Bills Posts

I’ve just started reading A history of photography, but I have a bit of a dilemma. Several hundred posts ago, I started reading about the Hubble Telescope, but I stopped fairly early in to the book as I quickly realised that although the history of the telescope was accurately reflected , in terms of discoveries and recent activities, it was hopelessly out of date.

The version of the history of photography that I am reading has a publication date of 1977. So much has happened in the field of camera technology between then and now initially made me wonder whether I should stop reading this particular book and find a more up to date version of history.

But then I started thinking that whilst we need to be aware of the discovery and development of photography up to something like the brownie camera. Certainly the brownie we had in the 1960’s took 120 film, and it was the early 70’s before I had my first 35mm camera.

We had to reach a point where it was easy to take pictures – note I say easy, not necessarily cheap. Film was (is) not cheap. Digital is a world of difference. But thinking about whether I needed to not read the 1977 book and look for something up to date really is a distraction. I realised that the technology is irrelevant. It is all about the picture.

This is why I have realised that I do not need to stop reading the book, because the detail of the early knowledge will not change. The photographs people took will not change. It is my view that the book is as relevant today as it was in 1977.

I shall continue reading it.

The Delfin, taken whilst on board the ferry heading towards Portsmouth. The Delfin if outbound.

Yesterdays post was very short. My apologies for that. I had a seriously lovely day for more reasons than the consumption of alcohol. It was a mini pub crawl with two people for whom I have an awful lot of time.

I returned home early enough and sufficiently sensible to do the regular Saturday evening zoom, for which I struggled to stay awake and not surprisingly went to bed almost straight after, luckily awakening this morning headache free. I put that down to drinking plenty of water the night before.

I should stress that this is something I don’t do very often, and won’t be repeating for quite a while. It was part of a very nice weekend.

Another short post. Sorry again. I really am trying to get back to some reasonable posts.

This is HMS Warrior, I was on a trip across to Portsmouth today. I had a really nice time. I’m really sorry, tonight’s post is very short. I am absolutely fine, I have had a seriously lovely day. I went to bed very late last night, and I have been out this afternoon, leaving me very tired and really unable to focus on a topic tonight, which is very unusual for me.

/i really did have a lovely time.

I’m sat at my desk. I have a set of minutes to write up from the Annual General Meedting of the RAYNET group of which I am secretary. The meeting was last Wednesday, and this is the first chance I’ve had to do it. I’m going to do this post first though, because I always do the post on my iPad, the battery is getting low and I have to get the post published before midnight to maintain my running streak.

I was considering what to write as I sat drinking the cup of tea that I brought up stairs and eating the hobnobs of which are three left. It occurred to me that I should write briefly about the dunkability of biscuits and their relative merits. Perhaps I should say the tea is PG Tips, with milk – but not sugar. I stopped taking Sugar in tea on Augusta 15, 1985. I had slowly been weaning my self off the stuff and on the day I decided to stop I was using less than half a teaspoonful and was probably thinking this is ridiculous. Anyhow back to the biscuits.

I think from the outset, the preferred choice was Rich Tea, there’s something about the way that they absorb the tea and just melt in your mouth that makes them the perfect dunking biscuit. Ironically, this remained the case until 1985 – there’s something about that year. This time it was the introduction of the HobNob.

Today, Rich Tea retain the crown of dunkability, but only just. Hobnobs are very close behind. This is the plain hobnob, I’m not talking about the chocolate version which is a diet-crisis in its own right. The hobnob also dunks wonderfully, retaining the tea and making it so moist when you eat it. The biscuit is a little bit more substantial than the Rich Tea, so you probably tend to eat fewer of them perhaps? At the moment they are a contender to the crown, but I don’t think that they really will grab it.

Now, I was delighted and very surprised to discover just how dunkable are Custard Creams. It’s not the custard centre, it’s the quality and texture of the biscuit, that again, just melts in your mouth. Just delicious.

Now, bourbons can also be dunked, I do quite like them, but they are not as nice as custard creams.

Ginger nut biscuits are also delicious, coupled with that ginger flavour make them very dunkable.

I think I need to conclude by saying that my scale of dunkability is;

• Rich Tea
• Hobnobs
• Custard Creams / Ginger Nuts
• Bourbons

What’s your scale of dunkability?

Last night I talked about trying new things in photography, and posted the above picture. I’ve had, not surprisingly, questions as to “What is it?” Well;

It’s a milk shake bottle, I had opened the clasp pointed the camera down in to the spout and got as close as I could. The yellow/white part in the centre is the remains of a milk shake. Sorry, not very savoury, but it did produce an interesting picture. Continuing the search for new photo opportunities in Gosport, I thought I would have another look at the structure of White Lion Court as I walked past, giving me this one, where I’ve tried to bring out shapes, lines and colours;

Now, it’s not perfect, but there are some interesting things there. What it has shown me is that I have nowhere near begun to explore opportunities in the town. I just have to find them.

A bit of experimentation doesn’t hurt. I acknowledge that I’m not very adventurous with my photography, mainly lack of ideas really. I have thousands of pictures like this;

It’s fair enough that every picture taken from or near this spot is different, unique in its own way because of the sky. Some of them could be said to border on the spectacular (in my eyes). It’s also fair to say that I recognise the sameness of them, and whilst I am not bored with it, in a way I am. I won’t stop though, A spectacular sky is still that. So I will take the pictures

The thing is to get in close, so you get the detail. I’ll have to try doing more of this.

