Links to three pieces originally published on Skwawkbox.
INTRODUCTION
We are now into the politics section of my super-sharing Saturday, which will encompass this post, a post about the Monroe vs Hopkins case and will finish with a post containing the remaining political links.
1. SKWAWKBOX SWATS THE #MAYFLY
This post is merely the latest in very damning series of posts the skwawkbox has produced about Theresa May and the Surrey County Council sweetheart deal. It contains a very short video produced by Ealing Labour 4 Corbyn as well as the text. Link via the image as usual
2. SKWAWKBOX EXPOSES DESPICABLE BEHAVIOUR BY BLAIRITES
Wimbledon CLP have been threatened with suspension over a leaflet that they intended to put out regarding a proposed new school. To read the full account on Skwawkbox click on the image of the “offending” leaflet below:
3. SKWAWKBOX ON AWFUL TORY BEHAVIOUR IN LANCASHIRE
This account features stories of intimidation up to an including death threats. To read about how the Tories are trying to take control of the town of Pendle by a combination of bullying, intimidation and gerrymandering click the image below.
PHOTOGRAPHS
As usual I end with some pictures…
These maps are going under the hammer at the end of our March auction.
I received a copy of Robert Harris’ latest work, Conclave, as a Christmas present from my sister. I included mention of Robert Harris in the post I created to mark myfifth anniversary as a blogger, the title of which was borrowed from the second volume of his trilogy about Marcus Tullius Cicero. I also mentioned the possibility of reviewing Imperatorm the third volume in the Cicero trilogy, in a couple of other posts but did not actually do so (it is a splendid finale to the trilogy btw).
A BOOK ABOUT CHOOSING A NEW POPE?
The whole of Conclave is devoted to telling the story of the election of a new pope. The scene is set with the announcement of the death of the old pope. To be elected a two-thirds majority, and it often takes several votes for a front runner to emerge. This being a novel, there are of course some extra twists. Four people in total are front runners at various stages of the process but do not win. Two of these people have their chances spoilt when details of past transgressions are revealed to the assembled cardinals, a third makes a speech which effectively rules him out and the fourth is hoping someone else gets elected. At the end a newly appointed cardinal who had gained one vote in the first ballot is elected at the eighth ballot (while I do not know of anyone in real life winning after getting only one vote in the first ballot, Cardinal Wojtila got very few votes in the first ballot of the second Conclave of 1978).
The winner then has to accept the office and choose a papal name. In this case he goes for Innocent, a papal name that has been used 13 times before but not in the last three centuries. There is of course a vast range of possible papal names – very few of those previously used would be unacceptable, while a choice of a previously unused name could also work. There are two papal names I do not see being claimed any time soon however: Pius XIII because of the character of Pius XII, and Peter II because of the sheer hubris involved in choosing that name (although Steve Berry in The Third Secret has someone choose the name Peter II, and yes that person does then come to a sticky end).
Although all the action takes place within the confines of the world’s smallest independent country, the book never flags or lacks interest. An excellent novel and one I heartily recommend.
The front cover.A map of the are within which the action takes place.
A post about the outcome of the US Presidential Election.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to what I promise will be my only post about the result of the US Presidential Election.
‘ELECTABILITY’
Right up until the result was confirmed many reckoned that Hillary was guaranteed to win – indeed late last night Jerry over at WEIT was still confident enough to follow his schedule of posts and put up one bearing the title “Hillary Wins!”. Many of those who were so confident of a Hillary win were not especially enamoured of her as a candidate, but reckoned that alternative was so gruesome as to be ‘unelectable’. At approximately 8AM GMT this morning that notion of ‘unelectability’ was consigned to oblivion when it was confirmed that he had been elected.
LINKS AND INFOGRAPHICS
I will start this section with a link to this very detailed break down of voting patterns (I draw particular attention to the breakdown of voting patterns by income – this makes it clear that the poorest people voted for Hillary – the only brackets in which she was ahead were those with incomes of under $30,000 per annum and those in $30-50,000 bracket).
Some detail on voter breakdownA good visual representation of who voted which way, found on twitter.Another twitter find.This map was produced by http://www.independent.co.uk, and accompanied this article.
Next come some links to longer pieces from various people:
Vox Political have produced two offerings, here and here.
I end this section with this sage advice tendered by Catherine Mayer on twitter, which segues into the next and final section of the post:
DOING SOME RIGHT THINGS
I will start this section by referring you to the 50:50 Parliament petition on change.org, which I made a point of sharing again today, given some of the things that the new POTUS has had to say about women.
To finish, some good news from the Let Bristol Breathe campaign:
Congratulations!
