Drama in Dhaka and a Photographic Walk

A personal account of the opening day’s play in Dhaka, and a photographic walk concentrating on trees. Some interesting links at the end.

INTRODUCTION

As well as my view on the opening day’s play in Dhaka which I listened to earlier this morning this post contains details of a walk around King’s Lynn that I took after play had finished and some interesting links.

DRAMA IN DHAKA

A wonderful opening day in the second Test Match between Bangladesh and England in Dhaka has finished with England 50-3 in response to Bangladesh’s first innings 220. When Tamim Iqbal and Monimul Haque were speeding along at four an over Bangladesh seemed to be headed for much for than 220, but Tamim’s dismissal shortly after completing a sparkling century triggered a collapse from the high water mark of 171-1 to 220 all out, Moeen Ali picking up five cheap wickets. The loss of Cook (captaining the England test team for record equalling 54th time), Duckett (just starting his international career) and Ballance (who has not been batting long enough lately for anyone to see what kind of form he is in) meant that by the close Moeen Ali was batting, and with some assistance from the weather he and Joe Root managed to hang on.

In some ways this match has similarities with Old Trafford 1902, when a lightning century from Victor Trumper (who reached the landmark before lunch on the first day) gave Australia a strong start which was then hauled back. Australia had a brief mid innings revival on that occasion and reached 299. England lost early wickets but then two middle order batsman, Len Braund and Stanley Jackson steadied the ship, the latter reaching one of his five test hundreds (all scored against Australia in England), and England were a mere 37 behind. A magnificent second innings bowling performance from England saw Australia all out for 86, and when England in pursuit of their target of 124 reached 92-3 the game appeared to be done and dusted, but then England panicked and started losing wickets, Clem Hill took a spectacular catch along the way, and suddenly debutant Fred Tate found himself going out to bat at 116-9 – he snicked one four, survived two further deliveries and was then comprehensively bowled to give Australia victory by three runs. If this match is as close I will be delighted, and as I stated in an earlier post, I will be particularly delighted if said close result goes against England because I believe that a victory against top table opposition for Bangladesh will be good for cricket as a whole.

To finish this section, although Bangladesh are pretty new to international cricket, Dhaka under its old name of Dacca has a much longer connection to the game, being one of the few cities to have hosted home games for two different countries. Going back further still, Bransby Beauchamp Cooper who played for Australia in the first ever test match in 1877 was born in Dacca.

A WALK FEATURING TREES

I got the idea for doing a walk in which I focussed mainly on trees at this transitional time of year from Anna, who put this post up recently (I recommend that you check the comments as well!). This then is my version of a tree walk…

SETTING OUT

As this first set of pictures, taken from my outside space show I don’t have far to go to be able to see trees:

dscn6889dscn6890dscn6891dscn6892

Heading across Baker Lane Car Park towards the Purfleet which I was then going to follow the Great Ouse provided these pictures:

dscn6893dscn6894dscn6895

A SOUPCON OF HISTORY AND ALONG THE RIVER

Since I wanted to be in  that vicinity to photograph trees on the other side of the river anyway I took one non-tree related photograph before heading along the river, and this set of pictures actually features a second. This stretch ended with a brief diversion from the river front to skirt Bole Quay.

dscn6896dscn6897dscn6898

dscn6899
The second non-tree related photo.
dscn6900
The view along Millfleet

dscn6902dscn6903dscn6904dscn6905

SKIRTING BOLE QUAY AND LEAVING THE RIVER

After skirting Bole Quay I briefly rejoined the river front, before leaving it by way of a path through Harding’s Pits.

dscn6905dscn6906dscn6908dscn6909dscn6910dscn6911dscn6912dscn6913dscn6916

HARDINGS PITS TO SEVEN SISTERS

From Hardings Pits I headed by way of the South Gate to Seven Sisters where I entered the parkland area.

dscn6917dscn6918dscn6919dscn6920dscn6921dscn6922dscn6923dscn6924dscn6925dscn6926dscn6927dscn6928dscn6929dscn6930dscn6931

THE PARKLAND

I headed from Seven Sisters to the Band Stand, and the from the Band Stand to St John’s Walk, which I followed until I left the parkland heading in the direction of the train station:

dscn6932dscn6933dscn6934dscn6935dscn6936dscn6937dscn6938dscn6939dscn6940dscn6941dscn6942dscn6943dscn6944dscn6945dscn6946dscn6947dscn6949

HOMEWARD BOUND

Even after leaving the parkland there were a few more photographs:

dscn6950dscn6951dscn6952dscn6953

dscn6954
Decorative brickwork above a pair of shops on Norfolk Street.
dscn6955
The upstairs portion of the building that houses an imaging business – I have never used it, but you can get digital photos printed here among other things.

