Tag: Nature

Some Thoughts on Autism

A post about autism featuring some of my thoughts, a petition that I urge you all to sign and share, some highlights from other blogs by autistic people and some of my own photographs.

INTRODUCTION

The origins of this post lie in a quote from a post on includedbygrace which I include here as a combined screenshot and link to the original.

Angela

Since seeing that I have seen several posts on autistic blogs that I wish to share with you, come across a petition that is so important that I feel I must share it and ask my followers to sign and share it as well. Also, the imminent approach of April has prompted me to think once again about…

AUTISM AWARENESS, UNDERSTANDING AND ACCEPTANCE

I am more than a little ambivalent about ‘autism awareness month’, and my misgivings are twofold:

  1. To be worth anything awareness must be the most basic of starting points, and needs to lead on towards understanding and ultimately acceptance (see the quote from includedbygrace in the introduction). 
  2. If you consider autism during ‘autism awareness month’ and not for the rest of the year that is simply not good enough. Autistic Spectrum Conditions affect those who have them every day of every month.

This leads on the role of…

AUTISM CHARITIES/ ORGANISATIONS

As someone who is both #actuallyautistic and involved in the running of a local branch of an autism charity I am obviously supportive of some of these organisations. However I am very firm in saying that such charities or organisations must be dedicated to improving the lives of autistic people, and that they should make conscious efforts to include #actuallyautistic people in the running of the organisation. 

There is one very large organisation based across the Atlantic from me which I shall not name (both because I am not a fan of naming and shaming, and also because I do not wish to give them any more publicity) who promote themselves as an autism charity but are in actuality nothing of the kind. They did fairly recently amend their homepage to remove from it references to seeking a cure for autism, but it did not require much scrutiny for it to be obvious that this was not a leopard changing its spots but a leopard trying to con people into believing that it had changed its spots.

I conclude this section by re-emphasing that awareness is not a final goal, it is merely the starting point on the following path:

AWARENESS – UNDERSTANDING – ACCEPTANCE

SOME AUTISM RELATED SHARES

I am now moving to sharing some other stuff I have found, starting with…

A VERY IMPORTANT PETITION – HARRY’S LAW

This petition, calling for an urgently needed change in the guidelines used at hospitals when dealing with autistic children, to be known as Harry’s Law, contains a video as well as a lot of explanatory text. I shall embed the video below the screenshot that I am using as a link. I urge all of you to read the text, watch the video and sign and share the petition. 

Harry's Law

UNASHAMED

Here I am linking to a post on elephantsneverforgetsite, and I am using a screenshot of the end of the post as the link.

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THE SILENT WAVE

It is hardly news by now that I am a big fan of thesilentwaveblog, and there have been several excellent posts from that quarter of late. We start with a post titled “Conformity does *not* make life “less difficult” for Asperger’s / autistic people”, which I link to by way of the splendid picture that heads it.

My next share from this splendid blog is a collection of autism related online quizzes. I sampled one of these quizzes, and may check out others in due course. The language used to convey the implications of your result is not always well chosen. I was told at the end of the one I did that I almost certainly “suffer from an Autistic Spectrum Disorder”. No – I have an Autistic Spectrum Condition – what I suffer from is the attitudes of people like whoever deemed that an appropriate form of words. Once again, I use an excellent graphic from the original as the link.

My third link from this source is to an excellent post about being diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum Condition in adulthood. The title of the post is “Relief and grief ~ the reality of adult Asperger’s / autism discovery”. It must be stated that of the two emotions referred to in the title of this post relief comes first in more ways than one – it is the more significant, the more constructive, and certainly in my own case was very much the dominant one. Once again I am able to link by way of a headline picture:

I complete both the silentwave tribute and the sharing section of this post my once again pointing readers of this blog to the marvellous “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Neurotypicality: a handbook on the rest of the world for Asperger’s / autistic people” which you can visit by clicking the link below:

SOME PHOTOGRAPHS

I end this post with a few of my own photographs, which in terms of what is relevant to this post the following in common:

  • All were taken by an autistic person (me), and
  • All feature one of that autistic person’s special interests.
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All of these pictures are in fact close-ups of parts of lots that will be going under the hammer in April, and the special interests to which they relate are public transport, science and nature. All of the lots that these images relate to are numbered between 968 and 985.

