After the success that made original “Trees in Transistion” post has had I am back with another. As in the first one all the trees featured are within walking distance of central King’s Lynn, though there is no overlap between the two.
These trees are all in the area between the town end of Bawsey Drain and the junction of Littleport Street, Blackfriars Street and Norfolk Street.
Some links, some pictures and solutuons to a few puzzles I had posed earlier.
I have a number of interesting links to share, along with thoughts and photographs of my own and solutions to my last set of puzzles.
My first link in this section is to a post titled “Why Is It Necessary To Intervene With The Natural Course Of Being Autistic” published on THE BULLSHIT FAIRY. Here is the most important section of the piece:
“Early” implies that there is a need to “catch” things early, before it progresses.
Autism is not a disease. It is not progressive. It just IS.
It is disrespectful because it ignores our own timing. Autism is a developmental disability and respecting that is important, instead of applying a neurotypical timeline of neurotypical milestones to neurodivergent children.
And while some aspects of occupational therapy and life skills can be beneficial, if there is no respect for each child’s timing, and if it is done in a manner that is compliance based/reward based, and if this is called “Early Intervention”, then it is just another name for ABA”
My next link is to thge early stages of wbhat looks set to be an excellent series of posts. Blogging Astrid is writing a series of posts about autism under the banner #Write31Days. I have two links for you:
My next two links come from firebrightstarsoul and both concern education and autism:
This section concludes with…
My last two pieces in this section are at the intersect of autism and public transport. First, from the i newspaper comes a piece titled “Travelling as a disabled person: I have autism – it takes me days to recover from one Tube journey“, one of a series a pieces by members of campaigning group Transport for All being published there this week. Here is the image which heads the article:
Finally, a petition on the official site for petitioning the UK Parliament, which means that it is only open to UK citizens, calling for a necessary change to the PIP rules. Below is a screenshot link:
Please visit, sign and share.
My first link in this section is to a piece on Vox Political titled “McDonnell States Labour Will Take Back Rail, Water, Energy and Royal Mail | Beastrabban\’s weblog” This excellent piece sets the stage for the rest of this section. Below is the single most important paragraph, by way of a tempter:
And if Labour does, as I fervently hope, renationalize those industries, I would very much like a form of workers’ control implemented in them. One reason why the Tories were able to privatize these industries was because, when Labour nationalized them after the Second World War, the party was too timid in the form nationalization took. The state took over the ownership of these industries, but otherwise left the existing management structures intact. This disappointed many trade unionists and socialists, who hoped that nationalization would mean that the people, who actually worked in these industries would also play a part in their management.
Since that piece was produced Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has put up a post titled “The public want nationalisation because nationalisation makes sense” in response to a hand-wringing editorial in The Observer, which started from noting that a recent study had revealed the full extent of public support for renationalisation (water – 83% in favour, electricity and gas – 77% in favour andr railways – 76% in favour – leading the way) and went full-on Tory from there, regarding renationalisation as a bad thing and coming with ideas for how this ‘threat’ might be dealt with. Professor Murphy, like me, takes the opposite stand-point, and points out how flawed the Observer piece is.
This set of photographs is of Lot 553 from the auction of Monday September 25th (see this post):
The first of three puzzles I set that I have not yet provided answers to was a question from Triva Hive:
In which country is Europe’s only desert located?
a)Italy
b)Greece
c)Poland
d)Spain
I am sufficiently well informed about Italy, Greece and Spain that I was fairly sure that none of them is the answer. Thus, having ruled out the impossibles I was left withe one answer that however improbable must be the true one – Poland. The screenshot below shows that my Sherlockian approach to the question bore fruit:
The second puzzle was Abbot Fox‘s “street scramble”:
Unscrambling this gives “Pilling Park Road”, and the map below shows the location of said street:
The third problem came from brilliant and featured a treasure hunt. Below is the answer:
Just before I publish this and head out for a spot of ecotherapy and to top up the photo collection here are some non-tree pics from yesterday:
The trees take centre stage – this is the most interesting time of year for observing trees (at least in the northern hemisphere).
