Testing Times

An all time XI of players whose given names begin with T, including an honourable mentions section which pays particular attention to four specific areas, and a photo gallery.

Today I look at great players with given names beginning with the letter T. This was a particularly tough XI to select, and I will be starting the honourable mentions section with four disputed areas in this team. Incidentally I offer wholehearted congratulations to India Women on their all time record test victory over England Women. Their star was Deepti Sharma, who scored runs in both innings and was the chief destroyer with the ball as well, claiming 5-7 in the first England innings and 4-32 second time round.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

Tom Hayward (England, right handed opening batter, right arm medium pacer). In 1900 he passed his 1,000 FC runs for the season before the end of May, only the second ever to do so after WG Grace, all though the good Doctor scored all his runs actually in May, whereas Hayward’s tally included runs in April. 14 years later Hayward brought up the career landmark of 100 first class hundreds, again second ever to do so after WG. In 1906 he scored 3,518 first class runs in the season, a tally that stood as a record for 41 years, before Denis Compton and Bill Edrich both beat it in the same season. He also ushered on to the scene a fellow native of Cambridge named John Berry Hobbs.
Tamim Iqbal (Bangladesh, left handed opening batter). An attack minded left hander to go with the more conservatively minded right hander Hayward, and one with a test average of close to 40.
*Tom Abell (England, right handed batter, right arm medium pacer, captain). I needed a captain for this side, and this was my solution.
Tom Graveney (England, right handed batter, occasional leg spinner). A stylish batter, with a test record of very considerable substance as well.
Travis Head (Australia, left handed batter, occasional off spinner). It has taken a while for him to really establish himself at the very highest level but he is now one of the best batters in the world.
Trevor Goddard (South Africa, left handed batter, left arm medium pacer). A genuine, but massively under-appreciated all rounder, I go into more detail about this slot in the next section of the post. For the moment, suffice it to note that he averaged 34 with the bat and 26 with the ball at test level.
+Tom Blundell (New Zealand, wicket keeper, right handed batter). An accomplished keeper/ batter for New Zealand, his record demands that he be included.
Tom Emmett (England, left arm fast bowler, left handed batter). By the time test cricket was a thing he was past his absolute prime, but his FC averages were the right way around, 14.84 with the bat and 13.55 with the ball, which convert using my usual metric to 22.26 with the bat and 20.23 with the ball in the modern era.
Tom Richardson (England, right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). His 14 test appearances yielded 88 wickets. His achievements for Surrey were staggering as well. Between 1894 and 1897 inclusive (four English seasons and one tour of Australia), Richardson claimed 1,005 first class wickets.
Tom Goddard (England, off spinner, right handed batter). He started as a fast bowler, but following advice from Gloucestershire team mate Charlie Parker, who had noted the size of Goddard’s hands and the strength of his fingers he went away and remodelled himself as a spinner, and in that capacity he was one of the greats, ending a very long career (forced because of an attack of pleurisy) as the fifth leading first class wicket taker of all time, with 2,979 scalps at 19.84 each.
Taijul Islam (Bangladesh, left arm orthodox spinner, left handed batter). 44 test appearances have yielded him 192 wickets, sufficient to earn him his place in this XI.

This side is strong in batting, even with the 9, 10, 11 being old style tail enders, and has lots of bowling, with Emmett, Richardson, Tom Goddard, Islam and Trevor Goddard as the main attack and Hayward, Abell and Head all capable of providing support if needed.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

I will start with four particularly contentious areas, in batting order:

First, the number three slot. Technically I should have given this to Tom Latham of New Zealand, but I decided it was worth possibly sacrificing a few runs per innings to have Abell’s captaincy available.

Second, the all rounder position. Many would have opted for Trevor Bailey, but Goddard actually had better records in both departments than the other Trevor. Bailey averaged 29.74 with the bat and 29.21 with the ball at test level, Trevor Goddard 34.46 with the bat and 26.22 with the ball. Goddard also had a better wicket taking rate than Bailey, claiming an average of exactly three per test whereas Bailey averaged just 2.16 per test. Thomas Odoyo of Kenya would be a contender for a limited overs side.

Third, the wicket keeper’s slot. Taslim Arif had an amazing record with the bat for Pakistan in the few tests he got selected for, but he was never first choice keeper. Tim Ambrose of England was a quality keeper and a useful batter, but not quite good enough to displace Blundell. Tom Box, an legendary keeper of the mid 19th century also merits a mention.

