A petition, a Thunderclap, a message to Aldi, some photographs, and a couple of little snippets.
INTRODUCTION
Although there will be a couple of minor items tacked on that the end, this post is mainly devoted to a thunderclap and a petition, both regarding an area of woodland that adjoins a Nature Reserve and is under threat from plans by supermarket chain Aldi.
SAVE QUESLETT TREES
There are two parts to this, starting with…
A THUNDERCLAP
To participate in the Thunderclapyou need to be on facebook and/or twitter and/or tumblr. Below is a screenshot formatted as a link:
Linked to the Thunderclap is a petition, a screenshot of which appears below, again formatted as a link.
The main business of this post ends with…
A MESSAGE TO ALDI (AND PLANNING AUTHORITIES)
I feel very strongly that Aldi should accept the initial negative decision, especially given how many supermarkets (including two other Aldis) are located close to this area already. I am a fairly regular customer of Aldi stores in my own part of the world, but that may not remain the case if Aldi do not reconsider their stance over this. I conclude with some advice for all involved in this decision to consider, tendered in the form of a picture created by Anna from a comment I posted on her blog:
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are some of my recent photographs, before I finish off with a couple of minor items.
A COUPLE OF NUGGETS
The last few days have seen two numbers come up for me:
300 – the number of successive days on which I have solved at least one of brilliant’s problems – here is one of them for you:
900 – my Lumosity Performance Index has just exceeded this value (after this morning’s workout it now stands at 917. Below, concluding this post is first the breakdown of my LPI, and second a little puzzle for you: Solutions will be in a future post.
Some thoughts on public transport, prompted in part by Lord Adonis’ resignation statement.
INTRODUCTION
The timing of this post is due to the resignation statement of Lord Adonis, a man who I have very little in common with, but who hits the nail on the head with his resignation statement, which you can read in full, courtesy of The Guardian, here (an excerpt is reproduced below, courtesy of twitter):
EAST COAST FRANCHISE LOWLIGHTS
The first time the East Coast Franchise hit difficulties, it was being run by National Express. The then government took it into public ownership, albeit with the (stupid) rider that it be reprivatised as soon as it was back in the black. On reprivatisation it passed into the hands of Virgin Trains, run by a combination of tax exile Richard Branson and the Stagecoach Group (as a non-driver who lives in Norfolk I know them too well and like them too little for comfort). The East Coast Franchise is now back in trouble, and the current transport secretary, Chris ‘Failing’ Grayling, as well as being a strong contender in the ‘most incompetent minister ever’ contest is such a ‘private good, public bad’ zealot that rather than take the logical option of taking it back into public ownership is bailing it out at vast cost, thereby setting a horrendous precedent which will enable any other rail franchise that hits trouble to demand a bail out.
RENATIONALISATION AS START POINT
Not only should the East Coast Franchise be renationalised now, with it being made clear that it will not be privatised again, the whole railway network needs to be renationalised. The Labour party have laid out how this can be achieved – namely by refusing to put each franchise up for tender as and when it expires. For further detail check out We Own It’sRailwayspage. However, this is only a beginning – both because railways are only one part of public transport – there are also buses, and because one needs to consider how the system should be run. As I was typing this, the following came through on twitter from We Own It:
Bus and railway services need renationalising, and they need to be run jointly. As to how they should be run – well there are two groups of people who should be represented in the body that runs public transport services: those who use the services and those who provide the services. If services are to be publicly owned (and these should be), they need to be fully publicly accountable.
SOME EXTRA RESOURCES
I have three final links to share which relate to this piece:
The Mirrorhas demonstrated yet another way in which privatisation is failing us, with fares going up by an average of 3.4% (when we already pay on average five times as much as our fellow Europeans for a service that is probably not even on fifth as good as most of them get – I have travelled extensively in Europe over the years and most countries provide far better services than are available here in Britain) – we have on average the oldest carriages since records began (that average is 21 years old, with the Caledonian Sleeper holding an unwanted record with 42 year old carriages).
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here is you reward for reaching the end of this piece:
A Boxing Day post composed of pictures and puzzles – enjoy!
INTRODUCTION
I have five puzzles to share (all via the mathematical website Brilliant– I am approaching a double century, my current solving streak now extending to 199 days) and photos that I have categorized in four groups. Therefore I will be interleaving puzzles and pictures.
PUZZLE 1: LOGIC
This is an easy one – Lestrade would probably solve it without amateur assistance!
PHOTOGRAPHS 1 – CAIRINA MOSCHATA
In preparation for the Christmas Day festivities I went for a walk yesterday morning, and many of the photos you will see were taken during that walk – others were taken at other times of the day. I first came across these birds when they were in a group near Kettlewell Lane, and since then I have seen a single specimen, in The Walks, on three separate occasions, most recently yesterday:
PUZZLES 2: AN AREA CHALLENGE
This one should not be too difficult either:
PHOTOGRAPHS 2: BUILDINGS
When everything is closed the opportunity is there to get unimpeded pictures of buildings that are usually busy.
PUZZLE 3: EVEN AND ODD
This is one is tricky rather than difficult per se – and only 37% of solvers on Brilliant managed to crack it:
PHOTOGRAPHS 3: LOCAL HISTORY
Recent renovations in the building that my aunt’s house is part of have revealed some very interesting little details, and I also got some interesting shots from the house of the person with whom we had Christmas lunch.