LINKS

My first is a little gem from travel vibes on twitter, introducing the word thalassophile (not all readers of this blog are on twitter, and this is a goodie).

First the definition: Thalassophile (n): Lover of the sea, ocean. Here are the real reasons for posting this, the accompanying pictures:

 

Next come two autism related links:

  • As NAS West Norfolk Branch Secretary I am delighted to publicise NAS’s latest campaign “Close the autism employment gap”.
  • My second concerns the Kevin Healey petition calling on Brentwood County High School to expel a gang of bullies who have been preying on an autistic student. Since I put up a link to this petition in a previous post details have emerged of a second shocking case of bullying at the same school. For more details, please click here. As a coda it is sadly abundantly clear from the comments that bullying has been a major problem at this establishment for a long time and that the head teacher in particular and other senior staff have been taking the ‘ostrich’ approach to the problem.

My next link is to a campaign to secure better working conditions for Uber drivers (and now is a particularly good time to pile on the pressure as Uber have just taken a hit in court). Click here for more details and to support the campaign.

I give the final word to Britain’s youngest MP, Mhairi Black, here hammering Concentrix – and managing to be very funny in the process:

 

 

 

 

 

James and Sons’ October Auction

A brief account of James and Sons’ October auction with some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ October Auction took place in the Erpingham Room in the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich on Wednesday. Lots 1-450 were fairly normal James and Sons auction fare, and then lots 451 onwards were a lifetime collection of posters. Thus the plan was to have a break after lot 450.

A DIFFICULT START

We started the day with the internet not working properly. We were able to connect using Wifi, but our card reader requires a cable connection to function properly. Nevertheless, the auction got underway on time, and there were some notable successes early in the auction, especially the militaria.

THE POSTERS

As well as imaging pretty well all of the posters I had described most of them, so it was with interest but little expectation that following a short lunch break that I awaited the outcome of this part of the sale. A few posters sold well, but the majority did not. Slightly frustratingly in the circumstances with so much not finding buyers all four of the railway themed posters I had been considering went way beyond my price range. Here are the fab four in question:

729
Lot 729 – I had not particularly expected to get this one given that it was laminated and clearly old.
737
Lot 737, which I used as the centrepiece for a post about the Museum of London on my website (this one), this being where the Lord Mayor’s carriage is displayed when not in use – again this was not a great hope.
763
Lot 763, an advert for one-day travelcards – this was the one that I had reckoned I was most likely to get.
764
The double sided laminated poster that was lot 764 also sold for much more than I could have afforded.

764-a764-b

The auction done, it was time to load the van back up. This task accomplished I was able to go my own way (the van would be unloaded the following morning, so I would not be needed in Fakenham). I had just enough time before the last bus I could catch home using my dayrider plus to make a trip to the library worthwhile. I got home 13 hours after setting out.

THE FINAL VERDICT

Fortunately enough good things happened during lots 1-450 to more than cover the disappointing outcome of the poster sale, and it was overall a very good sale.

Autism and Bullying

A link to a very important petition accompanied by a short video – please sign and share. Also some stuff relating to the appalling decision to approve a third runway at Heathrow, some photos and a few other links.

INTRODUCTION

The main purpose of this post is to share a very important petition posted on change.org by autism advocate and anti-bullying campaigner Kevin Healey. I also have some other links that have come to my attention this morning and a few photographs.

BRENTWOOD COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL
PULL YOUR FINGERS OUT!!

Kevin’s petition relates to the case of Harry Gosling, which is covered in detail on the site. Please visit, sign and share the petition here. There is also a short video embedded below:

THE HEATHROW HORROR

The title of this section refers to the appalling decision by the ‘Mayhem’ government to approve a third runway at Heathrow Airport. I have three links to share in this section, starting with this one to a an article in the Guardian outlining just how expensive this crazy project will be even in purely monetary terms.