Fourth, the new ball pairing. I opted for a pair of outstanding practitioners he never overlapped, rather than a pair with respectable records who bowled in tandem a considerable number of times at the highest level, Trent Boult (LFM) and Tim Southee (RFM), both of New Zealand. My feeling is that Emmett and Richardson were so great as individuals that I am prepared not to pick the established pairing, but I acknowledge that there is a good case for picking the Kiwis.

Thilan Samaraweera of Sri Lanka was a fine batter on flat subcontinental pitches, but did little outside of Asia.

Two quality English seamers who missed out were Tom Cartwright and Tim Bresnan. Tom Wass of Nottinghamshire, a bowler of both fast medium and leg spin who took 1,666 first class wickets at 20 without ever getting an England call up was a challenger for the place I gave to Taijul Islam. Tymal Mills would be in the mix for a T20 side, but concerns over his back have led him to restrict himself to cricket in which he never has to bowl more than four overs at a stretch.

Tim May of Australia was a fine off spinner, but not fine enough to dislodge the fifth leading wicket taker in FC history. Tommy Mitchell of Derbyshire was a good leg spinner, who claimed three wickets at 20 each in his sole test appearance, which came during the 1932-3 Ashes in the one match for which England deemed two specialist spinners necessary.

Tom Walker of Hambledon does not have a complete enough career record to be selected, but needs mention for historic reasons – he was the first to attempt round arm bowling, and also pioneered lob bowling. Thomas Lord, a native of Thirsk, was a negligible cricketer, but the third of the three grounds he arranged for the Marylebone Cricket Club, which opened for business in 1814 is one of the most famous cricketing venues in the world.

Finally, while picking a fictional character is too much even for me to consider, Tom Spedegue of “Spedegue’s Dropper” would certainly have given the bowling extra variety.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The dates for the next year’s Autism Acceptance just a cuppa sessions at King’s Lynn library

All Time XIs – Match Ups 62

Continuing my extended analysis of how my all time XIs fare against one another. Today sees the end of the Ts.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my extended analysis of how my the all time XIs I selected for each letter of the alphabet fare against one another. Today we see the Ts last five match ups, with them having 72.5 out of 100 points so far.

THE Ts V THE Vs

The Ts win the batting match ups at 1,2,4,5,6 and 8, with Vaughan winning at no 3 for the Vs, though unlike Tarrant he does not offer a bowling option. Vaas at seven and Verity at nine also win batting match ups for the Vs, while Bob Taylor is clearly the superior keeper. I award the Vs the pace/ seam bowling honours on two grounds: 1) the Ts pacers are all right handers, reducing the variation in their attack, and 2) Vaas would fare better as third seamer in a powerful attack than he actually did as opening bowler in a moderate one. The spin pairings are closely matched – Verity beats Tarrant (in FC cricket, which is where a comparison is available Verity was 2.5 runs per wicket cheaper than Tarrant and bowled in less favourable conditions), while Trumble beats Vogler. The Ts are stronger in batting, the Vs are stronger in bowling. The Ts have the better keeper. I think the Ts good batting is enough to save them from defeat, but I am not prepared to award them victory: Ts 2.5, Vs 2.5.

Two of the Vs brightest stars, Verity and Voce.

THE Ts V THE Ws

The Ws dominate the batting – apart from Mark Taylor up top, the only other winners of batting match ups are Ross Taylor at six and Hugh Trumble at eight. The Ts have the better keeper. The fast bowling is close, Whitty’s left handedness possibly the decisive factor in giving that department to the Ws. The Ws steamroller the spin bowling department, Wardle outranking Tarrant and Warne outranking Trumble. The Ws also have the better captain – as good as Mark Taylor was in that role, Worrell’s achievement in unifying the West Indies and turning them for the first time in their history to into a combination that could and did win anywhere and against anyone puts him a cut above even Taylor as a skipper. As good as the Ts are there is no areas save wicket keeping in which they are even close to the Ws, so I have to score this Ts 0, Ws 5.

Johnny Wardle, left arm trickster for the Ws

THE Ts V THE Xs

Total dominance with the bat for the Ts – not until Xenophon Balaskas at seven, Ron Oxenham at eight and Tom Box at nine do the Xs win any batting match ups. Box is one of the few keepers in this series to be a match for Bob Taylor. The Ts also have the better captain and dominate the pace/ seam department. Also, while the Xs have a numerical superiority in the spin department, Trumble is definitely the best spinner on either side, and Tarrant would be at least Axar Patel’s equal. Therefore there can be only one scoreline: Ts 5, Xs 0.

