Personal blog
Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
Me and my occasional posts, mostly about the town of Gosport and occasionally my thoughts. So stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
I volunteer, normally on a Friday afternoon, in a local charity shop. I got asked if I would do today, Saturday, as well. I said yes to help out (I don’t know how to say that without making me sound noble for doing that), but it’s not. I made it quite clear that my offering extra help does not establish a precedent.
It’s the first time I’ve done a Saturday, and I have to say, I quite enjoyed it. Yesterday and today, I’ve seen a couple of old friends from work, and because it’s Saturday, it felt like there were more families out. Oh, that reminds me, yesterday’s friend reminds me that I need to resume watching the sky at night
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b006mk7h/the-sky-at-night
as he has a bit of a tendency to ask me about the recent episode.
I had a few opportunities to show where the use of AI could be useful. One was with a customer asking what a particular stone was in a small collection, I was able to confirm that it was Malachite and Azurite. The customer bought the stones so that was good.
On another occasion, the shop had been given a camera lens, but it wasn’t clear what the mount was. I suspected that it was a Nikon Mount, and luckily, we were able to confirm that (the lens was a non-marque manufacturer, so it wasn’t clear by just looking at it.)
And finally (to be honest, the one that I am most interested in) I was able to show how by taking a photograph of a bookshelf, AI was able to identify, categorise and value the books, Also, by comparing a bookshelf in the shop by taking a picture a week apart, AI would be able to identify what books had been sold. What would be the most popular?
I also suggested that they stop putting non-fiction on the bottom shelf, where it is most inaccessible to people who are more likely to be interested in them.
Apart from being an enjoyable afternoon, it was also useful for me.
It’s coming up to 7PM, and I had decided yesterday that this evening, I was going to go to the Falklands Gardens to vlog about Gosports role in the civil war in the 1640’s.
Luckily a bus came as I was about to pass the bus stop opposite Royal Arms. As I was carrying two bags, I didn’t fancy the idea of walking to the waterfront.
The Falkland Gardens were mostly empty; there were maybe half a dozen people spread out across the area, so I got set up and went for it.
OK, so there’s a trick I have to learn, and that is how to work with the cue cards. The story they tell is actually not bad. Translating that into me talking on camera is an entirely different kettle of fish. I have, I think, 6 or seven clips to bring together. Once I’ve done that, I will post it, no matter how bad it is, unless I judge it to be completely horrible, but my thought is that no matter how bad, it’s there as a lesson.
One delightful little episode afterwards, when I finished, a chap who was sat about 20 yards away stuck his thumb up and said it was good (I think he’d been drinking), but we did have a bit of a chat, and he was very complimentary, more I think that i had made the effort to get out and do something.
The other thing, the decision to film in the evening was the correct one. The sun didn’t feature in any of the shots, whereas had I gone in the mornigng it would have dominated every shot.
I think it will be the other way around when I go over to film the Portsmouth part. The sun will hopefully be behind us for most of the shots.
On Tuesday evening, I went across to Portsmouth to do some videoing for a story I want to tell. To help me with the video, I had prepared some cue cards.
It wasn’t until I went to use the cards that I realised that they were almost as bad as not having cards, and not knowing what I wanted to say.
The trouble with the cards was that they had questions on them to which I did not know the answer. As you can probably imagine, it was extremely frustrating for me, and that blew my confidence out of the water.
Since Tuesday, I’ve spent a bit of time re-working the cards, I think I have a story now, not a script mind you, but the facts, laidd out in such a way that I think they made sense. I did the same thing for Gosport, and had a read-out-loud session with them, and they worked really well. I need to do the same for portsmouth, after which, I will have no excuse not to film.
Plus, hopefully, because I will know what I am going to say, I won’t be bothered if there are people around, or even if they listen to what I say, what might be even better, is if they were to ask a question, then I could invite them to the camera to ask them.
I feel that once again I need to apologise for last nights post, which looks like I gave up typing halfway into a sentence. I was just so tired that I couldn’t concentrate at all. Tonight, I am buzzing a bit.
