An illustrated account of yesterdays Musical Keys session at the Scout Hut, Beulah Street.
INTRODUCTION
Yesterday was a Musical Keys day for me and others associated with the NAS West Norfolk branch. Attendances were somewhat affected by the fact that an autism friendly event was also taking place at Norwich Castle. This post briefly covers the session I attended, from 4PM to 5PM (as usual there had been an earlier session for the younger ones).
GETTING THERE
I left my flat a little earlier than usual, opting for the Bawsey Drain route. I was carrying a guitar with me to donate to the group always assuming that it could be restored to usable condition (it was a long time since it had last been used). I picked up a few pictures along the way…
THE SESSION ITSELF
John who runs the sessions confirmed that he could make the guitar usable again (it would need new strings but was still capable of generating good sound). Once the session started I found myself using a computer program called Scratch to generate notes. Each note is assigned a numerical value by the program, and you the operator then assign each of these numerical values to a button on the keyboard…
My screen once I had assigned one octave worth of notes to various keys – this works on the ‘click and drag’ principle – the orange tabs at the top describe events, and the purple tabs describe sounds.The full list of numerical note values.
The default instrument is a piano, but there is a range of some 25 instruments available – I eventually settled on clarinet as my instrument of choice. There are then a whole range of other options available, such as programming the cat to move while you are playing notes and even it draw lines as it moves. Here are a few more pictures.
I very much enjoyed this session, and I think this makes an excellent addition to real instruments. Although it was dark by the time I walked back, just before leaving I spotted an eight-legged friend…
A walk in and around King’s Lynn and a number of interesting and important links.
INTRODUCTION
I am making the walk the centrepiece of this post, with some links either side of it, starting with some general links, and then following the walk with some science and nature themed links.
Yesterday was bright and sunny, so I went out for a walk. The sun was shining on to the Lower Purfleet, revealing that the surface still had a thin covering of ice…
When posting about a walk in King’s Lynn I always like to showcase at least one of our historic buildings, and today I have this picture showing Hanse House and the Rathskeller with the towers of King’s Lynn Minster in the background:
There was nothing else of note until I reached the Nar outfall, where I have often observed cormorants. This time there were no cormorants, but there was a small wading bird which I had not seen before and which consultation of my bird book suggested was a Common Sandpiper…
I left the river by way of Hardings Pits, taking a couple of shots (one each way) at that moment.
The view towards townThe view away from town
Crossing the Nar on my towards the parkland I took a picture from the bridge…
Passing through the Vancouver Garden I spied a squirrel. It eluded my first attempt to photograph it, but…
I then decided to make it a long walk and headed for Lynn Sport, to then go back into town by way of Bawsey Drain. Along the way I got a shot of the railway station as seen from Tennyson Road level crossing…
At Lynnsport I stopped to photograph a decorated signpost…
The Bawsey Drain segment of the walk provided a number of pictures, including a raven and some moorhens…
Unfortunately Bawsey Drain is used as a dumping ground by people who cannot be bothered to dispose of their rubbish properly.
While walking a,long John Kennedy Road I took this picture of the back of St Nicholas’ Chapel…
Right at the end of the walk I spotted a pied wagtail..
NATURE THEMED LINKS
The first link in this section is to a piece that appeared as part of WEIT’s Hili Dialogue series. The star of the series is a cat, the eponymous Hili, also known as the Princess of Poland. Hili has a staff of two, Andrej and Malgorzata and graciously permits a dog named Cyrus to share in this. The pieces always feature something about that particular date, and apparently yesterday was Penguin Awareness Day. While I do not object to a day being designated Penguin Awareness Day, surely we should be aware of them and the rest of the natural world every day. To read the piece in full, click on the graphic below which is extracted from it:
This leads neatly on to two recent pieces from Anna, the first of which is titled “This can never be wrong”, the ‘this’ being taking care of our planet. The other piece from Anna that I am sharing here is about the Save Trosa Naturecampaign.
WEIT get another mention, for this piece about a new species of mothwhich has been named after Donald Trump.
I started the ‘general links’ section of this post with a piece by Heather Hastie. I now finish the piece with another piece, the title of which, “Huge Crack in Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica Grows” is sufficient introduction. I ‘pressed’ a link to this yesterday, but it is so important that I choose to share it again.
A brief post about last nights autism friendly performance of Cinderella at the Corn Exchange, King’s Lynn.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to this post about last night’s autism friendly production of Cinderella at the Corn Exchange, King’s Lynn last night. I was there because NAS West Norfolk, of which I am branch secretary, had lavished some of its money on tickets for the evening – in total some 120 people who are either autistic themselves or were accompanying autistic family members took advantage of the opportunity. No photographs today, because the Corn Exchange forbids photography in the auditorium.
GETTING THERE
Yesterday was a working day for me, and heavy traffic on the way into King’s Lynn in the evening left me with less turnaround time than I would have liked. Nevertheless, I got to the venue, which is very close to my flat, in time to take my seat, although entering the building at 6:25 for a show starting at 6:30 is not the sort of timing I generally aim for!
WHAT IS AN AUTISM FRIENDLY PERFORMANCE?
An autism friendly performance means that the lights in the auditorium go down rather than right off for the show, that there are no sudden loud bangs or other noises etc. For more about autism friendly performances and how they can lead people to enjoy regular performances please visit this post.
THE SHOW ITSELF
The autism friendly aspect of the show was not the only adaptation the cast had made – they infused this fairy tale with some local colour which was extremely well received. The ugly sisters had us all laughing with their moaning about the inadequacy of King’s Lynn shops. Another good locally themed joke was in a journey scene when mention was made of “making up time once we hit the A47” – anyone who has travelled along said road, which was most of the audience, realised that this was the single most fictional line of the night!
