My composite Ashes XI with reasoning and justification. Also some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
A common feature of final days of series is the selection of a composite XI based on performances in said series. This is my effort for the current Ashes series. I am going to name my team in batting order first and then explain/amplify/justify these selections.
THE TEAM
My team in batting order (England player names in dark blue, Aus in green):
Alastair Cook
David Warner
Dawid Malan
Steven Smith (Captain)
Shaun Marsh
Jonny Bairstow (Wicketkeeper)
Mitchell Marsh
Mitchell Starc
Pat Cummins
Nathan Lyon
Jimmy Anderson
MY REASONING
The openers need no justification – the only major contribution from an opener not named Warner in the series was Cook’s monumental innings at the MCG. Number three is a thorny one. James Vince has demonstrated clearly that he does not belong there, and his huge score here at the SCG notwithstanding I remain skeptical about Usman Khawaja, hence my decision to promote England’s leading run scorer in the series to a position he occupies for his county. Number four, and with it the captaincywas the easiest selection of the whole lot. Shaun Marsh has not put a foot wrong since being called up to replace the inadequate Handscomb at number 5, and I regarded him as a must pick. Jonny Bairstowand Tim Paine have both had good series with the gloves, but I have opted for Bairstow as definitely the superior batsman. Mitchell Marsh has had a magnificent series, and was an absolute shoe-in at number 7, especially as Moeen Ali has had a terrible series – he has batted poorly in every match and his bowling average reads like a Bradman batting average. Of the specialist bowlers I have picked those at number 8,9 and 10 in the batting order are absolute stand outs. Number 11 was tricky, since Anderson with virtually no support has had a good series, and the better supported Hazlewood as also had a fine series. Accepting that even were it possible vivisection is not permissible (though ‘Anderwood’ is only one letter removed from a former test great!) I have opted for Anderson as I rate his the greater achievement.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Looking at the makeup of the team (and accepting that Hazlewood for Anderson and Khawaja for Malan would both be valid changes), Australian picks predominate in both batting and bowling, though it is especially the bowling, which in my team comes out at 4-1 (including all-rounder Mitchell Marsh) to Australia and is reality more like 4.3-0.7 (rating my selection of Anderson over Hazlewood as a 70:30 pick) which has split the sides. England have collected barely more than half of the 100 wickets that were available to them at the start of the series, whereas Australia assuming that they take the six England wickets that remain in this match will have managed 90, failing to take 20 opposition wickets only on the MCG pitch.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I always like to include a few photographs in my blog posts, so I end with these recently taken pictures:
The first five pictures were taken while walking to the Scout Hut on Beulah Street for Musical Keys yesterday.
These last four pictures were taken in Fakenham on Thursday.
An account of the autism friendly panto night at the Corn Exchange and a petition on behalf of small cetaceans.
INTRODUCTION
Originally I was only going to post about the Panto, but I felt that the petition that forms the second half of this post deserved extra publicity, so this is very much a two part post.
NAS WEST NORFOLK
Those of you who have been following this blog a for a while will recall that last year NAS West Norfolk had block booked seats for the autism friendly showing of Cinderella. We repeated the trick this year for Jack and the Beanstalk. We booked 120 seats for our group, and only a handful went unused. As with last year’s Panto the venue was the magnificent King’s Lynn Corn Exchange:
This was taken after the performance on Wednesday night, as I headed home.
The performance was excellent – hugely entertaining. One of the youngsters attending as part of our block booking got so into the performance that he did some impromptu dancing of his own!
The villain of Jack and the Beanstalk is of course the giant, but as any fule kno it is the little weed who tags along with the bully urging them to throw another punch who is most hated of all, so the pantomime villain of Jack and the Beanstalk is the giant’s henchman. The actor playing that role was a most satisfactory villain, his every appearance attracting a veritable storm of boos.
I am delighted to report that all of the feedback about that evening has been positive. Here are some pictures from inside the auditorium (not from the performance of course – there are limits!).
