third offering from this excellent blog is a short story “The T-Shirt from the Future” – here is the picture of the T-shirt:

My next piece, courtesy of whyevolutionistrue is titled “The Coffer Illusion“, which concerns the picture 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.

A FEW POLITICAL PIECES

There has been a lot of coverage from various people of events in Charlottesville. I choose to draw your attention to Richard Murphy’s excellent piece on Tax Research UK, titled “Charlottesville is a cradle of extremism: we should take note“. Below is a screenshot of the first few paragraphs:

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:
Screenshot 2017-08-14 at 3.39.40 PM

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”:

Cormorant — 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.

Squirrel does Meerkat impression — This squirrel is clearly an impressionist – and his meerkat is very good!

Bird Pics on the #Inglorious12th

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.

Little Egret 1 — The Little Egret that featured a couple of weeks back.

Magpie — A magpie on the path alongside the Great Ouse

I was at the racecourse before my colleague arrived with a key, and this wagtail caught my eye while I was waiting.

CP1 — 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.

Jay1 — I finish with this Jay – two live photographs and the relevant page from my bird book.

Monday Madness 1: Science and Nature

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 post featuring 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 petition and help increase the pressure being applied.

SOME OF MY OWN PHOTOGRAPHS

I finish this post with some of my own recently taken photographs:

Grasshopper — This grasshopper being on the path frather than in the grass made it easier to spot and photograph.

A Variety Post

A mixed bag of a post, featuring local politics, libraries, autism, science, nature and photography.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this post in three parts. I am going to start by mentioning a local election that took place in my area today and in which I voted, then I will be mentioning an event that will be taking place at Gaywood Library (one of four such establishments in Norfolk that I visit at least semi-regularly) and I will finish up with some links to do with nature which will lead naturally to some of my photographs.

A FORCED BY-ELECTION

The election in which I voted today happened due to the laziness and arrogance of the incumbent councillor, who in spite of living just across the road from the Town Hall never attended meetings.

Four candidates were in the contest, in alphabetical order:

Rob Archer of the Green Party
Francis Bone of the Labour Party
Helen Russell-Johnson of the Liberal Democrats
Mike Taylor of the Conservative Party

In the ordinary course of events my inclination, especially given that the displaced councillor had been from the Labour Party would have been to vote for Mr Archer. However, the Liberal Democrat candidate happens to be my aunt. Therefore I voted for her.

I have started this post by covering this election for two reasons:

I want to make it clear to the Liberal Democrats that I voted for my aunt IN SPITE of the fact that she was representing them not because of it.
Also, just in case Mr Archer happens to be reading this, I hope he will take it as both explanation and apology for not having voted for him on this occasion.

I conclude this section of the post with a picture of my Political Compass certificate (it is free and does not very long to answer the questions which are used to assign your score):

THE GAYWOOD LIBRARY EVENT

The event at Gaywood Library is a Business Evening at which I hope it will be possible to raise the subject of the Autism Hour, one of the National Autistic Society’s recent initiatives. I have already confirmed that I will be in attendance. Here are a couple of pictures to end this section:

SOME NATURE PIECES

My nature links naturally divide into three segments, with a few photographs of my own forming a fourth. We will start with…

A NEW DINOSAUR FIND

This story courtesy of scienmag.com is about a dinosaur that has been named Albertavenator Curriei (“Currie’s Alberta Hunter”, named in honour of Canadian paleontologist Dr Philip J Currie). Below is a representation of this creature by Oliver Demuth:

: Credit: Illustrated by Oliver Demuth. © Oliver Demuth

OPPOSITION TO TROPHY HUNTING

Stan Kroenke, current owner of Arsenal Football Club, has just launched a new TV channel devoted to blood sports. I have two links to share, and some words for Arsenal fans at the end:

A Guardian piece titled “Trophy hunting is vile. Stan Kroenke’s TV channel must be banned” which gives full detail on this.
A change.org petition aimed at the sponsors of Arsenal Football Club asking them to withdraw support and so help force Kroenke out, screenshot below:

For ordinary Arsenal fans my suggestions are simple – boycott all home matches until Kroenke goes, and if you are a season ticket holder return your ticket and demand a full refund, making it clear that you will return if and only if Kroenke is no longer involved with the club.

MORE ON THE FIGHT TO PROTECT TROSA NATURE

This morning I reblogged Part 4 of Anna’s series of “Paradise on Earth” posts highlighting the wildlife that can be seen around Trosa and the Tureholm Peninsula. Since then she has added yet another post to that series, and I include links below:

Part 4, concentrating on birds including the Osprey shown below.
Part 5, also dedicated to birds. I have chosen as my sample image a Linnet.

Finally, to end this section, and the post as a whole we have some of…

SOME OF MY LOCAL NATURE THEMED PICTURES

Kalla den änglamarken – Paradise on Earth part 4

The morning after I posted about the fight to save Trosa nature Anna is back with more pictures of protected birds from the Tureholm Peninsula who find themselves threatened by greedy road builders…

Annas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

Här kommer bilder på ännu fler fridlysta sjöfåglar som bor på Tureholmshalvön, som tyvärr inte kan föra sin egen talan när stora markägare och kommunens politiker har bestämt sig för att bygga 670 nya hus där idag fåglar och andra skyddsvärda djur bor. När husen kommer upp måste de förmodligen leta nya boendeområden. De tänkta framtida Trosaborna i de tänkta nya husen på Tureholmshalvön, som kanske drömmer om naturnära boende kommer alltså kanske inte att ha särskilt mycket natur kvar att bo nära.

