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As I have three separate segments to this post, all of which have many photos associated with them, I will use the photos to mark the ends of each segment.

Yesterday was Norwich Pride, and it was by some way the largest we have yet had in that fine city. Normally our parade starts from Chapelfield Gardens and circles round the town to finish outside the forum, where various other events take place but this time there were so many of us that the police insisted that we start and finish in Chapelfield because we would not all fit in front of the forum. Before the parade I attended a Question Time type meeting in The Curve, two floors below the main body of the Forum (which was itself absolutely dominated by the event). Then it was over to Chapelfield Gardens (about 5 mins by the direct walking route) to get ready for the parade. As for the parade itself, pictures tell more than words….

 

 

 

 

The final day of Marxism is always a little stressful if you are from outside London because you have to pack, and have to put your heavy baggage in the baggage room when you get to the event, and retrieve it after the final rally. This was compounded when my early arrival was set at nought by the fact that the baggage room had not yet been unlocked. 

After enjoying Talat Ahmed’s meeting on Islamaphobia I had intended to go to Siobhan Brown’s meeting on After the horsemeat scandal: Capitalism & food, but she was ill, so rather than going full circle in terms of meeting venues (starting and finsihing at Nunn Hall), I went down to the Jeffery Hall for Colin Barker on What could a socialist revolution look like?

The Closing Rally featured a splendidly international panel of speakers: Maria Stylou from the SEK in Greece; Makhanya Siphamandla, one of the Marikana strikers (34 of whom we gunned down by the forces of the South African state for daring to go on strike); Eamonn McCann from Ireland; and wrapping things up Charlie Kimber, national secretary of our own party. The event finished as usual with the singing of The Internationale. Here are some more photos…

Having picked up my stuff from the baggage room I walked down to St Pancras International, from where I was catching a train to Chesterfield, the nearest station to where the gathering of the clans was taking place, based at 6 High Hazels, one of a series of holiday cottages associated with Hardwick Hall. 

I was able to buy some coriander for use in Wednesday’s supper for which I was on chef duty. The new Midland Mainline trains are quite luxurious, especially if you are used to the shuttle type trains that run the King’s Lynn to London line. After a minor mishap at the Chesterfield end (a mix up over timings) I finally got to High Hazels at about 7:30PM, and for the first time since the previous Wednesday had a proper supper. Although we were based at principally at number 6 High Hazels, there were so many of us for the first few nights that Number 4 was used for the overspill, and that is where I spent the first night of my stay in Derbyshire, before moving back to the main house the next day. A final selection of photos…

 

I have had a successful week at work, and my course continues to go well. I have arranged with David James to discuss a possible increase of my hours on Thursday morning (he needs someone to do press releases and related work, the question being can I convince him that this justifies giving me four full days work per week). At 9:00 I will be setting of for Norwich Pride.

On the Sunday morning I set off early again (in this case my chief concern being the possible length of wait for a bus), and arrived at the event with lots of time to spare. Not even inadvertently heading to the wrong room for my first meeting caused much of a problem. 

I thoroughly enjoyed all the meetings I attended on this day, which included three science based meetings. Paul McGarr was very good on Darwin, Engels & the evolution of modern humans. The chief point of disagreement between Darwin and Engels was on whether bipedalism or large brains came first (Engels thought bipedalism, Darwin large brains), on which matter Engels was ultimately proven correct. Jill Chanter’s meeting on genetics saw me using my IT skills, but unfortunately when the computer went into hibernation during the talk, it turned out to be password protected and therefore I could not retrieve that situation.

My third and fourth meetings of the day were very much campaign-based, featuring Sinead Kennedy, Mary Phillips and Marianne Owens on abortion rights, and then Karen Reissman and Louise Irvine on the NHS. For the evening I reverted to science, in the form of Amy Gilligan on Is Science Neutral? The answer is no – who pays the piper calls the tune. For the first time we (Trevor and I) got to our accommodation before midnight, and neither of us stayed awake long. Trevor was setting of early for an appointment in Lincolnshire where he lives, while the rest of us were all also leaving that accommodation on Monday morning, although two of our number were staying another night at a community centre as they were going to the After Party.

As usual I have some photos…

I am making rapid progress through the Powerpoint module of my online IT course, with every hope of finishing it.

Saturday at Marxism is always the busiest day, and this year was no exception. After Friday mornings experience I set off at 8:20 AM, and arrived with lots of time to spare. Both of my morning meetings were in ULU in rooms 3A and 3B. I started with Emma Davis on The Bolsheviks & the Russian Revolution and then switching focus from the past to the future went to Stuart Curlett on What could a future socialist society look like? Both these meetings featured lively discussions.

