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:

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:

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

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.

WHAT IS NORMAL?

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

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.

Midweek Mishmash

Pictures from the last few days, an important video and petition link.

INTRODUCTION

I have a variety of pictures and links to share with you.

IMAGES FOR THE NOVEMBER AUCTION

These images are from yesterday.

I took two lpictures of this fort, lot 419, onje with the drabridge down and one with it up. It also disassembles readuly, with a drawer in the base for putting the bits in when it is not in use.

Lot 598 – a selection of interesting beer mats – I made a display of the best ones, keeping the box with the rest inside it in shot.

NEW SEAT DESIGN CELEBRATES PIONEER AUTOBIOGRAPHER MARGERY KEMPE

Margery Kempe was born and raised in King’s Lynn (one of her former abodes was on the site now occupied by 117 High Street. For more about her check out this link. The seat design is for the Saturday Market Place, which happens to be pretty much on the doorstep of the formed abode of hers mentioned above. Here is a picture:

TIMES CARTOONIST NAILS IT

The picture below is The Times cartoonist’s take on our current Prime Minister:

A PHOTOGRAPHIC WALK

These are a staple of this blog, and I offer you these pictures from Monday:

CAMPAIGN FOR CLEANER AIR IN BRISTOL

Bristolians are campaigning over pollution levels in their city, and deserve wider support. Below is a video, followed by a link to a 38 Degrees petition:

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Sign the petition

Two Interesting Series

Cricket, Politics and Photographs – enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

I have a few other things to share, but I will be starting this post with cricket.

BANGLADESH AND THE WEST INDIES

England’s men are in Bangladesh, currently endeavouring to chase down 278 to stay in the series and making a decent fist of it (107-1 off 19 overs – 169 needed off 31 for victory). This is not quite a full strength England, but nevertheless winning the series would be a considerable feather in Bangladeshi caps.

Meanwhile half a world away in the West Indies England’s women are tied at 1-1 in a five match ODI series, with the three remaining matches counting in the ICC championship (the first two did count, and please do not ask me to explain as working out the rationale behind such administrative decisions is beyond my capabilities). The two matches in this series so far have been low scoring, with the highest total in the four innings being England’s 149 in the first game. The West Indies are current world T20 champions, while England blitzed Pakistan in England this summer, so we have two sides who are used to success in action.

FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE

This is a new campaign that has been set up to defend the Welfare State from ever increasing attacks by the Tories. More details are available at:

The campaign website
The campaign facebook page
A facebook group that you can join
This piece from Vox Political which introduced me to the campaign.

Please get involved!

THE GARDEN BRIDGE FIASCO

A report from the National Audit Office has just come out revealing that even in crude financial terms the proposed Garden Bridge across the terms is a shockingly bad idea. In terms of its negative impact on the South Bank it is an even worse idea. Here are a couple of links for you to follow:

The petition against the building of this pathetic vanity project.
A link to the NAO report referred to earlier.

THE BREXIT SHAMBLES

Our unelected prime minister Theresa May does not intend to give Parliament a vote on the details of Brexit. Many are dissatisfied with this display of arrogance. Alexandra Runswick of Unlock Democracy has put together a petition calling for a change of mind – click here for more details and to sign.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I end with some photographs. The photographs feature boats moored at the pontoon jetty, one of which had the name Cheetah Marine prominently displayed on its side…

dscn6244 — A cormorant dived just before I could photograph it…

dscn6245 — …but moments later I did get it.

dscn6248 — A cormorant flying low and fast over the water.

An Important Autism Related Document

Some stuff about autism, and on World Mental Health Day some stuff about mental health.

INTRODUCTION

I have various things to share in addition to detail of this document. Also, of course, there will be some photographs.

A DRAFT AUTISM STRATEGY FOR NORFOLK

Here is a link from which you can access the document and below my own saved copy:

Autism Strategy

draft-norfolk-all-age-autism-strategy-october-2016-word

Overall I am not unhappy with this document, but there is one thing on which I have to pick them up – their use of the word ‘autistics’, which to me feels dehumanising as compared to such phrases as ‘autistic person’ or ‘person wiith autism’.