THE Ts V THE Ys

The Ts are dominant in batting – only Younis Khan at three and Saleem Yousuf at seven win batting match ups for the Ys. Bob Taylor resumes his usual position of being obviously the best keeper on either side, the Ts are utterly dominant in seam/pace bowling, and also have the better spin pairing – Tarrant definitely outranks Jack Young in that department, whereas P Yadav is not definitively clear of Trumble (though I call that match up just her way). Thus this one is Ts 5, Ys 0.

Ys skipper Norman Yardley. This was from early in his career, and by the time of the 1946-7 Ashes he was bowling medium pace and used mainly as a partnership breaker.

THE Ts V THE Zs

The Ts utterly dominate the batting – only Zulqarnain Haider at seven wins a match up for the Zs in this department, and he loses the keeping match up against Bob Taylor. The Ts also have the better captain. They utterly dominate the pace/ seam bowling department, and they are least on level terms in the spin department: Ts 5, Zs 0.

Trueman, one of three out and out fast bowlers available to the Ts. None of my cigarette cards feature any of the Zs.

THE Ts FINAL SCORE

The Ts have scored 17.5 out of 25 today, to finish on 90 out of 125, exactly 72%.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The two parts of cigarette card image – obverse…

All Time XIs – Match Ups 61

Continuing my extended analysis of how the all time XIs I selected for each letter of the alphabet fare against one another.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my extended analysis of how the all time XIs I selected for each letter of the alphabet fare against one another. Today sees the end of the Ss, who come into today with 84 of a possible 105 points, and the start of the Ts who have banked 67.5 of a possible 95 points from the matches in which they are alphabetically second.

THE Ss V THE Ws

The Ss have the better opening pair, although both Ws offer bowling options. The Ws win the match up at number three, and both sides have superb skippers. The Ss win every batting match up from four to nine inclusive, though Watling outranks Sangakkara as keeper, Warne comfortably outranks Stevens as a leg spinner and Wardle equally clearly outranks the slower incarnations of Sobers, and the Ws also have Woolley as a third genuine spin option. It is close between the front line pace trios, though the Ss have Stokes and the quick version of Sobers in reserve, whereas the Ws have only Worrell. Boiling it all down, the Ss have an advantage in batting and in pace/ seam bowling, while the Ws have much the better keeper, and much the better spin attack. I think the Ws advantages just outweigh those of the Ss and score this Ss 2, Ws 3.

THE Ss V THE Xs

The Ss win every batting match up down to number eight. To a casual observer it looks like they also win the batting match up at number nine, but Fuller Pilch, the best batter of BoX’s era averaged only 18, and on that basis Box is as clearly ahead of Starc with the bat as he is of Sangakkara with the gloves. The Ss are miles clear in seam/ pace bowling and also have much the finer skipper. As against that the Xs have the better spin attack. I still think however that the Ss are so massively superior in the areas where they are superior that this has to be scored: Ss 5, Xs 0.

THE Xs V THE Ys

With the exception of the number three slot, which goes the way of Younis Khan, the Ss win every batting match up down to number nine. They also have an overwhelming dominance in the seam/ pace department. The Ys have the better keeper, and the better spin attack, but neither can save them from the inevitable: Ss 5, Ys 0.

THE Ss V THE Zs

Full spectrum dominance for the Ss: Ss 5, Zs 0.

THE Ss FINAL SCORE

The Ss have scored 17 points out of 20 today, to give them a final score of 101 out of 125, 80.8% overall.

THE Ts V THE Us

The Ts have the better opening pair. A casual observer might think that the Us win the number three slot based on test being more difficult than FC cricket, but Tarrant played a lot of his cricket before WWI, so my own view is that he wins that match up, and he also offers a bowling option. The Ts win the match up at number four, while number five is draw, Misbah Ul Haq’s slightly better batting average being offset by Thorpe’s greater sample size and the lack of support that Thorpe had at test level. Ross Taylor beats Umrigar in the number six slot. Umar Akmal wins the batting match up at number seven, but Bob Taylor wins the keeping element by a much greater margin. The Ts have much the better pace/ seam bowling unit. I also give the spin department to the Ts – Tarrant would be little if any inferior to Underwood as a bowler, and on proven success as opposed to potential Trumble has to outrank Ur Rahman, though their positions may be reversed in a few years time. The Us can make no dent on the Ts, resulting in Ts 5, Us 0.