 

All of these pictures are in fact close-ups of parts of lots that will be going under the hammer in April, and the special interests to which they relate are public transport, science and nature. All of the lots that these images relate to are numbered between 968 and 985.

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As one of my favourite science blogs says “It’s an amazing world of science…let’s go exploring!” You could start by clicking this image to visit them.

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Protecting Nature

Some stuff about nature, with a sidelight on public transport. Links to several nature/ transport themed posts and many appropriately themed photos.

INTRODUCTION

This is the first of several posts I will be putting up today. Two of the links I shall be sharing are to posts that have already appeared on this site as reblogs, but which I consider so important, that I am going to link to them again. There is also among my links a piece relating to public transport for which I make no apology, as transport policy can have a big impact on nature, whether positively or negatively depending on the nature of the policy. As usual plenty of my own pictures will feature as well.

TAKING THE LOCAL AUTHORITY TO TASK

Two pieces in this section:

  1. Anna’s searching questions of her local authority as part of the ongoing campaign to save Trosa nature. For those who have not already seen the piece, please click on the magnificent infographic/ meme that Anna created based on a comment I made on one of her previous posts.
    Nature Meme
  2. A cabal of Tories seeking to force through the building of an expensive and environmentally damaging incinerator is all too familiar to a West Norfolk resident. This time the dodgy dealing is going on in Gloucestershire and again it is a Tory controlled County Council that seeks to force through the building of the incinerator. The Skwawkbox have picked up on the story, for which I am very grateful, and I urge everyone who reads this to visit this post by clicking on the image below.

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    Illustration of GCC’s planned Javelin Park incinerator

     

     

BADGER CULLS AND BIOSECURITY

This one appears on Chris Packham’s website, and consists of a brief introduction to a person by the name of Anna Dale, and then an essay by this same Anna Dale titled “Below-par biosecurity should mean no badger cull licence”. To read this detailed essay please click on the graphic below.

Badger

BUSES IN CRISIS

This comes to you courtesy of the Campaign for Better Transport. Contained within this worrying piece is a bit of good news – an infographic relating to the achievements of 2016. To read the full detail on the crisis with Britain’s buses please click on the shocking graph below.

Graph showing decreasing funding for buses since 2010
These figures do not speak so much as shout for themselves about Tory attitudes to public transport.

PHOTOGRAPHS 1: WORK

In this, the first of two sections of this post devoted to my photographs, I share some nature and transport related pictures from yesterday and Thursday at work. The first of these is of an item in the March auction, which I therefore use as a link to our online catalogue, while all the rest are from lots in our April auction.

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Part of lot 948 in our April auction
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Part of lot 950
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Part of lot 951
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Part of lot 953
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Part of lot 956
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Part if lot 961
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Part of lot 962
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Part of lot 963
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Part of lot 964
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This image and the next relate to lot 948

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Likewise this image and the next relate to lot 934

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PHOTOGRAPHS 2: LEISURE

To end the post here some photos from in and around King’s Lynn…

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Several other species besides Cormorants enjoying “Cormorant Platform”

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Tory ‘cabal’ lies to constituents, fights FOI to push through expensive deal

As a veteran of Norfolk County Council’s attempt to foist an unwanted incinerator on King’s Lynn (failed – we kicked up sufficiently much of a fuss about it that the dishonourable Mr Pickles, then the minister responsible for such things, felt obliged to intervene on our behalf) I offer both solidarity and encouragement – these scum can be beaten. We fought against the plan to build an incinerator on the edge of King’s Lynn not as NIMBYs (Not in My Back Yard), but as NOMPs (Not On My Planet)…

SKWAWKBOX's avatarSKWAWKBOX

Information has reached the SKWAWKBOX that had slipped beneath the radar until now. It’s of particular interest because everyone knows that Tories will screw over Labour areas without a second thought, but the usual assumption is that they will protect their ‘heartlands’, if only out of self-interest – for example, the ‘Surrey sweetheart deal‘.

But this case shows that they will screw over their own areas just as eagerly as soon as it suits them – as long as they think they can get away with it.

