An Important Petition

A link to petition that needs more signatures, plus links to the supporting information. Some pictures, a few thoughts about the recently concluded test match and a couple of extra links.

INTRODUCTION

I will be covering other stuff as well, but I am giving top billing to an autism related petition.

EDWARD TIMPSON MP MAKE BRIGHTON & HOVE DISTRICT COUNCIL CEASE ILLEGAL SECTION 47 SS INVESTIGATIONS

Here is the petition – main link is in the infographic:

not-less

Here is the opening paragraph of the petition:

Too many LAs are conducting illegal S47 child protection investigations and traumatising families.  Brighton & Hove City Council is conducting at least one such an investigation right now against an innocent autism family (my own – autistic parent with autistic children), which indicates a pattern of behaviour is likely, as it wouldn’t be a one-off incident.  Brighton & Hove City Council is conducting this investigation on the basis of entire autism ignorance (towards parent and children) and illegal disability discrimination.  How can an autism parent perform their usual superhero job whilst being put through this trauma?  LAs behaving illegally must be stamped out.

Here are links to all the updates that have been posted on this petition:

You now have access to all the information I have seen about this case and should know what to do. If in signing this petition you mention me and this blog I will receive an email notification telling me that you have signed.

SOME PICTURES

After a large chunk of text it is time for some pictures. There are some from yesterday and some from today:

dscn7516dscn7517dscn7518

dscn7519
The menu at the Rose & Crown in Harpley, where my parents took me for lunch yesterday (it was an excellent meal – thanks)
dscn7520
The next five pics are also from the Rose & Crown, four showing decorative features and one the dessert menu.

dscn7521dscn7522dscn7523dscn7524

dscn7525
The redeveloped back of King’s Lynn Town Hall

dscn7526dscn7529

A TEST MATCH SETTLED BY A COIN TOSS AND A DISASTROUS 49 MINUTES

Test matches are scheduled to last for five days, and this one made it deep into the fifth of those of five days. India beat England by 246 runs and are to be congratulated, although as the title of this section suggests they were helped by good fortune. Winning the toss meant that they got to bat when the pitch was at its easiest. England’s disastrous 49 minutes occurred on the second evening, when they surrendered four wickets to end that day on 103-5 in reply to 455. Of the five wickets England lost that day only Cook got a really difficult delivery – the others assisted in their own downfall.

Facing 405 to win or 150 overs to survive on an increasingly difficult pitch England were never in the hunt, and the dismissal of Joe Root for 25 was the death knell, leaving the lower order to fight it out for as long as they could. Haseeb Hameed showed great concentration and determination at the top of the order before one shot along the ground to pin him LBW (a genuinely unplayable ball).

Virat Kohli demonstrated his skill with the bat, amending a decidedly dodgy previous record against England with scores in this match of 167 and 85. The latter was an innings that made it look like the match was taking place on two different pitches – at one end everyone else was struggling in the face of an excellent bowling performance from England, and at the other Kohli met every ball with the middle of his bat.

England showed enough to suggest that this series is not a lost cause, especially with three matches still to play.

A COUPLE OF LINKS TO FINISH

First, a petition on 38 Degrees calling for the scrapping of the ‘Sovereign Grant’ (I would prefer to scrap the Royal Family outright, but at least making them pay their own way would be a move in the right direction).

I end with a link to piece by DPAC, drawing attention to a disgraceful example of ableism at CEX.

 

There Is No Planet B

A message, some photos and some links – read, enjoy and please share.

INTRODUCTION

As well as the title piece this post includes a few pictures from in and around King’s Lynn and a few other links.

THERE IS NO PLANET B

This came to attention as a tweet from a campaign group opposing the expansion of Heathrow Airport, and it struck me as an important message:

It is time to move on to…

A KING’S LYNN WALK

Here are most of my pictures from today…

I have saved two pictures for their own section…

A  SEAL SWIMMING IN THE GREAT OUSE

The Great Ouse is a tidal river, so occasionally one sees things that are more associated with the sea than with a river. This was one such – a seal swimming in the river. It was on the other side of the river from me, and only its head was visible above the water:

dscn7506dscn7507

SOME FINAL LINKS

First, for UK based readers, a link to a petition seeking to force the government to act on the eleven recommendations of the UNCRPD report.

Second, a link to this piece in Time Out about an unusual use that has been found for an old District line carriage (I have already posted a link to this on www.londontu.be)

My final link is a piece on The Mighty by an autistic person about what is like to have people not believe that you are autistic when you are.

Congratulations to England Women’s XI

INTRODUCTION

While Alastair Cook and his team are fighting hard in Visakhapatnam, the women have recorded a tremendous victory in Colombo.

A SPECTACULAR RECOVERY

You may recall that in my last post I detailed the recovery of the England Women’s innings from 58-6 20 241-9 in their 50 overs. Rain then intervened, so the players reconvened today for the Sri Lankan response. Natalie Sciver, whose 77 dug England out of trouble followed up by accounting for both Sri Lankan openers. Danielle Hazell and Laura Marsh who had continued to Sciver inspired batting recovery then cashed in on the early breakthroughs , Marsh taking 4-21 from her full ten overs and Hazell finishing with 3-21 from 8.1 overs.