Some of the special effects were superb, the acting was excellent, and it was an excellent evening.
A post built around Dan Green’s “The Periodic Table in Minutes” and an article that brought things even further up to date.
INTRODUCTION
This is a post that has grown from two distinct roots as you will see. At the end I will be sharing some photographs and other links that have caught my eye.
A BOOK AND AN ARTICLE
I spotted a small format book about the periodic table in the library a few days ago, and duly borrowed it (I have also read and enjoyed Hugh Aldersey-Williams’ Periodic Tales). It proved to be an enjoyable and informative read.
While I was still working out how I might work this book and some ideas the occurred to me from my reading of it into a post I came across this article about the approval of names for the four elements which had previously had placeholder names based on the Latin for their number (113, 115, 117 and 118). This leads to my next section…
NAMES FOR ELEMENTS
The four new names are in ascending atomic number order Nihonium (based on the Japanese name for Japan), Moscovium, Tennessine (for the state of Tennessee) and Oganesson (in honour of physicist Yuri Oganessian), this latter further tilting the list of elements named after people in favour of men. Although a few female mythological characters were honoured in earlier times the number of real life females to feature in the periodic table stands at two – Marie Curie with Curium and Lise Meitner with Meitnerium. There was nearly a third – element 102 was subject to vigorous dispute over its discovery between research teams from Sweden and Russia – the Russians were ultimately given credit for discovering it first, but by way of compensation it was given the name Nobelium chosen by the Swedes as opposed to the Russians preferred name of Joliotium (for Irene Joliot-Curie.
This paucity of females having elements named after them got me thinking about ideas for names for future use if more elements (if you have sensible suggestions in this regard please post them in the comments section) and I came with a few ideas:
Hypatium, in honour of the possessor of the last great brain to be nurtured in the Great Library of Alexandria.
Noetherium, for Emmy Noether, mathematical genius.
Angieron for science writer Natalie Angier.
Reichsine for forensic anthropologist and hugely successful novelist Kathy Reichs.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I given you a lot of text, so now here are some pictures…
Three pictures from the lumiere shown on Greyfriars tower.
Christmas lights in Fakenham (three pictures).
LINKS
My first link is to a post by Rob Gorski, who calls himself the Autism Dad. This particular post is about sorting out an issue of one of his sons being bullied.
The text that appears below comes courtesy of Google translate, which I put to work on a piece from Spanish language website www.circuitodeprueba.com – if you can read Spanish, or would just like to see the piece in its original setting click the image that ends this post.
We are in a boom of artificial intelligence for vehicles and electricity as the main fuel, this is when IBM, a legendary computer manufacturer, wants to board the ship and for that he presented OLLI, the means of transport of the future.
Olli is a bus created solely with 3D printers that has automatic driving and is totally electric. In his brain we find the artificial intelligence system IBM Watson IA and its skeleton bears the mark of Local Motors.
The Olli Smart Bus has a capacity of 12 passengers (seated and stopped) and is currently being tested in the city of Washington DC, soon to reach other cities nearby (Miami, Las Vegas) later, specifically later this year, Begin the tests in Denmark.
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:
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:
The menu at the Rose & Crown in Harpley, where my parents took me for lunch yesterday (it was an excellent meal – thanks)The next five pics are also from the Rose & Crown, four showing decorative features and one the dessert menu.
The redeveloped back of King’s Lynn Town Hall
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).
— Stop Heathrow Exp (@StopHeathrowExp) November 19, 2016
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:
Sharing the best stuff I have found on the internet lately, and some of my own pictures.
INTRODUCTION
No – I’m not getting into financial writing! This title refers to the fact that this post is largely devoted to sharing interesting stuff I have found recently, with some pictures, mainly from work.
The “Make Votes Matter” campaign have launched a thunderclap as the latest stage of their efforts to get the antiquated and defective FPTP system under which British general elections are fought.
SEA WORLD PETITION
Another long standing campaign entering a new phase. The new development is a map to which you can add your presence:
The two links posted on my website (here and here)
To check out the tool (I caught it out once – when although it correctly had me change at Stockwell to the Victoria line for a journey between Tooting Bec and Great Portland Street it then had me change at King;’s Cross to the Circle/ Hammersmith and City/ Metropolitan, instead of alighting at Warren Street, strolling round the corner to Euston Square and travelling one stop west – a net gain of three stops with little time difference in the interchanges) click the screenshot below:
OTHER LINKS
These are individual links that defy any sort of grouping:
David Hencke provides a sensible analysis of the recent court decision re Brexit – this has provoked some truly appalling press coverage, with the Daily Heil being in full ‘hurrah for the blackshirts’ mode, and the newspaper that is not sold on Merseyside not far behind in the awfulness stakes.
As already stated, most of my pictures are from work on Thursday and yesterday.
Lot 1 in James and Sons auction that will take place on November 30th.
Lot 154Lot 293
Lot 596Finishing appropriately given the nature of the post with an image of a pin badge that I spotted on twitter. The design is a phylogenetic tree btw.
A link to a petition concerning bullying/ disability hate crime at Brentwood County High School.
I have featured this petition here before. The latest is that there are 4,500 signatures, but Harry remains off school as he will not go back until the bullies have been expelled. The headteacher is currently refusing to meet Harry’s family, and they have reported the attacks Harry has suffered as disability hate crime. If you have not already done so please sign and share the petition by clicking on the screenshot below:
aspiblog 