A Spectacular Recovery

An account of the dramatic finish to yesterday’s ODI between England and Sri Lanka, some links and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

This post is about the closing stages of yesterday’s ODI between England and Sri Lanka, which I listened to once I had got home from work.

A DISTANT PROSPECT

When I switched the commentary on Sri Lanka had made a respectable 286, which by that stage was looking positively mountainous since England were 39-4. When skipper Eoin Morgan was out for 42 to make the score 73-5, and Moeen Ali also fell cheaply to a poor shot the situation looked even grimmer for England, as Chris Woakes walked out to join Jos Buttler…

A GREAT PARTNERSHIP

Buttler and Woakes fared better than had seemd posssible when they came together, and gradually victory moved from the realms of fantasy to a distant but imaginable outcome to a genuine possibility. Two wickets in quick succession, Buttler and then Dvaid Willey seemed to have once again settled things in Sri Lanka’s favour, but Liam Plunkett (surely the most talented batsman ever to be at number 10 by design) played well alongside Woakes who established a record score for a number 8 in an ODI. In the end it came down to…

A SPECTACULAR FINAL OVER

At the start of this final over 14 were needed for England to win. Good bowling restricted England to seven off the first five, meaning that unless a wide or a no-ball was bowled England could no longer win. Neither was forthcoming, but Liam Plunkett did hit that final ball for six to level the scores and earn England a tie after a come-back of epic proportions.

LINKS

My first link, just to tie up the loose ends from the first part of this post is to an official account of yesterday’s ODI, courtesy of cricinfo.

My remaining links are all on the subject of referendums and one referendum in particular. I start with David Hencke’s post about why he will be voting for remain.

My next two links are both to posts from that legal eagle of the blogging world jackofkent, first a detailed analysis of what he sees as the flaws of referendums, and second, acoompanied by a screenshot below and some subsidiary comments of my own afterwards a proposal for banning referendums:

I would change clause 2 of the above act to read:

2. This Act can only be repealed by a unanimous vote in the house (for the purposes of this Act abstentions and absences count as votes against).

PHOTOS

For anyone who has read all the foregoing text here is your bonus in the form of some recent photographs:

DSCN6810 — Although the day rider plus that is my standard bus ticket specifically excludes the coasthopper whose route map is pictured here, coasthopper buses sometimes run other routes, notably the X8 between King’s Lynn and Fakenham.

Rapid Progress on the July Auction

An account of today’s imaging, largely told by way of pictures.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ July auction is progressing rapidly. A wide variety of items came my way for imaging.

A BIT OF EVERYTHING

Here are some of the highlights from today’s imaging…

Aftewr today there are only a couple of coin lots l;eft top be filled in this auction. This by the way is lot 1.

A very old coin indeed (cannot make out a date but it is either 12th or 13th century)

Not quite so old – dates from Elizabeth I

136 — A parvenu – a sprightly 127 years old

255 — Two suitcases full of masonic regalia.

352 — The red train is damaged, the black not so – the canopy over the cab is supposed to be removable since…

352-a — …the driver and fireman cannot be seen when it is on.

COINS, TOYS, MILITARIA AND A FEW LINKS

Some of the highlights from the early lots in the July auction, and a few good links.

INTRODUCTION

Although the links I shall be sharing have nothing in common with the main part of this post, which is about the start of imaging for James and Sons July auction, there are not enough of them to justify a post all to themselves, so I am tacking them on.

THURSDAY: COINS

On Thursday the imaging I was doing was all of coin lots…

Lot 60, the lowest numbered lot that I imaged on Thursday (I scanned these lots at high resolution, a number of lots at a time – scan each face, and bolt together to make the main image…

60-a — …while keeping the individual images to enable viewers to see them in closer focus.

108 — These ‘cartwheel pennies’ were produced only in 1797, because it was discovered that the amount of copper in them was worth more than the face value of the coin. They were therefore removed from circulation, which had the effect of causing a coin shortage.

FRIDAY

Yesterday’s imaging was more varied, featuring a few more coin lots, toys and some militaria…

This is lot 151, and will start the militaria section – the four sets of medals that I arrnaged around the commemorative plaque were awarded to four brothers who served together.

151-a — The first of five close-ups of parts of the whole.

LINKS

First of all, a link to an excellent in=depth piece about the murder of Jo Cox, written by kittysjones.

Then a link to two excellent letters in the Guardian about the Baker Small scandal – the first has among its signatories Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society.

My two remaining links are both from weownit, one being to a petition against a plan by the government to ban councils from setting up bus companies to run their own services, and the other to some more detailed information as to why publicly owned buses would be an improvement.

Autism Awareness Cup Facebook Page

Introducing the Autsium Awareness Cup Facebook Page.