Even if it means lying to do so.

javelin park.pngIllustration of GCC’s planned Javelin Park incinerator

The case involves Tory-controlled Gloucestershire County Council (GCC), which has been involved for some years in negotiations for a planned waste incinerator – or rather, a cabal or subset of its Tory councillors have, as until a few weeks ago even most GCC councillors were unaware of…

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Hjälp mig räkna/Do the math!

Anna asks searching questions of her local authorty, and the post starts and finishes with an infographic that being biased due to its content I just love!

Anna's avatarAnnas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

For English version, scroll down and find it after the Swedish version.

Kan ni hjälpa mig att räkna? Jag får inte ihop det. Se nedanstående frågerunda jag har haft med kommunen. Jag ville ta reda på hur många bostäder kommunen planerat för totalt för att kunna göra en bedömning om Trosa förbifart/infart västra Trosa och exploateringen av vår storslagna natur på Tureholmshalvön som hotar havsörnens närvaro verkligen behövs. De svar jag fått ger mig inga klara besked om hur väl planeringen stämmer överens med tillväxtmålet om 150 nya invånare per år. De sista frågorna jag ställde i tråden har jag fortfarande inte fått svar på. Så ni får hålla tillgodo med de uppgifter jag fått från kommunen. Kan ni få ihop ett tydligt svar utifrån alla delsvar? Jag har inte lyckats hittills, men så är jag inte så bra på matte heller 😉

Anna

Från: Anna Bohlin
Skickat: den 13…

View original post 2,275 more words

Super Sharing Saturday – Science and Nature

A science based post, with some work related pictures and a link to an online catalogue at the end.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next post in this series of sharing posts. Our theme in this one is nature, and while most of the pieces I am linking to are about the present, we being with a journey back to…

385 MILLION YEARS AGO

This was when our ancestors first moved from the sea to the land. The usual reckoning is that the key development that led to this happening was to do with limbs, which would seem to be common sense. However, according to this piece on astrobio.net, there is an alternative view now being proposed that the key development was actually to do with vision not limbs. As is now my custom I am using an image to link to the full article:

Now we move back to the present, and we start with a distressing story about…

RHINO POACHING

As wild rhino numbers continue to decline the poachers whose activities are most directly responsible for this decline are becoming more brazen. This story concerns a Rhino in a zoo which was shot for its horn. The saddest aspect of this story is that the wealthy Chinese who buy most rhino horns do so based on alleged properties of the substance that are entirely fictional – this is the same stuff that our own finger nails are made of, and no one would pay big money for those. As usual, the link is in the accompanying image.

LEMURS GET HIGH(COURTESY OF WEIT AND SPY IN THE WILD)

WEIT provide an introduction to the video, which you can read by clicking here. The video itself is embedded below for your delectation:

NEUTRINOS

We end with a look, courtesy of rationalisingtheuniverse, at the neutrino. We have an image to serve as a link again:

standard_model_of_elementary_particles-svg

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here to finish are some of my photographs:

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The printed catalogue for the March auction is now ready. Clicking this image will take you to an online version
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Appropriate for a science based post – a telescope (lot 970)

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Lot 954 – a silver calling card holder
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Commemorative coins and medallions are frequently to be found in our sales, commemorative soap bars less so!

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These last six images are of lots 977, 978 and 979 (obverse and then reverse of each of these pewter plates)

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Toxic Earth

A warning note courtesy of http://www.indy100.org, some stuff about public transport, some stuff about science, a link to a satirical pamphlet and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

The title of this piece comes from an article on www.indy100.com although I am sharing many other things besides that, including some of my local photographs. However before I get into the main meat of my post there is one other matter to attend to:

ERRATUM

In a recent post I identified a bed of yellow flowers as daffodils. It has since been brought to my attention that they were in fact yellow crocuses. I apologise for the mistake, and please note that I am not resorting to the equivalent of putting the apology in six point type somewhere in the middle of of page 27!

TOXIC EARTH

Reading this article put me in mind of Anna’s recent post “No 17 drawing in my goals for 2017” where the drawing is about a group of people stranded in space looking for another planet to replace the one that they had to leave behind because they messed it up too badly. Click on the image below to read this important and sobering article.

chemicals.jpg

A COUPLE OF LONDON
TRANSPORT RELATED BITS

I usually reserve stuff about London transport for my London transport themed website http://www.londontu.be, where indeed I shared the second piece in this section yesterday, but I felt these two bits should also be shared here.

