Tag: Videos

England In Control In 1st Test

Cricket, Politics, Public Transport and Photography, features two excellent videos.

INTRODUCTION

This post looks at the goings on in the first test in New Zealand and at the upcoming election. I also have plenty of photographs to share.

ENGLAND IN CONTROL

England had made a solid start on day 1, reaching 241-4. Burns while never really looking convincing managed to chisel out a half century, while Denly and Stokes also made runs. Day 2 started with a lot of the good work being undone, as Stokes and Pope each played loose strokes to surrender their wickets, and Curran and Archer fell cheaply. However, Jack Leach’s adhesiveness combined with Buttler’s strokeplay to save England’s blushes, and a final total of 353 looked respectable. Sibley on his test debut managed 22, and shared a half-century opening stand with Burns.

By the end of the day it was looking rather more than respectable as New Zealand were 127-4, with the prize wicket of Kane Williamson falling just before close when a delivery from Curran leapt at him and he could only fend it behind for a catch. The Williamson dismissal indicates a pitch that is just starting to misbehave, and the kiwis will have to bat last on it. I would reckon that even 250 in that fourth innings will be too many for the kiwis.

An end of day 2 scorecard can be viewed here, and thefulltoss blog’s take on these first two days can be read here.

GE2019 LATEST

First of all, a little local item:

Video featuring Labour candidate Jo Rust speaking to two first time voters:

 

A good lead in to detail on the Labour party Manifesto…

The Labour Party’s manifesto was launched yesterday, and it is excellent. Here are several links for you to follow:

  1. Your starting point – the page from which you can visit the entire manifesto and all related documents.
  2. The environmental policies, for which they have used the title “Green Industrial Revolution“.
  3. Working in two links at once, Brexit and Internationalism.

Please read it all for yourself (a PDF version is here), including the accompanying documents.

To end this section, another video, courtesy of GMB by way of The Skwawkbox hilariously showing Johnson trying to concoct a manifesto:

A MORNING JOURNEY

I was required to be at Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s Opthalmology reception by 8AM today. Making my usual allowances for things to go wrong I arrived there at 7:30AM. Just about an hour later it was time for the return journey, and I discovered that I had hit the start of a long gap between services heading into town. This strikes me as a something of a problem for a service catering among others to hospital patients, but I am fortunately in fairly good physical shape nowadays, and decided that rather than hang around waiting I would do some walking. Getting to the bus stop at which the routes from the Fairstead estate joined those from the hospital I checked the timetable, and seeing that I would not have much less long to wait even there, I kept walking, deciding that I would break for homeward journey by making a brief visit to Gaywood Library, after which I would leave the main road and head home by way of the Gaywood River path. I arrived back at just after 9:30AM having enjoyed the walk but conscious of the fact there would have been some who could not have avoided waiting for the bus, and conscious also of the crying need for the integrated public transport system outlined in yesterday’s manifesto. I have presented photos of the information boards along the Gaywood River path before, but deem them worth seeing again:

P1280669 (2)P1280670 (2)P1280671 (2)P1280672 (2)P1280674 (2)P1280673 (2)

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the rest of my photographs for this post…

P1280636 (2)

P1280640 (2)
Hunstanton Library, where I was on Wednesday morning.

P1280641 (2)P1280642 (2)P1280643 (2)P1280647 (2)

P1280648 (2)
Michael De Whalley’s leaflet (two images) – I understand that he is good local councillor, and I would be more than willing to vote for his party, but the only chance of non-Tory MP for my constituency is to vote Labour.

P1280649 (2)P1280651 (2)P1280652 (2)P1280653 (2)P1280654 (2)P1280656 (2)P1280657 (2)P1280658 (2)P1280659 (2)P1280660 (2)P1280661 (2)P1280662 (2)P1280663 (2)

P1280666 (2)
Taken on the walk back from QEH this morning.

P1280667 (2)P1280668 (2)

 

A Video From We Own It

A short video from campaign group We Own It.

INTRODUCTION

This short but powerful video was brought to my attention by an email from We Own It, and I am sufficiently impressed by it to share it here, so that those of my followers on this blog who do not use Twitter, Facebook or Youtube can see it.