THE Ts PROGRESS REPORT

The Ts are now on 72.5 out of 100, 72.5% overall.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Today’s gallery comes in two parts – I have revisited by cricket cigarette card collection, digging out the first set I ever acquired, some years ago, and the ones I chose to photographs form the first gallery, with links to posts that the players feature in included…

…part two of the gallery features some of my regular photographs.

All Time XIs – Match Ups 58

Welcome to the latest installment in my extended analysis of how the all time XIs I selected for each letter of the alphabet fare against one another. Today is a transitional post, seeing the end of the Qs, who currently have 6 of a possible 105 points, and bringing the Rs into the spotlight, with 57 of a possible 85 points accrued from the matches in which they are alphabetically second.

THE Qs V THE Ws

This is the most ludicrously one-sided match up I have yet presented. The Ws utterly dominate in batting and pace/ seam bowling, have the better keeper and the better captain, and even in the Qs best department, spin bowling, the Ws are clear: Qs 0, Ws 5, and the Qs are lucky to get 0.

THE Qs V THE Xs

The Qs have the better opening pair, though DeXter wins the number three slot hands down, KippaX the number four slot even more handily, and LoXton at number five is likewise clear. AXar Patel wins his batting match up at six and outranks Iqbal Qasim as left arm spinner. Xenophon Balaskas wins the batting match up at seven but Qadir outranks him as a leg spinner. OXenham wins the batting match up at number eight and has no bowling challenger in the Qs ranks. BoX wins the keeping match up and wins the batting match up at number nine. MaX Walker hugely outranks Quinn as a bowler, Qais Ahmad however outranks Max Waller as a bowler. The Xs have stronger batting, stronger pace/ seam bowling, the better keeper and the better captain. The Qs have better spin bowling, and though I cannot give the Qs a whole point I will score this Qs 0.5, Xs 4.5.

THE Qs V THE Ys

The Qs have the better opening pair, The Ys then win every batting match up down to number seven, with Yardley outranking Quinlan as a bowler, outranking Qadir as a captain, and S Yousuf outranking Bernard Quaife with the gloves. The Ys also outrank the Qs in pace/seam bowling. The Qs have a numerical advantage in the spin bowling department, but my feeling is that the Ys two spinners are better, so I score this one Qs 0, Ys 5.

THE Qs V THE Zs

The Zs dominate the batting and are ahead on pace/ seam bowling, but the Qs have to be given the spin bowling. I score this one Qs 0.5, Zs 4.5.

THE Qs FINAL SCORE

The Qs have scored 1 point out of 20 today, and finish with 7 out of 125, just 5.6% overall.

THE Rs V THE Ss

Before I get into this match up, one comment about the Rs: Sikandar Raza of Zimbabwe made headlines at the recent T20 World Cup, and probably merits an honourable mention under the heading of players who would be selected if I was picking with limited overs in mind. His long form record is not good enough to merit selection in this XI, though I could accommodate him in place of Robins, making Rhodes the captain (although Rhodes never officially captained, the various amateurs who captained him for Yorkshire and England pretty much took their cue from him) as I did when picking my all time Yorkshire XI.

The Ss have the better opening pair – Strauss outranks Rogers on sample size, and similarly Sutcliffe has to be considered on a level with B Richards, even given Richard’s average from the four tests he got to play. Number three goes to the Rs, number four is won by the Ss, who also win the batting element of every other match up down to number eight. Russell is definitely the superior keeper, and both sides are splendidly captained. The Ss have slightly the better front line pace trio, giving Starc’s left arm credit for adding variation, and they also have back up options in the form of Stokes and the quicker version of Sobers. Robins and Stevens rank about equally as leg spinners, Rhodes outranks Sobers the finger spinner by a large margin, but Sobers also bowled wrist spin, and the Rs have only part timers (Root and two Richardses) to bowl anything with a similar angle of attack to left arm wrist spin. Nevertheless, I think the Rs have to be given the spin bowling honours. I think the Ss advantages in batting and pace/ seam bowling just outweigh the Rs advantages in keeping and spin bowling, and award them the spoils by the barest of margins: Rs 2, Ss 3.

THE Rs PROGRESS REPORT

The Rs now have 59 of a possible 90 points, 65.6% overall.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I recently acquired some cricket cigarette cards, so this is a two part gallery – the cricket stuff first and then some of my more usual photos. The first part of the gallery will feature links to relevant posts.

Syd Barnes, one half of the new ball pairing for the Bs.

Now for some of my regular photos…

A Successful Auction

An account of James and Sons’ most recent auction.

