Uppsala: The Linnaeus Museum

The latest in my series of posts about my Swedish holiday – today featuring the Linnaeus museum.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my holiday in Sweden. This post is the last to focus purely on Uppsala, although there is still the account of the journey from Uppsala to Malmo to cover.

FROM LIBRARY TO MUSEUM

Those who read my previous post will recall that while there was plenty to see in the exhibition of treasures at Carolina Rediviva I was prevented from photographing most of it, so I was quite glad once I had finished there to get back into action, starting with these pictures…

Shortly after I had taken the above pictures I came to…

THE BERLIN MURAL

This mural, which as the information board reproduced below shows is named because of its origins, is actually four walls, the front and two side walls of which are also reproduced below (I could not get a sufficient distance behind the back wall to be able to photograph it).

We now get to the main meat of this post, starting with…

A ROUGH GUIDE TO CAROLUS LINNAEUS

Carolus Linnaeus lived in the 18th century (he was roughly contemporary with Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the creator of the theory of evolution by natural selection), and the house in which he lived is in central Uppsala. He was a botanist by training but is best know these days for being the creator of the system by which all living organisms are still categorized. Discoveries made since he was around have changed some categorizations and created some new ones, but the framework and methodology used are still his.

Such names as Homo sapiens (note that with these type of names the first word is always capitalized and the second word never so, even if it derives from a proper name) come from Linnaeus’ magnum opus.

He is also significant in the history of science for reversing a previous trend – whereas previous eminent scientists had taken Latin names to sound more impressive he went the other way, changing his Latin birth name (his father, a clergyman whose birth name had been Nils Ingemarsson had taken a Latin name to emphasize his education), used so far in this post, to a vernacular one, Carl Von Linne. His reasons for making this change were it must be said just as rooted in snobbery as those of folk who Latinized – he had been given a patent of nobility and considered his new aristocratic designation more important than his old Latin name.

Many books on the history of science cover his career in detail, my own personal recommendation being John Gribbin’s magisterial Science: A History 1543-2001.

THE LINNAEUS MUSEUM

As you approach the museum it is made suitably obvious that you are doing so…

Here is the approach to the house…

The rest of this post will be devoted the photographs I took of the objects in this remarkable museum.

Exploring Lulea -The Morning

The latest in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. I briefly interrupted the sequence of posts to respond to photographic challenge from a fellow blogger, but now the action returns to Lulea on the Gulf of Bothnia where I left it last time.

ENABLING PROPER EXPLORATION

Having had a decent night’s sleep and having a clear head I was able to plan this day, unlike its predecessor, to best effect. After checking out of the hotel my first port of call was the station to ask about stowing a bag there (my smaller bag contained stuff that I was determined to keep with me at all times). An enquiry elicited the information that the station building closed at 5PM, which meant that I could stow my heavier bag safely until then, after which the only practical option would be to await the arrival of the overnight train out on the platform. This still gave me plenty of time for a detailed exploration of the town.

THE START OF THE EXPLORATION

My heavier bag safely stowed I set off to the main shopping area to purchase food for the day from a supermarket I had identified the previous day. This done I then left the shopping area heading into an area of parkland. Even before entering the parkland I had added three photos to my burgeoning collection:

DSCN9361 — A close-up of the device in the upper centre of this first picture.

THE PARKLAND

Entering the parkland I was delighted to find that it was far more extensive than the first view had suggested. Here are some pictures from the first part of the walk through the parkland…

DSCN9372 — Polar bear sculptures like these can be seen all around Lulea – this set is unusual for their being so many all in a line.

The second part of the walk through the parkland area, which took me to the waterside, where I stayed for a considerable time featured this…

The last point of interest before getting to the waterside was the County Governor’s Residence:

THE WATERFRONT

Then I was at the water-front, and after a brief diversion heading towards maritime Lulea. Here are pictures from the first part of the waterside section of my explorations:

DSCN9398 — The ducks swimming around this model lighthouse make it obvious that though close this is not actually the sea.