Ir is October, and the leaves on the trees here in Norfolk are starting to change colour. This is the first of several posts that I envisage putting up to documenting this process by way of photographs.
I am presenting these pictures as a tiled mosaic – a left click or equivalent on each image will enable you to view it at full size, while a right-click or equivalent will give you a menu that includes various options including opening the image in a new tab. Enjoy…
An account of the three James and Sons auctions that started this week.
This week started for me with three auctions on successive days, the first two at our premises in Fakenham and the third at The Maids Head Hotel, Norwich. This post covers the three days in order.
Reorganising the shop to look like an auction venue and setting out the stock for this auction had been done on Friday by myself and a colleague. Thus, when I arrived on Monday morning the only set up work that was required was the electronics and IT stuff.
I managed to get everything set up before anyone else arrived and to verify that the sound and video were working. Here are some photos from this period:
There was a hitch after the first few lots when the master computer decided to install a load of updates, but we got back up and running again without too much fuss. The military RP postcards that started the auction fared OK, the ephemera and cigarette cards fared poorly (although lot 341 found a buyer – me).
The maps which finished the auction off fared well at first, with several going for big money, but the ex-atlas maps that formed lots 538-600 did not do so well. Lot 553 fell to me.
This was always going to be the quietest of the three auctions, since it featured postal history, stamps and first-day covers, none of which fare particularly well. However that did not make my day any less busy since by the end of it the shop needed to look more like a shop and less like an auction room, and the van had to be loaded with all the stuff that was going to Norwich the following day.
The last item went under the hammer just after 12:00, and by the end of the day the van was loaded and with the sole exception of the big screen still being downstairs the shop was as it had been on Friday morning before I got to work on it. Here are some pictures from this second day:
The cost of a single fare on the X1 (I had a week’s ticket for Stagecoach buses) having been obtained on Tuesday I duly caught the 5:30AM bus for Norwich, and arrived at the venue at about 7:30. My colleague who had the IT/ electronics stuff (bar my computer, being used today as we needed three and it was the only portable computer bar the two we regularly to use to which we had access) arrived a few minutes later and we did that side of the setup. The auctioneer arrived with the van full of stock some time later, and we did the rest of the setup.
The day went very well. The first big sale was lot 1,159, which fetched £80, but many other lots had sold for small amounts by then (this sale started from lot 1,051).
It continued to the case that most lots sold albeit not for huge amounts. Lot 1,301 achieved the biggest sale price of any individual lot over the three days – £450.
Lot 1357 was a collection of masonic regalia, and it so happened that a high ranking mason was present in the auction room and bought it.
Lot 1439 was of personal interest but the asking price was too high for me, so I had to let it go.
However, a few moments later I saw a more satisfactory outcome. Lots 1449 and 1450 were military history reference books put in by me (I had only intended to put one lot in, but I was persuaded to try both). I was prepared for these items not to sell, so when the lots went for £12 each (to a room bidder who had looked at them in the flesh) I regarded this as unequivocally good news.
There were few more moments of note before the auction ended at lot 1543:
Once the van had been loaded I was able to take my leave, and headed for the Norwich Millennium Library to see what books I could borrow.
It was an exhausting three days, but quite satisfying. Monday was a bit quiet and Tuesday exceedingly so, but enough good things happened on Wednesday to make up for this.
Some solutions and some new problems/ questions. Also details a thank you card for TFL and some photos.
I have solutions/ answers to some problems and a few new problems for you. I was going to be blogging about my activities on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but that will have to wait until tomorrow now.