The first 13 pictures are from Hampton Court (no superstitions and no truck with triskaidekaphobia here!)
Two shots of the wooden beams at the house where we had Christmas lunch
An artwork display at that same house that caught my eye……one picture in particular!
PUZZLE 4: A DIVISABILITY TEST
Not at all difficult, but very enjoyable to tackle:
PHOTOGRAPHS 4: WILDLIFE
We finish our photographs as we started, with a nod to nature:
PUZZLE 5: THE INVESTMENT EXPERT
We end with a fairly tough problem to which I have added an even tougher subsidiary question.
My follow up, adapted from a question raised by someone named Anne on Brilliant is this: What is the minimum initial deposit required to ensure that Fred’s money grows at a sufficient rate for him to become a trillionaire if he lives for as long as Earth remains an inhabitable planet (the increasing size and temperature of the sun will cause this in 1 billion years, assuming that some stupid species has not already done so,
Some links to excellent pieces by autistic writers, especially on the subject of Judith Newman’s book To Siri With Love. Details of a thunderclap on the subject of driven grouse shooting and some of my own photos.
INTRODUCTION
I have had a busy few days imaging for James and Sons’ final auction of the year (takes place on Wednesday – click here to view on online catalogue), so it is only today that I have time for another post. Before getting into the main meat of today’s post there is a small matter of an…
APOLOGY
Some of you may have noticed snowflakes falling across pictures on this blog (as I did today, when I accessed it at the library to get a picture I needed for something I was doing). I am aware that some of my followers have sensory issues that make this sort of thing unwelcome, and I have changed my settings so that those snowflakes will not appear again. I apologise to any who were inconvenienced by this ‘seasonal’ addition of WordPress’s.
SOME AUTISM RELATED PIECES
I will start this section by stating that most of the pieces I link to here were drawn to my attention by Eve Reiland at americanbadassactivists. Another excellent source of good material by autistic people is Laina, both in her own right at thesilentwaveblog and via her specialist sharing blog Lainascollection.
My first links concern the representation of autistic people in the media:
Eve (see above) has produced an excellent piece giving details about how we are misrepresented in the media and linking to a…
The remaining links in this section all related to…
#BOYCOTTTOSIRI
The title of this section refers to the backlash by the autistic community against Judith Newman’s book To Siri With Love. Although they make unpleasant reading, because of what they reveal about the book, I urge you to follow up the links I give, all of which, save one, are to pieces about this book written by autistic people. The exception, which ends this section, is to an alternative reading list, and was also created by an autistic person.
I start with what is actually last piece I read about this issue, “An Autistic’s Thoughts On To Siri, With Love by Judith Newman” which was posted on writeabledreams.
To take part in a thunderclap you have to be on at least one of facebook, twitter and/ or tumblr. I am on the first two named, and as such have contributed approximately 5,500 connections to this thunderclap calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting.If like me (see here for a previous piece on this subject) you hold those who take pleasure in shooting at birds in utter contempt, and you are on one of the three networks mentioned please add your voice to thunderclap – more details below:
PICTURES
This network of cracks were in the upstairs front window of an X29 bus – when it is a double decker I invariably sit upstairs, and the best seat is the front window seat on the side opposite the driver.
I needed this 50p for my bus fare, so I could not keep it until a better opportunity to photograph it arose.
I am a bit behind with blogging about my stay in Cornwall because of the time it takes to edit the photos and the fact that I had a long day out yesterday – an excursion to Penzance about which there will be much more later.
THE LUNCH
Ahoy Fish and Chips, a mobile fish and chip shop, call at Fort Picklecombe for Friday lunch time. We bought lunch from them – cod for my parents and a beefburger for me, all with chips. The chips were of excellent quality, and the pricing was very reasonable.
How to mee your health & safety obligations without actually doing anything.
THE WALK
Having walked to Kingsand and Cawsand the previous day I walked the other way this time, climbing up quite high above the sea. Here, barring a few preserved for the next and final section of this post are the pictures I took while out on this walk…
FOCUS ON THE LIGHTHOUSE
The lighthouse which is visible from my parents new home features in a number of pictures that I have taken. I open this section with a mini challenge that I titled “Framed” – do you have a picture where there is a natural framework for the centrepiece of the photo? If you create a post containing the picture, and provide details in the comments, and I am impressed I will reblog you. Here is my starter…
It has been three days since I last posted here, and five since I created anything new here. Just to keep things going here are some pictures that I have taken during that period.
WORK PICTURES
The pictures I have from work that I consider worth sharing come in two sections. First…
FRONTISPIECES AND TITLE PAGES
We have some very old books going under the hammer in our auction at the end of November, and our printed catalogue will feature a page of some the finest frontispices and title pages, so here is a sneak preview:
My second set of work related pictures are of stamps, which were done yesterday using the scanner (400dpi, full platen being the setting used).
HALF MOON
These are from a week ago – the moon in question was in a twilight sky.
Squirrels
A final few pictures…
It is not always possible to get a close-up of a squirrel in focus – one has to take the picture quickly!
The latest addition to my “Trees in Transistion” series.
INTRODUCTION
Later on today I hope to have time to put up a few more posts, but for the moment just to keep things coming here is the latest installment in my “Trees in Transistion” series.
THE TREES’ TALE
The heading for this section is a nod to Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale”. These pictures do feature some trees not previously featured, and to borrow from another famous writer I hope that “age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety”…