This stand played a major role in the performance – Simple Simon placed a pot of flowers on top of it at the start, and every time anyone else went near it a warning shout of “Simon” went up from the audience.A look up at the roof
A view over the crowd.Decoration around the balcony area -these two shots were taken during the interval.
THE PETITION
This has been put together by the Dolphin Project and calls for Broome to end its sister relatuionship with Taiji over the hunting of dolphins. I urge you to follow the links I have provided, and sign and share the petition. Below is the picture and opening few paragraphs of accompanying text:
In 2009, Ric O’Barry visited Broome in Australia to lobby the council to suspend its sister relationship with Taiji, Japan over the dolphin drives hunts. Following a special screening of the film, ‘The Cove’, the Broome Shire Council agreed. Just two months later, the council reversed its decision. Choosing to capitulate to its large, local, Japanese community, Broome retracted its pledge and issued a full apology to Taiji town.
Once again, the Dolphin Project is urging Broome to stop condoning the slaughter and to take a stance against this cruel and unnecessary assault on wildlife.
In 13 years (2000-2013), a total of 19,092 small cetaceans were victims of the dolphin drives in Taiji, Japan. This included 17,686 slaughtered dolphins and 1,406 live-captures. Last season alone, 902 dolphins were driven into the cove. More than two-thirds were slaughtered and 117 were earmarked for the captive display industry — [Source: Ceta-Base.org].
This brought back memories for me of my first visit to Australia, a long time ago, and before I developed an interest in photography. Broome was one of the places we visited and stayed a few days. I did not actually see any dolphins there, but had done a few days earlier at Monkey Mia (this is near Hamelin Pool, where on can – and I did – see living stromatolites).
I end this post with: C’mon Broome – you can do better than this!
Can you identify these large water birds that I saw near Kettlewell Lane, King’s Lynn, today?
INTRODUCTION
I was out walking this afternoon, and one of the places I walked was a section of river that runs parallel to Kettlewell Lane in King’s Lynn. It was there that I saw some birds I have never seen before…
BIG NEW AVIAN FIND
These are large birds, similar in size and build to a goose, but with colouring unlike any goose I have ever seen, and not matching any of the goose species listed in my bird book. They were probably about half as big again in each direction as the mallards that I also saw (and due to being overfed King’s Lynn mallards are bigger than average mallards!). I have lots of photos for you…
Based on the size of the birds and all the features that my camera managed to pick up can you identify them? If you can please let me know by commenting.
A bird post provoked in part by the Angling Trust seeking permission to double the rate at which they cull cormorants.
INTRODUCTION
This post has two elements: first, I saw on twitter something about the Angling Trust calling for cormorants to be shot “to protect stocks of coarse and game fish”, and following the link located the details which you can see here, and second while out looking for cormorants to photograph for this post I saw something else that I had not previously captured.
CORMORANTS
I would take a lot persuading that increasing the number of cormorants licensed to be shot copuld be justified in any case, but the grounds given, which amount to a statement that “our sport counts for more than cormorants” fail to come even remotely close. There is a cormorant colony within walking distance of central King’s Lynn, and although they were not about in big numbers when I went looking, there were four of them in evidence. Here are the pictures:
AN ASPI.BLOG FIRST
While observing the cormorants I also a got a couple of pictures of this:
Going through my bird book I could find only two birds with black wings and a white bar across their tail. The first, the Storm Petrel was an unlikely option given how far King’s Lynn is from the nearest ocean (it is an ocean going bird). That left me with the second, the Lapwing, a medium sized wader that likes marshy or muddy conditions (not a problem in the vicinity of the Great Ouse!). Here to conclude this post is what my bird book has to say about Lapwings:
To explain the title of this post, Kernow is the Cornish name for Cornwall, and that is where I am at the moment, staying for a few days in my parents new home. Here is a map to start things off:
My parents new place is near Kingsand, towards the bottom centre of the map.
In this post I will tell you about the stage I left the November auction in, describe my journey down from King’s Lynn and finish with a few pictures from the new house.