I went out for my lunchtime walk today. I was walking over the Forton Lake Millenium Bridge, when I had one of those moments. It wasn’t quite like de ja vue, but it was a strange feeling. I’ll explain.

In my life there have been four films that have had what I would class as a profound effect on me, they are;

• 2001 A Space Odyssey
• A Ring of Bright Water
• Aliens
• Great Expectations (I think – I’ll explain that, it’s the important one for this post)

I’m going to ignore 2001 because it’s effect was positive – Perhaps I’ll write about it in a future post.

A Ring of Bright Water was just basically traumatic. I think it was one of the first films that I would have seen on my own. I was enjoying the film so much and then when Mij was killed, I was so upset I had to leave the cinema. That I haven’t watched it since and that to even think of the film over fifty years later still causes me distress I think is sufficient for me to qualify as a traumatic experience.

Aliens – the second film in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed the first film and the second film very much. I haven’t watched the second film (or come to that any of the Alien films – in fact it’s one of the few Science Fiction film sets that I don’t own) from beginning to end since that first time I saw it at the cinema. I can’t recall any other film having given me such a graphic nightmare. I recall very clearly waking up to see one of the Aliens leaping at me from the window in the bedroom. I just don’t want to watch any of them again.

On then to the fourth film, you might think that I have to be honest and say that I am not sure that it’s the right film. I think it was though. It involves a young boy who meets a convict and helps him, so the plot fits the film I remember. The thing was though wasn’t the story as much as the location. There was something just so utterly bleak about the scenery, what I couldn’t match though was the industrial landscape, which looks as though it was Chatham Docks and Romney Marsh and Durness. It was the foreboding structures of the dockyard, and the bleakness of Romney that both frightened and drew me. To this day, I have always wanted to visit this area.

Ironically, I have been to Hythe, nearby. But it was as part of a RAYNET Team a few years ago, where we were on an event with the Long Distance Walking Association. Sadly, I was a passenger so I couldn’t take the next day to explore the area, which I would have loved to have done so. Perhaps one day, we will get there.

So, this all came from my lunchtime walk, as I crossed The Milenium Bridge, there was quite a brisk, cold breeze blowing, the tide was well out, there was a quite oppressive grey cloud overhead, and there was just this feeling of utter bleakness. Interesting.

At the moment, I’m reading a book about how preparations for D-Day was affecting the local area. It’s fascinating and it prompted our visit to Warsash the weekend before last. I’m about halfway through the book, and am looking for mentions of specific locations, rather than “just” towns.

I have several books lined up, one of them is a history of photography, and I’ve also started reading “How to write Non-Fiction” by Joanna Penn. I had started reading the book, and whilst I am always a bit sceptical about books like this when I started reading this one, I just liked her style of writing. Reading it now will be as much as for pleasure as for anything I might get out of it.

I mostly suspend book reading whilst I have a magazine on the go, at the moment it’s Country Walking, nearly there and then I can go back to D-Day. Once I finish that, I’m not sure if it is the Penn book or photography. I also have the follow on book to the village life that I was reading, one about life in the big house a’ la Downton Abbey. I do have a little bit of a dilemma as to the order to read, but I think that will settle down in to a natural order.

My desire to write, I think remains as firm as when I started the 366 project 543 days ago, even that was a fair time after lockdowns had started. I had no idea at the time whether I would complete that project (I was delighted to do so) and when I extended it beyond the end of 366 I wasn’t sure that I would be able to maintain the commitment.

I have been troubled; no, that’s too strong a word, perhaps bothered with writers block more frequently than I would have expected. Under 366 I had a very simple programme of writings that would only occasionally cause me problems I think. But then. I would fix it by writing about it. Perhaps some of my posts are a bit short, and not up to the quality that I would like.

I would like to be in the position of knowing some time in advance of what I am going to write about (with the understanding that sometimes I would be otherwise “inspired”, perhaps a week. I might go back to the original list as that served me quite well.

This is the wood for the baseboard for my model railway! I have it now, and I can start work on building the baseboard. I have a particular person top thank for this, I don’t think they read my blog, but I know someone who does who knows them, and they will pass on my thanks.

All I have to do now is actually start work on constructing the baseboard. Now, I know what to do, I just have to do it. There are some other bits and and pieces that I need, like I need two stands to support the board. I am going to have a look for those, and I need wood glue and screws and clamps, and I need to learn how to use my dremel. So it will be a little while before I start construction. But, that will happen.

It isn’t a very big baseboard, 0.5mx1.5m and it won’t be my main layout. This is what I am calling my Proof of Concept (PoC). This where I can practice the drilling and building and if I mess it up, I won’t be too upset.

Once I have the baseboard set up, I will be able to practice track laying, including points, and I want point motors, and then wiring which is going to be for power and Digital control. I think I will be happy with things once I can get to a point where I can run shunting puzzles, so I’ll need automatic de-couplers as well. There’s a lot of anticipation here. But today’s acquisition is a massive step forward.