A quiet Christmas day at my aunt’s house yesterday. We went out at 4PM to watch the new light show that is being projected on to the Custom House. This one is entirely devoted to mechanical devices such as can be seen at Thursford, and is every bit as compelling as the original…
I have finished my final working day before Christmas. The highlights of the day were in the items I imaged for the January auction, some of which as the accompanying pictures demonstrate were very interesting.
I will produce the pictures without further ado…
A brief mention of the Strictly final, and Alastair Cook’s replacement as England ODI captain followed by some stuff about books and accompanied as usual by pictures.
Before moving on to the main theme of this post there a couple of other issues I wish to touch on first.
Strictly Come Dancing is over for another year. Caroline Flack and Pasha Kovalev won the vote (in the final, judges scores are given for guidance only, the outcomes resting solely on the public vote) as they jolly well should having clocked up perfect 40s from the judges in each of their last four routines, including all three in the final. Besides these four the only other perfect score of the series was achieved by Simon Webbe and Kristina Rihanoff in the last couple dance of the series. Frankie Bridge and Kevin Clifton with two 39s and a 38 were third best on the night.
The second item on my agenda that England have finally acted over the One Day International captaincy, replacing Alastair Cook with Eoin Morgan. Cook is a magnificent test match cricketer but in limited overs matches, especially on good batting pitches, he does not score quickly enough. Not only do I think a change had to be made, I am certain that the selectors have made the right decision about the new captain.
I have decided to write about something that is important to me but which I have not often covered in this blog: books. I am going to focus my attention on an old favourite and two new discoveries.
Starting with the old favourite, Edward Marston’s “Railway Detective” series dovetails neatly with two of my areas of interest, detective fiction and railways, and as such was a sure fire winner. Even so, i never cease to be impressed by just how good the stories are and just how much I enjoy reading them. I do not know how long a period the series will eventually cover, but it has already spanned most of the 1850s. 1863 would be a significant year in this context, because of the opening of the world’s first underground railway.
My second port of call is another fictional series, Laurie King’s remarkable Mary Russell/ Sherlock Holmes series. I was originally very sceptical because in the original Holmes stories he is very much not the marrying kind. However, in spite of the implausibility of Holmes marrying, the series works spectacularly well, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
Finally, moving away from detective fiction and indeed from fiction we have Clifford Pickover’s “The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles & Stars”. This provided me with reading material for three bus journeys (unusual for a book to occupy me that long) and is of more specialised interest than my other two mentions, but the patterns contained within it are fascinating.
I have some photos to share with you – one thign you will notice if you look at the front cover shots of the books – all are library books, and I am happy to pay a tribute to Norfolk Libraries for continuing to provide a good service in difficult circumstances.
An important press release made available for you.
A celebration of having reached 1,000 twitter followers.
An announcement of National Autism Day (incl mention of @AutismDay)
An otherwise mundane working day was livened up by creating a post-auction press release with an embedded image. The entire document and every image I used are in the added media. Although mention was made of other areas of interest and of our next auction (Jan 28th) the raison d’etre for this press release was to emphasise the triumph of the U-Boat Commanders Binoculars.
At lunch time today, courtesy of @charity_today, @aspitweets reached a very significant twitter landmark: 1,000 followers (I checked on my personal twitter with one hand while eating sandwiches with the other). I reckon that 55 days to reach 1,000 followers is good going for a non-celebrity.
Linked to the above is an announcement of something I found via twitter: National Autism Day, which will be held for the first time on June 5th 2015. The official twitter account is: @AutismDay and the more publicity the better.
Now for the press release and attendant images…
This is a really timely counter to Liberal attempts to distance themselves from the activities of the coalition government.
The combined Christmas lunch for James and Sons & The Great Centenary Charity Auction took place at the Thai Restaurant in central Fakenham, just a few doors down from James and Sons own premises. This event has already been covered on facebook, @great_auction and @aspitweets but this account will deal with it a little more fully.
A total of 17 people were able to come to the meal, and both the food and the service were above reproach. My spare ribs and sweet & sour pork were both well spiced but not such as to cause problems, while the egg fried rice was dry and not remotely sticky, and offered a tiny amount of resistance to the teeth, so had not been cooked to death. The available range of drinks was narrow and not very suitable for me – I would not generally choose canned John Smiths but nothing else they had looked remotely drinkable. Overall I think it is a perfectly respectable establishment and I hope it survives the arrival in Fakenham of J D Wetherspoon, who as usual have everyone beaten on price. It cannot however even be considered the best Thai in Northwest Norfolk – Thams of West Rudham has that distinction, although they are quite expensive.
In other news yet another exposure for the Union of Knaves, Idiots and Parasites (UKIP for short): Tommy Robinson, former leader of the Evil Dimwits League (EDL) has thrown his lot in with them.
I have some photos to share, as always…
Last night’s Strictly results show revealed that this year’s grand final will feature Caroline & Pasha (surely favourites to win the glitterball trophy), Frankie & Kevin, Mark & Karen (who came through the toughest dance off of the series) and Simon & Kristina. Missing out by the proverbial hairs breadth as the dance off verdict went against them were Jake & Janette.
