A few of the images that feature in today’s post were done on Tuesday, most today. All are of items that will be going under the hammer on April 27th. We aim to have our catalogues ready about one month before the sale, which with a two-day sale coming up on the 30th and 31st effectively means that I have tomorrow and next week at my disposal for imaging.
A WIDE RANGE OF IMAGES
I will start with the images from Tuesday that I considered worth sharing…
Heptagonal coins are of course commonplace in this country – heptagonal medals less so.Close ups of each face of lot 206
Today’s images cover a wide range of interests, and I will deal with the best of them by category…
MILITARIA
These items are in 250s to low 300s, so will go under the hammer near the end of the second hour of the auction…
The first four images are of lot 241
The next four images are lot 251
This lot is not of course militaria, but it was in amongst a box of militaria and was the only book of the day.
Given that we (James and Sons) are Norfolk based this picture had to be selected)
The cricket pic got in by way of ‘photographers privelege’!
This picture is by John Constable – ’nuff said
And completing the gallery for lot 259 this quirky oval picture
Lot 292 – a four image gallery.
Lot 300 – a spitfire badge
Lot 312 (four images)
Lot 313
Next up in today’s whistle stop tour are some bulk postcard lots…
This vast collection fo postcards came by post from Belgium!
The bulk of lot 634
The best of lot 634
To finish, some interesting miscellaneous items…
Some interesting pewter (I think it is pewter anyway)
Lot 703 – a collection of old tins
The glass front on this on is still clear enough that you can see trhe camera lens reflected in it!
Preparations for the Positive Autism Awareness Conference and a post-lunch walk, therefore lots of photos.
INTRODUCTION
Although the Positive Autism Awareness Conference that we at NAS West Norfolk are holding on April 16th at the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn on April 15th is at the heart of this piece there are also lots of new photographs for me to share.
AN ORGANIZING MEETING
Today there was a meeting at the home of NAS West Norfolk branch chair Karan McKerrow to assemble ‘goodie bags’ for the event. As she lives out in the country and not on a regular bus route, this meant arranging a pick up for me, so my first task was to get to Churchill Park School to meet the person who would be giving me a lift. Thus before anything else I have to say a…
MEA CULPA
I was almost twenty minutes late at the meeting place because I walked and made the mistake of not sticking to a route that I knew, and lost my way at one point. I had left myself an hour in which to make the journey, which should have been ample but for the mishap. Also, although I can supposedly connect to facebook and my phone I tried twice and was unable to do so, so could not communicate my whereabouts (I had no contact numbers with me either). The confession out of the way I can now attend to the rest of…
GETTING THERE
I set off exactly when I had intended to, headed for the parkland, following roughly the line of St John’s Walk, taking these photos in the early stages…
At this point I was close to the Tennyson Road level crossing, which was in the process of closing, so I walked to the barrier and waited. The train was goods train, and worth a few more pics…
Immediately after this, at the point at which I made my first wrong move (the path forks, and one direction leads through to KES and the main road, which would have been safe but dull, the other heads in the direction of the hospital – closer to my goal, and a more interesting route) I saw something very unexpected given the proximity of a main road and the even closer proximity of the railway tracks – a brace of deer.
Both deer in one shot
The incipipent antlers possessed by this one combined the face confirm that it is a species of deer.
I have shown these as individual images rather than a tiled mosaic in the hope that someone can identify the species of deer (anyone there at whyevolutionistrue?).
Now we come to the point at which things went pear-shaped, near this sign…
I decided not to venture in to the woodland (ironically I would probably have saved time by doing so), but chose the wrong path, and it was in this section of the walk that I ran irretrievably late. By the time I located Gayton Road (by way of Gaywood Hall Drive) I was already ten minutes late, and as previously mentioned, could not log on to facebook. It was another ten minutes rapid walking before I arrived at the head of Winston Churchill Drive, and was spotted by the people picking me up.
THE MEETING
We had 100 Autism Awareness event packs from NAS HQ, which was not sufficient as we had sold 120 tickets for the event (and had a significant waiting list) an also wanted the people who would be running stalls to have packs. In addition to these the bags (thick brown paper with comfortable but robust handles) were to contain a balloon, a pen, various stand alone leaflets and an NAS flag (placed flag end up so a wide flag rather than a narrow stick pointed out of the bag).
In addition to this activity various timings were confirmed (some setup will be done the night before the event, and everyone who has a stand and/or will be involved in running the event will be expected to arrive for doors opening at 8AM, so that there is no overlap between us setting up for the day and people arriving for the event from about 8:45AM onwards (starts at 9AM).