INTRODUCTION

First up, apologies to those among my readers who do not use facebook, although I do have some unrelated photos by way of compensation. Secondly, I will take this opportunity to congratulate Norfolk Country Council on being one of the local/ regional authorities to have given the disgraced legal firm Baker Small their marching orders. Some of you may recall that a few days I ago a put up a post about the inaugural Autism Awareness Cup, and this post is a brief follow-up.

THE AUTISM AWARENESS CUP PAGE

This is a fully public facebook page for which I provide a full URL: https://www.facebook.com/AutismAwarenessCup/ and a screen dump showing the page header:

So far five teams have entered, using European Championship/ World Cup themed names. I am happy report given current circumstances that no one has been tasteless enough to opt for Russia.

PHOTOGRAPHS

These windows are a feature of the building in which I am posting this – King’s Lynn Public Library

Charity of the Year, Shares and Photos

Poiinters to three posts I found today, some photographs and an important local vote.

INTRODUCTION

This post will share some stuff I have recently been impressed by, and showcase some of my phographs, but it starts with a request…

VOTE NAS WEST NORFOLK FOR SAINSBURY’S LOCAL CHARITY OF THE YEAR 2016

This is for people based in or close to King’s Lynn. We are on of the nominees for the King’s Lynn town centre store. Look up Sainsbury’s Charity of the Year on the web, make sure that you are looking at the nominees for the King’s Lynn town centre store and vote for NAS West Norfolk. Results qwill be announced on July 11th (potentially making three successive huge days for us – official launch of adult events on July 9th, Autism Awareness Cup on July 10th and the final result of this vote on July 11th).

A TREMENDOUS TRIO FROM THE WEB

My first link is to a piece on the EU Referendum on Vox Political, which makes use of two The Sun front pages, one from today and one from 1989 to make its point. In the original piece, which can be viewed here, the two front pages are one above the other, but I present them here side by side, with today’s on the left as you look at it:

My second offering is also in the same theme – a rather more detailed analysis of why we should be voting to remain in nine days time, courtesy of anewnatureblog.

My this and final offering in this section comes from atheist republic, and is a highly amusing counter to arguments of the “Pascal’s Wager” type. To read this piece click here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

DSCN6712 — Herring Gull mugshot – this one may be guilty of the heinous crime of killing a duckling (at least one of King’s Lynn’s herring gulls is)

DSCN6725 — Anna recently put up a post with a snail as its centrepiece.

June Catalogue Ready

An annoucnement that the catalogue for our June 29th auction is now ready for viewing. Please share widely.

INTRODUCTION

The catalogue for James and Sons’ auction on June 29th is now ready – it is back from the printers, and today was devoted to plugging the last gaps image-wise in the online version, which can be viewed by clicking here.

FILLING THE GAPS

Most of the gaps were due to images not being uploaded, but once these had been attended to, some items remained to be imaged, the bulk of them coins. Here to clear the decks are the non-coin items that I had to image today…

This was to field a request for extra detail rather than an image that had not been done.

Lot 460

The two supplementary images I produced for lot 460 were in response to a query.

Lot 627

Lot 742

The coins that needed doing were a run of 19 lots, all bar one of which could be scanned (396-414 incl), and one extra lot (416)…

396 — Each of these coin lots has three images minimum (a composite and two individuals)

403 — This one has an extra image – a close up of the date.

Two Small Auctions and Imaging for one Big Auction

An account of Wednesday and yesterday – with plenty of pictures. Also a link to a splendi piece on WEIT.

INTRODUCTION

Most of this post deals with events of Wednesday and yesterday.

WEDNESDAY – NORWICH

We had a small stamp sale at the Maids Head Hotel in Norwich, which necessitated a seriously early start. I was at the bus station at 6:00 as intended (the bus I was going to catch is scheduled to leave at 6:10, and I always like to be there early), but the bus was very late. I considered briefly catching the alternative X1, but was not willing to pay twice as much money for the quicker journey (£11 for the X1, run by First, £5.50 for a day-rider plus on the X8/ X29 Stagecoach route). Finally, over 20 minutes after it was due to leave the bus arrived to pick up passengers. It made good time once it was under way, apart from the inevitable crawl past Hellesdon Hospital, and I was at the venue by 8:15. There were no computer issues, and the sale ran very smoothly. Those items that sold went for good money, and overall the sale was as good as we could have expected.

