An account of the inaugural Autism Cup, played yesterday on the astroturf at Lynn Sport, which raised £75.55 for NAS West Norfolk.
INTRODUCTION
Yesterday saw the staging of the inaugural Autism Awareness Cup on Lynn Sport’s artifical pitches a mile and half from King’s Lynn town centre. The event was a great success, and fundraising collections on the day netted £75.55.
THE TEAMS
Five teams had entered, with names being selected on a European Championship/ World Cup theme. The five names selected were England, Holland, Italy, Republic of Ireland and Spain. The tournament was organised in two phases, a mini-league after which the top two teams would contest the final.
THE PRELIMINARIES
As well as our own NAS banners a sponsors banner was on display. We also had two tables set up displaying various items, including the cup and sets of gold, silver and bronze medals.
Event organiser Grant Cotton and NAS West Norfolk chair Karan McKerrow.
Local radio coverage – Grant Cotton with an interviewer from Radio Norfolk.
THE LEAGUE STAGE
None of Italy, The Republic of Ireland or England ever looked convincing. England managed a 2-0 win over Italy which also featured a penalty being saved (justice done – it should never have been given, although in fairness this was the only bad decision of the day) but this came too late to be of much value. In one of the final pair of matches (matches were played two at a time at this stage, side by side) Spain beat the unfortunate Italy 5-0 to confirm their position as league winners. They would face Holland in the final, while England secured the bronze medals.
Everyone taking part in the tournament.
THE FINAL
This was an excellent game, with possession fairly evenly balanced between the teams. The trouble for Spain was that Holland did more with their possession – while the Holland goalkeeper was never seriously tested Holland scored twice. Thus the final score was Holland 2 Spain 0. Spain as league winners collected the gold medals, while Holland became the first holders of the Autism Awareness Cup and collected silver medals for coming second in the league.
THE PRESENTATIONS
The cup and medals were presented shortly afterwards, out on the field. Congratulations to Holland for winning the cup and to Spain for winning the league element. Congratulations also to Helen Van Riel for assembling the Holland squad. Finally of course, massive congratulations to Grant Cotton for organising the event.
The Spain team with their gold medals.The Holland squad (having eight players at their disposal enabled a bit of rotation).
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.
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
An introduction to the Autism Awareness Cup, a couple of important links (please follow up on both), and a classic infographic with a link to the original post in which I found it.
INTRODUCTION
This post is about an event that has been organised by a young man named Grant Cotton as a fund-raising autism awareness event. I have also included one of the finest autism related infographics I have yet come across.
A SIX A SIDE FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT IN KING’S LYNN
The tournament will take place on July 10th, using the artificial pitch at Lynnsport, 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) from the centre of King’s Lynn, and each team will have the name of a country (England, Holland and the Republic of Ireland have all been bagged already). Reproduced below is Grant Cotton’s poster for the event, which can be seen in its original setting by clicking here:
A COUPLE OF IMPORTANT LINKS
My first link, courtesy of my friends at DPAC, is to details of a court case which will impact on the enforcement of the law regarding wheelchair bays on buses (this law is not open to misinterpretation – it states clearly that if a wheelchair bay is not in use the driver has discretion to allow a non-wheelchair user to use it, but the needs of wheelchair users come first – a non-wheelchair user in a wheelchair bay is legally obliged to move for a wheelchair user). I urge anyone who lives in London or who can travel there on Wednesday to be at the court to make our presence felt. I have already shared this story on facebook and twitter and pressed a link on my London transport themed website www.londontu.be.
My other link comes courtesy of NAS, and concerns a new Too Much Information film which will be showing at various shopping centres over the next few months. Of reasonably local interest are the showings that will be happening at Chapelfield, Norwich on August 27 and 28.