In my post “Coming Up – A Trip To Cornwall“ I set this juicy little puzzle:
Each of the three filled in columns contains one large number and several smaller numbers. In each case the big number is the sum of all the smaller numbers – 6 = 3+2+1, 28 = 14 + 7 + 4 + 2 + 1 and 496 = 248 + 124 + 62 + 31 + 16 +8 + 4 + 2 + 1. In each case the smaller numbers listed below the large number turn out to be all of that number’s factors. A number that is equal to the sum of all its factors is called a perfect number. Looking closer still we that 6 = 3 x 2, 28 = 7 x 4 and 496 = 31 x 16. In each case these multiplications consist of a larger number that can be expressed in the form (2 ^ n)-1 and the smaller number is equal to 2 ^ (n-1). Further, the larger multiplier is in each case a prime number. Investigation reveals that the next prime number of the form (2 ^ n)-1 is 127, and the other multiplier must therefore by 64. Multiplying these two numbers gives 8,128. Thus the final panel will consist of 8128, with vertically below it the numbers 4064, 2032, 1016, 508, 254, 127, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1. This was a tough puzzle but it would have been downright vicious had I made the door’s mechanism consist of five panels, these four and the fifth for you to work out – for a bonus can you explain why?
I also asked if anyone could identify to the real life door that I had used as the basis for the “Door of Death”. It is one of the doors to King’s Lynn Town Hall and in reality of course it is not remotely deadly (indeed barring dying of boredom during a council meeting there I can think of no risk of death anywhere in that building).
This one appeared in my post “The Gaywood River”. The answers are below:
I have three problems for you. The first comes from Trivia Hive. Unfortunately I cannot present it to you in their format without giving away the answer, so instead I present in plain text:
In which country is Europe’s only desert located?
a)Italy
b)Greece
c)Poland
d)Spain
Puzzle number two comes by way of the twitter feed of estate agents Abbot Fox:
Can you reveal the street name?
My third and final problem comes courtesy of the mathematical website brilliant and sends you on a treasure hunt:
I was delighted to receive an email from campaigning organisation sumofus inviting me to sign a thank you card to TFL for having given Uber the boot. I have already shared this invitation on facebook and twitter and ‘pressed’ it to my London transport themed website. I now invite my followers here to add their names to this thank you card:
These photographs were taken in Norwich…
A whole post to make a correction? Yes – this error is important enough to warrant such treatment as far as I am concerned.
In the first published version of the post I put up earlier today I misattributed the exhibits that included living creatures from the Gaywood River to the Gaywood Valley Conservation Group. It was in fact put on by the Norfolk Rivers Trust, and I have just corrected the original (I realised my error while on the bus to Norwich and have been waiting for access to a computer to correct it).
An account of an educational event about the Gaywood River that took place in the Scout Hut on Beulah Street on Sunday.
I have had a very busy few days, which is why there have been no new posts here since Saturday. I will mention my activities since Monday in later posts, but this post is solely concerned with the activity that dominated (in a good way) my Sunday. At the end of this post I will be including a variety of links related in various ways to its content. Here is a map showing the course of the Gaywood River:
I got an email from my aunt a few days before the event was due to happen explaining her role in it and asking if I wished to meet her there and go back to hers for sausage and chips or if I would prefer a saturday supper. I decided that the event could be quite interesting, so I opted for the former course of action.
Since the event was taking place at the Scout Hut on Beulah Street, which is on the bank of the Gaywood (Beulah Street ends in a bridge that crosses the Gaywood into the car park that serves the Scout Hut) I was going to walking, and since it was a bright, sunny morning I decided on an extended route. Leaving my flat I headed across Baker Lane Car Park to the bridge over the upper Purfleet, heading across King Street to the north bank of the lower Purfleet. Here are some photos from that early part of the walk:
From there I followed the line of the Great Ouse as far as my favourite cormorant observation point…
…before heading round by way of All Saint’s Church to the Library and entering the parkland area, following the Broadwalk until the path through the Vancouver Garden splits off from it, when I followed that and then the path out of the Vancouver Garden that joins the Tennyson Road end of St John’s Walk, at which point I was back on what would be the officially recommended walking route to Gaywood. There were squirrels about (in King’s Lynn only the grey ‘bushy-tailed rat’ variety as opposed to the red ‘Squirrel Nutkin” variety), though it is not always easy to get good photos of them…
From Tennysod Road I followed the footpath the runs between the King Edward VII Academy and the Lynn Academy to Gaywood Road, which I crossed, then crossing the Gaywood on a pedestrian bridge before following its bank all the way to the Scout Hut.