JAMES & SONS NOVEMBER CATALOGUE
I had booked Thursday and Friday as leave, and in order to be as up to date as possible before going on leave I agreed to work Monday as well as Tuesday. By the end of Tuesday the imaging was as complete as possible, and I had given my colleague Andrew a start towards the printed catalogue, with a front cover image selected and placed appropriately on the page and the back cover completed. I offer links to the files and also screenshots:
Why two versions of the front cover? Well my employer did not like my initial choice of front cover image, requesting the coin book in its place, and being me I kept both versions.
KING’S LYNN TO CORNWALL
The first part of my journey was on the 9:54 train from King’s Lynn to London, which mirabile dictu ran to time. As far as Cambridge I had the company of Jo Rust, Labour candidate at the last two general elections in my constituency. Ely Cathedral was, as often, a target for my photographic attentions:
On arrival at King’s Cross I headed down to the Circle/ Hammersmith & City/ Metropolitan lines to get a train across to Paddington. The first train was heading for Uxbridge, therefore not one for me to take, but the second was bound for Hammersmith, and hence going by way of the right Paddington, the one that is structurally part of the mainline station, as opposed to the Circle/ District line station that should revert to it’s original name of Praed Street.
Looking across Paddington from the H&C platforms (these are platforms 15 and 16 of the main station).
Having a had a decent but not stellar connection at King’s Cross I arrived at Paddington with just under an hour to go before my train for the long-haul section of the journey was due to depart. Although careful to stay close to the information screens that I would not miss the platform number for my train when it came up I did get some photos while I waited for this information.
I did not get as many pictures as I would have liked during the train journey to Plymouth, as my camera’s battery ran out of charge just beyond Exeter (so no pics from Newton Abbot, Totnes or the approach to Plymouth). The train arrived in Plymouth exactly on schedule, making it a jackpot-like two train journeys in Britain on one day that had run to time!
The first stop out of Paddington – from here there was a long fast run to Taunton, then Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Newton Abbot, Totnes and Plymouth.Some Cornish refreshment from the on-train bar, although at prices that would have made the proprietor of a plush central London pub blush (£4.50 for a half-litre bottle!)
A first glimpse of the sea on this journey.
Picklecombe Fort, wherein my parents have their new apartment is about 2.5 miles from Plymouth as the crow flies, but the road journey is so roundabout that this portion of the journey took almost the same amount of time as King’s Lynn – London had at the start of the day!
THE FIRST CORNISH PICTURES
This morning, with my camera battery fully charged I took some pictures here at Picklecombe Fort.
The guest bedroom has an ensuite bathroom cunningly disguised as a set of cupboards.Mean spiritedness from the previous owners.My parents library.Three views from my bedroom window…
The rest of these pictures were taken from the balcony, and show the apartment’s #1 selling point – the sea views.
The third picture I took featuring the lighthouse.
An account of the Ageing With Autism conference that took place in Norwich on Wednesday.
INTRODUCTION
The title of this post is the same as the event in Norwich on Wednesday at which I was running a stall for NAS West Norfolk. This post tells the story of that day.
THE PRELIMINARIES
This event was organised by ASD Helping Hands, and they invited us to have a stall there, which we accepted. The intention was that I and our branch chair would jointly run the stall. Other factors intervened, meaning that the branch chair could run me over to Norwich with the stuff for the stall, see me set up and then depart, leaving me to travel back by bus. Fortunately someone else very well known to us was able to take the stall stuff back in their car (although not heavy, the display board even when folded and bagged is bulky and awkward – it would have been very difficult taking it back to King’s Lynn on the bus). This meant that I would be running the stall on my own. Having only one person to run the stall was not ideal, but in the context of people who might run an NAS West Norfolk stall if the stall has to be run by a single person I am the right person to it, since at least that does mean the we have an autistic person present (the NAS in NAS West Norfolk stands for National Autistic Society after all).
