Unhappy Birthday Elon

An account of my involvement in an ‘Unhappy birthday, Elon’ event yesterday, complete with photos.

Yesterday was Elon Musk’s birthday, and activities had been organized in various places to make it an unhappy one for him. I took part in the event in London, outside the Tesla dealership in Park Royal.

I caught the 7:42 train from King’s Lynn to London King’s Cross. I had been speculating over the possibility of travelling on the Metropolitan line to Rayner’s Lane and then going back down the Piccadilly line to Park Royal, but an announcement to the effect that the Metropolitan was experiencing delays saw me change plans and go the direct route along the Piccadilly. I arrived early, and did my best to assist with the setup. I did not stay hugely long, and was back home in time to catch most of the T20I between the England and India women’s teams. Most of the time I was there was spent with a sign urging passing motorists to “HONK IF YOU HATE ELON” – and quite a few did so.

Here are my photographs starting at King’s Lynn Station and ending with a distant view of Ely Cathedral on the return train journey…

An Auction Purchase

A detailed look at my latest auction purchase, one which I am inclined to regard as a spectacular bargain. This is even my standards a very image heavy post.

After the travails detailed in my last two blog posts, both created of necessity on library computers I am now fully back up and running at home. Yesterday the February auction of James and Sons took place. I am not in a position to describe much of the proceedings, since I was one floor above where the auction was taking place, imaging items for the March sale. However, this post is devoted to one particular lot from that February sale.

The sale was entirely devoted to stamps/ postal history. From lot 551 there were about 70 lots in albums, and one of these was lot 575, a two album collection of ‘Railway Heritage’. Some of the items within these albums had been flagged for imaging, and I added a couple (but only a couple) of choices of my own to those flagged. The gallery that was available for this lot was thus:

Not unnaturally given my tastes I was quite eager to get my hands on this lot. I therefore placed a bid on Easylive, one of the two online platforms James and Sons use, for the maximum I could afford to part with, since I knew that work would prevent me from bidding live.

It was about 1:30PM when I got official confirmation that I had won the lot, and as it happens for less than I was willing to pay. I paid my dues, and was able to take the two albums home with me on the day. Much of today has been dedicated to photographing my new possession and then editing those photos (with a backdrop of the opening match of the ICC Champions Trophy, Pakistan v New Zealand, won comfortably by New Zealand). I end this section with the pictures from the first album…

The second album was just as treasure laden as the first had been, and by the time I had finished photographing everything therein and editing the pictures I was in do doubt whatsoever that this has to rank as my finest ever auction purchase. Here to finish off this post are the pictures from the second album…