THE VIDEO

Shouldn’t Every Day Be “Earth Day”?

A post for “Earth Day”, which argues that every day should be Earth Day. Read, enjoy and please share.

INTRODUCTION

Today is “Earth Day”, and it is all well and good to name it so, but the truth is that we should by now be capable of realising that every day should be considered to be Earth Day. This post is therefore dedicated to “Earth Day” but also to realising the inadequacy of “Earth Day”. There is a parallel here with the various “Autism Awareness” days, weeks and months (yes there is one of each) and their unfitness for purpose which I written about elsewhere. All of my own text in this post will be in green because it is about nature. Links where they appear will be in bold and underlined. 

INTRODUCTION TO “EARTH DAY” COURTESY OF LIVESCIENCE.COM

Four days ago I came across this excellent post about the development of “Earth Day” on livescience.com. It is simply titled “Earth Day: Facts & History“, and it is an excellent read. The screenshot below will serve as an aperitif:

EDLS.jpg

A MESSAGE FROM SWEDEN

Five days ago Anna put a post sharing a poster created by one of her friends under the title “Power listen to the voice of nature“. Anna’s message in that post is simple and compelling. Below is her friend’s poster which inspired it:

Poster by Margareta Arnedotter Jansson

A THUNDERCLAP

This one is for those of you who are on any of facebook, twitter and/ or tumblr. I have shared it before, and on its final day I do so once again. It is titled “Birds Join Bees this Earth Day“, and focuses on the damage pesticides are doing to pollinators. 

EDT.jpg

A GCSE IN NATURAL HISTORY

I consider this to be an excellent idea. Once again this is something that I have shared previously, and with eleven days to go until the deadline on this petition I do so again, considering it perfect subject matter for “Earth Day”. Please sign and share if you are UK citizens and have not already done so – let’s use today to get this past 10,000 signatures!

NHGCSE.jpg

THE NETHERLANDS STEAM AHEAD WITH TRAINS POWERED BY GREEN ENERGY

ALL trains in The Netherlands are now powered by wind generated (i.e renewable) electricity. For more and a video (also embedded below) please click here. 

http://mashable.com/videos/embed?video=fVb3VZiI&player=offsite&player=offsiteNote also that in strong contrast to every British public transport project I can remember this was completed not just in time but a whole year ahead of schedule.

CYCLISTS NOW HAVE THEIR OWN VERSION OF THE ‘BECK MAP’

Since he gained permission from his employers to unveil it to a wider public in 1931 Henry C Beck’s schematic diagram of the London Underground network, known colloquially as the “Beck Map” has taken the world by storm and become the template for public transport maps across the globe. Now, in it’s home city a Beck style map has been produced for the benefits of cyclists. There is a detailed article about this on indy100.com featuring this map, which is reproduced below for your benefit:

londoncyclemap-revised2017v1.4-011-0.jpg

EVERY DAY SHOULD BE EARTH DAY

We need to appreciate nature and the Earth every day of our lives. One day per year is most emphatically not enough. We also need to remember to very important things:

1. There is no “Planet B” at this moment – if we turn this planet into somewhere completely inhospitable to Homo sapiens we have nowhere else to go.

2. Following on from that first point we need to always bear in mind that we need Earth more than Earth needs us.

To finish this post, save for a few of my own photographs I turn again to Anna, and a piece of artwork I have shared before which she created based on comment that I made on one of her blog posts:

Nature Meme

starlings.jpg

967
These pictures of items that will be going under the hammer on the 22nd,, 23rd and 24th of May at James and Sons.

970

941
I travelled on this railway in my childhood, too many years ago to mention.

941-a941-b941-c941-d972972-a972-b972-c986986-a986-b986-c978

978-a
This picture, reminding us of where we and everything else on earth comes from seems an appropriate one to end the post.