LAURIE PENNY ON UBER

Laurie Penny has turned her fire on private cab hire firm Uber, and the result is a devastating article in the Guardian, which I hope will succeed in weaning a few people off this vile organisation. Please read the article in full please click on the image below.

TUNNEL ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE MUSEUM OF LONDON

The central section of the Elizabeth line (nee Crossrail) cuts through London on an east-west axis, and there being no space on the surface it also cuts vertically through millennia of history. It is this latter that has led to the creation of a new exhibition at the Museum of London showing the best finds unearthed during the building of the line. Accompanying this exhibition is a short video, embedded below. After the video are links to more about this and about the Museum of London.

Extra links:

PAYING MORE BUT GETTING LESS

This is a petition put together by Going to Work which calls not only for affordable affairs on our railways but also for a fully publicly owned and publicly accountable rail network. To view, sign and share the petition please click on the screenshot below:

action-for-rail

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE

Here are some pictures from in and around King’s Lynn:

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Planning information posted near Lynnsport.

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The good and the bad of Bawsey drain in one photo – it is home to many species but in spite of continued efforts to clear it is still used by uncaring human residents as a dumping ground.

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This bridge crosses a stretch of the Gaywood, carrying Littleport Street across said river.

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The inaugural NAS West Norfolk curry night took place on Thursday, delayed by a week due to bad weather. Although some of those who had originally booked did not make it, those who did enjoyed it.
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My choice – Lamb Rogan Josh. The accompaniments are boiled rice, two small poppadoms and a garlic naan. The curry was a little spicier than I would have liked but other than that splendid. The accompanying drink, included in the £6.49 price tag, is a pint of Doom Bar ale (and yes for the record I drank only the one)
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One of many fine pictures to adorn the wall of The Globe, and the only one I got a clear shot at.

ATHEISTS ARE BECOMING MORE POPULAR

Here is a truly international link – a Brit sharing a post written by a New Zealander about the USA. Heather Hastie has carried out a typically thorough comparison between the Pew Research Centre’s findings of three years ago and of just recently. Please read Heather’s post in full by clicking here.

A TRIO OF SCIENCE PIECES

The first two pieces in this section were initially posted on whyevolutionistrue starting with a piece drawing on the work of Pliny the in Between, who runs a website called The Far Corner Cafe, and of a doctor who posts under the name of Orac on scienceblogs, whose piece can be read here, to demonstrate that Chiropractic is not merely nonsense, but dangerous (indeed potentially fatal) nonsense at that. Jerry Coyne, creator of whyevolutionistrue (it takes its name from his landmark book of that title published in 2009), has received many hostile comments in response to previous pieces he has written that are critical of Chiropractic. To read this piece in full please click on the image below, the first in a series of five drawings from Pliny the in Between that were used to illustrate the post.

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Second of the trio, again courtesy of WEIT, is a piece linking to a paper published in the journal Nature that mentions the discovery of potential traces of life in sediments that range in age between 3.77 and 4.28 billion years (the earlier end of the scale being about as early given what is known about our planet’s turbulent beginnings as life of any sort could have taken hold). To read the post in full and possibly move from there to reading the paper in Nature please click on the image below:

nature21377-f1

The third in my science trio comes from the Smithsonian and has the self explanatory title “NASA Wants the Public to Log In to Help Find Plant 9”. To read the piece in full please click on the image below.

Planet 9

A SATIRICAL PAMPHLET
FROM UNLOCK DEMOCRACY

To read this pamphlet from Unlock Democracy  in full please click the screenshot of the cover below:

ud

SOME FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

This set of pictures are of items that will be going under the hammer in James and Sons’ March auction, a full catalogue listing for which can be viewed here. 