Before we got started on assembling the ‘goodie bags’ I spotted a couple of interesting cushions…
THE JOURNEY HOME
Very uneventful fortunately. One of the group planned to visit her mother-in-law who lives not that far from my place, so I got a lift as far as Loke Road and had a walk of under 15 minutes to get home. After lunch, the weather remaining bright and sunny I decided it would be foolish to remain in the flat and took myself out for…
AN AFTERNOON WALK
Since the river was one place I had not been in the morning I started by heading to the point at which the Purfleet meets the river.
From South Quay I headed past old Boal Quay to the Nar Outfall, and the structure I have dubbed Cormorant platform. Today there was only one cormorant about.
I made my way home by way of the parkland, enhancing my stock of moorhen pictures along the way.
From DPACcomes the first list of names of Tory MPs who voted to cut ESA while being involved with disability charities. It also mentions the three (Messrs Malthouse and Cleverly and Ms Rudd) who have already been given the boot by their charities. Please follow the link below, read in full and post comments there.
Various bits of autism related stuff, including an account of a talk by Mel Bruce for NAS West Norfolk, and some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
Last night I attended a talk given by Dr Mel Bruce, a clinical psychologist at Starfish Plus. There are also a few other things I will be covering in this post.
MEL BRUCE TALK
The talk was scheduled to run from 7-9PM, and I was required to be there (the scout hut on Beulah Street, as so often for NAS West Norfolk events) early to help with the setup. Mel opened proceedings with a brief account of what she and her team do, and who they work with, before taking questions from the floor. One of the things Mel mentioned when talking about communication was the use of a system of communication cards, which would work rather as the coloured badges at AutismCon did – in that case red was for “don’t talk to me unless it is an emergency”, yellow for “don’t initiate conversations but you can respond if I talk to you” and green for “I am happy to talk”, with freedom to change according to how you are feeling at any given moment (I selected a green badge and stuck with it the whole day as it happens). A great quote which showed how involved she is with the autistic community “Don’t do anything about us without us”. Another excellent point she made was about referring to special interests rather than obsessions.
Although this talk did not deal with issues that relate directly to me, because it was aimed at parents of autistic children, and therefore I maintained a purely listening brief, I enjoyed the evening, and am looking forward to meeting Mel again at the Positive Autism Awareness Conference NAS West Norfolk are holding at the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn on April 15th. Meantime, we have connected on twitter.
Clinical psychologist Mel Bruce introducing the sessionA decent turnout for the event.the first of four shots featuring posters.
A POTENTIAL MEETING WITH SIR HENRY BELLINGHAM MP
Just a brief mention of the fact that following a very unsatisfactory response by Sir Henry Bellingham on the subject of the cut to ESA, in which he claimed to be talking to lots of local groups moves are afoot to organize a meeting between ourselves and him. Further information about his record as an MP can be found here (warning – it makes grim reading).
ON DIAGNOSES
This section is here because it was recently brought to my attention that there are still problems with doctors being unwilling to diagnose autistic spectrum conditions (ASC for short) and in some cases unwilling to refer people for diagnosis. In the nine and a half years since I was diagnosed (25 years later than I should have been but that is another story) my life has improved hugely in all sorts of ways.
My message to doctors faced with people seeking a diagnosis of an autistic spectrum is this: if you feel unable to do this yourself, then refer the patient to someone who can. To point blank refuse even to refer someone is unacceptable and indefensible.
HELPING THE NATIONAL AUTISTIC SOCIETY WITH A PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN
The National Autistic Society are running a Public Awareness Campaign, to which I am pleased to say I have been able to contribute. In answering the questions I was sent as part of this I referred on many occasions to things that happened before I was diagnosed, precisely because (see above), things have been so much better since I was diagnosed.
A VICTORY – #JUSTICEFORKAYLEB
Yes – a good news story to end the text section of this post. Kayleb Moon-Robinson, a 6th grade student with autism, was facing life with a conviction for a felony offence. Following a prolonged campaign, all charges against him have been dismissed. More details are available as follows:
New build in keeping with its surroundingsI would have started work on this ghastly, out of place building with a wrecking ball, but I am glad to see that something is being done.
Change point – this is the last of the daytime photos – others were taken on the way to the Mel Bruce talk.
This post does exactly what the title claims. The photos are all from yesterday, which has the distinction of being the first day in 2016 on which I ventured out without putting a coat on (yes folks, it has been a long wait but spring really is on its way)
TOP AND BOTTOM SETTLED
WITH A ROUND TO GO
This weekend saw the penultimate round of the Six Nations rugby tournament. Ireland, coming into this round with a draw and two defeats to their name, faced Italy who had lost all three of their matches. Ireland racked up 58 points in the end, to open clear daylight between themselves and the foot of the table. England played Wales at Twickenham and at half time the score was 16-0 to England, probably should have been 23-0 and had it been 30-0 Wales could have had no complaints. Wales played much better in the second half, but had left themselves too much to do to get back in the match. In the third match Scotland faced France and followed their victory over Italy in the previous round with another in this match. The key try that put Scotland out of reach was a brilliant solo effort from Duncan Taylor.