My final set of pictures ends with a pointer to the next post in this series…

DSCN9444 — I had not previously seen seats like this (and have not seen any equivalent since then)

DSCN9449 — This is the seat I sat on to eat my lunch.

DSCN9454 — The subjects of this picture will also be the subjects of my next post in this series.

Transition Point – Lulea

The latest in my series of posts about my holiday in Sweden. This marks the start of the ‘post-Inlandsbanan’ section of the holiday.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of blog posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. Having concluded an eight-post sub-series on the Inlandsbanan experience I have created a page from all eight said posts can be accessed – click here if interested.

THE JOURNEY FROM GALLIVARE

Those who read my previous post will recall that my plans suffered a setback in Gallivare, which resulted in a night spent outdoors and an early morning journey to Lulea. Unfortunately the circumstances of the journey and in which I bought the ticket meant that I did not have a window seat, so I have no photos of the journey.

It failed to register with me that I could deposit the heavier of my bags at the station. My first port of call was the Arctic Comfort Hotel where I was told that I could not check in until 3PM.

Weighed down as I was I still managed to do a small amount of exploration, before settling down near the station to wait until then. Here are some photos from this stage of proceedings…

DSCN9346 — One of the first things I noticed about Lulea was the bird life, which had not been much in evidence along the Inlandsbanan route.

DSCN9348 — A particularly useful information board.

DSCN9349 — This old truck turned decorative feature is as one might expect one of the first things you see emerging from the station.

DSCN9352 — This bronze sculpture is in a small area of parkland between the main road directly above the station and the main shopping area of the town

DSCN9355 — The control button at a Swedish pedestrian crossing.

DSCN9358 — I consumed my lunch on this very bench (it is made of granite, which is readily available all over Sweden).

REMAKING PLANS

Once I was safely ensconced in my hotel room I booked accommodation for the rest my trip before the return to Stockholm – one night on the sleeper to Uppsala, two nights in the cheapest accommodation Uppsala had to offer, two nights in the STF Hostel in Malmo and one night at City Hotel Avenyn in Gothenburg (after five straight nights in cheap, communal accommodation, necessitated by budgetary constraints, I felt that I would need something a little better by then). Having set the scene with this post, there will be several more posts about Lulea…

Preparing for Inlandsbanan – Stockholm to Kristinehamn

The long-awaited resumption of my series of posts about Sweden. This one sets the scene for a number of posts about my travels on Inlandsbanan.

INTRODUCTION

It has been a long while since I last created a post, but I am now ready to go again with my accounts of my trip to beautiful Sweden. Having spent a very enjoyable few days in the company of my cousin and his fiance (see here for more details) it was time for me to make use of my one-country inter-rail pass, allowing up to eight days worth of rail travel in Sweden.

THE PROLOGUE TO INLANDSBANAN

My first journey on my inter-rail pass was a short hop of just over two hours from Stockholm to Kristinehamn where I would stay overnight before experiencing Inlandsbanan on days two and three of this part of the holiday (the distance from Kristinehman to the northern outpost of Gallivare, pronounced yell-ee-vara, is 1,364km which converts to roughly 850 miles).

At this stage I had not booked anything in advance, a mistake that I learned from after the experiences both on the train and at Kristinehamn, where I paid far more for a room than I ought to have done. Indeed one of the things I did in my room in Kristinehamn was make use of the wifi to book seats on three legs of Inlandsbanan and rooms in Ostersund fot the following night and then for two nights in Gallivare, although this latter did not work out, of which more anon.

The difficulties caused by my failure to reserve a seat on the train notwithstanding, I did get some pictures on the journey…

KRISTINEHAMN

I did some exploring in this pretty little town once I was settled. Here are my pictures from Kristinehamn…

DSCN8387 — Many Swedish stations feature this kind of diagram somewhere.

Having produced this little post I will start, probably tomorrow, on a succession of posts detailing the Inlandsbanan experience…

Pictures From The Stockholm Archipelago

The first post about my travels in Sweden, with lots of photographs.

INTRODUCTION

This is the first in what will be a series of posts about Sweden, where I am currently on holiday. If you enjoy this post I recommend that you make Anna’s blog your next port of call.

AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES

Although I have only been in Sweden since Friday night, I already have a huge number of stunning pictures to share. For this first part of my stay I have been in the company of a cousin and his Swedish fiancee Ida. My cousin met me at Stockholm central bus station (Skavsta airport, where my flight landed is too far out of town for him to meet me there, so I got the Flygbussarna into town on Friday night. On Saturday we travelled to an island that has been owned by Ida’s family for some time. This journey entailed a bus to Stavsnas, a boat out to the nearest island reachable by commercial boat, and a walk across said island, on the other side of which we met Ida who rowed us across the sound to the island on which we would be staying. Here are a few pictures from this part of the stay…

DSCN8084 — These first couple of pictures were taken through the window of an aeroplane from high above.

These first couple of pictures were taken through the window of an aeroplane from high above.

DSCN8097 — The remainder were taken either from the bus to Stavsnas or the ferry.

The Island

This Island has no flushing toilets, and save for the main house no running water. It only got electricity in the 1940s. The sea is lovely to swim in, as I can attest from personal experience. We start with the house itself…

Here some pictures from inside the house…

I will be looking at more detail at the insect life I have encountered in a future post, but to whet the appetite here is a rare butterfly whose English name is Apollo…

Now, some general pictures taken while on the island…

DSCN8245 — As a lead up to the next section, here is a map of the Stockholm Archipelago.

SAILING THE STOCKHOLM ARCHIPELAGO IN AN OPEN BOAT

Richard and Ida had too much stuff to take back to their flat in Stockholm for the way we had reached the island to be appropriate, so we were escorted by private boat, along with Ida’s brother and his daughter. Here are some pictures from the Stockholm Archipelago…

DSCN8314 — Lars (skipper of the boat), setting off on his return journey to the island from Stavsnas

Stavsnas to Stockholm

The last stage of the journey to the flat in which I write this, before heading off later today to catch a train to Kristinehamn, southern terminal of Inlandsbanan was by bus and tunnelbahn (the Stockholm Undergound, which I will be covering in a later post) yielded a few more pictures…

DSCN8335 — These last six pictures feature central Stockholm, as seen from the bus as it approached Slussen.

A Selection of Images

After my last post was pure text I suppose you c ould describes this one as compensating for the photographic deficit!

INTRODUCTION

As well as items that feature in James and Sons July Auction I have some pictures taken in my own time to share.

AUCTION LOTS

The images here are some of those I have produced since Thursday…

Now for some…

NON-AUCTION PICS

SNAILS

These snails were brought out by early monring rain yesterday.

Moving on to a rather more garecful creature beginning with s…

SWALLOW

These three pictures all come from the same original shot, edited differently. Swallows like flying low over the Nar outfall, although they still fly very fast, hence this being my first successful shot of one.

A MIXED BAG TO FINISH

DSCN6943 — The first of five pictures from the Five Greatest Warriors (Matthew Reilly) to appear here – this is Genghis Khan’s shield, depiciting the six temple shrines wherein a pillar has to be placed – by the time West gains possession of this item two of the pillars have been successfully placed.

DSCN6944 — Descriptions of all six vertices in the Word of Thoth, a language comprehensible only to the Siwan oracles

DSCN6915 — The first of two decorative plates in the window of the Salvation Army shop.

DSCN6970 — A bee – we need more of these!

Autism Awareness Cup Facebook Page

Introducing the Autsium Awareness Cup Facebook Page.

INTRODUCTION

First up, apologies to those among my readers who do not use facebook, although I do have some unrelated photos by way of compensation. Secondly, I will take this opportunity to congratulate Norfolk Country Council on being one of the local/ regional authorities to have given the disgraced legal firm Baker Small their marching orders. Some of you may recall that a few days I ago a put up a post about the inaugural Autism Awareness Cup, and this post is a brief follow-up.

THE AUTISM AWARENESS CUP PAGE

This is a fully public facebook page for which I provide a full URL: https://www.facebook.com/AutismAwarenessCup/ and a screen dump showing the page header:

So far five teams have entered, using European Championship/ World Cup themed names. I am happy report given current circumstances that no one has been tasteless enough to opt for Russia.