A GREAT INFOGRAPHIC
I spotted this on blondemomsense this morning and had to include it. The original blog post from which I extracted it can be viewed here:
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…
One of the two images I took of the hypergiant flagThis was one of two giant flagsThis was an ordinary size flagThe other giant flagA 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.One half of the supergiant flagThe other half of the supergiant flagLot 655 – a piece with local historical significance – and a gallery of seven images
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:
Various model aeroplanes are currentrly on display at locations around King’s Lynn, and this picture and the next feature two of them
A bird enjoying the metal artwork that adorns the market square in FakenhamThe image of the hypergiant flag that I decided not to use as the official one.
Yesterday was James and Sons’ May auction, at Fakenham Racecourse, and today we had a badge sale at our shop in Fakenham.
WEDNESDAY
Our main auction was blighted by problems with the internet connection at the venue. Eventually we relocated the auction itself to Cool Roxy, the owners and trainers bar, while leaving the stock in the Prince of Wales Suite. This left us way behind schedule. Nevertheless, the sale was very successful, with five pieces of postcard artwork accompanied by sample postcards by a man called Twelvetrees selling phenomenally well, some old vinyl records selling well (a Black Sabbath recording went for £340), and many other items faring well. Among the lesser lights a book of photographs from King’s Lynn’s past went for just £4 (it goes well with my substantial digital archive of pictures from King’s Lynn’s present thank you), while a Cornwall Polytechnic Society medallion featuring a bust of James Watt (he after whom the unit of power is named, and who along with his distant predecessor Heron of Alexandria, his closer predecessor Thomas Newcomen and his near contemporary Richard Trevithick played a key role in the development of the steam engine, the first power source for locomotives) went for £11. In amongst all this I had to get images of the reverse sides of the some of the badges being sold today to resolve queries.
Overall, the early problems not withstanding it was a successful day, and here are some photos…
These helmet plates all did well
The model aerolplane was another success
The model soldiers (of which we had vast numbers in various lots) also went down well.
These mounted soldiers were one lot
The Twelvetrees artwork and sample postcards referred to in the text.
This map piqued my interest but was beyond my means.
This barometer has seen almost as many auctions as I have, but this time it found a buyer.
Had this been being sold individually instead of as part of a much larger lot I would have been interested.
A plastic case full of fishing flies, of which this is just a sample, sold.
The medallion referred to in the text.
TODAY
Today’s sale proceeded smoothly. Although no huge prices were recorded a number of items did better than expected. Overall therefore I think we can say it was a successful week, although very draining (especially yesterday).
An account of a visit to London for an NAS training session, including Sutcliffe’s Laws of Travelling by Public Transport and lots of photographs.
INTRODUCTION
This post deals with events on Saturday, when I attended a training session for branch officers at NAS HQ in London. Before moving on to the main part of my post I have a small section on…
WHY I AM GLAD THAT MY FIRST POST IN MAY IS AUTISM RELATED
April is Autism Awareness month, and here in West Norfolk we certainly did our part, with our hugely successful Positive Autism Awareness Conference. However it is also important to make it quite clear that autism does not stop at the end of April. Improving awareness, understanding and ultimately acceptance of autism is a year-round task.
SUTCLIFFE’S LAWS OF TRAVELLING BY PUBLIC TRANSPORT
I have never previously set these out in full, so here goes:
Zeroth law: Any journey involving public transport requires careful planning no matter how apparently straightforward it is.
First law: If you allow scope for things to go wrong you will have a quick, clear run.
Second law: If you decline to allow scope for things to go wrong you will have a horror run.
Third law: Because bitter experience has taught them to make allowances public transport users are less likely to arrive late than car users.
Do you recognize the more famous set of laws on which the formatting of this set is based?