GETTING THERE
I had arranged to meet the branch chair on Winston Churchill Drive, near her son’s school (as a single male I did not wish to be seen loitering directly outside a school!), which meant a longish walk (I was not paying a bus fare for a journey of that length). I travelled by way of The Walks, the path on from there in between the two academies, various back roads in Gaywood which led in the general direction of Gaywood Park, and then through Gaywood Park to the latest point at which I could join the main road, which I then followed to the roundabout opposite the entrance to the grounds of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and then walked on to Winston Churchill Drive to await the branch chair. Here is a map that is posted opposite where I waited:
The journey from there to Norwich was uneventful, but having located King Street we discovered that it was blocked halfway along its length, so I took the stall stuff and made my way to the venue while the car was parked. Setting the stall up did not take very long, and I was ready for action.
AT THE EVENT
I talked to various people through the day and also picked up information from other stalls at the event. The first person I spoke to was Daphne Rowlands of Children’sAutismServices, who came over not long after I had set up. During an early quiet period I walked round the room looking at the stalls, which were run by (in no particular order):
As well as all these organisations, a number of ordinary folk attending the conference came over to speak to me, and we may or may not hear more from them. The last session of the conference ended at 3:00, and at 3:30, with no one having come to my stall for several minutes I decided it was time to pack up (in theory I could have stayed another hour). After accompanying the person who would be temporarily looking after the stall stuff to her car and helping her to load I took the opportunity of being in Norwich to visit the Millennium Library before catching the bus home. I arrived home somewhat more than 11 hours after setting off.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are the photographs I took at the event (and a couple taken later in the day).
The agenda for the conference.My personal sheet, attached to the NASWN notice boardThe NASWN acrosticThe first of two pieces about our allotment
The whole NASWN stall.
The patterns in the carpet caught my attention (based on fingerprints?)
After the success that made original “Trees in Transistion” post has had I am back with another. As in the first one all the trees featured are within walking distance of central King’s Lynn, though there is no overlap between the two.
TREES TO THE FORE
These trees are all in the area between the town end of Bawsey Drain and the junction of Littleport Street, Blackfriars Street and Norfolk Street.
An account of an educational event about the Gaywood River that took place in the Scout Hut on Beulah Street on Sunday.
INTRODUCTION
I have had a very busy few days, which is why there have been no new posts here since Saturday. I will mention my activities since Monday in later posts, but this post is solely concerned with the activity that dominated (in a good way) my Sunday. At the end of this post I will be including a variety of links related in various ways to its content. Here is a map showing the course of the Gaywood River:
FINDING OUT ABOUT THE EVENT
I got an email from my aunt a few days before the event was due to happen explaining her role in it and asking if I wished to meet her there and go back to hers for sausage and chips or if I would prefer a saturday supper. I decided that the event could be quite interesting, so I opted for the former course of action.
GETTING THERE
Since the event was taking place at the Scout Hut on Beulah Street, which is on the bank of the Gaywood (Beulah Street ends in a bridge that crosses the Gaywood into the car park that serves the Scout Hut) I was going to walking, and since it was a bright, sunny morning I decided on an extended route. Leaving my flat I headed across Baker Lane Car Park to the bridge over the upper Purfleet, heading across King Street to the north bank of the lower Purfleet. Here are some photos from that early part of the walk:
From there I followed the line of the Great Ouse as far as my favourite cormorant observation point…
…before heading round by way of All Saint’s Church to the Library and entering the parkland area, following the Broadwalk until the path through the Vancouver Garden splits off from it, when I followed that and then the path out of the Vancouver Garden that joins the Tennyson Road end of St John’s Walk, at which point I was back on what would be the officially recommended walking route to Gaywood. There were squirrels about (in King’s Lynn only the grey ‘bushy-tailed rat’ variety as opposed to the red ‘Squirrel Nutkin” variety), though it is not always easy to get good photos of them…
This picture and the next feature the heavily sculpted segment of the Gaywood River that passes through the parkland.
Apart from photograph opportunities the other plus side to being held up a by a train at the Tennyson Road level crossing is that you can cross the road itself in perfect safety as the cars are all stationary.