Following the Let Bristol Breathe campaign and the petition you and over 4000 people signed, Bristol City Council has voted unanimously to support a motion calling for urgent steps towards establishing a Clean Air Zone in Bristol.
Two of Bristol’s MPs and the Mayor have also asked to discuss a Clean Air Zone for Bristol with government ministers.
These are just the first steps, but they are in the right direction.
We’ll stay watching to make sure they stick to their promises. If we need your help again with this campaign, we’ll be in touch.
Meanwhile, give yourself a pat on the back or raise a glass to clean and healthy air!
In my previous post here I indicated that there would be a number of new posts appearing on my London Transport themed website. I now provide links to them.
This post ties together my series about my recent holidayy in Sweden, displaying lots of maps and functioning as an illustrated index.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to this post which ties together my series of posts about my recent (July 29 to August 13) holiday in Sweden and functions as a sort of illustrated index to the series. Please note that barring the two Lulea maps which are public display maps as I did obtain a map of that town every map you see photographed here is available free of charge (great news for a cartophile such as myself).
THE MAPS
Maintaining chronological order for these maps we start with…
STOCKHOLM ARCHIPELAGO
This map relates to the start of the holiday, the period of July 29th to 31st, which is covered in this post:
On Monday August 1st I set off on the second part of my trip, where I was travelling solo, my first stop being…
KRISTINEHAMN
This small town was significant for me as being the southern terminal of Inlandsbanan. It sits close a famous lake (bodies of water are never far distant wherever you are in Sweden) and is an attractive place in its own right.
Kristinehamn features in two posts in this series:
I spent two days soaking up this fabulous railway experience, coverage of which ran to eight posts in the course of this series, which led to me to create a page for easy access to the whole sub=series. I have three pictures of this large double-sided map:
The two sides of the map juxtaposed – the southern part of the route is on the left as you look, the northern on the right (a side by side view works better than one on top of the other for a long thin country).A closer view of the southern part of the routeA closer view of the northern part of the route.
Those who followed this series will recall that my first day of travel along Inlandsbanan took me to…
OSTERSUND
I covered the section of the journey from Mora to Ostersund in two posts, using the meal stop at Asarna as a natural break point:
The Ostersund map, shown below, was provided to Inlandsbanan passengers by our host for that part of the journey, Emma, who had been equipped with a block of such maps from which she peeled off individual copies:
Osttersund in its region.The close up of central Ostersund.
The next place I was able too obtain a map was…
ARVIDSJAUR
This town is fairly close to the arctic cirle. The post in which Arvidsjaur features was the seventh in my Inlandsbanan subseries, meaning that by the time I got to this location all the following had happened:
Not very long after this came the end of the Inlandsbanan journey at…
GALLIVARE
As with the Osttersund map this one was provided for passengers by our train host, in this case Andreas, although unlike the Ostersund map it was large enough to warrant being folded, and hence could not be transported in the way that one was…
The post to which the above pictures relate was the last in my Inlandsbanan subseries:
An attractive town that sits at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia, Lulea was the only place I visited for any length of time that I did not get a take home map of, but I have two good pictures of public display maps:
The map of Uppsala tthat ii was equipped with at the tourist information office had details of various attractions printed on the back…
Both sides of the mapClose up of the MapClose up of the list of attractions.
Uppsala provided me with six blog posts worth of material – anyone who is up for a little challenge is invited to work out how many of the attractions listed above get mentioned in the course of the series of posts:
As the title of the last post listed above suggests, my next port of call was…
MALMO
The map of Malmo, provided by the STF Hostel in which I stayed for two nights, was A3 sized (twice as big as the Uppsala map), but had only advertising on the reverse, hence me not bothering to photograph that side…
As with the Uppsala series, the title of the final post featuring Malmo gives a clue as to my next port of call…
GOTHENBURG
The Gothenburg map, provided by the tourist information office, has useful information on both sides…
As well as both sides of the map, I include a close-up of the diagram of the local public transport network
I stayed only the one night in Gothenburg, en route back to Stockholm for the last two nights of my stay in Sweden, which explains why this very impressive city only features in two posts:
In spite of the title of the last post shown above this post is not quite done yet, because being the keen student of public transport systems that I am I could not ignore one of the most remarkable I have yet encountered…
TUNNELBANA
The heading above contains the colours of the three lines that make up Tunnelbana, with the blue line given an extra letter over the others because of its cave-like appearance. Here is a diagram of the Tunnelbana system:
Tunnelbana has a whole long post to itself, and also provided my response to one of Maria Jansson’s photographic challenges:
I hope that you enjoyed this ‘maps special’ and that some of you will find it useful as a means of accessing my series of posts about Sweden. For those who have enjoyed the maps, i draw your attention to a blog that is dedicated to maps.
