Welcome to the first of several posts about a day out in Norwich, which took place this Thursday. I hope that you will enjoy this post and be encouraged to share it.
THE ARRANGEMENTS
A combination of a rescheduling of the Great Centenary Charity Auction which meant that I would not be able to take part in a family weekend, and a a dearth of options in terms of when I would be able to see my sister and my nephew led to the timing of the event – the only day between their arrival from the other side of the world and subsequent departure for Poland that I could take off was the Thursday. So it was that I got the 9:45 bus out of King’s Lynn to East Rudham to meet up with the others, and we travelled on to Norwich.
WHAT WE DID IN NORWICH
After a brief look at some of the shops we had lunch at The Belgian Monk, before heading off on a walk round the city, spotting some of the dragons that no adorn the place. I will conclude this introductory post with a few photographs…
This street, Elm Hill, was almost a casualty of 1960s slum clearances.
This will be a briefer than usual post as I have less to share than usual (I set off for work this morning part way through a post, which I will finish this evening once I have got home.
TOMORROW’S AUCTION
James and Sons’s May auction (we have one live and at least one timed auction every month) takes place tomorrow at The Maid’s Head Hotel, Norwich. A full catalogue can be viewed online and you can also sign up to bid online if you cannot make it to Norwich.
As well as getting the van loaded for tomorrow, any last-minute queries had to be attended to. This did result in some good images to liven things up a bit…
These two were the scans from which most of my edited images were taken (as you will immediately observe, one had to be redone)
Now that you have seen the original scans, here are the iomages that I emailed to various clients and then uploaded onto the-saleroom.com:
This image and the next two are of lot 186
Thisn image and the next two are of lot 200
This image and the next two are of lot 218, showing in each case the whole container.
AFTERWORD
That concludes this post. I am now going to do a survey for the Autism Research Centre, more details of which can be found here. The survey itself can be found here. There will be a proper sized post coming later today…
Next, news of a major victory in the battle to save the world’s bees, in pictorial form. While on the subject of conservation, I have a petition to share with you about that horror known as the ivory trade.
My next link is to a piece written by a lawyer who courageously and correctly stood up for his neighbours when they were being bullied by the DWP – it provides insight into just how vicious this department has become since the Idiotic Delusional Sociopath (IDS for short) took control. This post is simultaneously disturbing and inspiring. A natural follow on from that is a link to this post from refuted.org.
My next two links are related both referring to matters connected with LGBT rights. The first one was written in response to Nick Clegg publicly ruling out (a rather grandiose thing for soon-to-be ex MP to do in any case) any coalition involving the SNP, and points out just who he might find himself helping if he supports a coalition of the right – the gang of bigots officially known as the DUP. The second concerns the case of an asylum seeker facing deportion back to Jamaica and certain death – anyone actually carrying out this threat will be an accessory to murder and should be punished appropriately.
Finally, I include a link to an establishment being run by my latest twitter follower, which seems to be an excellent thing.
A PICTORIAL INTERLUDE
This card was sent to me by Rocio Watkins, an American researcher who I have been of some assistance to – it contained a small cheque for which I have thanked her.
This is the stamp on the envelope in which the car was sent. Although being current issue it is not yet of interest to philatelists I feel that I may be so eventually as circular stamps are not all that common.
YESTERDAYS NHS ACTION
Between 11AM and 1PM yesterday about 10 of us took to the streets of King’s Lynn to collect signatures for a petition which is at the heart of a campaign to Save Our NHS. Our numbers were a little less than they may have been because of late withdrawals and the fact that some people who would ordinarily have been with us were campaigning in Hunstanton as part of Jo Rust’s election campaign (including Jo herself who would certainly have been with us otherwise).
The weather was decent, and lots of people signed. I, and accosting people I do not know with a petition is something that having Asperger;s definitely does make more difficult, personally got 20 and must have had 10 times that number tell me they had already signed. Given how many others were also collecting signatures and the near certainty that I will have gathered the fewest of any of them we are certainly talking in terms of several hundred new signatures.
Finally, a few more pictures to end the post:
Look up and across from outside King’s Lynn Debenhams and you will see this window display!Details of a post-election public meeting that will very likely be the occasion of my next visit to the fine city of Norwich.This is my enlarged version of the victory for bees picture.
An introduction to the Save Ashcroft campaign, with some important links and cool pictures.
This post is going to be in three parts:
1) An Image to introduce you to what it is all about
2) Some links that relate to the topic being covered.