This post is not about the IPL Super Auction which started today and finishes tomorrow, though I intend to write about that either tomorrow or Monday. It is about James and Sons auction on Wednesday, which went very well. I followed proceedings from home by way of www.easyliveauction.com, one of the two online platforms we use (see also www.the-saleroom.com).

PART 1 – CIGARETTE CARDS

A quietish start, with only a few items going over estimate. One of those items was lot 46, on which I was outbid. Another was lot 149, on which I was successful (even at above the top estimate it was still quite cheap). Lot 150 was the last of the Cigarette Card lots, and then it was time for…

PART 2 – MILITARIA

This was expected to be highly successful and it was. Lot 151, a medal group awarded to a ‘desert rat’ and accompanied by lots of relevant documentation sold for £400, helped by some good advance publicity (various people bit on a press release I had sent out, including the Eastern Daily Press who gave it a quarter of a page in their Saturday issue). Lot 160, a steering yoke from a B50 warplane fetched £2,100. Lot 161 then went for £160, four times the upper estimate. Lot 167, also with a top estimate of £40 fetched £150. Lots 192-7 inclusive, display folders full of military photographs (put together by my father) all sold for significantly above the top estimates, lot 194 being the most successful, going for £50 with a top estimate of £20. Lot 201 an 18th/19th century Indian Tulwar Golia sword which had been expected to for low three figures fetched £550. There were a number of other more modest successes along the way.

The above gallery features images for all the lots mentioned in the Militaria section save numbers 192-7 inclusive.

PART 3 – FABRIC AND OTHER

There were 120 fabric items, and then a few random lots to finish. Although none of these lots reached the heights of the militaria section there were some good sales even so.

POST AUCTION PRESS RELEASE

On Thursday I did a press release about the auction, focussing on the militaria. I will find out in due course whether it gets published by anyone. Here is the composite image of highlighted lots I created for it:

This image features lots 201 (top left, centre and right), 167 (above and below the two centrepiece items), 194 (centre left and bottom right), 266 (bottom left and centre right) and 151 & 161 (centrepiece).

James and Sons’ next auction is on March 16th, and catalogue listings can be viewed here (easyliveauction) and here (saleroom)

PHOTOGRAPHS

I finish with some my non-work photographs:

Interior design at The Gatehouse (I was there for an NAS West Norfolk meal out (the Globe, our previous location of choice for this had let us down so we switched, very successfully).

Two Upcoming Auctions

Previews of James and Sons’ June Auctions.

INTRODUCTION

My empoloyers, James and Sons, have two auctions coming up in the next week. On Wednesday we are at Fakenham Racecourse for a general sale featuring a wide range of items, and on Saturday we are at The Maids Head Hotel, Norwich for an auction of old, rare cigarette cards. In tbe rest of this post I will give you a preview of both auctions.

CIGARETTE CARDS

The cigarette cards are the first part of a huge collection submitted to us by former Lord Mayor of London Sir Brian Jenkins (he has already expressed his appreciation of this catalogue). Here, as a link to the official catalogue listing on the-saleroom.com is a picture of the front cover of our printed catalogue:

It was my employer who selected the 1896 cricketers set to feature on the front cover, and me who chose the particular cricketers to feature (and, of course, took the photograph). Although W G Grace turned 48 during the course of the 1896 season he still also scored over 2,000 first class runs in it (in 1895 he had set two new records, completing his 100th first class hundred, the first to so, and also scoring 1,000 first class runs in the month of May (starting his season on the 9th and reaching his 1,000 21 days later) including 301 against Sussex. K S Ranjitsinhji deprived the old master of a record he had held since 1871 by racking up 2,780 first class runs in the season beating WGs old tally of 2,739. He also made an extraordinary test debut. On day 2 after Australia had racked up a big score he contributed 62 to England’s first innings, and then in the follow-on he reached 41 not out by the close. Then, having totalled over 100 runs on his first day as a test match batsman he added another 100 before lunch on his second, taking his overnight 41 to 154 not out. In spite of these heroics Australia needed only 125 to win, although a lion-hearted spell of fast bowling from Tom Richardson (6-76) ensured that they had to work for them, the eventual margin being three wickets.

Here a few photographic highlights:

2001 — This is the first lot of the auction

Lot 2010 features in our printed catalogue…

2010-a — I also gave The Bard the close-up treatment.

2027-a — …from which I singled out Herbert Sutcliffe, an embodiment of the phrase “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” – first-class average 52.02, test average 60.73, ashes average 66.85.

2029 — Not difficult to select Meteora from this set!