127
Lot 127
128
Lot 128
140
Lot 140
141
Lot 141
142
Lot 142
143
Lot 143
149
Lot 149 (three separate images joined together)
149-a
149-a
149-b
149-b. In the past, before the American way of reckoning up large numbers took over, a 1 with nine zeros after it was not designate one billion, but either one thousand million or one milliard, and one of the banknotes here shows that the Germans with a small difference in spelling used the same word when necessary.
149-c
149-c
150
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153
153
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154
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155
164
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170
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393
393
393-a
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393-b
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393-c. When putting these together I decided to make this image the centre of the picture, thereby splitting the two sets of booklets.
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407 – a four piece composite image
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407-e – I could not resist extracting this close-up.

NAS West Norfolk Just Giving Page

Announcing NAS West Norfolk’s Just Giving page, and sharing a few other interesting and important bits.

INTRODUCTION

I have a few other links to share as well, but this will be one of my rare posts not to feature any photographs. 

THE NAS WEST NORFOLK
JUST GIVING PAGE

This was discussed and agreed on at our branch committee meeting yesterday, and is now ready for viewing. To see the page itself please click on the screenshot below:

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TWO PIECES WITH TRANSPORT LINKS

The first of these two pieces is a campaign run by We Own It titled We Want Buses for People not Profit. For more please click the screenshot below:

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My second piece with transport connections is an article by Patrick Barkham, a well known writer on nature, published in The Guardian, about a piece of road-building that is in the pipeline and if allowed to go ahead will be incredibly damaging to the environment. The development is planned because the road in question struggles to cope with the traffic that uses it. However, extending roads (as is planned in this case) or building new roads is proven not to alleviate this type of problem – it just generates even more road traffic, with attendant problems of noise, pollution and the destruction of sometimes priceless nature and habitats. Why is there so much traffic on Britain’s roads? Because our public transport system is a complete joke – and that is where attention should be devoted. To read Barkham’s article please click on the image below:

Shrill carder bee

FOR AN ELECTED UPPER HOUSE

There have been recent damning revelations about the conduct of certain members of the House of Lords. The single most damning incident caught be a fly-on-the-wall documentary was of a certain peer who arrived by taxi, told the driver to keep the engine running, went into the house to trouser his £300 daily attendance allowance and then got back in the taxi. This has prompted the Electoral Reform Society to launch a petition calling for an elected upper house to replace the Lords. To view and if so inclined sign and share the petition click on the screenshot below:

electeduh

ALWAYS #HELP TO GET HOME

This is a campaign launched by the NAS nationally. Full detail about the campaign is available here. There is a petition running as part of this campaign which you can access by clicking on the image below:

 

The Six Nations and Some Sunday Shares

Some thoughts on round two of the 2017 six nations, and a few Sunday shares.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday saw the first two matches in round two of the 2017 Six Nations. This afternoon Scotland and France will fight out the final game of the weekend.

ENGLAND SQUEEZE PAST WALES

In the women’s match which preceded this England won 63-0, which gave them 89 unanswered points in their last 120 minutes of rugby (they were 0-13 down at half-time against France last week).

Wales dominated the men’s match for long periods, but too often did not turn pressure into points and eventually a 77th minute try put England in front for the first and only time of the match. England have not been all that impressive in either of their matches to date, but is the mark of champions to find a way to win even when not playing well.

IRELAND THRASH ITALY

Ireland were always in control of this match, with two players (Stander and Gilroy) recording hat tricks of tries. For the first hour the scoreline was semi-respectable but then the floodgates opened and the Irish winning margin mushroomed to over 50 points.

Two matches in to this tournament it is hard to see Italy doing anything other than bring up the rear, a long way adrift of the rest.

SOME SUNDAY SHARES

We start the shares with a couple of public transport related bits…

THE GREED OF THE PRIVATE RAIL COMPANIES

Private operators have creamed of more than £3.5 billion in profits from running Britain’s railways over the last ten years, while services get worse and prices go up. Click on the image below to read in more detail, courtesy of AOL:

Rail firms' £3.5billion profit despite passengers' fury at dire service

AN EXTENSION FOR THE BAKERLOO LINE

The extension, from Elephant & Castle to Lewisham is expected to open in 2028-9. Click on the image below to read the Time Out piece in full. I have already pressed a link on to my London transport themed website and will be writing about it in more detail in due course.