3)The main body of the post
THE SAVE ASHCROFT CAMPAIGN
A photo of the current leaflet.
LINKS
My first offering is a link to a wonderful piece detailing how mental health issues are misrepresented in the media, courtesy of an American health news site. Next comes an article on awareness, acceptance and how one can to lead to the other, posted on ramblingsofaspecialmom. My next link is to an online section of the Labour Party manifesto. Before continuing with my next links i will just say that while I am as mistrustful of manifestos as anyone if it comes to a choice between someone who is offering an improvement and someone who means to make things worse I know who I will be voting for! My penultimate link is to a an open letter that gives the Guardian’s “Secret Teacher” a well deserved telling off. My last link is to the Save Ashcroft Campaign’s facebook page, which I hope everyone will visit and like. Mention of social media brings to me to a landmark – aspitweets has just reached 2,000 followers.
A PICTORIAL INTERLUDE
The Wensum, near the heart of the fine city of Norwich
THE ORGANISING MEETING
Last night there was an organising meeting of the Save Ashcroft Campaign. The meeting was arranged for the Vauxhall Community Centre in Norwich from 7:30 to 9:30 PM. Not wishing to get back to King’s Lynn after midnght, and being even less keen on not being involved at all, I contacted the organisers to find out if I could stay overnight in Norwich. This duly arranged (many thanks to the kind woman who offered me a bed in her house), I arrived at the venue without incident at 7:15PM (precisely the time I would want to arrive for a 7:30 start). The meeting was very constructive, with many excellent suggestions being raised.
The next public activity on behalf of this very worthy cause will be on May 2nd at the Forum in Norwich, where they will have a place a stall being run by a larger campaign concerned with the whole of mental health provision (or rather lack of it) in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Before finishing with some more pictures, I ask you all to share this and to support Save Ashcroft any way you can – every little helps.
My T-shirt for Saturday’s activity in King’s Lynn
The first fo five pictures to show that my Aunt’s pots are prospering.
This blackbird is getting bad habits – that is a chip from a mobile stall in its mouth!
Just before finishing this post where I started with the leaflet, I urge anyone who is in King’s Lynn on Saturday to come out and help as gather signatures against the creeping privatisation of the NHS.
Yes so good I am using at both ends of the post – and making it the feature image.
This post is going to be in several parts. First off some good links for you to follow up, then a bit about yesterday’s auction, then an account of an evening’s bridge, then today, all interleaved with some pictures.
The first items under the hammer were the banknotes, the first part of a very large, very high quality collection which has come into our possession. This part of the sale was extremely lively, and there were some huge results. Here in pictorial form are five of the finest (four of the original images were scanned by my colleague Chris and have subsequently been edited by me)…
After the banknotes came some coins, then militaria, medals and badges. There was a brief lull when some postcards went under the hammer, and then after a break for lunch, it was time for the stamps. These fared respectably. The postal history and ephemera items brought up the rear of the auction, by which stage hardly anyone not helping to run the auction was still in the room, and they fared poorly.
Another feature of this auction was the presence of the latest advertising tool for the Great Centenary Charity Auction, which has already featured on twitter and facebook…
A close-upA panoramic view showing it alongside the auction lots.
PART 3: JOLLY BRIDGE
Last night was another bridge evening at the Jolly Sailors. Although I finished up a few pence down on the evening, I had a good time. I pulled off a few good pieces of dummy play and played my part in more than one successful defence. The meal was excellent.
PART 4: TODAY
Today I have imaged some 50 lots for the April auction (Fakenham Racecourse, 29th), updated the client database with records of all the saleroom.com bidders at yesterday’s auction and created a press release, which I aim to put out early next week.
Building a Press Release
The text part of a press release is quick work. Creating and placing an image takes much longer. For the particular composite image I envisaged, going right at the heart of the piece I needed to create three half-way house composites and then assemble them into my final image…
This was to be the central panel of the final image.With this on one side of itAnd this on the other.And this was the final image.
With some carefully chosen text above and below you have your press release – but I will not share the full thing until I have actually released it.