2050 — A Railway set given exhaustive treatment.

2237 — Having earlier honoured Herbert Sutcliffe with a close up…

2237-a — …I now did likewise for his most famous opening partner, Jack Hobbs

2279 — The close-up I chose from this set features in our printed catalogue.

2279-a — This card is the first time I have even seen mention of a middle name for Hedley Verity (1956 wickets at 14.91 in a decade of doped pitches and Don Bradman’s batting).

2291-c — The Rocket, officially the world’s first steam locomotive.

LOTS 2412 AND 2413

These are the two really old sets of cricketers, one of which is valued very highly, the other somewhat less so.

2412-b — …and this is the front cover image

2413 — For this lot I added a couple to the close-up images

2413-a — As well and as Grace and Ranji I featured C B Fry and Gilbert Jessop (the fastest scorer in first-class cricket history – 79 runs an hour, in spite of the fact that for virtually his entire career a ball had to be hit right out of the ground as opposed to merely over the ropes to count six) – I reckon that if you could send a time machine to fetch him he would fetch decent money at an IPL auction!

THE GENERAL AUCTION

I finish this auction by linking to the catalogue listing for Wednesday’s auction:

Most of the books in this auction were described and valued by yours truly, which may give them a chance of selling (but I am not holding my breath.

Autistic Special Interest 1: Public Transport II

The second post in my personal series about #autisticspecialinterests.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my second ‘special interests’ post for the month of May. The first, which set the scene can be seen here. The first post dealt exclusively with London, where I grew up. This post looks wider, although it still deals with events from before I was diagnosed. NB – undiagnosed means just that, not diagnosed – it DOES NOT mean “not autistic”.

ST PETERSBURG

This overlaps with the first post, because I visited St Petersburg in 1991. The two week visit I made to that city in 1991 was significant in many ways – it was there that I learned to eat a more varied diet, because I was just mature enough to appreciate that it was a choice between eating what was served or not eating at all and make the best of things. Also, because the family I was staying with were living very close to one of its stations I gained a considerable acquaintanceship withe the St Petersburg Metro, and also experienced the trolleybuses and trams that were a feature of daily life there.

Other than being horrendously overcrowded the St Petersburg Metro was a significant improvement on the London equivalent – a far more frequent service, and no delays. Also the underground portions were much deeper than in London, with often two colossally long escalators (far longer than any London equivalent) between the platform and the surface. This was my first major experience of public transport anywhere other than London.

GOING SOLO 1: SCOTLAND 1993

My first solo holiday took place in the summer of 1993, when I travelled to Scotland for two weeks. I travelled all around Scotland in those two weeks. As well as some seriously scenic journeys on mainline railways (I experienced both the lines the head towards Skye among others) I also made the acquaintance of the Glasgow undeground system (a single, circular route).

This holiday was a splendid experience overall, but a mere curtain raiser for…

A SCANDINAVIAN HOLIDAY

This happened in the following summer., Equipped with a rucksack and a two week rail pass for Norway, Sweden and Finland I started by taking a plane to Gothenburg. From there I travelled north, pausing in Stockholm. From Sundsvall I temporarily abandoned trains to take a boat across to Vaasa in Finland. From Vaasa I headed for Helsinki, and then the longest single journey of the trip, to Narvik, the most northerly railway station in the world. I continued my northerly exploration by bus as far as Tromso, before switching to boat for a journey along the coast to Hammerfest, the northenmost town in Norway. I varied my route back by taking a bus from Hammerfest to Alta (a mistake, this place is the Nordic equivalent of Brandon, only with even less appeal). Back in Narvik I selected a bus to Bodo, Norway’s other northern rail outpost. This decision cost me a night spent on the sgtatiopon platform at Bodo before I could head south to Oslo. From Oslo I headed east to Stockholm, and my last journey of the holiday (other than the flight home) was from Stockholm to Gothenburg.

Not having previously explored any foreign public transort systems in this kind of detail I was highly impressed. Although there are many ways in which Nordic public transport is a vast improvement on British I note a few things in particular:

Comprehensiveness – although the terrain in these countries is much more difficult than anything in Britain pretty much anywhere of any size has some sort of public transport connection.
Integration – there is not much duplication between bus and train routes. The buses tend to cover the routes that the trains do not. The only small flaw I noted in that first visit to these countries was that en route from Helsinki to Narvik we had to disembark at Haparanda on the Finnish side of the Finland/ Sweden border to transfer to Boden on the Swedish side for the last leg of the journey to Narvik, and even that was handled efficiently.
Reliability – never once in these two weeks, nor in my more recent trip to Sweden, did I encounter a service not running precisely when it was supposed to, and there has never been a two week period in my lifetime when one could be in Britain, travelling by public transoort most days, and get that kind of service.