I don’t think I normally comment on the previous night’s post, unless there is a good reason to. I certainly tend not to comment on videos where I’ve not posted anything other than I’m not posting tonight. Last night’s post is a bit of an exception.
It’s not often that I call a stop whilst writing a post. Last nights post took me almost an hour to write. Because I kep falling asleep, and to be honest, today is going the same way.
Our car had gone into the garage to fix a couple of problems. I also wanted to get home for an u3a Interest Group Online presentation, that I was doing. The presentation went OK, and sparked a serious discussion that lasted for most of the rest of the session.
Anyhow, back to last night’s post. What there is of it took me almost an hour to write because I kept falling asleep. Like I say, tonight is going the same way. At least things are
One of the Camera Club members had arranged for us to go over to Portsmouth to visit Old Portsmouth with a model. I had been burning to get over to Portsmouth to record some video about the Civil War from this side of the water.
I did feel slightly guilty splitting off from everybody else to do some vlogging.
It didn’t take me long to realise that I had got something very wrong. cue cards I had were telling my what happened, I knew this for the most part, but what was missing was the detail. For example, I know there was an action where a number of parliamentarians had taken to the water, to take over a ship. What I didn’t have was the date – beyond 1642, who is the leader of the team? What was the name of the ship. Things like that,
I’m sorry. I’m really fading. I’ll try and conplete this tomorrow.
It’s 6 months and 11 days since I retired. Before retiring, I did what I like to do, and that is draft a retirement plan. I think at the 6-month point it’s reasonable to have a review, and do the usual thing of looking at what has and hasn’t gone well. I think what I’ll do is just work quickly through each. section and look at the high and low points.
Anchor & Morning Activity
It looks like i stopped doing the swing trading thing around mid-April. I was running a tracker against Robbie’s (The Naked Trader) criteria, and only 6 firms kept coming up. There was a danger that I could start random trading, so I decided to stop altogether. I’m not saying I’ll never go back to it, but at the moment, it is totally off my radar, and this activity is very likely to get deleted in the next version of the plan.
Even Facebook isn’t looking to healthy, I’ve had a couple of false starts that have petered out. I’m not by anymeans going to give it up, I just don’t know what to do with it at the moment.
Organising & Systems
It appears I live by systems, I like having them, and I like analysing them. The tools, though, are different. Google Sheets and Obsidian are both available, and I have (am ) using Obsidian, just not very coherently.
I had to go and remind myself what the anti-TikTok project was. It’s my normal stuff. I spend way too much time scrolling through videos that I found fascinating, I say found, as there are some that I am becoming bored with.
I’m not sure what the digital workspace relates to. This?
Evening Wind down
Writing is going very well; I’m doing it every day. (Holding back for the next panel)
Photo editing, some partial success, using Photoshop and Affinity. I’ve done a little bit with it; I need to do a lot more. Reading is OK, but I really do need to do more. I’m also holding back comments on planning vlog & blog. The TikTok plans are in disarray, only because some of them comes to me very quickly,
Creative Work
Part of this is a shocker, the other half an abject failure. On the creative writing front, I submitted a suggestion for a creative writing group in the Gosport u3a. It was accepted, we’ve had the startup session, and it went incredibly well. The first real session is next week, and it does look promising, with a potential 15-18 members.
Vlogging is another of those areas where initially I was very much “what can I vlog”? But now, I think it’s. When can I vlog that? I have two parts of the same vlog on. historical project, listed and ready. I’ve become a compost bin nutcase and am driving Elayne up the wall. Photography is going well, no major successes but some nice scores and a highly commended in a competition.
The one failure is the radio side of things. I was going to sign up to The Bath programme, but I just haven’t got around to it (that sounds like procrastination, and to an extent, it probably is).
Outdoors & Activities
Apart from the fact that about 6 weeks ago, something happened to my knee, everything here has been quite successful.
Walks are mainly around town, with the occasional trip out.
Field Research, I haven’t done an awful lot of. But I do have a project brewing that will change that. Plus, the granddaughter is of an age where she likes to play in the park, so we are outdoors with her.
Cloud watching, we can just do it anytime we are out.
Exploring local areas – I could do a bit more here, very focused on the walks that I know.