At lunchtime I partook once again of the Norwich Picnic, and enjoyed an open-air performance of Shelley’s classic poem “Mask of Anarchy”, his response to the Peterloo massacre. 

Immediately post-lunch I went to the meeting on Disabled people & the fight against austerity, which featured four speakers from the platform, and an inspiring set of contributions from the floor including one from me that was well received. This meeting was in Nunn Hall, and the room was well set up for the purpose.

My second meeting of the afternoon session was in the Jeffery Hall, three floors below the Nunn, and was on the subject of police cover ups, featuring speakers from the campaigns around Hillsborough and Orgreave, plus Gareth Peirce, a civil rights lawyer. 

During the long break between 5 and 7 I was able to catch up on the first ashes test match, and saw some splendid batting from Ian Bell and Stuart Broad (this partnership, and some great bowling by Jimmy Anderson would put England one up in the series, and set the stage for the hammering dished out by England at Lords). 

My final meeting of the day was on climate change, back at Nunn Hall. In the evening I spent time with the Norwich comrades before heading over to ULU where my room-mate was watching u-tube footage from Egypt. The last film was cut short because the licence only ran until 11PM, at which point Trevor and I got the bus home.

As usual I have some photos…

 

As I write this post England are moving inexorably towards a 2-0 lead in the Ashes Series. Only once in all the history of Ashes contests has such a situation been overturned, in the 1936-37 series when England won the first two before a certain D G Bradman produced innings of 270, 169 and 212 in successive matches.

I have been away at Marxism 2013, and then at a gathering of the clans in deepest Derbyshire. In order that posts should not be unmanageably long I have decided to write about things one day at a time, starting with…

Thursday July 11th

Having assembled everything I was going to need for Marxism (having prudently arranged for a few bits of stuff to be ferried to Derbyshire in advance by my parents whose car has a large storage capacity) I caught the 10:56 to London King’s Cross, and then walked to the Institute of Education (IE), which along with the University of London Union (ULU) was hosting the event, deposited my baggage and made inquiries about my accommodation, which had still not been sorted. 

My first meeting was at Nunn Hall, where Xanthe Whittaker was speaking on: “Is the Media All Powerful” – clearly not since thousands of us had signed up to an event of this nature. I proceeded straight from the end of this meeting to the Drama Studio for Jonny Jones’ meeting on fracking. After a lively opening presentation from Jonny, there was an excellent set of contributions from the floor. A personal favourite came from Jonathan Neale who has been involved with the campaign on the Fylde coast when he dealt nicely the “NIMBY”  (Not in my backyard) question: “We are not NIMBYs we are NOMPs (Not on My Planet)”. 

In the meantime, the accommodation team had done very well to rectify the situation for me, finding me a mattress on the floor of a shared room (with one other person) in a private house. I phoned the person with whom I was staying and we concluded arrangements.Thus I headed for the opening rally in a much more relaxed frame of mind than I had been in earlier in the day.

The opening rally was (as it usually is) a superb occasion. The opening speaker was a disability rights activist who set a very high standard for the others.

Having been advised as to buses and where to get off I was able to locate my accommodation without difficulty and got some sleep.

I have some photos below….

This is going to be a fairly short post, as I am about to to do some more work on a Microsoft Office Specialist course that I have signed up to, before heading off to Seetec to do my mentoring work. I hope to fit in another session of work on the course this evening, while listening to live tennis from Wimbledon (well done to Laura Robson knocking out world no 10 Maria Kirilenko in straight sets yesterday). 

Yesterday an eagle owl (a species of bird that unlike the ravens, moorhens and such that I usually get pictures of is not local to these parts) was spotted in the environs of Nelson Street, and I got a couple of good pictures of it with my digital snapper (I have already emailed them to the Lynn News – maybe they will feature in Friday’s edition) which I take this opportunity of displaying:

The job at James & Sons continues to go extremely well, and our client database now contains  some 850 records, and I am starting to get some serious detail in there. In connection with this I mention two of today’s photographs, which are of a car parked not only illegally but quite spectacularly selfishly when I arrived in Fakenham on Thursday morning. My camera was ready to hand, and I needed two pics because the first did not display the registration number. I may well forward details of this to appropriate local newspapers (The Lynn News, The EDP). Fakenham town centre is extremely compact, and since Tesco were obliged to provide free parking for up to three hours there has never been a problem with finding parking there, so I cannot see any hint of an excuse.

