Tag: The Guanock Gate

Two WODIs

A look at goings on in two WODIs, Australia v India which finished a while back and South Africa v England which is approaching the halfway stage.

Today is a big cricketing day – in the early hours of this morning UK time an Australia v India Women’s One Day International started, and at midday today UK time a South Africa v England Women’s One Day International started. This post looks at what has happened so far.

AUSTRALIA v INDIA

Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss at the WACA in Perth (these days superseded by the Optus Stadium, but still a fine venue) and to fairly universal surprise opted to put Australia in with the temperature at 38 Celsius and set to rise during the first innings. A four wicket burst from Arundhati Reddy had Australia 78-4, but none of Reddy’s team mates managed to bowl well, and with an Annabel Sutherland century the highlight (Sutherland has a great record at this venue, including scoring 200 in a test match against South Africa) Australia regained control of proceedings, ending on 298-6. India were soon behind the rate, but they did do a good job of keeping wickets in hand for later in the chase. With coverage of the other match due to start at 11:45 I set out at 10:30 for a walk, aiming to arrive back as coverage of that match got underway, which I managed to do. I was reckoning that Australia had the match under control and that the only real obstacle in their pathway was Smriti Mandhana who was batting splendidly. Events confirmed both elements of this prediction – I was to find out that India had reached a high water mark of 189-3 before Mandhana having reached three figures was out, and the innings fell away to a low point of 203-8, before the last couple of wickets scraped up a further 12 runs to reduce Australia’s margin to 83 runs, still an emphatic victory for the hosts.

SOUTH AFRICA v ENGLAND

This match is taking place in Potchefstroom on the high veldt, where scoring can be rapid due to the ball travelling further and faster through the thinner air. However, South Africa, put in by England who won the toss, are not scoring particularly fast. Laura Wolvaardt scored a fine half century but when she had reached 61 she was pinned LBW by Ecclestone. South Africa appear to have decided that the left armer can be allowed to get through her overs effectively unscathed so long as she doesn’t take too many wickets. However, she has just added a second scalp, Chloe Tryon, stumped after about the first show of aggression by any Protea batter against Ecclestone. South Africa are 201-7 in the 41st over, and Ecclestone currently has 8-0-21-2. England lost Kate Cross injured before she had completed her first over, leaving them an allocation to fiddle through with part timers. Nevertheless England have the advantage and I would expect them to win from here. While I have been preparing this for publication an eighth wicket has gone, and South Africa are 201-8 in the 43rd over.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off (please note that the featured image is not in the below gallery, being a composite of three separate pictures, showing both sides of the Guanock Gate and the information panel about said gate)…

Mainly Science

Links to a selection of interesting and/ or important pieces I have found in the last day or so and some of today’s photographs.

INTRODUCTION

I will be sharing various links I have found in the last day or so in this post. I also have some photographs from this afternoon.

THE GREAT BUS RIP OFF

This is my most recent find, courtesy of campaign group We Own It. They have a piece in The Mirror today which you can access here. Below is an infographic map showing the amount of money from British bus services that goes directly into the pockets of shareholders:

As a postscript to the above, the only reason the figure for East Anglia (my region) is so low is because being largely rural and hence fairly sparsely populated it does not have many bus services.

POLITICAL IDIOCY  – TORIES GO AFTER SCHOOLS WITH SOLAR PANELS

Instead of sensibly rewarding those who try do their bit by using solar panels to generate some of their energy this government is hitting some of them with extra bills. Private Schools (i.e. fee-paying schools, and the sort of school to which MPs, especially Tory MPs, send their children) will not feel the effects of this because in a spectacular misuse of the English language they are classed as “charities”. State schools (those that ordinary folk attend, as a few eons ago, I did) pay business rates which means that those state schools with solar panels will be paying a combined £1.8 million in extra rates for having them.

To charge anywhere more money because they have solar panels seems utterly boneheaded to me, but to charge schools, who should be setting positive examples to their students, for having solar panels takes the stupidity to level unanticipated even by Einstein when he said “only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe”. 

To read the full article that inspired this section, courtesy of The Guardian, please click on the image below:

Business rate changes are a big setback for solar projects in state schools, critics say.

TWO STORIES OF STELLAR DEATH

The first of these stories is a commemoration of…

SUPERNOVA 1987-A

As the second part of its name suggests it is now 30 years since the explosion of this star was witnessed on Earth, and to commemorate that anniversary some new observations have been made of the stellar remnant by the Hubble Space Telescope. To read the story in full, which comes from ibtimes.com, please click on the image below:

Supernova 1987a

My second piece in this section comes from NASA’s official website and concerns…

THE DISCOVERY OF THE
UNIVERSE’S BRIGHTEST PULSARS

When a supernova collapses, if the remnant weighs more than 1.4 solar masses it continues to contract beyond the white dwarf stage to form a neutron star, which is stable between 1.4 and 3 solar masses (beyond 3 solar masses the crushing continues until all that is left is a black hole). A spinning neutron star is known as a pulsar. To read about the discovery of the new record holding pulsar please click on the image below.

NGC 5907 ULX is the brightest pulsar ever observed

DOWNLOAD A FREE POSTER
FROM THE NEW SCIENTIST

New Scientist are at the moment offering everyone who creates an account on their site (it is free, and very easy, to so) a free download of a You Are Here poster showing us our place in the Milky Way. If interested, click on the edited version of my poster below, which I have reduced for this specific purpose, while making sure I still have the original.

NS_MILKY_WAY_POSTER - Edited

ROCK SOLID EVIDENCE THAT WE ARE NOW LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

This is the first fruit of my creating an account for myself on New Scientist. The article, which I have linked to by way of the image below (I have also included the explanation of the image from the site) is about the 208 minerals that humans have created during their tenure on the planet (yes, the primary evidence on which the article is based is quite literally rock solid).

Simonkolleite found in a copper mine in Arizona

Mines are a good place to find minerals like this Simonkolleite – evidence of the impact humans are having on the planet

PHOTOGRAPHS

To finish this post here are some photographs I took while out walking this afternoon:

gate in old wallOld wallBlackbird4LBBBlackbird3Blackbird2Blackbird 1Red MountGuanock gateMinsterMoorhens