A very interesting piece from The Science Geek.
As most of you will already know, and much to our disappointment, the Schiaparelli probe failed to land successfully on Mars last Wednesday. The plan was that when it entered the Martian atmosphere, the spacecraft would immediately begin to slow down to 1700 km/h as a result of the friction caused by the atmosphere hitting its heat-shield. When it reached […]
DPAC on #SouthernFail (I draw your attention to the ‘accessibility map’ which I have reproduced below the link – it is NOT satire)
Source: Why Disabled people should support the RMT Railstrike on Southern Railway……
Screenshot links to all four of my new posts on http://www.londontu.be
In my previous post here I indicated that there would be a number of new posts appearing on my London Transport themed website. I now provide links to them.
Each link will come in the form of a screenshot…
A post created from my experiences at the Marxism and Nature day school which took place at Student Central, Malet Street, London on Saturday.
This post is based on a day school organised by the International Socialism Journal titled Marxism and Nature which took place on Saturday. To set the scene, here is the timetable for the day:
The travel should have been straightforward, since Malet Street is walkable from King’s Cross, but engineering works intervened. The first effect of the engineering works was that I had to get the 6:54AM rather than 7:54AM train from Lynn. After getting the replacement bus service from Ely to Cambridge the next train to London turned out to be a stopper, so reckoning on saving a bit of time overall, I alighted at Finsbury Park and took the Piccadilly line line to Russell Square. Having a little time to spare, I avoided the most crowded route, opting for a slightly circuitous walk which had the bonus of taking in this splendid commemorative plate:
This post will be followed by several on http://www.londontu.be focussing specifically on the public transport elements of the day.
Here before getting to the real meat of the post are some photos taken at the event. The event took place at Student Central, formerly known as the University of London Union (ULU). The opening and closing plenaries were in the Upper Hall, which when I first visited the building was known as the Badminton Court (although these are both beaten in the changeability stakes by The Venue, which was Manning Hall when i first visited, and then became Room 101).
The pictures produced below come from all across the day…
I have included some of Ian Rappel’s slides above, so this section will focus mainly on the other speaker at the workshop, Sarah Ensor, who is researching the history of class struggle in Iceland and whose blog can be found here.
The closing plenary featured Ian Angus, many of whose slides I have already shown, and Camilla Royle, deputy editor of International Socialism Journal, who had played a key role in organising the event. The event ended with a show of solidarity with antu-fracking campaigner Tina Rothery.
Knowing that a non-stop train to Cambridge would be leaving Kings Cross at 17:44 I headed that way in no great hurry, and was comfortably aboard the train. Here are some final photographs…
Three little things for you….
This thunderclap currently has 1944 supporters with a total social reach of approximately 12.5 million. If you would like to support it and have an account with any of facebook, twitter on tumblr (you can, as I have with my facebook and twitter accounts support it with two accounts if you have them) please click on the screen grab below…
Here in the UK we are lumbered with an antiquated voting system that has enabled a party with the votes of 24% of the electorate to form a ‘majority’ government. For this reason Make Votes Matter have put up a petition on the official government petitions website (which means it is only open to UK citizens to sign). To view and sign the petition click the screen grab below.
As you can see, when I screen grabbed the above image there were just over 9,000 signatures. There are now almost 14,000 and growing.
The photographic wall calendars that I have created for next year are now in my possession. I am delighted with how they have come out.
Once I had picked up the calendars this morning I had time to kill before catching the bus, but not enough to warrant a return to the flat, so i took a little loop through The Walks, where I got this picture…
Cricket, Politics and Photographs – enjoy!
I have a few other things to share, but I will be starting this post with cricket.
England’s men are in Bangladesh, currently endeavouring to chase down 278 to stay in the series and making a decent fist of it (107-1 off 19 overs – 169 needed off 31 for victory). This is not quite a full strength England, but nevertheless winning the series would be a considerable feather in Bangladeshi caps.