TfL has revealed where the new Bakerloo line stations will be

THE WENSUM VALLEY UNDER THREAT

The Wensum Valley is a very beautiful part of Norfolk, but a malign group of ‘planners’ are putting this beauty at risk – they intend to send a big new road through the heart of it. Please watch the video below to see what we are seeking to protect:

A COUPLE OF REGULARS

Another reminder that James and Sons next auction is on the 20th, 21st and 22nd of February, the first two days at our shop, the third at the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich. Click on the image below, from lot 891, to view a full catalogue…

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Finally, the Autism Awareness Cup 2017 will be taking place at Ingoldisthorpe Social Club on June 4th. Click on the image below to visit the website.

Monday Mixed Bag

A note on comments,some science related links, some photographs and links to the Autism Awareness Cup facebook page and a full catalogue for James and Sons’ next auction.

INTRODUCTION

This is a post of my own, although featuring material from elsewhere. The text other than links is all mine, and there are of course come of my own photographs. Before getting on to the main meat of the post I start with…

THE COMMENTS SECTION

If a post is all my own, or like this post has a framework created by me even if some of the stuff contained within it is not mine then the comments section is open and all comments will be accepted and responded to. If however I have either reblogged a wordpress post or used a ‘press this’ button to share a piece created elsewhere I will close the comments section for that post as it is my intention that people should read the original, and the original is the appropriate place for comments to be posted. Here are a couple of screenshots to help clarify…

screenshot-2017-01-30-at-8-46-30-am
I did these screenshots while ‘pressing’ an excellent post from Heather Hastie. Here you can see two small boxes labelled “allow comments” and “allow pingbacks and trackbacks”, which are both checked (the default setting).
screenshot-2017-01-30-at-8-46-38-am
Now I have, as my final piece of editing unchecked the box that says “allow comments”. For those who have not already done so, Heather’s piece can be accessed by clicking this picture.

SCIENCE AND NATURE CORNER

Welcome to what is becoming a regular feature of this blog. Today the posts are in order of the historical period they deal with, so we start with one set 450 million years ago, which details a find of…

TRILOBITE EGGS

This piece was posted on the website sci-news.com and can be read in full by clicking the screenshot below:

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Moving forwards a few hundred million years we find…

BUGS IN AMBER

This concerns a new order of insects who have been discovered trapped in Burmese amber. I offer you two versions – click the screenshot on the left as you look to get the sci-news.com version and the one on the right to get the whyevolutionistrue version.

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Finally for this edition of Science and Nature corner we come…

BACK TO THE PRESENT

With two videos from “Its Okay to be Smart”, the first of which details the discovery of a probable new species deep in the Amazon rainforest and the second of which asks “how many species are there?” (the answer is that no one has the foggiest).


PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are some of my photographs…

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AUTISM AWARENESS CUP 2017

Below is a list of the confirmed details about this tournament, and if you click on it, it will take you to a facebook page which you can like and share.

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JAMES AND SONS NEXT AUCTION

It will be a three-day auction, on the 20th, 21st and 22nd February (a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). The first two days will be at James and Sons premises in Fakenham, and the Wednesday will be at The Maid’s Head Hotel, Norwich. A full catalogue can be viewed by clicking on the image below:

1040
Lot 1040, a medallion rather than a coin.

Four Days

An account of the ,last four days, some pictures, some links, and a special science and nature section.

INTRODUCTION

This post, which comes with plenty of pictures and some cracking links, covers what I have been doing over the course of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Each of these days was very different in character from its predecessor. The links will be in two parts, a couple appearing between Wednesday and Thursday, and the remainder florming a special science and nature section at the end of the post.

TUESDAY

A day at James and Sons getting as many images done as possible before the catalogue for our next auction went online (here, for those who would like to see it). This day went fairly quietly and without any major incidents. Here are some general pictures…

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My second set of images for this day consists of coins and small medallions…

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There are a number of these tokens from the gigantic wheel at Earls Court – I am planning to feature the entire selection (eight lots) in a post on my London transport themed website, possibly linking to the present by means of another substantial wheel.

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WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday I started the day by typing up the minutes from NAS West Norfolk’s last committee meeting (as branch secretary this is one of my regular tasks). The in the afternoon I attended a meeting of the West Norfolk Disability Forum, which came with a little extra pressure as the branch chair of NAS West Norfolk could not arrange childcare which left me as NAS West Norfolk’s sole representative at the meeting. I found the meeting disappointing – many things talked about but little sign of any real progress having been made. 