GETTING THERE
The session was due to start at 10AM, which gave two options for which train to catch – the 7:54 and be tight for time or the 6:54 and have time to spare for things to go wrong. In keeping with the first law of travelling by public transport the second option was chosen. The other person travelling from West Norfolk wanted to travel there with me, so we agreed to take the 6:54. On the day preceding the journey I called in at the station to make sure that the service was running as it should be (The branch chair had kindly arranged tickets for us, requiring in return that we make sure to come back with expenses claim forms so that she could reclaim the money). Here are some pictures from this preliminary stage…
We took our places on the train and having allowed for things to go wrong had a clear run to London. Callum’s girlfriend had decided to travel with us so she could have a look round London, and at King’s Cross she and Callum arranged a meeting point before Callum and I head off towards NAS HQ.
A shot out of the train window near Cambridge.
A side view of St Pancras, taken while Callum was arranging a meeting point with his girlfriend
The walking route we were going to follow.
Walking up Pentonville Road (between Pentonville Road, Angel and our London starting point of King’s Cross this was quite a monopoly board journey!) we arrived at NAS HQ almost dot on 9 o’clock, and were the only people there that early. I took some pictures while we waited for others to arrive, including the feature image…
The #TMI mural outside NAS HQ, with Callum standing in front of the end panel.A close-up of the end panel.
This map is on Pentonville Road, but all the other pictures in this set were taken outside NAS HQ
AT NAS HEADQUARTERS
Alessia, one of the two people running the session arrived a few minutes after we had, and let us in to the building. We took our places in the training room, and examined our training packs…
This pot took a long time to boil.
Note the virtual emptiness of Norfolk on the NAS branches map and the complete emptiness of Linolnshire
The ticket – effectively £6.30 for a day’s unlimited travel in zones 1-6 (a day return is £24)
THE TRAINING SESSION
The training session consisted of presentations and some group activities. I found it to be a very valuable day, definitely worth the early start. The bit I enjoyed most came near the end, when we had to decide whether certain scenarios were things we could do as NAS volunteers, things we could not do or things that we might be able to do. At the end of the session Callum and I went our separate ways, he to meet his girlfriend and I to head back (albeit by a somewhat circuitous route). The pictures I took between here and the concourse at King’s Cross station will be featuring on my London transport themed website, so I shall not share them here.
HOMEWARD BOUND
Apart from providing a few good photos, the return journey was pretty uneventful (yes, on the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend I had two public transport journeys pass without incident), and I arrived back home just over 11 hours after setting off in the morning.
Half of the frontage of King’s Cross train station.
The best-known platform at King’s Cross
Ally Pally through the train window.
Ely through the train window.
Just beyond Ely, a perfect shot of a cross-country train where the routes diverge.
An account of James and Sons April auction, a plug for a petition to honour the Hillsborough campaigners and some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
The day before yesterday, at the Maids Head Hotel in Norwich, James and Sons had their April auction. Overall, the auction was a great success. Although the number of internet bidders did not equal that for the March auction, there were 180 internet bidders, and this was a one day sale whereas March had been a two day affair. I will also be sharing some other stuff, including photos, at the end of this piece.
GETTING THERE
My travel expenses have recently gone down, due to the introduction of an all-day ticket which covers travel on any Norfolk route save the Coast Hopper and costs £5.50. This did mean that I could not get to a Norwich auction as early as if I were to use the X1 route (run by a different bus company, therefore ipso facto not covered) but it was still a seriously early start, as I had to be on the first bus of the morning, at 6:10AM to arrive early enough to do everything that I had to do for the running of the auction. The run to Norwich was thankfully, save for the inevitable bottleneck near Hellesdon Hospital, a very clear one, and the bus arrived exactly on schedule.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE AUCTION
As I have indicated, this auction was a very successful one. The principal highlights according to my method of evaluating these things were in ascending lot number order:
Lot 78, a collection of British banknotes in a tin, valued at £30-40, sold for £65
Lot 87, a Lebanese 1 Livre note with a lilac overprint, valued at £25-30, sold for £45
Lot 232, an R101 Royal Airship Works cloth cap badge, estimated at £75-85 and sold for an eye-popping £170.