Meanwhile half a world away in the West Indies England’s women are tied at 1-1 in a five match ODI series, with the three remaining matches counting in the ICC championship (the first two did count, and please do not ask me to explain as working out the rationale behind such administrative decisions is beyond my capabilities). The two matches in this series so far have been low scoring, with the highest total in the four innings being England’s 149 in the first game. The West Indies are current world T20 champions, while England blitzed Pakistan in England this summer, so we have two sides who are used to success in action.
This is a new campaign that has been set up to defend the Welfare State from ever increasing attacks by the Tories. More details are available at:
Please get involved!
A report from the National Audit Office has just come out revealing that even in crude financial terms the proposed Garden Bridge across the terms is a shockingly bad idea. In terms of its negative impact on the South Bank it is an even worse idea. Here are a couple of links for you to follow:
Our unelected prime minister Theresa May does not intend to give Parliament a vote on the details of Brexit. Many are dissatisfied with this display of arrogance. Alexandra Runswick of Unlock Democracy has put together a petition calling for a change of mind – click here for more details and to sign.
I end with some photographs. The photographs feature boats moored at the pontoon jetty, one of which had the name Cheetah Marine prominently displayed on its side…
Some stuff about autism, and on World Mental Health Day some stuff about mental health.
I have various things to share in addition to detail of this document. Also, of course, there will be some photographs.
Here is a link from which you can access the document and below my own saved copy:
draft-norfolk-all-age-autism-strategy-october-2016-word
Overall I am not unhappy with this document, but there is one thing on which I have to pick them up – their use of the word ‘autistics’, which to me feels dehumanising as compared to such phrases as ‘autistic person’ or ‘person wiith autism’.
The Sybil Elgar school in Ealing, which is run by the National Autistic Society, has had a visit from the Mayor of Ealing, who had the pleasant task of handing out awards to 13 students who have successfully completed the ASDAN transition challenge. To read more about this story click here.
For general information on World Mental Health Day and what it is all about please read this article. Also on World Mental Health Day is this courtesy of the TimetoChange twitter account:
Video originally posted by imajsaclaimant and shared by DPAC:
Source: Watch John McArdle giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament on Social Security
I have some pictures to share, and a few links, but no main subject matter, hence the title of this post.
This is a signpost to my London transport website, and simultaneously a mention of James and Sons’James and Sons’ next auction, since the post was built around lot 737 in said sale…
How does this poster connect to the Museum of London? To find out follow the link below.
This story is about a 4 year old boy who was hospitalised after being fed a ‘holistic cure’ for autism on the advice of someone describing themselves as a ‘naturopath’. The notion of any sort of ‘cure’ for autism is of course offensive nonsense. Equally, the idea that a ‘naturopath’ should be entitled to prescribe remedies for anything should probably be considered offensive nonsense. The combination of one person’s belief in the offensive nonsense of a ‘cure’ for autism and one person’s cynical willingness to exploit this gullibility created a situation that was very dangerous for an innocent child. The full piece can be viewed here.
Some of you will know that the Dishonourable Sajid Javid has recently made a decision to ignore the will of a community and give Cuadrilla the go ahead to frack there in defiance of clearly expressed local wishes. Mr Javid receives big money from fracking companies and as such should have had the decency to admit to a conflict of interest and say that this was a decision that he could not be involved in making, but of course Tory and decency do not go together, and so unsurprisingly he made a decision in favour of his rich mates and against the community and against the environment. I end this section by linking to a piece that details the environmental impact of fracking.
I am presenting this pictures in two tranches, starting with the general…
I bring this post to a finish with some pictures of the new £5 note, which before I got this one in change I had not seen in the flesh…
A Must watch-video and some good accompanying notes from DPAC:
Source: Please watch and share this video on the £30/week ESA Cut for people in the WRAG #NoESACut
To comment please visit the original post and give credit where it is due.
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