NAS SCHOOL HONOURED

The Sybil Elgar school in Ealing, which is run by the National Autistic Society, has had a visit from the Mayor of Ealing, who had the pleasant task of handing out awards to 13 students who have successfully completed the ASDAN transition challenge. To read more about this story click here.

WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY

For general information on World Mental Health Day and what it is all about please read this article. Also on World Mental Health Day is this courtesy of the TimetoChange twitter account:

THE PHOTOGRAPHS

Saturday Scattergun

INTRODUCTION

I have some pictures to share, and a few links, but no main subject matter, hence the title of this post.

THE MUSEUM OF LONDON

This is a signpost to my London transport website, and simultaneously a mention of James and Sons’James and Sons’ next auction, since the post was built around lot 737 in said sale…

How does this poster connect to the Museum of London? To find out follow the link below.

http://www.londontu.be/the-museum-of-london/

AN AUTISM RELATED PIECE ON WWW.INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

This story is about a 4 year old boy who was hospitalised after being fed a ‘holistic cure’ for autism on the advice of someone describing themselves as a ‘naturopath’. The notion of any sort of ‘cure’ for autism is of course offensive nonsense. Equally, the idea that a ‘naturopath’ should be entitled to prescribe remedies for anything should probably be considered offensive nonsense. The combination of one person’s belief in the offensive nonsense of a ‘cure’ for autism and one person’s cynical willingness to exploit this gullibility created a situation that was very dangerous for an innocent child. The full piece can be viewed here.

SAJID AND THE FRACKERS

Some of you will know that the Dishonourable Sajid Javid has recently made a decision to ignore the will of a community and give Cuadrilla the go ahead to frack there in defiance of clearly expressed local wishes. Mr Javid receives big money from fracking companies and as such should have had the decency to admit to a conflict of interest and say that this was a decision that he could not be involved in making, but of course Tory and decency do not go together, and so unsurprisingly he made a decision in favour of his rich mates and against the community and against the environment. I end this section by linking to a piece that details the environmental impact of fracking.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS

I am presenting this pictures in two tranches, starting with the general…

I bring this post to a finish with some pictures of the new £5 note, which before I got this one in change I had not seen in the flesh…

The two faces of the note in one picture

2017 Photographic Wall Calendar

A sneak preview of the 2017 Photographic Wall Calendar.

INTRODUCTION

As some of you know I created photographic wall calendars last year. I recently mentioned that I was going to do again this year. This morning my inbox contained an offer from Vistaprint that was too good to refuse, so the calendars will be arriving with me some time around October 20th.

THE FRONT COVER

This time, there will be no borders, and no added text. It will surprise few who have followed this blog recently to find out that I have chosen an Inlandsbanan picture for the front cover…

The actual calendar will be much bigger than this of course.

THE MONTH PAGES

Here are the individual pages for each month…

feb — This picture was taken quite recently, but I decided that it looks wintry enough for February.

june — This picture is one of my Swedish ones, but not inappropriate for the month.

sep — This picture was taken on Heritage Open Day, which in King’s Lynn is always the second Sunday in September.

oct — Two pictures both from October 1st joined together.

dec — Another two pictures from very recently joined together for this purpose.

Autism and Other Stuff

Some stuff about autism, some important links and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

Although this post includes some links that are not specific to autism, and of course some photos, enough of it is autism related to warrant the first word of the title.

AN IMPORTANT EVENT ON MONDAY

This Monday an ‘autism positive’ event is taking place at the Theatre Royal in Norwich. I will be present in the dual capacity of autistic adult and branch secretary of NAS West Norfolk. As well as a display with full information about our branch we will be distributing leaflets about efforts to get some adult oriented events and activities going. Apart from the official NAS branding and header which I copied and pasted from the website the leaflets are entirely my work…

leaflet-social-media-whole-doc — This is a screenshot of the whole document – two leaflets to the page.

leaflet-social-media-single-leaflet — This is a close up of a single leaflet.

