My response to Maria Jansson’s latest photo challeneg, ‘Frame’.
INTRODUCTION
This post is my response toMaria Jansson’slatest photo challenge, which can be viewedhere.
MY ENTRY
In view of the fact that I am currently creating a series of blog posts about my recent holiday in Sweden and Maria’s own heritage I have looked to Sweden for my contribution to this challenge. While many of the pictures that I took during the course of travelling along Inlandsbanan , as recounted in this eight part sub-series, were framed either by train windows or by such things as parts of bridge structures, I wanted to share something I had not previously shared, so I opted for this picture of a water scene in central Stockholm, framed by the gap in the side of the Tunnelbana section where it was taken:
Those wishing to see more of what I have already produced from my visit to Sweden should click here.
An account of the grand finale of the 65th King’s Lynn Festival, some splendid pictures from in and around King’s Lynn, a plethora of important links and some cool infographics.
INTRODUCTION
Hello and welcome to all who read this, old and new followers alike. As well as my title piece I have some excellent photos from in and around King’s Lynn, some very important links and a few infographics to share. I hope that some of you will be inspired to share this post in its turn.
A FINAL FLOURISH
Last night’s concert at the Corn Exchange, which brought the curtain down on the 65th King’s Lynn Festival was an unexpected pleasure in two ways. First of all, we had not (my mother and I) originally been going to attend it, but then at a previous concert a family friend had two tickets for this one that she could not use, so we ended up with them. The second sense in which it was an unexpected pleasure was that the star attraction of the evening was pianist Freddie Kempf and I am not the world’s greatest fan of piano music, so I had been a little concerned as to how the evening would go.
The stage pre-performance (obviously no pics once the evening was under way!)
I need not have worried – the Flanders Symphony Orchestra were quite magnificent, and at no point save in sections which were supposed to be solo did the piano (on which Mr Kempf delivered a spectacular performance) drown out the rest of the orchestra.
All in all, this was an excellent way for a great festival to end. I have mentioned before in this blog that King’s Lynn as a town is good at public festivities, and it really showed with this festival.
A PICTORIAL INTERLUDE
Before moving on to the links section, here are some pictures from in and around King’s Lynn…
A huge black backed gull at close range.
A close up of the frontage of the new visitor’s centre at King’s Lynn bus station.
The new seating areas between the bus station shelter and the Lynn Museum
Two boats moored at the jetty yesterday, this one, Blue Bird 2, which I had not seen before, and Kalyptos, a regular visitor.
This year’s blackberry harvest is going to be super massive if these bushes in Hardings Pits are anything to go on.
An albino duck
One brave duckling spurned to wooden walkway down into the water!
Some entertainment in central King’s Lynn yesterday lunchtme.“Of course the comfy chair is for me – I’m a cat”
LINKS
I am going to start with coverage of various petitions that are running at the moment.
PETITIONS
Within this subsection I am dividing things up yet further for reasons that I hope will become obvious.
TWO PETITIONS THAT RELATE TO WOMEN’S RIGHTS ISSUES
First in this little section, an update on the petition to get the Canadian authorities to deny “Roosh V” entry to their country, as we in Britain denied entry to Julien Blanc:
2)Simultaneously introducing what is to me a new blog, extremecrochet, and pointing you to an excellent piece, posted on that blog, that connects to the above petition.
NEWS ON THE GROUP B STREP PETITION
I am giving this a section to itself because as well as two links to share, I have some news of my own. Namely, that having responded to a call to write my MP I have received a response from Mr Bellingham indicating his willingness to support the Early Day Motion that relates to this petition. The links I have to share are as follows:
My last petition calls on David Cameron to remove Jeremy Hunt from his position on account of his offensive and out of touch comments about NHS workers.
POLITICS
First up in this section, a piece detailing some truly outrageous expense claims on the part of the Downright Dishonourable John Bercow. For the full details you will have to read the piece, but the single most outrageous claim was for £130 for a journey of 0.8 miles in each direction (i.e. 25 minutes walking time for both journeys combined given that Bercow is an able bodied man).
Next up, Vox Political’s latest post about the perfidies of the politician that site calls the Gentleman Ranker in honour of his previous military career.
Time pressure dictates that this will be a brief post, but I have some important stuff to share…
LINKS
Autism Mom, as so often has provided some good material, in this case a new method of visualising the autistic spectrum. She in turn got her information from this post on asddad.com.
Another Autism related story, which I hope will prove to be the definitive debunking of the myth of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, comes courtesy of the good news network.
Next, a story about a mother facing deportation along with her autistic son.
PICTURES
Of course, one thing I am never short of is pictures to share…
The stamp onmy ‘letter from America’ now mounted for display.
I will put a longer post in due time, but for the moment please share this one.
A personal view of England’s exit from the Cricket World Cup
The match between England and Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval has just ended, with James Anderson being clean bowled to give Bangladesh victory by 15 runs. This means that Bangladesh are in the quarter-finals, and irrespective of what they do in their last game against Afghanistan England are heading home at the first possible opportunity. Buttler’s aggressive 65 kept the match alive longer than the England team as a whole deserved. The dismissal of Chris Jordan, run out when his bat was over the line but in the air, summed up England’s failings in a nutshell.
This is England’s worst ever showing in a cricket world cup – although morally speaking 1996 when England progressed into the quarter-finals only by virtue of unconvincing victories over Holland and the United Arab Emirates was on a par.
To Bangladesh, and especially Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim who batted so beautifully, the former racking up Bangladesh’s first ever world cup century my heartiest congratulations. To England: it is time to face facts – you are not even a passable one day side – never mind a good one.
For the rest, I hope that Ireland can conjure up one more good result against either India or Pakistan to ensure their progress to the quarter-finals. I think that todays result is a good one for cricket as a whole – it nails for good and all the notion that the quarter-final line ups could be predicted from the start of the tournament.