My other two links relate to the upcoming by-election in Richmond triggered by Zac Gioldsmith’s decision to resign and stand as an independent in protest at this awful decision (a gesture that in no way redeems him for the disgusting London Mayoral campaign he chose to run). They express differing opinions as to whether or not Labour should stand:

My own opinion: I do not think that Labour should stand a candidate in this election – I would recommend that they, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats get together and stand a single anti-Goldsmith candidate who can help to deliver a final damning verdict on Goldsmith by making his current status as an ex-MP permanent (the Conservatives have already said that they will not field a candidate against him, because, although this bit is unstated by them, they know perfectly well that any such candidate would lose).

PHOTOGRAPHS

Just a few photographs this time…

dscn6869dscn6871dscn6873

dscn6874
Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning (this picture was taken yesterday on my way to Norwich for James and Sons’ October auction which I shall be covering in another post)

dscn6876

SOME FINAL LINKS

I have three more links to share to end this post. My first, from New Zealand blogger Heather Hastie, is about the current state of healthcare in the US. You can visit this post, which is chock full of solid sense, by clicking the infographic below:

us-healthcare

Same Difference have produced a post to alert people to a new dirty trick that the DWP have come up with.

Finally, this piece ends where it started, with autism, in the form of this post on The Mighty about the pressure on autistic people to attempt to act normally.

Cricket, Photos and Links

Some thoughts on the recently concluded England v West Indies women’s series and the match in progress between England and Bangladesh, some links and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

I will start with the cricket related stuff before moving on to some other stuff later on. Without further ado I will move on to…

CRICKET

Before moving on the match in Chittagong which is superbly poised at the moment a few words on…

ENGLAND WOMEN’S SERIES WIN IN WEST INDIES

Having surrendered tamely in the fourth match to bring the series back to 2-2 the England Women played superbly to win the fifth match and with it the series. Highlights were the bowling of Alex Hartley and a unbeaten half-century from Natalie Sciver (to date the only international cricketer to have been born in Tokyo).

CHITTAGONG CRACKER

With two days to play the first Test Match between Bangladesh and England at Chittagong is superbly poised. England are 228-8 in their second innings, leading overall by 273. A six wicket haul on debut for 18 year old Hasan Mehedi Miraz, runs for Tamim Iqbal and a second innings five for for Shakib feature among the highlights, but the starring role thus far has belonged to…

BEN STOKES

Having started the third day by taking 3-2 for give him overall innings figures of 4-26, Stokes came in to bat in the second innings with England rocking at 46-4, which soon became 62-5. He proceeded to produce the highest individual score of the game so far, with 85.

PHOTOGRAPHS

LINKS

We start with a couple of petitions:

First, from Norfolk’s only current Labour MP, Clive Lewis:

Defend NHS Services for Older People

asc.png

Tory NHS cuts are heaping yet more pressure on an Adult Social Care system already being cut to shreds. This is exemplified by the proposed closure of the 24-bed Henderson unit at the Julian Hospital due to lack of funds. Cuts like these are a false economy and make no sense in the long run. This government is squeezing the life out of our NHS by demand huge so-called savings at the same time as demand is soaring. Sign my petition to help us defend NHS services for older people.

Sign my petition to help us defend NHS services for old people.

My second petition comes from Hope Not Hate and is in support of of Gary Lineker and Fatima Manji who have both been subjected to a a barrage of bigotry in the last few days. Please sign here.

My next link is to the Mirror website by way of my own London transport themed website for a story about a London bus crashing into a bridge.

I now have two links to cricinfo in connection with first section of this post:

  • The current state of play in the test match at Chittagong.
  • Cricinfo’s official report on the third day’s play in Chittagong.

I end this section with a link which segues in to some more photographs. Having described and imaged huge numbers of posters for James and Sons’ October auction I was given a similar task for the November auction, this time involving lobby posters and brochures. It was while scouting for information on the set of three lobby posters that will be lot 689 in that auction that I noted the IMDB did not have an image for the movie this posters were advertising (it is an obscure film that was made in 1966), so I submitted my image, which you can see here.