From Tennysod Road I followed the footpath the runs between the King Edward VII Academy and the Lynn Academy to Gaywood Road, which I crossed, then crossing the Gaywood on a pedestrian bridge before following its bank all the way to the Scout Hut.
Although darker than their usual colouring I think from the markings that this is a peacock butterfly.A section of the Gaywood River
AT THE SCOUT HUT
Immediately outside the Scout Hut the Gaywood Valley Conservation Group had a gazebo and display boards (it was there that I took the photo that appears in the introduction).
Inside the hut was the Civic Society Stall, a cake stall, and various river related learning activities (colouring in pictures of river creatures for the artistically minded, an A-Z quiz of which more later). Although it was not the first thing I looked at, because it was my aunt’s reason for being there I start with…
THE CIVIC SOCIETY STALL
They were looking for people who knew about the history of the Gaywood river, because information boards will be going up at various points along it. They already had some good stuff, but wanted more.
Now we turn out attention to…
THE REST OF THE INDOOR ACTIVITIES
The cake stand looked awesome but discipline prevailed, and I did not sample any of the products. Although it was not really aimed at people my age I did the quiz, and predictably got all the answers in short order. The colouring proved popular, and many of the coloured creatures were then stuck on to a large picture of a river on the wall of the hut.
I will reveal the answers (just in case anyone did not get them all) in a later post.
That is the inside stuff finished, but there was also plenty going on…
IN THE BACK GARDEN
There were two major centres of activity in the back garden, and I make my first port of call there, as I did on the day, at…
THE NORFOLK WILDLIFE TRUST GAZEBO
The Norfolk Wildlife Trust were showing children how to make portable ‘bug hotels’, and they also had a natural history display including a folder full of photographs of animals, and a stash of leaflets, to which I may return in a later post.
We now come to what was for me the best of all the exhibits, courtesy of…
THE NORFOLK RIVERS TRUST
There were two parts to this exhibit. The minor part was display showing graphically how different treatment of land in the winter affects the soil:
These three models were side by side demonstrating what happens to soil when there is nothing there at all – gets washed straight into the river)…When there are dead leaves covering it – still lots of it ends up in the river……and what happens when something suitable is planted – note the much clearer water at the end – most of this soil remains in place.
The second part of this display was a living exhibit from the river – two large buckets of river water with creatures that naturally live in it there to be seen (the amount of dissolved sediment in the water, the small size of these creatures and the fact that some of them live on the bottom of the river means that this the only way to make them visible). There was also a small sample dish which the person running the exhibit used to show as very small curiosities…
This is one of nature’s smallest houses – within it is a caddis fly larva, and at some point the adult fly will emerge.The next three shots are of small sticklebacks.
This was described as a gudgeon, but looks different to the other gudgeons we will see later. The silvery sheen to its scales suggests a dace to my eyes.
I am not sure what this piebald fish is, though it could be a stickleback.
This shot of the sample dish showing the thumbnail of the dxemonstrator reveals just how tiny that Caddis fly home actually is – it was in this same dish that I saw it.
Two gudgeons in the second bucket – note that as would be the case in the river they are at the bottom.
There was also a story teller outside…
LINKS
To start this section we look at organisations who were actually involved in some way or other with this event:
Wildlife & Planet – interesting stuff about wildlife from all over the world.
WEIT– the website that grew out of Jerry Coyne’s classic book Why Evolution is True.
Science Whys – the blog of Brandeis biology professor James Morris.
Rationalising the Universe – sets about accomplishing the big task laid out in its title and does a good job of it.
Faraday’s Candle – a science website that will really illuminate your life.
I conclude this section by mentioning a couple of bloggers who regularly feature nature in their work:
CindyKnoke – keen photographer and nature lover. Below is the feature image from (and link to) her most recent post:
Anna – her posts about fighting to save nature in her part of the world are always inspiring, and her two recent series of posts “Paradise on Earth” and “Butterflies in Trosa” are both stunning. Below is the feature image from (and link to) her most recent butterfly post.