More pictures of protected sea birds in Tureholm peninsula. They can´t speak for themselves when landowners and politicians decides to exploit the landarea they live in. When the exploitations becomes reality the animals probably have to move somewhere else. The future citizens in the new houses maybe dream of living near nature. But when the houses are up there may not be a nature left to live…

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The Fight to Save Trosa Nature

Some links to posts about the fight to save Trosa nature and a few of my own pictures from today.

INTRODUCTION

It will be no news to regular followers of this blog that I have been supporting Anna in her fight to protect nature in her part of Sweden for some time. In this blog post I share links to some of her recent posts on this issue, and urge you to follow them up. At the end there are some photos of mine from today featuring creatures I saw while out walking this morning.

SETTING THE SCENE –

VICTOR, YANNO & DUNNO

The beautiful area of Sweden in which Trosa lies is threatened by a proposal to build a big new road which will bring large amounts of money to a few and destruction of priceless natural beauty as an inevitable consequence. This tale sets out the story of the road building plan through three characters, Victor, Yanno & Dunno. The feature graphic shows Yanno & Dunno as puppets being controlled by Victor:

ANNA’S REASONING

Anna laid out the case for her side in a post published on July 17 with the title “Därför vill vi spara naturen i Trosa – Why we want to save Trosa nature“. Below is the feature infographic from that post:

TROSA’S NATURE

Anna has produced three posts in quick succession showing some of the nature that is on show in her part of the world. We start with:

Kalla den Änglamarken –

Paradise on Earth part 1

As a sample of what you can look forward to seeing in this post I have selected the Sea Eagle picture:

As you might logically expect the next post is…

Kalla den änglamarken –

Paradise on Earth part 2

This time your sample picture is of a seal:

Finally, to bring you right up to date we have…

Kalla den änglamarken –

Paradise on Earth part 3

This third post about the wildlide of Trosa and the Tureholm Peninsula is devoted to birds. My bait to lure you in is a Heron…

SOME OF MY PICTURES FROM TODAY

I finish this piece with some pictures from earlier today, starting with…

A LITTLE EGRET SEEN IN THE RIVER NAR

The point where the River Nar joins the Great Ouse is about 10-15 minutes walk from the centre of King’s Lynn, and I regularly see interesting stuff there, but before today I had not seen a Little Egret there (as well as the two pictures I took of the bird I have a picture of the relevant page of my bird book):

My second set of pictures are…

A SNAIL, A DUCKLING AND A HOVERING INSECT

A Tale of Two Cricket Matches

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:

All cricket related links are to cricinfo, and…
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 Root scoring 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)

When England batted

Extras

(b 5, w 17, nb 3)

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:

	Thomas on England Just About Hanging…
	amsutcliffebtinterne… on England Just About Hanging…
	A Cornish Christmas… on A Cornish Christmas 1: A Curat…
	Karan on A Cornish Christmas 1: A Curat…
	GP on A Cornish Christmas 1: A Curat…

INTRODUCTION

NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

GOVE is bad for the environment. Demand new Defra Minister!

SOLAR POWER IN AUSTRALIA

THE DEATH OF THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE

A PLAN TO REVIVE AN EXTINCT SPECIES

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

ELECTORAL REFORM

A PROBLEM AND SOME PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

THE STORY

POSSIBLE CAUSES OF THIS FIRE

SOME PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE FIRE

FOOTNOTE: SPECIES IN THIS AREA

INTRODUCTION

MY ROLE IN THE CELEBRATIONS

THE GARDENS

THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

SOME MATHS RELATED STUFF

A FEW POLITICAL PIECES

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

SHOOTING BIRDS THOMAS STYLE

INTRODUCTION

PARADISE ON EARTH

INFOGRAPHIC 1: ICE-FREE ARCTIC?

INFOGRAPHIC 2: ON SPECIES

A PETITION REGARDING UK ZOOS

SOME OF MY OWN PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

A FORCED BY-ELECTION

THE GAYWOOD LIBRARY EVENT

SOME NATURE PIECES

A NEW DINOSAUR FIND

OPPOSITION TO TROPHY HUNTING

MORE ON THE FIGHT TO PROTECT TROSA NATURE

SOME OF MY LOCAL NATURE THEMED PICTURES

INTRODUCTION

SETTING THE SCENE –

VICTOR, YANNO & DUNNO

ANNA’S REASONING

TROSA’S NATURE

SOME OF MY PICTURES FROM TODAY

A LITTLE EGRET SEEN IN THE RIVER NAR

A SNAIL, A DUCKLING AND A HOVERING INSECT

INTRODUCTION

IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES

ENGLAND’S MISTAKES

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES

THE ROLE OF EXTRAS

WIDES AND NO-BALLS – WHAT APPEARS IN PRINT DOES NOT TELL THE FULL STORY OF HOW EXPENSIVE THEY ARE

PHOTOGRAPHS

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