The latest in my series of blog posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest post in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden.
STARTING THE DAY
Once I had followed instructions for ensuring the cleaners knew that my bed was reserved for another night and made sure that none of the stuff I was leaving in the dorm room would get in their way it was time to set off to explore Malmo, although my first photograph of the day was taken before I had left the building:
HEADING TO THE CENTRE OF MALMO
The first major building I spotted on my way towards the town centre was the public library (Stad Bibliotek in Swedish):
Arriving at the first of many waterways I took a brief walk in the opposite direction along it to the one I was ultimately going to be headed in (deliberately so)…
Then I faced a choice between staying with the road or going by way of the Gamla Kyrkogarden (old churchyard – gamla = old, kyrko has the same meaning as the Scottish kirk, and the g in Swedish is usually pronounced as an English y, giving ‘yarden’ or removing the last two letters, yard), I naturally chose the latter)
This building, spotted as I was leaving Gamla Kyrkogarden was very impressive:
It was at this point that I got my first sight of a notable feature of Malmo…
BRONZE SCULPTURES
I have not seen anything quite like these elsewhere:
At this stage I was heading towards the station, to visit the supermarket to buy food before continuing my explorations. However, I was not by any means hurrying, and was still getting plenty of pictures…
This remarkable clockface is in the covered market adjoining the station, by way of which one can access the supermarket.
Leaving the supermarket I headed for more water, deciding to see as much waterside as I could contrive…
Still envisaging being able to make this a circular walk, avoiding retracing my steps, I continued on, sticking as close to the water as possible.
I was not ultimately able to stay at the waterside the whole time – I soon found myself in a light industrial development and obliged to temporarily head away from the water, but I got back to a waterside location to eat my lunch…
I began to head in the general direction of the hostel, although my day’s photography was by no means done…
My first photo of the day was taken at the hostel, and so was this, my last photo of the day.
The latest in my series of posts about my holiday in Sweden, introducing Uppsala.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. This post sets the scene for my two night stay in Uppsala.
ARRIVAL
Those following this series will be aware that I travelled to Uppsala on an overnight train from Lulea. Apart from one moment about half an hour before Uppsala when I managed to shut myself out of my compartment and had to knock on the door to regain admission (I was only just stirring, and simply forgot to pick my key card up) the journey was largely uneventful. By good fortune I had been assigned the bottom of three beds (the top bed hangs from the ceiling as a permanent fixture, the middle bed folds out from the wall when everybody is ready for bed and the bottom bed is created by rotating the row of seats over by means of an ingenious mechanism).
On arrival at Uppsala Central Station I noted that the was a line of hotels on one side of the tracks, so I went to investigate whether Vandrarhem Uppsala Centralstation was among them and found that it was not. Deciding that other than this little clump of hotels the other side of the tracks looked more promising I headed along the generously spaced walking and cycleway that passes under the station and after passing the bus station found myself on Kungsgatan, where I spied a Tourist Information Office. As it turned out the entrance to the building in which I was staying was just off the main road on the same side street that this office sat at the corner of.
The building in which I was staying had a hotel at the front, and the hostel type rooms in which I was staying at the back. Although it was too early to check in they did have a bag room, so I offloaded some luggage there and set off to commence my exploration of the city. I already had a few photos…
As well as being the birthplace of the great Carolus Linnaeus, Uppsala is home to a sculptor named Bror Hjorth, and two pieces of his work are on display very close to the station.
The station plan of Uppsala Central.
COMMENCING SERIOUS EXPLORATIONS
Consultation of the map with which I had been equipped at the Tourist Information Office revealed that everything of interest to me was to be found by starting in from my hotel in the opposite direction to Kungsgatan, which would serve as a very handy outer boundary marker. My initial target was the cathedral since I reckoned that a very large and prominent landmark that must be pretty much plumb in the centre of the interesting part of the city would serve as a further useful point of orientation, and I could then pick out other places. This part of Uppsala proved to be very attractive and as a bonus was pretty much pedestrianised. Almost directly underneath the cathedral I found the University Museum, and deeming the admission price acceptable decided to go in, with results that will form my next post…
The frontage of the cathedralImmediately above the main doorA close up of that very elaborate circular window.The outside of the University MuseumA close up of the curious onion shaped dome – as you will see in my next post what lies inside that dome is almost as curious.
The next installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest post in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden. This post continues the northern journey along Inlandsbanan that started here.