Why do I say that Caroline & Pasha are favourites for the outright win? Because not only have the been regularly topping leader board in recent weeks, on Saturday night they proved that Craig does have a 10 paddle by producing a routine that induced him to use it.
A walk around King’s Lynn yielded some interesting pictures including the first time I have managed to capture a water vole on camera…
The December auction of James and Sons took place at the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich yesterday. As the person running the company database it was a particularly full-on day for me, and I have decided to take you through it in chronological order:
5:45AM: Left the flat to be sure of being at bus station in time for 6:00 bus to Norwich (although the sale does not being until 10, with my responsibilities it is mandatory that I be at the auction venue by 8 at the latest and this is the last bus that will enable me to do that)
7:35AM: Bus arrives at Norwich bus station bang on schedule (not even a British bus company can contrive to be running late at this stage of the morning) and I head straight but unhurriedly for the Maids Head Hotel.
7:45AM: Arrive at the hotel and find my way to the Erpingham Room where I will be based for the next few hours.
8:30AM: By this stage the setup and layout are complete and viewers are starting to arrive. My computer is set up in a location that ensures that no punters will have access to confidential information and the internet connection is working, although it will still be necessary to phone the shop in Fakenham every time someone wants to pay by card as the connection does not extend to our portable card reader. Before attending to my own specific tasks I print out a listing of commssion bids that have been registered online via http://www.the-saleroom.com. Between the information on the registrants page of http://www.the-saleroom.com and the written and printed records of bids received in advance I am able to ensure that my database is as up to date as it can be before the auction starts.
10:00AM: Kick off, and the auction starts with a bang as lot 1 sells for £130 against an estimate of £50. This is the occasion for the first of various live tweets I manage to post in between doing the work I am paid for.
The lots come and go very fast, and it is significantly before 11 that the first lot I am interested in, number 171, two postcards of East Rudham and West Raynham churches goes under the hammer. I stick in a bid but then realise I am up against the proprietor of Lynn Gold and recognising that he has much greater financial firepower decide not to bother contesting further.
After 250 lots the auctioneer takes a brief break and I have my first problem of the day, when instead of printing out an invoice as I require my computer wants to print out the entire Auction Form record (fortunately I am able to cancel the job before a single page has been wasted). I resolve the problem by the tried and tested if unscientific method of closing the database down and reopening, and as it happens there will be no further technical malfunctions that day.
Approx 12:30PM: We have now been through 500 lots, and are about to move on to coins and banknotes, with militaria, ephemera and some misecllaneous items still to come. This is a sensible point at which to take a 15 minute break, as planned by the auctioneer. Lot 441 in the meantime had been knocked down to me for £12.
A combination of the speed at which auctioneer David is getting through the lots and the frequency with which I have to produce invoices causes me to fall behind, but with only two room bidders other than myself still left this is not actually as serious an issue as it feels at the time.
14:18PM: Lot 786, the last item in the sale goes under the hammer.
14:40PM: The clear-up is complete and I take my leave. A call at the Glasshouse just down the road for some liquid refreshment and a visit to the library (which I regard as a must when I am in Norwich) mean that I end up on the 16:40 bus back to King’s Lynn. The front of the bus provides a sight I have not previously been treated to: although we are in Norwich and the bus is terminating at King’s Lynn the intermediate destinations listed are those between Peterborough and King’s Lynn! This causes a degree of confusion among my fellow passengers, especially those travelling to intermediate destinations, as you might imagine.
It is just a shade under thirteen hours after setting off in the morning that I finally arrive back at the flat. Come Dine With Me via 4OD followed by Strictly on iplayer complete the day. It was semi-finals week on the latter, meaning that each couple had two dances to perform. The best was saved till last as Caroline Flack and Pasha Kovalev produced the routine that finally persuaded Craig to flourish the 10 paddle.
I have a few pictures for you…
Today has been devoted to making final preparations for tomorrow’s auction at The Maids Head Hotel, Norwich. To view a full catalogue and/ or sign up to bid online click the following link: http://goo.gl/TgVNCi
I also have dates and locations for all next year’s auctions, which I have already circulated on twitter via @great_auction and a retweet courtesy of @aspitweets. A bit of colour in the form of some catalogue cover scans and a jpg version of the auction calendar…
The catalogue for James and Sons sale this coming Saturday at the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich is available for viewing at http://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/james-and-son-auctioneers/catalogue-id-2901714
Today I have both managed to complete the information gathering for our last sale on 29/11/2014 and get the database ready for our next sale this coming Saturday. As part of this I am able to share with you descriptions and images of the lots that did best in relative terms at our last auction. Some of the images included as part of this are not my work. I will mention in the captions I provide when images are not mine.
The second part of this post is a response to the following tweet (I did not think I could do it in 140 characters):
Clivve @ClivveW 4 hours ago
@aspitweets @patcondell @RichardDawkins The killing fields in Cambodia is why I have no time for atheism.
As briefly as possible: this was an atrocity committed by an atheist not an atrocity committed in the name of atheism. This is in direct contrast to the almost innumerable list of atrocities carried out not merely by religious people but in the name of religion.
Now for those images (and a PDF file – I have taken care that no personal details of anyone are included)
aspiblog 