While all three of the young women mentioned above performed outstandingly I would say that Sciver who played the major innings and then made the early breakthroughs that the other two capitalised on was the key to this astonishing turnaround. The cricinfo scorecard makes no mention of a Player of the Match award, but if there was one it should have gone to Sciver with honourable mentions for Hazell and Marsh.

THE SOLUTION TO THE MATHS TEASER

Below is the pair of simultaneous equations from my last post – the challenge was to pick and solve one of these pairs:

73X + 43y = 211                     685,463X + 314,537Y = 2,685,463
31x + 83y = 199                     314,537X + 685,463Y = 2,314,537

If you did the non-mathematicians thing of selecting the pair of equations featuring smaller numbers you get zero credit. If however you managed to avoid being scared by the large numbers in the second pair you might have noticed that the number of Xs in the first pair equals the number of Ys in the second and vice versa, or in other words, temporarily removing the numbers we have:

aX + bY = c
bX + aY = d

This gives us options for possibly simplifying the equations. First up let us look at adding the two initial equations together which gives us:

(a+b)X + (a+b)Y = c+d

Feeding the numbers back in, we get:

1,000,000X + 1,000,000Y = 5,000,000 which simplifies nicely to X + Y = 5

we can also subtract the bottom equation from the top one, giving us:

aX – bY = c-d

Feeding the numbers back in gives us 370,926X – 370,926Y = 370,926, which at first glance may not look terribly pleasant, but a second glance shows that the number of Xs and Ys are equal and that that number appears on the other side of the new equation, so in other words it simplifies to X – Y = 1.

Thus the solution to the original pair of equations with those huge numbers is the solution to this pair of equations:

X + Y = 5
X – Y = 1

Thus X = 3 and Y = 2.

SOME PICTURES TO FINISH

234-a
These images are all of lots in our December auction (takes place on the 14th), starting with some coins

234-b242-a242-b243-a243-b244-a244-b245-a245-b

556
Lot 556 (4 images)

556-a556-b556-c

557
Lot 557 (2 images)

557-a

593
Lot 593, four images. This is a particularly fine specimen of the Kukri or Khukuri, the knife carried by Gurkha warriors.

593-a593-b593-c

 

 

A New Venue With Old Connections

The start of my personal coverage of the second Test Match between India and England at Visakhapatnam, with a mention of some old connections of this new venue, also a mention of Sri Lanka Women v England Women in Colombo, and a little mathematical teaser.

INTRODUCTION

Just like the first match of the India v England series at Rajkot, this match is happening at a new Test Match venue, Visakhapatnam. This is the 111th test match venue overall and the 24th such in India (more than any other country).

OLD CONNECTIONS AT A NEW VENUE

One of the two ends at this ground is called the “Dr Vizzy End”. The Dr Vizzy of that designation was the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, captain, administrator and briefly late in his life a Test Match Special summariser. He also ran a private team for which he got both Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe to play, which led to a bit of controversy over statistics.

WISDEN VERSUS THE
ASSOCIATION OF CRICKET STATISTICIANS

When Jack Hobbs retired at the end of the 1934 season his record stood at 61,237 first class runs with 197 centuries, although in some sources you will see him credited with 61,760 runs and 199 centuries. The Vizianagram XI matches and a desire to get Hobbs to 200 centuries are the reason for this. Hobbs himself was deeply opposed to any retrospective alteration of players records, and rightly so in my opinion. In 1925 Hobbs had had a nervous period when he had 125 centuries to his credit, with W G Grace according to his official record having 126 which at that time was the record. It was against Somerset at Taunton (a frequent combination for the setting of new batting records over the years) that Hobbs equalled the old record in the first innings and then beat it in the second. However, the revisionists in the ACS camp who have revised Hobbs’ record upwards, have revised W G Grace’s downwards, from 54,896 runs and 126 centuries to 54,211 runs and 124 centuries. This makes a mockery of the events of 1925 described above and the celebrations that accompanied the Taunton match.

My own view is this: Players records should be given as they were recognised at the time, but if you are so inclined certain records of those who played long ago can be footnoted to the effect that “if current definitions of first class status had prevailed when X played their record would have read Y”. This acknowledges the problems with some of the old records without changing them.

BACK TO THE PRESENT

India having won the toss and chosen to bat are 134-2 in the current game, with Jimmy Anderson in the England side after injury. For India Gambhir and Mishra have been dropped, replaced by Rahul and Jayant Yadav (there was already one Yadav, Umesh, in their squad). Meanwhile, in Colombo the England Women have staged a remarkable recovery in the final match of their ODI series against Sri Lanka from a low water mark of 58-6 to a current position of 218-8, Natalie Sciver making 77 off 74 balls and Danielle Hazell a career best 45 off 64 balls. Laura Marsh is on 29 and Beth Langston on 6.