INLANDSBANAN PROPER BEGINS
As those who read my previous post will be aware, although Kristinehamn to Mora is part of the official Inlandsbanan route it is not run by Inlandsbanan stock – for that you have to wait until Mora. Here is an Inlandsbanan train:
This makes it obvious why seat reservations made on the Inlandsbanan website give you a seat number but nor carriage number – there is only one carriage.
Inlandsbanan trains also feature a ‘train host’, who checks tickets, sells refreshments to those who buy them, takes food orders for the official food stops and provides information about noteworthy points along the route. For this journey, from Mora to Ostersund, of which I am currently covering the first part our train host was a young woman named Emma, and she did a magnificent job – she got a round of applause as we approached Ostersund.
Here are some pictures from the early part of the journey…
Just after I had taken the picture above we arrived at our first major landmark, a river that was considered impressive enough for the train to stop so that photographs could be taken more easily…
It was not long after this that food orders were taken for the official eating stop at Asarna Ski Centre…
My food order – 1 Moose burger.
Then it was back to taking pictures from a moving train for a bit…
We then had a station stop that was long enough for folk who were travelling on to get off and have a leg stretch…
This map was on the train. At the end of this series of posts I will put up a special post about maps.The full Inlandsbanan timetable.
Then it was back to taking pictures through the window for a little bit…
Then we reached Asarna, where we had our scheduled food stop, and where this post ends (the moose burger and wedges made a very satisfactory meal by the way).
The first of three hexagonal display cases full of medals awarded for ski-ing feats.
A fine campanological display – I also have a close up of three bells in the middle of the display.
This shot of the train at rest makes it clear why only one of the two sets of doors opened for this stop!
Looking back at the bridge through whose metalwork I had earlier taken some shots (I have a zoomed in shot immediately following this one)
This will feature in more detail when I do my special post about maps.
A brief and mainly, indeed almost entirely, pictorial account of my day at work.
INTRODCUTION
Today we were getting the catalogue for the auction on June 29th ready to go to the printers, which meant a lot of imaging for me.
A WIDE RANGE OF IMAGES
My days imaging started with some cigarette/ trade card lots…
These look like old coins but they are actually well disguised cigarette cards based on those coins.
Next up came some left over coin and stamp lots…
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Then there were a few small flags…
Then came 28 vinyl records, some of which are likely to fetch serious money…
Lot 751, first of the records in this sale
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Although I restricted myself to showing 10 of the 28 records this one had to be included.
Lot 778, the last of the records.
Once the records were done, there was a stereograph and some accompanying slides, which occupied 20 odd lots between them…
The Stereograph
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When viewed through the stereograph you get a single picture in 3D
The stereograph was followed by a handful of toys…
The last items of the day were two highly decorated, framed title pages of atlases, for which I provide complete image galleries, all as individual images…
An account of today at work and yesterday at Musical keys.
INTRODUCTION
This post has two very disparate strands – yesterday’s Musical Keys event for Autistic People and tody at work.
IMAGING
While I have imaged a wide variety of stuff today at work I am going to concentrate on some commemorative coin lots that were of particular quality…
I did not have time to provide close-ups of all these coins……so I selected the one featuring a picture of Nelson (we are in Norfolk after all) for the treatmnent.
This lot featured an extra requirement.Namely providing a shot focussing on the coin and info sheet into which it is set.
The last of the commemorative coins.
A large collection of themed stamp books.
Inidvidual mounted stampsA close up of a single setan even close up of two individual stamps.
Old maps…
… and an even older map to finish
MUSICAL KEYS
The 12 years and older session of the Musical Keys workshop run as an NAS West Norfolk activity started at 4:45PM yesterday and ran until 6:15PM. I was there both as participant and as one 0f the two designated committee members to be present at the event (the other was group leader Karan whose younger son was participating). As usual with Musical Keys the main piece of equipment we were using was a miniature computer:
For the first part of the session we were playing computer drums:
After a mid-session break during which a birthday cake which Karan had very kindly made (gluten-free as her son has an adverse reaction to gluten) and which was absolutely delicious, we moved on to the second part of the session, which featured a system whereby lines had to be drawn across the screen so that balls would bounce of them to create sounds. For those of my generation it looks a bit like a very early BBC Micro game!
The basic set up
An arrangement of lines which prevents any of the balls (released from the nozzle you can see top centre) from escaping. I do not know what kind of sound this generates, as at no time while the sound was on did I have this many lines in place.
As anyone who knows what the weather was like in King’s Lynn yesterday early evening will be aware it was not suitable for photography on the way to the Scout Hut, where as so often with NAS West Norfolk events this took place, but I did get this picture on the way home…
aspiblog 