SOME FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

These photographs are all from work…

689
Lot 689 – if you want the posters that feature as IMDBs official image bid for them on November 30!

695695-a695-b695-c

647
This brochure should find a buyer.

647-a660660-a671usa381671-b382391395box-flap-for-posterphoto-centrepiece

pi2
This composite image was for a poster advertising our November auction which will be on show at a collector’s fair in Newmarket tomorrow.

poster – this is the link to the complete poster.

The Calendars are Here, PR and Last Chance to Join a Mighty Thunderclap

INTRODUCTION

Three little things for you….

THE “GET NATURE ON THE NEWS” THUNDERCLAP – ONE DAY TO GO

This thunderclap currently has 1944 supporters with a total social reach of approximately 12.5 million. If you would like to support it and have an account with any of facebook, twitter on tumblr (you can, as I have with my facebook and twitter accounts support it with two accounts if you have them) please click on the screen grab below…

thunderclap

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

Here in the UK we are lumbered with an antiquated voting system that has enabled a party with the votes of 24% of the electorate to form a ‘majority’ government. For this reason Make Votes Matter have put up a petition on the official government petitions website (which means it is only open to UK citizens to sign). To view and sign the petition click the screen grab below.

pr

As you can see, when I screen grabbed the above image there were just over 9,000 signatures. There are now almost 14,000 and growing.

THE CALENDARS ARE HERE!

The photographic wall calendars that I have created for next year are now in my possession. I am delighted with how they have come out.

calendar-reduced

A NEW PHOTO

Once I had picked up the calendars this morning I had time to kill before catching the bus, but not enough to warrant a return to the flat, so i took a little loop through The Walks, where I got this picture…

moorhen-reduced

An Important Autism Related Document

Some stuff about autism, and on World Mental Health Day some stuff about mental health.

INTRODUCTION

I have various things to share in addition to detail of this document. Also, of course, there will be some photographs.

A DRAFT AUTISM STRATEGY FOR NORFOLK

Here is a link from which you can access the document and below my own saved copy:

Autism Strategy

draft-norfolk-all-age-autism-strategy-october-2016-word

Overall I am not unhappy with this document, but there is one thing on which I have to pick them up – their use of the word ‘autistics’, which to me feels dehumanising as compared to such phrases as ‘autistic person’ or ‘person wiith autism’.

NAS SCHOOL HONOURED

The Sybil Elgar school in Ealing, which is run by the National Autistic Society, has had a visit from the Mayor of Ealing, who had the pleasant task of handing out awards to 13 students who have successfully completed the ASDAN transition challenge. To read more about this story click here.

WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY

For general information on World Mental Health Day and what it is all about please read this article. Also on World Mental Health Day is this courtesy of the TimetoChange twitter account:

mhd

THE PHOTOGRAPHS

dscn6173dscn6174

dscn6175
My parents’ new wood burner.

dscn6176dscn6177dscn6178dscn6179dscn6180dscn6181dscn6182dscn6183dscn6184dscn6185

 

Saturday Scattergun

INTRODUCTION

I have some pictures to share, and a few links, but no main subject matter, hence the title of this post.

THE MUSEUM OF LONDON

This is a signpost to my London transport website, and simultaneously a mention of James and Sons’James and Sons’ next auction, since the post was built around lot 737 in said sale…

737

How does this poster connect to the Museum of London? To find out follow the link below.

http://www.londontu.be/the-museum-of-london/

AN AUTISM RELATED PIECE ON WWW.INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

This story is about a 4 year old boy who was hospitalised after being fed a ‘holistic cure’ for autism on the advice of someone describing themselves as a ‘naturopath’. The notion of any sort of ‘cure’ for autism is of course offensive nonsense. Equally, the idea that a ‘naturopath’ should be entitled to prescribe remedies for anything should probably be considered offensive nonsense. The combination of one person’s belief in the offensive nonsense of a ‘cure’ for autism and one person’s cynical willingness to exploit this gullibility created a situation that was very dangerous for an innocent child. The full piece can be viewed here.