CONCLUSION
This was an excellent event and I learned a good deal about the history and nature of the Gaywood River. I have one kvetch which is that the event was poorly publicised – I only found out about it through my aunt and then only a few days before it was happening, meaning that anyone else I might have alerted would almost certainly have had other plans. If half of you have enjoyed this post even half as much as I enjoyed the event I have done a good job. I finish by urging you to take the time to follow up those links.
Letting people know that I will be visiting Cornwall in the near future, and a few other bits and bobs.
INTRODUCTION
My parents have recently moved to a place near Plymouth, and all they are currently out of the country travelling they will be back for a month or thereabouts from late October. I will be visiting their place in mid-November. I have asked for leave on the 9th and 10th of November so that I can go down on the 8th and come back on the 13th.
THE JOURNEY
To get from King’s Lynn to Plymouth (nearest station to my parents’ new place) by public transport one needs to to travel from King’s Lynn to London King’s Cross, get a Hammersmith & City line train from King’s Cross to Paddington and then travel from Paddington to Plymouth (I already knew this). The journey takes in the region of six hours (I expected this to be the case but until I investigated did not know for certain). This why I requested leave for the two days concerned because the two days on which one travels are not going to be much use for anything else.
THE TICKETS
I discovered via www.thetrainline.com that tickets were available for £57. Thus I have made the booking and picked up the tickets.
COLLECTING THE TICKETS
Having made the booking I was assigned a code I could use to collect the tickets:
I decided that memorising an alphanumeric code of eight characters would be a bit of an ask even for me, so I called in at the library where I could screenshot the email containing the above, paste into paint and edit as appropriate before printing at a cost of 10p.
From there it was a short walk through the park to the station to pick up the tickets.
Outbound ticketThe Homebound ticket
The receipt.
The email giving me the code to collect my tickets also included itineraries for both journeys.
This is a little stretched out, but I for one would not care to be on a train the was due to arrive at Kings Cross at 12:35 when I had to make a connection at Paddington at 13:05 – given British public transport’s usual “punctuality” that would be courting disaster.
The journey back could be a little quicker – but note that since there is no pre-booking on the London to Lynn line it is merely an annoyance should I miss the 14:44.
THE BRILLIANT.ORG 100-DAY
SUMMER CHALLENGE
I recently received (by email) my certificate for having attempted all 100 of the problems (almost 50,000 people attempted at least one of these problems, of whom 1,797 attempted the whole lot).
Before moving on to the photographs that will conclude this post I offer you…
A PUZZLE OF MY OWN CREATION
Archaeologist and adventurer Idaho Johnson is near to making the biggest find of her life, but to do so she needs to get past the “Door of Death”:
Can you fill in the missing fourth vertical panel of numbers and get Ms Johnson through the “Door of Death”? As a bonus question can you identify the real door that I have used to create the above image?
Continuing my account of Heritage Open Day 2017 with an account of the unique opportunity presented by the fact that 2 Hampton Court is currently being renovated.
INTRODUCTION
This post continues my account of Heritage Open Day 2017, which started with an overview and continued with a post about my experience volunteering at 27 King Street. This post deals with an opportunity that was available for the first and probably last time this year. Having anticipated the effect that my two-hour volunteering stint was likely to have on me I had decided this warranted being seen before that.
SOME HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
A double sided A4 information sheet about some of the history of the place had been put together by Hendrina Ellis:
There is no connection between this Hampton Court and the famous Hampton Court in Surrey (there are in fact at least three places with this name, the other being in Herefordshire, and the one in Surrey is the newest of the three, being a touch under 500 years old).
2 HAMPTON COURT IN PICTURES
As well as the building itself there was a small exhibition about the history surrounding it. For the rest of this post my camera takes centre stage, giving you the chance to see what I managed to capture of this unique experience:
I was so impressed by this display that……I took close up shots of each individual sheet
CONCLUSION
This was an excellent start to Heritage Open Day. The King’s LynnPreservation Trust did a splendid job of presenting this building to best effect.
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