FUTURE POSTS AND PICTURES

My next post in this series will look at public transport in various cities that I have experience of. Here to end are some public transport themed pictures…

Lot 86 in our next auction – see my post about my first week as a commuter on the Lynx njumber 49 re the rarity of such uncut cigarette cards

Lot 199 – second behind on lot 86 on my wanted list…

Travelling by Lynx Bus 1 Week In

Thoughts onthe new bus service between King’s Lynn and Fakenham one week in.

INTRODUCTION

I have now done one work week using the new Lynx Bus 49 for the journeys, the withdrawal of Stagecoach from King’s Lynn now being an accomplished fact (apart from the 505 to Spalding, most of which route is in Lincolnshire). This post covers my week at work as well as detailing my thoughts about the new services.

TUESDAY

Setting off from my flat at 6:45AM I was at the bus station in good time for the bus that I needed to catch at 7:00. The bus arrived and departed in good time, and arrived in Fakenham at 7:49, as indicated by the timetable (unlike the unlamented Stagecoach their schedules include some slack, so that a traffic jam does not always mean running behind schedule). As it was warm enough that my workplace would definitely be bearable, and I had a lot of imaging to do and little time in which to do it I decided to go straight there and get stuck in early. I commenced proceedings by finishing off the badges on boards as images of these were needed for the catalogue, and then got to work on the cigarette cards, and managed to image the first 50 lots of those as well, before closing time, and my departure for the library, to do stuff there until I could catch the bus home (the service is very infrequent at present). I have already shown some images from this day’s work in a previous post. The bus back duly arrived and set off exactly as it should (a double decker for the evening run btw), and there were no significant delays en route.

THURSDAY

Again no issue with the journey out. Tony’s Deli stall was still being set up when I headed to work, so I got ready to start the day, and then popped back out to make my purchases there, before returning to get stuck into work. I did the loose badges (imaging them in batches of six to save time) for the first of the two days of badge sales, before once again focussing my attention of the cigarette cards, the last lot of the day being lot 166. Another visit to Fakenham library to fill in time at the end of the day, and once again home on a bus that ran to time.

Lot 88, uncut cigarette cards – very unusual (until we got this consignment our expert on such cards, with nearly half a century of experience had not seen any.

100-a — Close-ups of the two local examples (even if you cavil at Ely being described as local to a Norfolk auctioneer, the octagonal tower was designed a mid-14th century prior named Alan of Norwich).

133-a — A close up shot of two among the castles that I have visited.

FRIDAY

After another uneventful journey in I imaged some militaria for the first day of that sale, reverted to cigarette cards until I had imaged the last album to have been numbered up (ending at lot 294), at which point I started imaging badges on boards for the second day of that sale.

837 — These backpacks (three items, there are two images of this one and one of each of the other two) are quite heavy even when empty, but that metal framework probably gives them gfreat stability.

235-a — A close up of the local building.

273-a — Both local and arguably the most iconic of all the buildings in this set.

Lot 279 – the cigarette card equivalent of a 50-piece jigsaw.

It was warm and sunny when I locked up at work, and also of course a Friday, so I headed for The Limes and some liquid refreshment taken in the outside seating area. I had entertained hopes of finding a locally brewed craft ale, but given the actual options settled for Hobgoblin (still a very decent drink). The bus back was significantly late, but the still left Lynx with a score of 5 out of 6 for punctuality on the week – something that Stagecoach had not approached in a very long time.

THE LYNX BUS 49

The buses themselves are clean and comfortable, the drivers are friendly, such services as there are by and large run punctually. The trouble is that there are so few services on the new route. I might, particularly in winter, see if I can use my tickets on the route via Wells, which ultimately gets to King’s Lynn by way of Hunstanton. The prime disadvantage of this route is its length (doing the journey by that route would take about two hours on the bus. However, Lynx have stepped up to the plate in difficult circumstances, and their service standards are much better than Stagecoach. The cost of tickets is greater than on Stagecoach as well. I believe there remains a possibility of the 48 route, which currently terminates at Pott Row being extended to join the A148 and then on to Fakenham.