SAJID AND THE FRACKERS

Some of you will know that the Dishonourable Sajid Javid has recently made a decision to ignore the will of a community and give Cuadrilla the go ahead to frack there in defiance of clearly expressed local wishes. Mr Javid receives big money from fracking companies and as such should have had the decency to admit to a conflict of interest and say that this was a decision that he could not be involved in making, but of course Tory and decency do not go together, and so unsurprisingly he made a decision in favour of his rich mates and against the community and against the environment. I end this section by linking to a piece that details the environmental impact of fracking.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS

I am presenting this pictures in two tranches, starting with the general…

I bring this post to a finish with some pictures of the new £5 note, which before I got this one in change I had not seen in the flesh…

5
The two faces of the note in one picture
dscn6168
The Churchill side
dscn6169
The Queen side

dscn6170dscn6171dscn6172

2017 Photographic Wall Calendar

A sneak preview of the 2017 Photographic Wall Calendar.

INTRODUCTION

As some of you know I created photographic wall calendars last year. I recently mentioned that I was going to do again this year. This morning my inbox contained an offer from Vistaprint that was too good to refuse, so the calendars will be arriving with me some time around October 20th.

THE FRONT COVER

This time, there will be no borders, and no added text. It will surprise few who have followed this blog recently to find out that I have chosen an Inlandsbanan picture for the front cover…

front-cover

The actual calendar will be much bigger than this of course.

THE MONTH PAGES

Here are the individual pages for each month…

jan

feb
This picture was taken quite recently, but I decided that it looks wintry enough for February.

maraprmay

june
This picture is one of my Swedish ones, but not inappropriate for the month.

julyaug

sep
This picture was taken on Heritage Open Day, which in King’s Lynn is always the second Sunday in September.
oct
Two pictures both from October 1st joined together.

nov

dec
Another two pictures from very recently joined together for this purpose.

 

Autism and Other Stuff

Some stuff about autism, some important links and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

Although this post includes some links that are not specific to autism, and of course some photos, enough of it is autism related to warrant the first word of the title.

AN IMPORTANT EVENT ON MONDAY

This Monday an ‘autism positive’ event is taking place at the Theatre Royal in Norwich. I will be present in the dual capacity of autistic adult and branch secretary of NAS West Norfolk. As well as a display with full information about our branch we will be distributing leaflets about efforts to get some adult oriented events and activities going. Apart from the official NAS branding and header which  I copied and pasted from the website the leaflets are entirely my work…

leaflet-social-media-whole-doc
This is a screenshot of the whole document – two leaflets to the page.
leaflet-social-media-single-leaflet
This is a close up of a single leaflet.

Advertising attended to, the second part of this section relates to:

AUTISM AND EMPLOYMENT

First of all, here is the grim truth about autistic people and employment in the UK:

  • 75% of us are unemployed.
  • Others are employed in low paid and/ or part time work, so that 85% of us are classed as underemployed.

So, what can be done about this? Well, recruitment practices need to change and here is for me the single most important thing that could be done:

Abolish standard interviews, which place one in a position that one will never be in when in the job, making skills testing mandatory instead. Many autistic people however mujch preparation they put in cannot do themselves justice in interviews, while if you have them do the kind of work that they would be doing in the job they will fare much better, and you will learn not whether they can say the right things but whether they can actually do the work.

As a segue into the next section of the post, here is a link to a petition created by an autistic adult (Chris Packham), which calls on the Government to:

Introduce a moratorium on the hunting
of critically declining wading birds

LINKS

My first link in this section comes courtesy of the consumer group Which? who have managed to get the Consumer Rights Act to cover all travel sectors. Please read the full piece here.

My second link, courtesy of Richard Murphy at Tax Research UK is to a piece that demonstrates that Jeremy Corbyn’s investment program will cost less than the Tories current QE program.

I give the last word before the photographs to DPAC, who have prepared some online action to coincide with the Tory conference for the benefit of those who cannot make it to Birmingham but want to be part of the protest. Please click the link below to see how you can be part of…

ONLINE SHENANIGANS FOR THE TORY PARTY CONFERENCE

PHOTOGRAPHS

All the photographs below were taken yesterday…

dscn5839dscn5836dscn5837dscn5838dscn5840dscn5842dscn5843dscn5844

dscn5845
Having seen an abundance of cormorants where the Nar joins the Great Ouse it was a fine bonus to see these swans enjoying the Nar.

dscn5846dscn5847dscn5848dscn5849dscn5850dscn5853dscn5857dscn5859

dscn5858
To be able to capture this creature on camera was a huge bonus.