THURSDAY – FAKENHAM

Thursday featured an early start, but not so much as the previous day, since we were holding a postal history sale at our own premises in Fakenham. This sale was more of a success than the one the day before – due to the presence of internet bidders, and a number of items made good money. Once it had finished I had time to do some imaging for the big auction on June 29th, at which some lots will be sold to raise money for the Royal British Legion’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College, London, and for which the catalogue is currently at the printers. There were some very large flags, one of them so huge that the only way I could image it was in the open air with two of my colleagues holding it up, one at each end. Here are the images…

342 — One of the two images I took of the hypergiant flag

346 — A supergiant flag – by spreading it out on the shop floor and standing a chair I was able to obtain an image of each hal;f of the flag and use my editing skills to bolt the two images together.

346-b — The other half of the supergiant flag

Lot 655 – a piece with local historical significance – and a gallery of seven images

675 — This table needed careful handling and crafty psoitioning to get a usable image.

To end this section, a challenge to my readers: from where did I get the descriptors (giant, supergiant and hypergiant) that I used for the outsize flags?

A LINK AND THE CURRENT TEST MATCH

Having already shared Richard Murphy’s piece on licences for company directors, when I then came across a gem of a piece on WEIT I felt that I could not justify a second such post within such a short space of time. Here therefore is a link to a piece about the Freedom for Religion Foundation going after NASA for giving a grant to a theological study.

England have recovered somewhat from a very poor start. Just before the close of day 1 of this third test against Sri Lanka Jonathan Bairstow reached his century, becoming only the second England wicketkeeper after Matt Prior to reach three test centuries in a calendar year and also only the second after Les Ames to reach two in the same test series.

I finish this piece with a few more photographs:

DSCN6462 — Various model aeroplanes are currentrly on display at locations around King’s Lynn, and this picture and the next feature two of them

DSCN6685 — A bird enjoying the metal artwork that adorns the market square in Fakenham

DSCN6704 — The image of the hypergiant flag that I decided not to use as the official one.

Imaging

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…

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

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

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

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

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

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…

Musical Keys and Imaging

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…

353 — I did not have time to provide close-ups of all these coins…

353-a — …so I selected the one featuring a picture of Nelson (we are in Norfolk after all) for the treatmnent.

354 — This lot featured an extra requirement.

354-a — Namely providing a shot focussing on the coin and info sheet into which it is set.

357 — The last of the commemorative coins.

510 — A large collection of themed stamp books.

511-b — an even close up of two individual stamps.

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…

An Eulerian Birthday

A distinctive (I hope) way to mark the occasion of my 41st birthday.

INTRODUCTION

Today is my birthday, which is the last part of the title explained, so where does the word “Eulerian” come in?

THE MOST PROLIFIC OF ALL MATHEMATICIANS

For all his immense output Leonhard Euler (pronouned “Oiler”, not “Ewe-ler”) is best known to the world at large for his solution to the “Bridges of Konigsberg” conundrum. Citizens of this then German town (it is now Kaliningrad, Russia) used to amuse themselves by trying to walk around the town crossing each of its seven bridges once and once only in the course of their peregrinations. Nobody ever managed it, and Euler (pioneering the science of topology, a minor offshoot of which is the “Beck Map”, versions of which are now used worldwide as an easy way to display urban public transport routes, in the process) proved that there was no way to do this. This is because each the four landmasses involved contained an odd number of bridgeheads – had specifically two (and it could have been any two), or all four of these landmasses contained even numbers of bridgeheads it would have been possible to devise a walking route using each bridge precisely once.

Much less well known than the above, Euler also noticed that if you feed values into the equation Y = X² + X + 41 every value of X from 0 through to 39 produces a prime number for Y, and even after the inevitable break to the sequence where X = 40 produces Y = 1681 = 41 * 41, and X = 41 produces Y = 1763 = 41 * 43, the formula continues to produce a very large number of prime numbers – far more than any other formula of similar type. This then is why I described this an Eulerian birthday – it is my 41st. A clue to bear in mind for next year’s birthday is that the person who will play the role in my blog post on that day that Euler has played today was proud of the fact that he was born in Cambridge in 1953 and had initials DNA. More details, including a full listing of the primes produced before X = 40, can be found in Keith Devlin’s “Mathematics: A New Golden Age”.

PICTURES

I have some pictures, mainly from today at work. These are presented as a ’tiled mosaic’ – click an individual image to view at full size.

From here to the Watt medallion are tokens that I scanned at high resolution and worked on to produce the clearest possible images.

These last few pics are not work pics – they are the best images I have managed to get of the James Watt medallion I bought recently.

AFTERWORD

Many people on both facebook and twitter have wished my a happy birthday and I thank all of you for so doing – the main celebration, a Sunday lunch at the Crown in East Rudham two days before the actual day was superb.

	Aoteroa Axed by Ahme… on South Africa Finnished as Alle…
	Thomas on World T20 Cup Underway
	Anna on World T20 Cup Underway
	London Underground t… on Project Piccadilly
	Thomas on All Time XIs – Detective…