Most of the imaging I did for the April sale today was not especially inspiring, but I have a handful of final pictures to share…
I now have a new work computer at James and Sons. Today was a today for cranking out publicity. I put out an email advertising the fact that James and Sons will be at the collectors fair at Stanway Rovers FC on Wednesday (it is just off the A12 at junction 26), and also two emails advertising our upcoming auction on March 25th at the Maids Head Hotel in Norwich. One of these was aimed at banknote collectors and one at stamp collectors. I shall reproduce all of these here for your benefit…
The actual email for the Stanway FairA map page showing the location of Stanway Rovers FCThis is the coin lot I used in the Stanway Fair email (actually lot 292 in our upcoming auction, with the two faces vertically rather than horizontally aligned).
The story that is the raison d’etre for this post is already in the hands of Adam Lazzari, the EDPs chief reporter for Fakenham and Dereham. It concerns the situation with my Nikon Coolpix P520, and the plain text version is here:
THE CASE OF THE CROOKED CAMERA REPAIRERS
This is the story of the fate of my Nikon Coolpix P520 up to today, when I uncovered evidence that admits of no interpretation other than serious criminality on the part of Messrs Christopher Robert Simpson and Mark Gregory formerly of The Camera Repair Company, Dereham.
The significant milestones are as follows:
October 27th took camera in for repairs, handed over a deposit and was told I would be contacted as soon as they had identified the fault.
A week and a half later I was told that the fault was a damaged USB port and associated damage to the motherboard. I was assured that they could fix it in approximately ten working days, so although I was going to have to pay for the privilege I agreed to the deal.
Three full weeks (i.e 15 working days, since there were no public holidays in the period concerned) later I phoned them to ask what was going on and was told that they just needed to perform quality checks and would then be able to return the repaired camera to me.
On the Saturday following having mean time heard nothing I phoned them to find out what was going on, and was told it should be ready by Monday.
Thus on the Monday following that I went to Dereham expecting to pick up the camera and was told that one of them was doing a job in King’s Lynn the following evening and that they would return the camera to me then.
That following evening no one showed up, so…
On the Wednesday I made another trip to Dereham expecting to return with a functioning Coolpix P520. I was then told that the replacement board had malfunctioned and that they needed another which they were waiting for. They also said that as soon as it was ready they would deliver it to me. So I waited, and waited and waited some more, hearing nothing until…
I decided that today, with them having had three full working weeks since Christmas to get things sorted I was going over to Dereham one more time and come hell or high water would return with a camera, which brings us to what I as a classical music lover call…
DIES IRAE
I arrived at the shop to find it shut and locked, and with a notice from Brown & Co Estate Agents attached to the door, explaining that the shop had been repossessed and that more information could be obtained from them. Therefore, I travelled on to Norwich (no extra cost – on First Eastern Counties one gets a day pass rather than a return ticket) to find the branch indicated (I wanted to do this face to face, not over the phone). There I found out that I was far from being the only person in this situation and that the repossession had been because they owed the estate agents a large amount of money. Additionally, I was informed that when the agents went to repossess the shop and change the locks they found it already stripped bare, and they have not been able to make contact with the individuals who ran it.
Additionally to what is mentioned above in the word document (attached below), the website is still active, but I have not bothered to attempt to contact them by that means as I do not consider it worthwhile.
This major issue apart, I am in decent fettle, and I will finish by sharing some of my more usual type of picture (taken with older and lesser camera, a Samsung) with you…
Here for your information is a photo of the repossession notice taken with old Samsung…
Between two hard days imaging at James and Sons and an important evening engagement in Norwich (of which more in a later post) I have not had a lot of time for blogging recently.
On Wednesday I took part in a bridge evening at The Jolly Sailors, Brancaster. Though the standard was pretty ordinary the people were nice, and it was an enjoyable evening. I won 70p at the tables, a respectable amount given the stakes for which we were playing.
Yesterday and today were taken up with imaging, some of the products of which I shall share with you…
The first of three arrangements of racing cars – decide which one you like best.Racing cars 2.My third and final effort with the racing cars.
The December auction of James and Sons took place at the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich yesterday. As the person running the company database it was a particularly full-on day for me, and I have decided to take you through it in chronological order:
5:45AM: Left the flat to be sure of being at bus station in time for 6:00 bus to Norwich (although the sale does not being until 10, with my responsibilities it is mandatory that I be at the auction venue by 8 at the latest and this is the last bus that will enable me to do that)
7:35AM: Bus arrives at Norwich bus station bang on schedule (not even a British bus company can contrive to be running late at this stage of the morning) and I head straight but unhurriedly for the Maids Head Hotel.
7:45AM: Arrive at the hotel and find my way to the Erpingham Room where I will be based for the next few hours.