England have started their home season with two emphatic victories over New Zealand, a most satisfying aperitif to the main fare of the summer – the retention of the ashes.

I have a good selection of photos for you….

Tomorrow the King’s Lynn Asperger Support Society (KLASS) has it’s May meeting (6PM – 8PM) at the Community Hub of King’s Lynn Town FC, before reverting to our regular first Monday of the month 6PM-8PM at the Hub – next meeting after tomorrow will be June 3rd and then July 1st. There are at least three possibilities of new people attending, as well as the regulars.

I have a veritable gallery of new photos which I will be using over the next few blogs because yesterday I walked to the Hardwick Sainsburys from Nelson Street where I had been doing some watering and today after the same I took a circular walk starting along the Broadwalk, continuing out as far as Lynnsport and returning to the Town Centre by walking along the length of Bawsey Drain.
James & Sons continues to go extremely well. You will notice from one of my photos that we recently had an unusual visitor to shop!

Joe Root continues to score colossally this season, his last four scores being 49, 182, 236 and 170no in his current knock for the Lions against New Zealand.

Here is my first selection of recently taken photos…..

I write this post having literally just finished hanging a new length of washing line (74p from Wilko’s) which now means that I will have enough space to hang any load of washing I choose to do outside.

The work at James & Sons continues to go well, and I still have all my other commitments.

Joe Root continues to pile on the runs – saving Yorkshire after Chesney Hughes had scored 270 for Derbyshire (just four less than George Davidson’s record individual score for the county) by producing a double hundred of his own.

Ronnie O’Sullivan having played no competitive snooker for a year retained his World title with almost embarrassing ease – the first time the feat has been performed since Hendry in 1996.

A couple of photos with this one….

The great Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos once defined a mathematician as: “someone who turns coffee into theorems.” I am inclined to think something similar could apply to data input operators. However, my new work at James & Sons continues to go extremely well – the client database I am establishing now contains 270 records, from which I have already generated large numbers of queries and reports which will provide useful information.

In the last round of county championship matches Joe Root served notice of intent with an innings of 182 that enabled Yorkshire to make light of a fourth innings target of 335.

Continuing my London Underground 150th anniversary theme, I will acknowledge Leanne Shapton’s effort on the Waterloo and City line by saying that her treatment was inventive and although I did not greatly enjoy the book, it would be quite difficult to come up a better way of handling this line.

Lucy Wadham’s book connectting with the Circle Line did not seem to me to fit very well with the brief. Some of the things that I might have covered relating to the Circle Line are: South Kensington and the museums, Temple and the London Underground scenes in Skyfall, Monument, the great fire of London and the escalator connection to Bank, Tower Hill (with various connections spanning nigh on a millennium of history), and a few others.

If you recall the first post in which I mentioned these books, you will know that i was particularly disappointed by John O’Farrell’s Jubilee Line effort owing to having had very high expectations of it. My own treatment of this line would have begun with the history of the Stanmore to Baker Street section, before moving on to the plans for an extension to serve the areas of Southeast London and West Kent which were and remain under served by public transport and how these were deformed by the Thatcher regime into an extension that served the new Canary Wharf development. The natural progression from this would have been on to a mention of North Greenwich and the dome. A dramatic change of tack would then have seen me focus on Wembley Park, and in my particular case a mention of the visit by John Paul II and the service he held there which I attended, which in turn would have led on to some thoughts about religion (from my present, atheist, perspective). After Wembley Park would come St John’s Wood and Lord’s cricket ground.

We are now progressing towards books which I am not necessarily critical of, but for the sake of completeness (and because I have found the exercise enjoyable) I will float my alternative ideas in any case. I would open my account with Walthamstow and a tale of a famous victory for the forces of good agains the Eejits, Dipsticks and Losers (EDL for short), before skipping all the way south to Warren Street to talk about the Marxism festival and my involvement with it. Recognising that I am hardly the person to talk about the Tate gallery my next port of call would be Vauxhall, to talk about the pleasure gardens that were once there, maybe mention the rail connections and of course MI5, and a mention of the Oval cricket ground, overlooked at one end by this station (The Northern line can spare this). Finally we come to Brixton, which would feature accounts of the latter stages of election night 1997 (at a lock-in in this part of the world), working for Lambeth council and choosing to walk the four miles to and from my home in Streatham, which would segue naturally into ideas about extensions of the line.

For the first time in this blog a photograph will feature that is not mine, though it will be balanced by one of mine….