The effect of this action was that England with four wins out of four are now uncatchable at the top of the table and head to Paris with their sights firmly set on completing a grand slam. This is a mightily impressive first campaign for new England coach Eddie Jones. As well as leaving England out of reach at the top, Scotland’s win over France left Italy marooned at the bottom with no way of avoiding the wooden spoon. Of the teams in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th, separated by just two points, Wales have a massive advantage because not only are they currently in second, they finish their campaign at home to Italy. Scotland and Ireland face each other, while France have an England team with confidence sky-high to contend with.
PHOTOS
These photos were all taken while out walking yesterday and are presented in the order in which they were taken…
I took this picture because I was so annoyed that this had been left lying around.
The cormorants were out in force.
There will be a long post about various autism related issues coming either tonight or first thing tomorrow.
Next time someone dares to suggest in your hearing that only Tories can be trusted with the economy point them in the direction of this very detailed piece of analysis by Richard Murphy…
A review of a book in a new find of mine, the Bryant & May series, with a few other bits.
INTRODUCTION
Although the book review is the principal focus of this piece there are a few other bits that I will be sharing afterwards.
A GREAT READ WITH A MINOR QUIBBLE
Those of you who follow my London transport themed website may recall that I posted a review of a book called Off The Rails which featured a team of oddballs collectively known as the Peculiar Crimes Unit (officially the Peculiar part of the title referred to the crimes being investigated as opposed to the investigators but one might think otherwise).
Since reading that book I have taken every opportunity to deepen my acquaintance with Arthur Bryant, John May and their team of oddballs, and The Burning Man is just one of a number of their adventures that I have recently read.
The story in this book features riots provoked in part by misbehaving bankers being used as a cover for a series of murders all of which involve the use of fire. The story has many twists and turns. There are also various subplots, principally the antagonism between the PCU and Superintendent Darren “Missing” Link.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, as I have every book I have encountered in this series, and heartily recommend it. It is in that spirit that the following is offered (and I hope will be accepted)…
A QUIBBLE
To set the stage, here is a photograph of the paragraph on page 144 that gave rise to the quibble:
How many of you can guess without reading on where my quibble arises?
If you guessed that it was the sentence “He worked with some crazy people, borderline-autistic tech-heads who were likely to turn up at the front door, find no-one home and climb through a window.” score yourself 10 out of 10.
The phrase borderline-autistic is meaningless given that autism is a spectrum condition, and the usage of such a phrase is indicative of what Richard Dawkins terms “the tyranny of the discontinuous mind”. I also take umbrage at the notion of an autistic person responding to finding no one at home by climbing through a window. Finally, as an autistic person who is skilled in the use of computers I still object to the conflation of autism and tech-headedness – while the two traits can go together they do not always do so. Finally, I find the entire sentence lazily reinforces damaging stereotypes about autistic people. To finish this section, although in one sense every post on this blog has an automatic connection to autism, you can find more posts in which I specifically deal with autism here.
In spite of my quibble with a paragraph on page 144 I thoroughly recommend this book.
ANOTHER FIND AT THE BUS STATION
The new information office at King’s Lynn bus station is a treasure trove. My latest find focuses specifically on West Norfolk…
The obverse in full
A close up of the map
The only section of the reverse worth reproducing
PLANS FOR KNIGHT’S HILL
I make no comment as yet on this scheme, which is still at a preliminary stage, just reproducing it in full…
POSITIVE AUTISM AWARENESS CONFERENCE REMINDER
NAS West Norfolk are holding a Positive Autism Awareness Conference at the Duke’s Head Hotel on Friday 15th April. One feature of this conference will be a photographic display by yours truly. I have mentioned this in a number of previous posts.
Acknowledgements to the Eastern Daily Press for this story of local diversity…
From dusk ‘til dawn, volunteers scoured 25 nature reserves and beauty spots to see how many species they could record there.
And now, with the results all in and analysed, the winners can be revealed: with Norfolk sites in the top two spots. The so-called “Bioblitz” study was carried out by the National Trust at 25 of its coastal sites in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The surveys were carried out over 24 hours, with volunteers scouring their patches for species, to see how many they could find in the time.
The location with the greatest number of species was the Brancaster estate, where 1,018 were recorded. In second place was Blakeney nature reserve, with 934 species. The Brancaster Bioblitz took place in July. Keith Miller, coastal ranger at Brancaster, said: “We only had 24 hours to survey wildlife. I used every single one. From surveying for owls at midnight to leading bat walks for families the following evening.
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