Advertising attended to, the second part of this section relates to:

AUTISM AND EMPLOYMENT

First of all, here is the grim truth about autistic people and employment in the UK:

75% of us are unemployed.
Others are employed in low paid and/ or part time work, so that 85% of us are classed as underemployed.

So, what can be done about this? Well, recruitment practices need to change and here is for me the single most important thing that could be done:

Abolish standard interviews, which place one in a position that one will never be in when in the job, making skills testing mandatory instead. Many autistic people however mujch preparation they put in cannot do themselves justice in interviews, while if you have them do the kind of work that they would be doing in the job they will fare much better, and you will learn not whether they can say the right things but whether they can actually do the work.

As a segue into the next section of the post, here is a link to a petition created by an autistic adult (Chris Packham), which calls on the Government to:

Introduce a moratorium on the hunting
of critically declining wading birds

LINKS

My first link in this section comes courtesy of the consumer group Which? who have managed to get the Consumer Rights Act to cover all travel sectors. Please read the full piece here.

My second link, courtesy of Richard Murphy at Tax Research UK is to a piece that demonstrates that Jeremy Corbyn’s investment program will cost less than the Tories current QE program.

I give the last word before the photographs to DPAC, who have prepared some online action to coincide with the Tory conference for the benefit of those who cannot make it to Birmingham but want to be part of the protest. Please click the link below to see how you can be part of…

ONLINE SHENANIGANS FOR THE TORY PARTY CONFERENCE

PHOTOGRAPHS

All the photographs below were taken yesterday…

dscn5845 — Having seen an abundance of cormorants where the Nar joins the Great Ouse it was a fine bonus to see these swans enjoying the Nar.

dscn5858 — To be able to capture this creature on camera was a huge bonus.

Grab Bag

A variety of things that have come to my attention recently.

INTRODUCTION

This post is about a mixture of things from the last few days, hence the title.

CHAMPIONSHIPS AND CONTRIVANCES REVSITED

Some of you may remember that I put this post up on Thursday, with Somerset having secured an emphatic win in their game and Middlesex and Yorkshire going head to head in theirs. Sadly, when I checked what was going on on Friday afternoon, Lyth and Lees (the two opening batsmen, neither with any sort of status as bowlers) were purveying out-and-out filth for Yorkshire to help Middlesex set an agreed target. Yorkshire paid for accepting such an arrangement when their batting subsequently collapsed handing the title to Middlesex. Sadly, Somerset were innocent victims of this scam by Middlesex and Yorkshire, being robbed of would have been their first ever county championship not by good cricket but by dirty back room dealings.

BEES AND PARKS

This refers to two important issues that came up this weekend. Firstly, Greenpeace have exposed Bayer and Syngenta as having covered up evidence that their products were hugely damaging to bees. Greenpeace’s release can be viewed here, and here is a copy of their accompanying picture:

The parks part of the title of this section refers to an effort by 38 Degrees to secure better protection for our parklands. Living in King’s Lynn at this time gives this a particular resonance for me, so:

Britain’s parks are at risk. There’s no legal responsibility to look after them and squeezed budgets mean our local green spaces – from playgrounds, to the park you relax in on your lunch break – don’t have the money they need. We could end up being forced to pay to use our parks – or lose them altogether.

A group of MPs are looking into the crisis right now. They’re thinking of making protecting parks a legal requirement, and they’ll advise the government on what to do. A huge petition, signed by all of us, will prove how much we love our parks. It could convince the MPs to come up with a water-tight plan for protecting them.

