Tag: snow

Australia Take Control in Sydney

A look back at days two and three at the SCG and a photo gallery.

Before I get into the main meat of this post, the events of days two and three in the fifth Ashes test in Sydney I have some important news from today. On Christmas morning my computer started failing to recognize the existence of WIFI networks, and today I was finally able to take it to a friend in Fakenham who is a professional fixer of computers, and it is once again fully functioning.

AN ENGLAND INNINGS WITH A FAMILIAR PATTERN

England resumed on the second day on 211-3. For much of that second day things looked to be continuing to go their way. Although Jamie Smith suffered the daftest dismissal of the series (even in this series, where that particular field is highly contested it stood out like a sore thumb) just before lunch, slapping a long hop from part timer Marnus Labuschagne straight into deep extra cover’s hands most of the rest of the news for England was good. At 375-6 a very big total looked on, but the last four wickets tumbled for a mere nine further runs. It was still England’s best first innings effort of the series, and what made the whole pattern of this innings so familiar was that it was undergirded by a huge score from Joseph Edward Root. Root’s 160 was his second hundred of the series, and the 41st of his test career.

POOR BOWLING FROM ENGLAND

Having batted reasonably well England proceeded to bowl like drains. By the end of day two Australia were 166-2, with Travis Head in sight of his third century of the series. Matthew Potts, playing his first match since the game in Canberra against the Prime Minister’s XI, and his first first class match since the end of the English season was especially poor, conceding runs rapidly and not looking threatening.

ONE WAY TRAFFIC ON DAY THREE

Travis Head powered on to 163 in the early part of the day. By the close a much more experienced cricketer, Steve Smith, had also cruised past three figures, and Beau Webster, batting at number nine through a combination of a batter heavy original selection and the use of a night watcher the previous evening, supported him impressively in the closing stages, against a tiring bowling unit. Australia closed on 518-7, already 134 to the good, having scored 352-5 on the day. Potts had 0-141 from 25 overs, Carse had claimed three wickets but had also been very expensive. Tongue and Stokes each went at about three an over, and even part time spinners Jacks and Bethell were far less expensive than the two Durham bowlers who had shared the new ball. At their high water mark of 375-6 on the second afternoon England looked well placed, a day and a half later they have every appearance of being deep in a Kimberley diamond mine sized hole.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Ice on the surface of a frozen pond (lest the blue skies and evidence of sunshine fool you regarding the weather this January in England).
A section of Bawsey Drain, frozen over (the faster flowing Gaywood river has not frozen over, and the Great Ouse is an even less likely candidate for doing so).
This snow fell during Sunday night/ early Monday morning, and although there has been no new snow since then it has yet to disappear.
A footprint (mine) in the snow.

In Between Auctions

Brief mentions of last week’s auctions and a longer look ahead to the March auction.

INTRODUCTION

Last week James and Sons had two auctions, a small postcard auction on Tuesday and a much larger Postal History and Ephemera Auction on Wednesday. We are now moving towards completing the catalogue for an auction on March 28th which will feature a wide variety of stuff. We have snow around at present, which is provoking the usual British display of wimpiness about rough weather – I was supposed to be attending a meeting in Swaffham this morning but it has been cancelled due to concerns about the weather. This was the view out of my door at 8:30 yesterday morning as I set off to catch the bus to work.

P1110743

The view is similar today.

THE POSTCARD AUCTION

With only 134 lots going under the hammer this sale was over and done with quickly. Most of the lots found buyers.

EPHEMERA AND POSTAL HISTORY

The centrepiece of this auction was a collection of the Ecclesiastical and Political Correspondence of the Rev J Marriott. The people currently in charge of the property he bought had got wind of this collection, which meant some big money sales, because they were determined to secure as much of it as they could to reunite it with his old home. Lot 18 on its own went for over £2,000:

stock
The stock for this auction as displayed in the shop.

18
The original image of lot 18. It must have taken a lot of brass neck to produce this petition.

Lot 18
Lot 18 in its folder

Big Screen
The big screen.

THE UPCOMING AUCTION

Our auction on March 28th will start with some sporting memorabilia, including a framed ticket for the 1923 FA Cup Final (the first to be played at Wembley, just three weeks after that stadium was completed). For the record Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham United to win that year’s FA Cup. I do not yet have a lot number for this item, but it will be early in the auction.

A standard price for a ticket from this fixture in this condition is in the region of £800.

We have some old fishing reels and som billiards stuff as well…

23
Lot 23 (two images, a sample of the fishing reels)

23-a

44
The billiards memorabilia begin at lot 44 with the first of two scoreboards

4545-b

50
From lot 46-58 inclusive are cues, first four lots of large numbers of loose cues, and then individual cues in cases or bags, starting with lot 50 pictured here.

50-a5458

59
Then from lot 59 to 71 we have sets of balls – note that in billiards there are two cue balls, one of which is distinguished from the other by the presence of a black spot, and the only other ball used is one red one.

63676870

We also have some bygones, of which I will feature a few that particularly caught my eye while I was imaging them:

124
Lot 124 – the fiugurines are made of some sort of balck ceramic, and as the second image, a close-up of two them shows, they are of very good quality.

124-a

147
Lot 147 – a brass fly…

147-a
…that can be used to store trinkets.

146
Lot 146, a brass grasshopper…

146-a
…which is also a mini stapler.

Other categories featured include toys, crockery, and though I have not yet had any to image, stamps. Here are some toys and crockery…

262
Toys in a box that has been disguised to look like a book (lot 262)

262-a262=b262-c

265-a
Lots 264 and 265 occupy the next four images.

264265-b265

301
The next 12 images encompass lots 301-4.

301-a301-b302302-a302-b303303-a303-b304304-a304-b

346
Lot 346 (two images)

346-a

350
Lot 350 (again two images).

350-a

SOME EXPERIMENTS IN WATERMARKING

We have a vast collection of railway photographs, taken with a Soviet-era camera which is also in our possession and will be going under the hammer. Obviously we need to identify our images of these pictures as just that – our images – in order to stop unscrupulous types from printing the pictures out for no more than the cost of ink and the appropriate paper. Hence, I have been looking into watermarking the online pictures. I am aiming at marking the pictures in a way that will not interfere with anyone viewing them, but will prevent anyone from cheating. Here is a sample of what I have arrived at us possibly the best solution:

LNER3s1

The positioning of the watermark does not spoil the picture, but does prevent it from being removed, since cropping the image sufficiently to eliminate it most certainly does damage the picture.