PHOTOGRAPHS

These windows are a feature of the building in which I am posting this – King’s Lynn Public Library

Two Small Auctions and Imaging for one Big Auction

An account of Wednesday and yesterday – with plenty of pictures. Also a link to a splendi piece on WEIT.

INTRODUCTION

Most of this post deals with events of Wednesday and yesterday.

WEDNESDAY – NORWICH

We had a small stamp sale at the Maids Head Hotel in Norwich, which necessitated a seriously early start. I was at the bus station at 6:00 as intended (the bus I was going to catch is scheduled to leave at 6:10, and I always like to be there early), but the bus was very late. I considered briefly catching the alternative X1, but was not willing to pay twice as much money for the quicker journey (£11 for the X1, run by First, £5.50 for a day-rider plus on the X8/ X29 Stagecoach route). Finally, over 20 minutes after it was due to leave the bus arrived to pick up passengers. It made good time once it was under way, apart from the inevitable crawl past Hellesdon Hospital, and I was at the venue by 8:15. There were no computer issues, and the sale ran very smoothly. Those items that sold went for good money, and overall the sale was as good as we could have expected.

THURSDAY – FAKENHAM

Thursday featured an early start, but not so much as the previous day, since we were holding a postal history sale at our own premises in Fakenham. This sale was more of a success than the one the day before – due to the presence of internet bidders, and a number of items made good money. Once it had finished I had time to do some imaging for the big auction on June 29th, at which some lots will be sold to raise money for the Royal British Legion’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College, London, and for which the catalogue is currently at the printers. There were some very large flags, one of them so huge that the only way I could image it was in the open air with two of my colleagues holding it up, one at each end. Here are the images…

342 — One of the two images I took of the hypergiant flag

346 — A supergiant flag – by spreading it out on the shop floor and standing a chair I was able to obtain an image of each hal;f of the flag and use my editing skills to bolt the two images together.

346-b — The other half of the supergiant flag

Lot 655 – a piece with local historical significance – and a gallery of seven images

675 — This table needed careful handling and crafty psoitioning to get a usable image.

To end this section, a challenge to my readers: from where did I get the descriptors (giant, supergiant and hypergiant) that I used for the outsize flags?

A LINK AND THE CURRENT TEST MATCH

Having already shared Richard Murphy’s piece on licences for company directors, when I then came across a gem of a piece on WEIT I felt that I could not justify a second such post within such a short space of time. Here therefore is a link to a piece about the Freedom for Religion Foundation going after NASA for giving a grant to a theological study.

England have recovered somewhat from a very poor start. Just before the close of day 1 of this third test against Sri Lanka Jonathan Bairstow reached his century, becoming only the second England wicketkeeper after Matt Prior to reach three test centuries in a calendar year and also only the second after Les Ames to reach two in the same test series.

I finish this piece with a few more photographs:

DSCN6462 — Various model aeroplanes are currentrly on display at locations around King’s Lynn, and this picture and the next feature two of them

DSCN6685 — A bird enjoying the metal artwork that adorns the market square in Fakenham

DSCN6704 — The image of the hypergiant flag that I decided not to use as the official one.

Musical Keys and Imaging

An account of today at work and yesterday at Musical keys.

INTRODUCTION

This post has two very disparate strands – yesterday’s Musical Keys event for Autistic People and tody at work.

IMAGING

While I have imaged a wide variety of stuff today at work I am going to concentrate on some commemorative coin lots that were of particular quality…

353 — I did not have time to provide close-ups of all these coins…

353-a — …so I selected the one featuring a picture of Nelson (we are in Norfolk after all) for the treatmnent.

354 — This lot featured an extra requirement.

354-a — Namely providing a shot focussing on the coin and info sheet into which it is set.

357 — The last of the commemorative coins.

510 — A large collection of themed stamp books.

511-b — an even close up of two individual stamps.