Too Much Information and Autism Acceptance

As Autism Acceptance/ Appreciation Month gets underway I share some of the best autism related pieces of the moment, some thoughts of my own and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

I have a number of autism related links to share. Some of you will notice that the heading of this section of the blog is a different colour from usual. One of the links I shall be sharing gives more detail on this. For the moment suffice it to say that for the month of April save when it features in photographs the colour blue will not feature in this blog. As for the second half of this post’s title, I refer you to my last post, accessible by way of the graphic below:

AUA

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

Last year the National Autistic Society released a video entitled Too Much Information. This year they have produced a second, which has already had approximately a million views. As I cannot embed this particular video I link to it by way of the screenshot below and this link to the original.

TMI

SOME OTHER AUTISM RELATED LINKS

My first two links both come from a site I have recently come across called “A Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism“. 

  1. We start with a post titled “Autism Science to Watch Out For”, which you can visit by clicking the screenshot below.
    ASW
  2. My second selection from this site, titled “An Open Letter from an Autistic Child in Meltdown, Written by an Autistic Adult Who Still Melts Down From Time to Time”
    does precisely what it says on the tin. Again the link is by way of a screenshot:
    Meltdownletter

The Art of Autism site have put up a post titled “APRIL IS AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH – WE PREFER AUTISM ACCEPTANCE MONTH“, which can be viewed by clicking their lovely graphic below:
AutismRainbow

My next link comes from a recent follower of this blog, americanbadassadvocates, who this morning, having very generously reblogged my previous post, came up with this splendid offering titled “#NORMALAUTISTICHERE | SESAME STREET’S JULIA HUMANIZES AUTISTICS, AND SOME FOLKS HATE THAT“, which I link to by way of the image below.

This brings this section to a close because although I have a couple more links to share they are on the same theme and I have chosen to give them a section to themselves…

LOOKING AHEAD –
ACCEPTANCE TO APPRECIATION

Autism Acceptance Month is a better title than the old title for this month. Some however, and I fully sympathise with their reasoning, consider that even this is inadequate, and have introduced another title, Autism Appreciation Month. This appeals greatly to me, as an extension of the principle by which the title Autism Acceptance Month was arrived at. I have two superb posts to link to which between them make a good case for Autism Appreciation Month:

  1. Eclectic Autistic, whose post titled “Autism Appreciation” appeared not long after my own post of yesterday. Click on the screenshot below to read this excellent post in full:
    AutismAppreciation
  2. Finally, no post of this nature would be complete without something from thesilentwaveblog. This post, titled “#RedInstead ~ Autism Acceptance / Appreciation Month” both fills out the case for Autism Appreciation Month, and provides some detail as to why I am not using blue in the text sections of this blog during April, and why with blue ruled out I made red the first colour to appear. To read it in full please click on the picture below.

SOME FINAL WORDS

At some point in the near future I will be putting up a general sharing post, and a post about public transport specifically. Also, this afternoon I will be attending a Musical Keys session, and I will take plenty of photographs there for sharing – this session will definitely feature in a blog post as well. I have no doubt that I will also find plenty more excellent autism related posts to share. My final words before the photo section are these:

“DIFFERENT” AND “LESSER” ARE NOT SYNONYMS

and

ENJOY AUTISM ACCEPTANCE/ APPRECIATION MONTH!!

PHOTOGRAPHS

pb1
The first five pictures in this selection were taken on Sunday.

pb2pb3pb4pb5

squirrel1
These last two pictures were taken on Thursday.

squirrel2

 

 

 

Dan Snow Films His Walk To Work In London

A video from twitter this morning showing London folk going about their daily lives.

This video, shot by Dan Snow and posted by him (@thehistoryguy) on twitter as a counterblast to Fox News’ coverage of the aftermath of yesterday’s tragic events in London. I will not name the person this disreputable organisation used as I choose not to give them extra publicity. As a clue, this person recently lost a lot of money in a libel action brought by Jack Monroe. Here is the video…

 

Toxic Earth

A warning note courtesy of http://www.indy100.org, some stuff about public transport, some stuff about science, a link to a satirical pamphlet and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

The title of this piece comes from an article on www.indy100.com although I am sharing many other things besides that, including some of my local photographs. However before I get into the main meat of my post there is one other matter to attend to:

ERRATUM

In a recent post I identified a bed of yellow flowers as daffodils. It has since been brought to my attention that they were in fact yellow crocuses. I apologise for the mistake, and please note that I am not resorting to the equivalent of putting the apology in six point type somewhere in the middle of of page 27!