INTERLUDE – A COUPLE OF LINKS

Most of my links will feature at the end of this post, but there are two I choose to share here to break things up a bit:

AUTISM AWARENESS CUP 2017

Following the success of last year’s inaugural Autism Awareness Cup, a second event is being staged this year, on June 4th at Ingoldisthorpe Social Club between 12 and 5PM. A facebook page for this event has been launched – please click the graphic below to visit, and if you are on facebook, like the page:

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HEATHER HASTIE ON A TELEVANGELIST

Heather Hastie’s blog is always worth reading, and this post, about a chap by the name of Jim Bakker, is no exception.

THURSDAY – SPARKS FLY 

I had just started work on Thursday morning when I looked at my computer and noticed that the power had gone (I was taking photographs, so all the computer was on ready for editing them later, I was not yet using it). It soon transpired that none of the computers or heaters had power (the lights being on a different circuit did). One of my colleagues tested a particular plug socket that was most likely to have caused the problem, and it proved right (fortunately although shaken he was not seriously hurt, though we were all worried at the time). We then used a long extension lead to connect to the only spare socket available, which brought things to life for a few moments, before (as it transpired), the extension lead proved unable to cope with the amount of power it was having to transmit. 

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The plug socket that started it all after it had been proved to be faulty.

With no possibility of using the computers that day, the two people who were committed to remaining at work there for the day (the other person directly involved in the drama went back to working at his computer repair business) took as many photographs as possible, and it being fiendishly cold without any source of heat, gained permission to lock up a bit early. It was also in the course of this day that I took custody of a key to the shop. 

Although editing and uploading them was for obvious reasons my first work activity of Friday, here are some pictures from Thursday…

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This is lot 650, and the first of its kind I have ever seen – as a collection of cheese spread labels (not even real cheese!)

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A collection of 15 pictures if old London – lot 706

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For the Shakespearians among you, lot 725

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Match boxes, some whole and some in parts.
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This set and the next were kin old cigar boxes.

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FRIDAY – CALM AFTER THE STORM

I arrived at work on Friday morning and was delighted to see that the electrician was just finishing up, and that discussion about having a serious look at the electrics at some lpoint in the future were taking place (much needed – looking back the only real surprise about Thursday’s incident was that it had taken so long for it to happen). 

Nevertheless, the amount of new work I accomplished on Friday was somewhat reduced, first by having to finish Thursday’s work, then by having to a bulk upload of previously created images due to mishap oin the original uploading process which meant that most of the last thousand lots were showing with no images and finally by having to make a trip to the post office, where it took the person handling our parcels 40 minutes to do the job (at least three times as long as it should have). Here are some of the new images that I did mange to create and upload…

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A SCIENCE AND NATURE SPECIAL

We start with two sides of a story that may or may not be one of the most significant achievements in science history – if the experiment can be successfully duplicated a Nobel prize is a certainty. Here, courtesy of www.independent.co.uk comes…

THE PRODUCTION OF METALLIC HYDROGEN?

First of all, the story of the claimed discovery, complete with video footage:

Please click the link below to read (and below that is the video)…

THE STORY

//players.brightcove.net/624246174001/82f79524-152c-485f-bcb0-09197a216c87_default/index.html?videoId=5298617758001For the other side of the story, raising questions about the conduct of the experiment and the speed with which this has gone to press click the link below:

The Counter Story

This then is still to be resolved, unlike the subject matter of my next link, which deals with…

THE EXTINCTION OF THE DINOSAURS

I have already shared a link to this piece, from space.com, but I consider it worth sharing again. To read this fascinating piece please click the graphic below:

Still dealing in the spectacular, we come to a post about…

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

The science blog rationalisingtheuniverse has produced a post about this phenomenon which you can read by clicking on the graphic below:

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We finish with links to two pieces on a theme that is always relevant and still does not the kind of coverage it should…

PROTECTING NATURE

First in this section, a video with an accompanying petition, regarding a serious threat tko wildlife in Cromarty:

I end this post with a link to a 38 Degrees campaign, which I encourage you all to look at:

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR PARKS?