Immediately outside the Scout Hut the Gaywood Valley Conservation Group had a gazebo and display boards (it was there that I took the photo that appears in the introduction).
Inside the hut was the Civic Society Stall, a cake stall, and various river related learning activities (colouring in pictures of river creatures for the artistically minded, an A-Z quiz of which more later). Although it was not the first thing I looked at, because it was my aunt’s reason for being there I start with…
They were looking for people who knew about the history of the Gaywood river, because information boards will be going up at various points along it. They already had some good stuff, but wanted more.
Now we turn out attention to…
The cake stand looked awesome but discipline prevailed, and I did not sample any of the products. Although it was not really aimed at people my age I did the quiz, and predictably got all the answers in short order. The colouring proved popular, and many of the coloured creatures were then stuck on to a large picture of a river on the wall of the hut.
That is the inside stuff finished, but there was also plenty going on…
There were two major centres of activity in the back garden, and I make my first port of call there, as I did on the day, at…
The Norfolk Wildlife Trust were showing children how to make portable ‘bug hotels’, and they also had a natural history display including a folder full of photographs of animals, and a stash of leaflets, to which I may return in a later post.
We now come to what was for me the best of all the exhibits, courtesy of…
There were two parts to this exhibit. The minor part was display showing graphically how different treatment of land in the winter affects the soil:
The second part of this display was a living exhibit from the river – two large buckets of river water with creatures that naturally live in it there to be seen (the amount of dissolved sediment in the water, the small size of these creatures and the fact that some of them live on the bottom of the river means that this the only way to make them visible). There was also a small sample dish which the person running the exhibit used to show as very small curiosities…
There was also a story teller outside…
To start this section we look at organisations who were actually involved in some way or other with this event:
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Now we have a few science and nature websites:
I conclude this section by mentioning a couple of bloggers who regularly feature nature in their work:
This was an excellent event and I learned a good deal about the history and nature of the Gaywood River. I have one kvetch which is that the event was poorly publicised – I only found out about it through my aunt and then only a few days before it was happening, meaning that anyone else I might have alerted would almost certainly have had other plans. If half of you have enjoyed this post even half as much as I enjoyed the event I have done a good job. I finish by urging you to take the time to follow up those links.
Yesterday I wrote about this issue on my London transport themed website (here), but since then Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has made his contribution, and it is as usual an excellent one. If you wish to comment about this issue please either visit londontu.be or Richard’s post to do so, as I am merely using this blog to share.
Links to some important pieces about neurodiversity, and a few photographs at the end.
This one is mainly a sharing post, before I finish with some of my photos. As always links will be in bold and in a different colour from the surrounding text. However, before moving on I give a special mention to Eve Hinson of americanbadassactivists who signposted me to a lot of the links I share below.
We start with an old favourite, Laina over at thesilentwaveblog, who has produced a gem of a post titled “15 More things not to say (or do) to an (this) Asperger’s / autistic person“. Here to whet your appetite is her first point:
1 – “Oh, you must be high-functioning.”
Please–Don’t Be That Person. Any sentence containing “you must be” is an assumption, and you know what They Say about the word “assume” and its spelling and all that.
If that weren’t filled enough to the brim with potential land mines, let’s factor in the sheer wrong-ness of the statement. Maybe I’m functioning OK today. And maybe, so are you. All is calm, all is bright.
But now, let’s stress the human system. Kind of like building an epic metropolis on SimCity and then tearing it down with Godzilla or something.
If the human system encounters a Godzilla attack that is destructive enough or lasts long enough, the system will suffer. It might even destabilize.
By assuming I’m “high-functioning” (whatever that even means anymore), people who say stuff like this are, by comparison, speaking poorly of those who act differently. Which, on many days, includes me.
Not only that, but they’re undermining the sheer force of will (and luck) it often takes for me to suppress my natural self and create a likable Pseudo-Me that gets past the social metal detectors.
Please, never make assumptions, never put anyone else down (even if it’s disguised as a compliment to my face), and never underestimate the energy it takes for me to persuade the world to accept me.