TOXIC EARTH

Reading this article put me in mind of Anna’s recent post “No 17 drawing in my goals for 2017” where the drawing is about a group of people stranded in space looking for another planet to replace the one that they had to leave behind because they messed it up too badly. Click on the image below to read this important and sobering article.

chemicals.jpg

A COUPLE OF LONDON
TRANSPORT RELATED BITS

I usually reserve stuff about London transport for my London transport themed website http://www.londontu.be, where indeed I shared the second piece in this section yesterday, but I felt these two bits should also be shared here.

LAURIE PENNY ON UBER

Laurie Penny has turned her fire on private cab hire firm Uber, and the result is a devastating article in the Guardian, which I hope will succeed in weaning a few people off this vile organisation. Please read the article in full please click on the image below.

TUNNEL ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE MUSEUM OF LONDON

The central section of the Elizabeth line (nee Crossrail) cuts through London on an east-west axis, and there being no space on the surface it also cuts vertically through millennia of history. It is this latter that has led to the creation of a new exhibition at the Museum of London showing the best finds unearthed during the building of the line. Accompanying this exhibition is a short video, embedded below. After the video are links to more about this and about the Museum of London.

Extra links:

PAYING MORE BUT GETTING LESS

This is a petition put together by Going to Work which calls not only for affordable affairs on our railways but also for a fully publicly owned and publicly accountable rail network. To view, sign and share the petition please click on the screenshot below:

action-for-rail

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE

Here are some pictures from in and around King’s Lynn:

dscn4141
Planning information posted near Lynnsport.

dscn4147dscn4144dscn4150

dscn4148
The good and the bad of Bawsey drain in one photo – it is home to many species but in spite of continued efforts to clear it is still used by uncaring human residents as a dumping ground.

dscn4145dscn4152dscn4143dscn4142

dscn4154
This bridge crosses a stretch of the Gaywood, carrying Littleport Street across said river.

dscn4153

dscn4323
The inaugural NAS West Norfolk curry night took place on Thursday, delayed by a week due to bad weather. Although some of those who had originally booked did not make it, those who did enjoyed it.
dscn4324
My choice – Lamb Rogan Josh. The accompaniments are boiled rice, two small poppadoms and a garlic naan. The curry was a little spicier than I would have liked but other than that splendid. The accompanying drink, included in the £6.49 price tag, is a pint of Doom Bar ale (and yes for the record I drank only the one)
dscn4325
One of many fine pictures to adorn the wall of The Globe, and the only one I got a clear shot at.

ATHEISTS ARE BECOMING MORE POPULAR

Here is a truly international link – a Brit sharing a post written by a New Zealander about the USA. Heather Hastie has carried out a typically thorough comparison between the Pew Research Centre’s findings of three years ago and of just recently. Please read Heather’s post in full by clicking here.

A TRIO OF SCIENCE PIECES

The first two pieces in this section were initially posted on whyevolutionistrue starting with a piece drawing on the work of Pliny the in Between, who runs a website called The Far Corner Cafe, and of a doctor who posts under the name of Orac on scienceblogs, whose piece can be read here, to demonstrate that Chiropractic is not merely nonsense, but dangerous (indeed potentially fatal) nonsense at that. Jerry Coyne, creator of whyevolutionistrue (it takes its name from his landmark book of that title published in 2009), has received many hostile comments in response to previous pieces he has written that are critical of Chiropractic. To read this piece in full please click on the image below, the first in a series of five drawings from Pliny the in Between that were used to illustrate the post.

stroke-001

Second of the trio, again courtesy of WEIT, is a piece linking to a paper published in the journal Nature that mentions the discovery of potential traces of life in sediments that range in age between 3.77 and 4.28 billion years (the earlier end of the scale being about as early given what is known about our planet’s turbulent beginnings as life of any sort could have taken hold). To read the post in full and possibly move from there to reading the paper in Nature please click on the image below:

nature21377-f1

The third in my science trio comes from the Smithsonian and has the self explanatory title “NASA Wants the Public to Log In to Help Find Plant 9”. To read the piece in full please click on the image below.