Can you sign the petition now and demand that looking after our parks is made a legal requirement by the government? It only takes 30 seconds to add your name:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-parks

Here are some pictures of my own, including a few from King’s Lynn’s own parkland areas:

LABOUR LEADERSHIP ELECTION

I will let these beautiful infographics culled from twitter do the talking for me on this one:

SOME AUTISM RELATED STUFF

As NAS West Norfolk Branch Secretary and as someone who is #ActuallyAutistic I am always glad to share really excellent autism related content, and I have two absolute gems for you:

Courtesy of The Art of Autism I give you “12 THINGS THAT MAKE ME WEIRD #WEIRDISGOOD #WHOIAM“
From Autostraddle comes “Telling Myself the Truth: 5 Strategies for Fighting Internalized Ableism“

Finally to end this section, as regular readers will know one of the activities I am involved in via NAS West Norfolk is Musical Keys, and this is an advert they have recently produced:

THE FINISHING TOUCHES

One of my favourite blogs is that of singer Charlotte Hoather, who has just started at the Royal College of Music in London. Her post about her first week there can be viewed here.

To end this post I give you a series of pictures starring a snail…

dscn5734 — This is the original picture that I took.

snail-cropped — This is cropped but not otherwise edited.

snail-normal-edit — This is the snail after my normal editing routine.

snail-cb — This is a colour-boosted version.

snail-contrast-enhanced — This version has the contrast enhanced.

snail-the-works — Finally, this version has had the colour boosted and the contrast enhanced.

Cormorants and Calendars

A brief post showcasing some cormorants from earlier today and announcing my intention to produce a calendar.

INTRODUCTION

This post combines showing some new pictures with being the official announcement that I shall be repeating last year’s experiment of producing calendars as Christmas presents.

CORMORANTS

I decided once I had completed my online NAS branch officer’s training this morning that I would go for a walk, and I was delighted to see the structure I call ‘Cormorant Platform’ was very busy…

dscn5546 — The first of the cormorant images – this one shows precisely why I call it ‘Cormorant Platform – notwithstanding the three Caspian gulls also on there, it is the cormorants (five on this occasion) who stand out.

dscn5550 — Just before leaving the river I got this picture of a cormorant in flight.

dscn5553 — A couple of moorhens to finish with…

CALENDARS

The calendars will be large, month to page, each month decorated with a picture. Learning from last year I will be aiming to have no borders, and certainly no patterned borders, just pictures taking up the whole available space. This is very much a work in progress, but here are the pictures I have so far picked out as being good enough (feel free to add your own suggestions of pictures you particularly enjoyed when I first posted them in the comments sections, although remember that I am limited to 13 pictures (front cover plus 12 months):

dscn9190 — This picture showing the two Inlandsbanan trains together is earmarked for the front cover

dscn4002 — I will use one of these two ducking pictures

dscn4950 — Likewise, I will use one these two butterfly pictures.

dscn8156 — This photo, from the Stockholm Archipelago, will be July’s

dscn9030 — This picture was actually taken in January.

dscn9277 — This picture might get the nod for August

dscn9319 — This is nailed on for April, since it was in that month that the Positive Autism Awareness Conference was held at this establishment.

dscn9332 — This is provisionally September’s picture.

Musical Keys MKII

A brief account of the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for NAS West Norfolk.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday saw the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for people with Autism in the King’s Lynn area. The sessions will now take place fortnightly at the Scout Hut on Beulah Street (youngsters 3PM to 4PM, older people 4PM to 5PM). The sessions are now being run by two new people, John and Kirsty.

FIRST SESSION BACK

The biggest change other than in personnel was the absence of i-pads – we were using real instruments, with the focus being on percussion…

You can see here five drums that need to lifted above ground level to be played, one box which you sit on to play, generating sound by hitting the front, a wooden instrument that like the drums needs to be lifted to be played and a second wooden instrument (partially concealed), which comes with its own striking implements.

Once we had made our selections it was time to start playing, initially to instructions.

The side of the drum I chose.

After a while I was introduced to a new instrument, a wooden frog with a hollow centre, which comes with a wooden striking instrument.

Later still I switched drums to one of the larger ones…

dscn5500 — With this larger drum I could position the frog in the centre and vary the sound according to whether I struck the frog or the drum.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the session. John said that if anyone indicated that they wanted a particular instrument to be available they would try to make it happen.

SOME NEW PHOTOS

With one exception these pictures are all from today, from walks at each end of the day…

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