8:30AM: By this stage the setup and layout are complete and viewers are starting to arrive. My computer is set up in a location that ensures that no punters will have access to confidential information and the internet connection is working, although it will still be necessary to phone the shop in Fakenham every time someone wants to pay by card as the connection does not extend to our portable card reader. Before attending to my own specific tasks I print out a listing of commssion bids that have been registered online via http://www.the-saleroom.com. Between the information on the registrants page of http://www.the-saleroom.com and the written and printed records of bids received in advance I am able to ensure that my database is as up to date as it can be before the auction starts.
10:00AM: Kick off, and the auction starts with a bang as lot 1 sells for £130 against an estimate of £50. This is the occasion for the first of various live tweets I manage to post in between doing the work I am paid for.
The lots come and go very fast, and it is significantly before 11 that the first lot I am interested in, number 171, two postcards of East Rudham and West Raynham churches goes under the hammer. I stick in a bid but then realise I am up against the proprietor of Lynn Gold and recognising that he has much greater financial firepower decide not to bother contesting further.
After 250 lots the auctioneer takes a brief break and I have my first problem of the day, when instead of printing out an invoice as I require my computer wants to print out the entire Auction Form record (fortunately I am able to cancel the job before a single page has been wasted). I resolve the problem by the tried and tested if unscientific method of closing the database down and reopening, and as it happens there will be no further technical malfunctions that day.
Approx 12:30PM: We have now been through 500 lots, and are about to move on to coins and banknotes, with militaria, ephemera and some misecllaneous items still to come. This is a sensible point at which to take a 15 minute break, as planned by the auctioneer. Lot 441 in the meantime had been knocked down to me for £12.
A combination of the speed at which auctioneer David is getting through the lots and the frequency with which I have to produce invoices causes me to fall behind, but with only two room bidders other than myself still left this is not actually as serious an issue as it feels at the time.
14:18PM: Lot 786, the last item in the sale goes under the hammer.
14:40PM: The clear-up is complete and I take my leave. A call at the Glasshouse just down the road for some liquid refreshment and a visit to the library (which I regard as a must when I am in Norwich) mean that I end up on the 16:40 bus back to King’s Lynn. The front of the bus provides a sight I have not previously been treated to: although we are in Norwich and the bus is terminating at King’s Lynn the intermediate destinations listed are those between Peterborough and King’s Lynn! This causes a degree of confusion among my fellow passengers, especially those travelling to intermediate destinations, as you might imagine.
It is just a shade under thirteen hours after setting off in the morning that I finally arrive back at the flat. Come Dine With Me via 4OD followed by Strictly on iplayer complete the day. It was semi-finals week on the latter, meaning that each couple had two dances to perform. The best was saved till last as Caroline Flack and Pasha Kovalev produced the routine that finally persuaded Craig to flourish the 10 paddle.
I have a few pictures for you…
This is the Dereham Christmas tree.Part of the sale as laid out before the start.More of the sale.The Christmas tree in the Erpingham Room at the Maids head HotelThe last four images are of my purchase, taken this morning, this full picture and three close ups.
Today I have both managed to complete the information gathering for our last sale on 29/11/2014 and get the database ready for our next sale this coming Saturday. As part of this I am able to share with you descriptions and images of the lots that did best in relative terms at our last auction. Some of the images included as part of this are not my work. I will mention in the captions I provide when images are not mine.
The second part of this post is a response to the following tweet (I did not think I could do it in 140 characters):
As briefly as possible: this was an atrocity committed by an atheist not an atrocity committed in the name of atheism. This is in direct contrast to the almost innumerable list of atrocities carried out not merely by religious people but in the name of religion.
Now for those images (and a PDF file – I have taken care that no personal details of anyone are included)
This is lot 13 – the first item to do significantly better than expected
This is the last image that is not my work.
Again, not imaged by me.Another of the ones I did not image.
The next three images are of the sewing machine which astonished us all be reaching £140
In going above estimate this item also went out of my reach.
This was one of the items I did not image .
We were delighted when this sold – and it going for above estimate was a bonus. The weight of this item meant that we had specified that the buyer had to collect.
After the banknotes came some coins, then militaria, medals and badges. There was a brief lull when some postcards went under the hammer, and then after a break for lunch, it was time for the stamps. These fared respectably. The postal history and ephemera items brought up the rear of the auction, by which stage hardly anyone not helping to run the auction was still in the room, and they fared poorly.
aspiblog 