A TEASER TO FINISH

I have recently acquired a mathematically minded follower of this blog, and being mathematically minded myself this seems a good moment to set a problem which consist of two parts:

I am going to set out two pairs of simultaneous equations, and your task is first to select one and then to solve it (nb, both parts of this teaser have clear cut right and wrong answers):

73X + 43y = 211                                                                 685,463X + 314,537Y = 2,685,463
31x + 83y = 199                                                                  314,537X + 685,463Y = 2,314,537

I will provide the answer in my next post.

The England Women have just finished their 50 overs in Colombo at 240-9, Laura Marsh ending on 36 not out, Beth Langston being run out for 21, and number 11 Alex Hartley being at the on-striker’s end for the last ball of the innings.

Think again – don´t build Trosa förbifart

More news on the fight to save Trosa nature…

Anna's avatarAnnas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

I got a fax this morning. A cut from a local newspaper.  A politician writes about the new big road that is too risky to build both financial and environmental. We don´t need the road she says. And she is right. I don´t care which party she belongs to, this issue is bigger and it´s about Saving Trosa nature. Everyone can join that movement. You don´t have to belong to a certain party. We all need to be planet attendants.

Klipp ur SN 20161116 insändare A WirmarkKlipp ur SN 20161116 insändare A Wirmark

It´s still possible to try to influence politicians to change their minds about this. Sign your name on the Develop Trosa without a new big road, Save Trosa nature-list.

Namninsamling pågårNamninsamling pågår

and my own comment in pictures below/Anna

If they could they would sign for save Trosa natureIf they could they would sign for save Trosa nature

Förbifarten är skadlig för din hälsa/A new road is unhealthy for you, put it outFörbifarten är skadlig för din hälsa/A new road is unhealthy for you, put it out

View original post

Nature, Music and a Few Other Things

A good news story about nature from the village of Balcombe, West Sussex, a King’s Lynn walk, some stuff about music and a few other things.

INTRODUCTION

This post incorporates a King’s Lynn walk but also features plenty of other stuff.

NATURE

This morning I reblogged a post by Anna about the folk of Trosa and their continuing fight to preserve their nature from greedy road builders. I start this section of the post with:

GOOD NEWS FROM WEST SUSSEX

The small village of Balcombe, West Sussex (and having done a walk in that part of the country some years back I can confirm that it is indeed small) was targeted not so long ago by fracking villains Cuadrilla. Not only have they beaten back the frackers, they are on the way to becoming a solar-powered village. Please watch the video below for more:

This is what new developments for the 21st century should look like – big new roads are so last century!

A KING’S LYNN WALK

Although it was not terribly inviting outside I went for a walk this afternoon, taking in the Great Ouse, our river. Here are a few pictures:

dscn7274dscn7275dscn7276dscn7277dscn7278dscn7279dscn7280dscn7281dscn7282dscn7284dscn7285

At this point I saw a rare visitor to King’s Lynn –

A GREY HERON

Here is a picture taken looking across the Great Ouse, and the page of my bird book that gives info about the Grey Heron:

dscn7286dscn7292

After the Grey Heron there were no more exceptional sights but a few more photo-worthy moments:

dscn7288dscn7289dscn7290dscn7291

MUSIC

As part of today’s Hili Dialogue, Grania at WEIT mentioned that among those born on this day (happy birthday Ayaan Hirsi Ali) were Leopold Mozart (father of the more famous Mozart) and Fanny Mendelssohn (older sister of Felix) and linked to this video of a performance of Leopold’s Toy Symphony, which I offer you below:

Also, last Saturday was a Musical Keys session, and I have a few photos from there:

dscn7266
A keyboard that enables the player to produce the sounds of other isntruments. The coloured patches stuck to various keys come in to play when Kirsten held up a sheet to indicate which colour one should focus on – although I was on a guitar by then and was using my left thumb to press on a coloured patch, shortening that string.
dscn7267
This instrument, here held for me my Kirsten, one the people who runs the Musical Keys sessions is filled with beads and played by being upended, held until all the beads have fallen and then upended again for as long as you care to.

dscn7269

dscn7270
I played the red guitar.

dscn7271

WHAT IS NORMAL?

I found this infographic on twitter and had to share it – I think it is splendid:

normal

HONEST AND DISHONEST PHOTO EDITING

I have shown you some examples of honestly edited photos already in this post. What follows focusses on dishonestly edited photos. Two “newspapers” whose names I refuse to give, one owned by the fourth Viscount Rothermere and on which the good folk of Liverpool refuse to buy, produced photographs purporting to show Jeremy Corbyn dancing towards the Cenotaph yesterday (Remembrance Sunday). To do this their photo editors had cropped out from their original picture the 92 year-old WWII veteran who Mr Corbyn was accompanying and who hotly denies any suggestion that he was dancing:

rwpress-rumbledc
Two incisive infographics juxtaposed
rwpress-rumbled
the individual infographics.

rwpressrumbled2