The Gosport Shed is good. Some lovely trips out; The Fleet Air Arm Museum, The Greenwich Naval Museum, and the Great Western Railway Museum, all excellent. Then there is the Shed Breakfast, which I thoroughly enjoy.
Council Activities
Are a bit of a damp squib (perhaps a bit unfair there is a good reason why activity is low). I haven’t been to a meeting in quite a while, although I do read through the meeting packs and minutes.
Intellectual Projects (I’m sorry that sounds really pretentious)
Ley line research, apart from the acquisition of a set of dowsing rods and a couple of failed attempts to buy cheap photo equipment that would allow me to position the camera so that I could film myself dowsing, which, because of my tremors, would be ridiculously ineffective, I’ve done nothing with this activity.
u3a – in my view, has been an outstanding success. I’m a member of seven groups, and have done several presentations on various topics, and have three more lined up, and am having so much fun it’s unreal. I’m just really enjoying it, and can’t recommend it enough to people. Two of the three topics on the chart (Local history and Astronomy) are covered under u3a. Earth Mysteries was going to be proposed as a group, but is on hold at the moment.
Slow Media
I’m not too sure what I meant by this now. I suspect it partially involved keeping up with the news, which at the moment is so horrible that I prefer to bury my head in a bucket of sand. I may remove this group.
Goals
Write a book – Well, you should never say never.
Become famous on TikTok & YouTube – well, I think I’ll tone that down a bit, to just have a presence on YouTube at the moment.
Start a newspaper – a nice aspiration, still at that level.
Live as long as I can – I need to get fitter, eat less, and walk more.
Get a PhD – I’d love to, but no chance.
Well I’m quite surprised actually. Well, not really – I did the plan as a bit of fun, and I have barely referred to it since last year, but it is hung there in full view. Where I’ve been successful, I’m really pleased. There are some things to do, and the plan does need tweaking, but overall, I’m pretty pleased with it.
Dear Steve
The mistake that I have made with tonight’s Letter to Steve is that I have not done very much with it, after a rather intense period of conversing with my assistant on Monday.
We had quite a wide-ranging discussion, starting mostly with how I discovered Gilbert White. Summarised: driving north on the A3, the roundabout after Petersfield has a tourist sign for Gilbert White’s house, it took me a while to remember to Google him, and of course, when I did, I found out about his book, the antiquities and natural history of Selborne. It took us a while longer to visit his house.
In the meantime, somewhat arbitrarily, I had become determined not to buy his book until we had visited his house. Which, of course, I did. Ironically, I have only had one opportunity to buy his book in a bookshop, and that was in Rye. Well, after I had already bought it. Of course, I could have bought it at any time on Amazon.
Last week’s letter, Letter XX, was in some respects a bit of an eye-opener, and started a train of thought that could lead to something interesting. I’m not quite ready to talk a lot about it at the moment, but I am sure that I won’t be able to resist dropping hints and tips as time moves on. The one thing I will say is that I did get quite excited at an idea we’d had, only to discover in Letter XX that someone had almost exactly the same idea back in the 1760s. That kind of made a link in a way. It turns out that our idea may not work anyway.
Gilbert’s letter this week was about the Stone-curlew and more bird observations. I can’t help saying that I felt horrified at what the young boys were doing to nests. Whilst it isn’t exactly the same thing, I quite often see children chasing pigeons; they seem to especially love running through a crowd of them, making them flap and fly away. I quite often feel like saying leave them be. They have as much right to be here as you or I. I don’t, of course.
Talking of observations, I had to pop out to the Chemist’s and Morrisons today. I heard the banging and clattering before I got anywhere near Clarence Road and The Tavern. Sad to see that another of Gosport’s institutions appears to be succumbing to the march of the House in Multiple Occupation (HMO). Not entirely, though, as apparently a small part is to be retained as a pub.
All the Best
Bill.
I was sitting in the chair under the hut awning. We were both admiring the garden, but what grabbed my attention wasn’t really the garden it was the spider webs.