Planet 9

A SATIRICAL PAMPHLET
FROM UNLOCK DEMOCRACY

To read this pamphlet from Unlock Democracy  in full please click the screenshot of the cover below:

ud

SOME FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

This set of pictures are of items that will be going under the hammer in James and Sons’ March auction, a full catalogue listing for which can be viewed here. 

127
Lot 127
128
Lot 128
140
Lot 140
141
Lot 141
142
Lot 142
143
Lot 143
149
Lot 149 (three separate images joined together)
149-a
149-a
149-b
149-b. In the past, before the American way of reckoning up large numbers took over, a 1 with nine zeros after it was not designate one billion, but either one thousand million or one milliard, and one of the banknotes here shows that the Germans with a small difference in spelling used the same word when necessary.
149-c
149-c
150
150
151
152
153
153
155
154
154
155
164
164
170
170
171
171
172
172
172-a
172-a
172-b
172-b
393
393
393-a
393-a
393-b
393-b
393-c
393-c. When putting these together I decided to make this image the centre of the picture, thereby splitting the two sets of booklets.
407
407 – a four piece composite image
407-a
407-a
407-b
407-b
407-c
407-c
407-d
407-d
407-e
407-e – I could not resist extracting this close-up.

The Cosmic Skeptic Debunks Pascal’s Wager

Introducing the Cosmic Skeptic, who I came across by way of twitter.

INTRODUCTION

The debunking takes place in a seven minute video that was drawn to my attention by twitter, but there is also a cosmicskeptic website, which I recommend to your attention.

PASCAL’S WAGER DEBUNKED

A SECOND VIDEO FROM COSMIC SKEPTIC

Here is a second video from the Cosmic Skeptic (real name Alex O’Connor).

Underwater in Antarctica

From the Australian Governments “Australian Antarctic Division” by way of whyevolutionistrue comes a truly wonderful video featuring footage from underneath the sea ice of East Antarctica…

Why Evolution Is True

The Australian Governments “Australian Antarctic Division: has produced a wonderful 8½-minute film of video taken by a submersible camera under the sea ice of East Antarctica. It’s full of colorful life down there, and I bet a lot of these species haven’t yet been described and named. The action ends at 4:58 and then there’s explanation.

How many groups can you identify? Did you see any fish?

View original post

Thursday Titbits

Just some stuff I found in my inbox this morning and decided to share.

INTRODUCTION

I am sharing a few highlights from this morning’s inbox – to comment you will have to visit the pieces I flag up..

SOME QUIRKY AND INTERESTING PIECES

My first item comes from…

TAX RESEARCH UK

This little squib comes under the heading “The Most Desperate Tweet Ever” – to see it you will have to follow the link, but here, from the comments section of the original post is a classic counter version:

September 28 2016 at 7:06 am

Nasty
Evil
Obscene
Leeching
Imperialist
Brutal
Excruciating
Ruthless
Aloof
Loathesome
Injurious
Spiteful
Malevolent

Well done to John M whoever you are for coming up with that.

For our next piece we turn to…

.PAC

Disabled People Against Cuts to give them their full title have produced something about changes to the appeal process.

The remaining links I am sharing with you are concerned with…

AUTISM

All of the following links were contained in this morning’s Autism Newsletter from The Mighty. Firstly, written by Audra Cederquist, is this piece titled “5 Things You Should Never Say To The Parent Of A Child With Autism“.For full detail and to comment you will have to follow the link, but here are the five things not be said:

1. “What’s wrong with him?”
2. “I’m sorry.”
3. “Just tell him to stop.”
4. “Isn’t he too old/big for that?”
5. “He’ll grow out of it.”

My final piece, created by Stephanie Cooper, who is both mother of an autistic child and a former police officer, is entitled “Mom Creates Autism Law Enforcement Response Training for Police Officers” and includes a short video:

Jaguar Catches Caiman

A fabulous video showing a jaguar catching itself a jumbo sized meal.

This is a wonderful video first brought to my attention by Why Evolution Is True:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F876630299082863%2Fvideos%2Fvb.876630299082863%2F1026081824137709%2F%3Ftype%3D3&show_text=0&width=560