Lot 263, an Imperial German WI Zeppelin commemorative badge, estimated at £55-60, sold for £120
Lot 268, a British WWII Commandos Middle East cap badge (brass), estimated at £20-25, sold for £48
Lot 270, a WWI aerial flechette dart as dropped on enemy soldiers, estimated at £15-20, sold for £42
Lot 680, a postcard of the 1906 New Zealand rugby team, estimated at £10-20, sold for £45
Lot 714, a Victorian scrapbook assembled by Harriett Riches of Trunch, estimated at £40-50, sold for £90
Lot 715, a Victorian/ Edwardian scrapbook, estimated at £30-40, sold for £90 to the the same person who bought lot 714.
Here is a ’tiled mosaic’ of images of these lots – to see an image at full size click on it:
Lot 78
Lot 232
Lot 263
Lot 268
Lot 270
Lot 680
The main image of 714
714-a
714-b
714-c
715
PHOTOGRAPHER SNAPS UP THREE BARGAIN BASEMENT BUYS
I had contrived to arrange my breaks from computer work to coincide with periods when lots of interest to me were going under the hammer. The first such lot was number 460:
Don’s mugshot on one half of the stamps, him playing the pull shot (his trademark, and a shot about which he wrote a short piece which features in many a cricket anthology).
This was knocked down to me for £7, and better was to come near the end of the auction…
Lot 711 was a 1904 Erie Railway pass, for which a single bid of £8 sufficed:
The front of the pass.The back of the pass.Both sides of the pass.
Construction started on this railroad in 1835, and the first run along the full length of the route, from Piermont, New York to Dunkirk, New York took place in 1851. More information about this railroad can be found here. Below is a route map:
Lot 717, a print of old London Bridge based on the earliest known drawing of that structure, which is in the Pepys collection, attracted no interest from anyone save me, and was knocked down for £5:
A CALL TO HONOUR THE
HILLSBOROUGH CAMPAIGNERS
27 years ago 96 people lost their lives at Hillsborough football ground. Through most of this period people seeking justice for the dead faced a media and governments that were almost uniformly hostile to them, while the police force involved consistently refused to accept responsibility for the disaster. At long last, after a full inquiry and inquest into the deaths it has been established that these 96 people were unlawfully killed and that blame for their deaths lies squarely with the police. Just this morning I found out about a petition on38 Degrees to honour the campaigners who have fought so hard for this outcome. They are far more worthy of being honoured than many who have already been honoured (As a resident of King’s Lynn I think of Sir Henry Bellingham MP, apparently knighted for the great feat of having attended the same school as the prime minister, albeit at a different time). If you share my view…
Does this look like the start of a public footpath to you? It is, and you are looking at one reason why the developer who perpetrated this (with whose name I shall not sully this blog) are personae non grata in King’s Lynn
My contribution to this document was to scan the postcard that appears on the front cover.This is the only example of this particular £2 coin that I have thus far seen. I approve of commemorating Darwin, but not necessarily of the chosen picture (a Galapagos tortoise, or finch, or a map of the Galapagos islands would have been my choice).
Accounts of a public meeting about disability and a protest against the possible closure of the Fermoy Unit, enlivened with photographs. Read, enjoy and please share!
INTRODUCTION
I am treating these two events together because my attendance at each was connected, and I talked about one at the other. While I had strong personal reasons for attending both events, I was also motivated by not wanting to be in a position of “when they came for me there was no one left to speak out”. I will deal with the two events in chronological order and at the very end will also share some unrelated photos.
THE PUBLIC MEETING ON DISABILITY
This toom place at the Vauxhall Centre in Norwich on Thursday evening. After speeches from various prominent local campaigners came the keynote speech of the evening. This was Roddy Slorach, author of “The Politics of Disability”, talking about the ideas expounded in his book. After this there was time for contributions from the floor. It was during this period that today’s demonstration was mentioned, and more details provided by me as the second part of my own contribution following mentioning the Positive Autism Awareness Conference of the previous Friday. Here are some photos from that evening for you…
One of the organizing groups displayed this banner.Equal Lives provided this superb display boardNorfolk DPAC had this on showA shot of the platformThe full platform plus the young woman doing sign language translations for deaf people.