I have no idea how many times I’ve said in my blog that I don’t like spiders; I am, in fact, arachnophobic. I’m afraid of them. But it appears that I am not afraid of all spiders, only big ones, especially if they are coming towards me. I also don’t like seeing pictures of spiders in magazines or papers. If there is a picture, I have to turn it over. If having turned it over, it is just face down, then I have to turn another page, so that I’m not touching the picture, because I can’t bear the thought of my hands being on the picture. ‘I know this is utterly ridiculous, but I tell you just so you know how ludicrous this is.
Because it appears that I am not afraid of all spiders, only big ones. Around a centimetre is about my limit. larger – definitely not. smaller- probably OK.
OK, having made myself look silly, one thing I can say is that there is no doubt that they are fascinating creatures. Note least of that fascination is their web building abiliities.
The frustration today came from my attempts to take a picture of the web built by one particular little beastie – it was on the web, and probably about 4 millimetres across, so well within the bounds of acceptable repulsiveness. This little chap was building a web, the main strand of which stretched between the bamboo rod on the right of the header picture to a bamboo rod hidden behind the burgundy flower, a distance of about 18 inches (45 Centimetres). Also, this was 4 – 5 feet above the ground. As much as I don’t like spiders, you can’t help admiring their skills and determination when it comes to web building. In fact, if you look at the green bowl hanging from the hut awning, you can see the web strand. It isn’t much to look at in the photograph, but thinking about the effort the spider had to put into it really makes it quite remarkable.
Not an issue with the kit, I think what might have helped is a dark background. I think I might have one somewhere. I need to find it, and then work out a way of hanging it.
I don’t know what it is about mornings, but come around 1030-ish, I feel irresistibly tired, no matter how good a night I’ve had. I’ve pretty much just given up fighting it and have taken to accepting the nap. To be honest, at the moment, it’s too hot anyway, and I am trying to avoid going out in the midday sun.
The rest of the day flowed fine. I reported to the Diabetes shop at 1300 ready for my afternoon stint, and we had quite a busy one, over the day, not just my time, we took over £400, which apparently is not bad for a Friday.
I went through the back of the shop today, and for the first time, noticed the book rack, which is very heavily stocked. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to take a good look at it, but I will try to make the time to do that.
As the shop was closing, Elayne met me at the shop, as it is very close to the ferry, we went across to Portsmouth, we had a burger at Five Guys, and then went to see Toy Story 5, and back home. A very pleasant evening. Toy Story 5 is still on the circuit, so beyond saying that we really enjoyed the film, I won’t give anything else away.
Today’s picture was taken through the glass on the Gosport Ferry, White Ryder II backing out and starting its next run over to Ryde. It’s a nice journey, I’ve done it a few times now.
I don’t know how many years I’ve been saying that I want to vlog, but I never quite knew what to vlog about. Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve come to a bit of a realisation. It might sound a bit odd, but I think it accurately represents things.
Now, the one thing that just about all of the “episodes” I have watched on YouTube have talked about is how important it is to know your niche and make sure that you only do videos that relate to the niche. The problem has been that I didn’t have a niche.
You’ll notice that I used the past tense there. Because, quietly, I think I have clicked what my niche is, and it can pretty much be summed up in one word;
Curiosity.
I’m curious about things. If I see a hole being dug in the road, I try to find out why. If there is an event going on, can I find out about it? I look at plants, what insects can I see on it, what plant is it, and will my app recognise it. What is happening in the sky? Is there a particular night when it is worth spending some time stargazing? What is happening to the shingle beach in Stokes Bay? How did the people who gathered the information for the Domesday Book know how to be consistent across the country? How did society begin? I’ll stop there; I think you get the idea that my niche is fairly broad.
The Thing is, you see, any and all of those subjects written about can be the subject of a vlog. It seems that I have some topics that I can write and vlog about. Oh, there is one more topic that could be in the list above but isn’t, and it’s all about compost bins. It’s a bit of a sore subject, it’s a bit of a bone of contention between Elayne and I, I’ve started treating the compost bins as a bit of a home science project, and have produced three vlogs on the subject. They are very professionally produced (oh, the sarcasm runs deep here), They are hardly BBC productions, but they’re real and I am learning something with each one. They can be found on my YouTube channel:
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