Plans For May

Setting out my stall for May, including a forthcoming series of posts about my #Autisticspecialinterests

INTRODUCTION

April is behind us, so I am going use this post to set out my stall for May. As a lead up, here is a screenshot of a tweet by Autism Mom:

A NEW SERIES SPECIFICALLY FOR MAY

Eve Reiland of internationalbadassactivists suggested a theme for #actuallyautistic people for May: #AutisticSpecialInterest – a theme I am more than happy to run with, so, starting tomorrow I will be producing posts dealing with my special interests through the month.

THE EFFECT THAT THE NEW BUSES HAVE ON MY WORK

Those who have read my blog recently will be aware that today was my first day travelling to work on the Lynx number 49, which has replaced the Stagecoach X29 route. It runs considerably less frequently, but the buses are comfortable, the staff are friendly, and at the moment it has a score of 1/1 for punctuality, which after Stagecoach feels near miraculous.

AN UPCOMING HOLIDAY

I will be off for a week in Greece, leaving King’s Lynn on Friday May 11th, late in the evening so as to get to Gatwick for the flight to Kalamata, which takes off at 5:40AM. Therefore I will accept that sleep ain’t happening that night, and spend a few hours waiting at the airport. I will arrive back in the early afternoon of Saturday May 19th. I will endeavour to keep up to date with everyone during that period, but there will almost certainly be days on which I do not manage to access the internet.

IMAGING FOR MAY’S AUCTIONS

In May we are having a one-day cigarette card auction, followed by two days of military badges (and these will be on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after I return from holiday). Here to finish things off are some images…

1149-65 — My employer wanted an insert of badge pictures for the catalogue, and to enable that as well as in the interests of speed the badges were numbered up on their boards, and I took pictures of the entire boards and then extracted individual images from the whole.

There are 750 lots of cigarette cards, in a total of 67 albums, of which I have imaged 51, covering four whole albums and 1 from a fifth.

Penzance

An account of the time I spent in Penzance on the Saturday of my Cornish holiday.

INTRODUCTION

I have finally edited all the pictures from my recent Cornish holiday and have now at last got time to get back to blogging about it. My last post described my journey down to Penzance, and this post provides the story of the rest of the day.

GETTING MY BEARINGS

Having arrived in to Penzance pretty much bang on schedule I visited the local information office, purchased a detailed and very cheap souvenir map (I will conclude this series of Cornish posts with one featuring all the publicity materials that I collected while down there), and set out on the first part of my exploration of the town. An early necessity was finding somewhere to eat lunch (although I am not entirely inflexible on the matter I generally aim to eat lunch some time close to 1PM), and having walked past the Harbour and the Chapel I found an establishment suited to my needs. The Turk’s Head was not too extortionate (there are no cheap places in Penzance). I opted for a BBQ Chicken, Bacon and Davidstow Cheese melt, and enjoyed it, although I felt that it did not really live up to its name on two counts:
1. There was precious little evidence of bacon (though they had used good quality chicken)
2. Davidstow is supposed to be a strongly flavoured cheese and yet I barely noticed it over the other flavours – if I ask for something of which cheese is a featured ingredient I want to taste said cheese.

Here some photos taken between leaving Penzance station and having lunch:

Air pressure — The first of a number of shots of interesting items on display at The Turks Head

BN1 — There were five sets of framed banknotes starting with this one.

Devon and Cornwall — Poor lighting prevented me from doing full justice to this map.

Map — This, and the two set of framed cigarette cards the follow it were in a narrow passage that meant that I could not get them fully in shot from front on – had to photograph at an angle.

POST LUNCH EXPLORATIONS

Having consumed my lunch I headed for the Promenade, and walked along it. From the other end of the Promenade I walked back to the train station and then did some exploring on the other side of the train station, locating a path that ran between the tracks and the sea. Here are some photographs…

Jubilee Pool 1 — In November one would not expect an open-air pool in Engalnd to have much custom, and indeed the Jubilee Pool was empty.

Helen Glover post box — A number of post boxes were painted gold to honour people who were successful at the London 2012 Olympics – this one Penzance is dedicated to rower Helen Glover.

I conclude this post with two special sections, firstly…

ST MICHAEL’S MOUNT

Being grey the whole time, and misty for most of it this was not a great a day for taking long-range photographs, but St Michael’s Mount was not a target I could resist, even under those circumstances, so here are the results:

You will notice gulls in a couple of these shots, which leads to the second special section, which concludes this post…

BIRDS

There are many seabirds to be observed in Penzance and I was able to capture some of them on camera…

The journey back was uneventful, and with the train departing Penzance at 16:41 on a November afternoon it was too dark for photographing through the windows of that train.

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