THE PROTEST AGAINST THE POSSIBLE CLOSURE OF THE FERMOY UNIT
I took custody of the National Autistic Society West Norfolk Branch banners and some NAS flags yesterday evening, and worked out a way to set up the banners that was suitable for them being on a march:
Some string and a couple of old cricket stumps provided my answer to the question of how to make these banners suitable for carrying on a march. The appearance may be less than convincing, but it held up for the duration of the march – job done!
We assembled at the bandstand in The Walks at 12 noon, and Jo Rust who did most of the organizing introduced a few speakers, before we set off on our march around the town. Many people expressed support for us while we marched through town, and at least one person took the trouble to express their gratitude that NAS were represented on the march. The event then finished with a few speeches outside the Majestic Cinema. Although organized by the local Labour Party and the King’s Lynn and District Trades Union Council this march was not a party political event, and Sir Henry Bellingham MP had been invited to attend and to make a speech, an invitation that he spurned. The turnout was excellent, helped by bright sunny weather (yes there was a serious nip to the wind, but this is King’s Lynn after all).
I finish this brief account with a few photos…
At the bandstandA great placard produced by a teenage mental health camapignerThe same placardThe NAS West Norfolk banner post-marchJo Rust making her final speech of the day.
SOME UNRELATED PHOTOS
I start this section with a photographic message for those who have reached this part of the post…
My remaining photos are presented as a’tiled mosaic’ – to view an individual image at full size click on it…
A plug for Saturday’s protest on behalf of the Fermoy unit, and a brief explanation of NAS West Norfolk’s involvement.
DISCUSSIONS AND DECISIONS
I have made mention of the protest on Saturday against the possible closure of the Fermoy unit previously, but was not able in that post to say anything about NAS West Norfolk involvement as that was still under discussion and I did not wish to be seen as pre-empting that discussion in any way.
The discussion is now resolved and the decision has gone the way I was hoping for. Campaigning on behalf of services needed by autistic people is part of our remit and as such not only will various people from NAS West Norfolk be in attendance on Saturday, we will have the NAS West Norfolk banner with us. Although this protest has been organised by the local Labour Party in conjunction with King’s Lynn District Trades Union Council our presence is not in any way a statement of party political views – we are going to be there because the issue is important to us and not because of who is organizing it.
Before finishing by showing the poster for the event I issue a call: anybody reading this who can get to King’s Lynn on Saturday please do so – let’s make this big!
A plug for an important protest and some highlights from today at work.
INTRODUCTION
I have been at work today at James and Sons, and also a discussion has been taking place regarding a protest on Saturday. Thus this post is in two parts, starting with
PROTEST AGAINST THE POSSIBLE CLOSURE OF THE FERMOY UNIT
The state of Mental Health services in Norfolk is already, to put it bluntly, scandalous. Therefore, I have no hesitation in urging everyone who can to be present in King’s Lynn from 12PM this Saturday to be part of this protest.
Above is a jpg of the official poster for the event.
IMAGING
Here are a few highlights from today at work…
Lot 19Lot 40The hallmarks on lot 40Lot 43 – a five image gallery. The fact that I produced a full gallery of this lot and have sahred it here should absolutely not be taken as expressing support for the compnay being commemorated!
Lot 91 – this will be on the front cover of the catalogue – and I produced a nine-image gallery.A close up of the front of the medalsA close up of the rear of the medalsThe reverse of the two cruciform medalsThe obverse of the two cruciform medalsThe obverse of the two stars (a look at the reverse of the group will tell you why I did not do a close-up of the other side of this pair)The obverse of the two disc medalsAnd the reverse – the ninth image is a close up of anothe rpart of the lot and I de3cided not to include it.
Lot 207 – both sidesLot 207 – obverseLot 207 – reverse.
aspiblog 