MUSICAL KEYS

The 12 years and older session of the Musical Keys workshop run as an NAS West Norfolk activity started at 4:45PM yesterday and ran until 6:15PM. I was there both as participant and as one 0f the two designated committee members to be present at the event (the other was group leader Karan whose younger son was participating). As usual with Musical Keys the main piece of equipment we were using was a miniature computer:

For the first part of the session we were playing computer drums:

After a mid-session break during which a birthday cake which Karan had very kindly made (gluten-free as her son has an adverse reaction to gluten) and which was absolutely delicious, we moved on to the second part of the session, which featured a system whereby lines had to be drawn across the screen so that balls would bounce of them to create sounds. For those of my generation it looks a bit like a very early BBC Micro game!

The basic set up

An arrangement of lines which prevents any of the balls (released from the nozzle you can see top centre) from escaping. I do not know what kind of sound this generates, as at no time while the sound was on did I have this many lines in place.

As anyone who knows what the weather was like in King’s Lynn yesterday early evening will be aware it was not suitable for photography on the way to the Scout Hut, where as so often with NAS West Norfolk events this took place, but I did get this picture on the way home…

Chris Packham and the Foxhunters

An account with links to the three source pieces of the vile abuse of Chris Packham by the pro-hunting lobby and his dignified response to it.

INTRODUCTION

I live with Asperger’s Syndrome, have previously had mental health issues including depression and am a nature lover. Chris Packham presents nature programs on TV, has Asperger’s Syndrome and has had mental health problems. Mr Packham has recently gone public about his Asperger’s and depression, and this is where the story starts…

A TWEET AND RETWEET

Yesterday morning Hunting Solutions put out the following tweet, quoted in his own piece immediately after it had happened by Miles King on anewnatureblog:

This tweet was retweeted by Nicholas Soames, a politician whose own party leader has spoken of the need to end the stigma attached to mental health. As Miles King points out, given the hysterical reaction to Naz Shah having liked an offensive facebook post before she became an MP, you might think that this could cause more trouble for the party concerned. When Miles King challenged Soames about the retweet, rather than attempting to defend himself Soames blocked King. Please follow the link I provided near the top of this section and read that post in full before proceeding.

PACKHAM’S OWN RESPONSE

Chris Packham provided what was in the circumstances a remarkably restrained response in the form of an interview that was published on Huffington Post, which I urge you to read in full.

THE FOLLOW UP THIS MORNING

Miles King on anewnatureblog returned to the fray this morning because Hunting Solutions had provided a response of sorts. As this image, taken from the Miles King piece, which I urge to read in full shows it was exactly what we might expect from these people:

This is classic victim blaming of the sort that Tories specialize in. I will conclude this section with my own comments on Miles King’s posts which I once more urge you to read in full:

As someone with Asperger’s Syndrome and who has experience of depression I am in no doubt that the both the original tweet and Soames’ retweet were bang out of order, and in the continuing absence of an apology there is no doubt to give these people the benefit of. The use of the word “nutjob” in the context Mr Packham having recently gone public about his Asperger’s and depression is reminiscent of the the prolonged series of smears that functioned (thankfully and deservedly very badly) as Zac Goldsmith’s London Mayoral campaign.

And Miles’ response to that comment:

thanks Thomas – a good analogy. The hunting community, feeling threatened, are resorting to a smear campaign against high profile people like Chris Packham.

My comment on the second post:

Excellent follow up piece. I would take your reasoning re the comments about foxhunting being psychopathic a small step further and say that for true equivalence between the remarks Packham would have to labelled not just foxhunters as a group (which as you point out he did not) but an individual named foxhunter as a psychopath. As for the ‘if he hadn’t criticised us we would not have said it’ “defense”, that is simply another example of a favourite tactic of these kind of people – victim blaming.

I conclude this post with some photos…

	Arisaig 2026 6: The… on Arisaig 2026 4: Wildlife …
	Thomas on Arisaig 2026 4: Wildlife …
	cindy knoke on Arisaig 2026 4: Wildlife …
	Arisaig 2026 4: Wild… on Arisaig 2026 3: Minke Whale Li…
	Thomas on Arisaig 2026 3: Minke Whale Li…