The Art of Autism website is a regular source of good material, and this piece, by Julie Blair is no exception. It is chock full of good advice on how to make a museum visit really work. Cited at the end of it is Lisa Jo Ruddy of autisminthemuseum which I also recommend.
This section is one that I owe to Eve Hinson (see intro) – it was one of her posts that put me on to Nick Walker’s site, neurocosmopolitanism. I offer you four golden nuggets from this site and urge you to do some more exploring of your own:
Throw Away the Master’s Tools: Liberating Ourselves from the Pathology Paradigm – In which Nick attacks what he calls “The Pathology Paradigm” and seeks to replace it with “The Neurodiversity Paradigm”:
The Neurodiversity Paradigm
Here’s how I’d articulate the fundamental principles of the neurodiversity paradigm:
This one comes from Autism, Or Something Like It. Titled ““Autism Parent” and the Horrible Duplicity of the “Autism” Label” it explains why the designation autistic person, which happens to be preferred by the vast majority of #actuallyautistic people, is preferable to so-called ‘person first’ terminology. I quote three key paragraphs below:
So when I say that Sam is Autistic, I am neither defining him by what he can do or what he can’t do; I am describing him by how his brain (probably the most fundamental part of who he is as a human being) functions and by how this set of differences sets him apart from people who are not Autistic.
And…
Unfortunately, in many cases, the zealous movement of ‘person first language’ actually reenforces that which it is trying to combat. By stating repeatedly that Autism is a (implied ‘negative’) label and should not “define” our children, what is inherently being done is underscoring the idea that Autism is something that should be perceived as ‘deviant’, as opposed to a naturally occurring divergence from normal.
I end the sharing part of this post with a piece presented in comic strip form on everyday feminism, titled “8 Things You Were Probably Taught About Autism That Are Completely Wrong“. I hope you will visit the post and sample all eight of it’s parts. As an aperitif here is number 3:
On Ashes selections…
The cricket section of the BBC website gives you a chance to pick your XI for the opening ashes match this winter. It is not a free selection – they give you a pool of names to pick from, which is why I am producing this post.
Restricted by the BBC website I selected the following XI:
Cook, Stoneman, Joe Clarke, Root, Liam Livingstone, Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Roland-Jones, Anderson, Leach – yes I overlooked Stuart Broad, but I was being deliberately controversial…
In actual fact, depending on conditions my selections could vary considerably. England spinners have rarely enjoyed themselves at Brisbane, so in practice I would probably not select two spinners for that particular match, while at Perth I might even consider leaving out Moeen Ali. At Adelaide, where the pitch tends to be exceedingly batsman friendly I would want more bowling options, and if the pitch was obviously going to favour spin then Moeen might even be third spinner in the XI. Thus here are some possible XIs, unerestricted by the BBC website’s preselections:
Normal conditions: Cook, Stoneman, Westley, Root (C), Dan Lawrence, Stokes, Bairstow (WK), Moeen Ali, Roland-Jones, Broad, Anderson.
Fast bowlers’ paradise (Perth would be a possible): Cook, Stoneman, Westley, Root (C), Lawrence, Stokes, Bairstow, (WK), Woakes, Roland-Jones, Broad, Anderson.
On a ‘bunsen’ (rhyming slang, bunsen burner = turner) – unlikely in Oz but you never know: Cook, Stoneman, Westley, Root (C), Lawrence, Stokes, Bairstow (WK), Moeen Ali, Dominic Bess, Jack Leach, Anderson (this is a colossal gamble, relying on Anderson and Stokes to do all the fast bowling between them, a more cautious approach still catering for lots of spin would see Broad retain his place and Ali and Bess or Bess and Leach have the spin bowling roles).
For the batsman’s paradise (e.g Adelaide, or the Bellerive Oval, Hobart): Cook, Stoneman, Root (C), Lawrence, Stokes, Moeen Ali, Bairstow (WK), Roland-Jones, Bess, Broad, Anderson (note that to play the extra bowler I move Ali up two places, keeping Bairstow at 7 – there is a reason why Gilchrist never moved up from number 7 in Australia’s great days).
aspiblog 