Bills Posts

I took this picture yesterday, whilst in town. Looking at it in colour, it is a pretty banal shot, so I was on the verge of deletion, but then I thought I would make it mono. That one act, for me, turns it into an interesting picture, but I don’t know why.

I have been wanting to go into a book shop for quite a while now. I know I can look at any book on Amazon, or even Waterstones online. But it isn’t same as walking in to a book shop and being surrounded by all that paper.

I paused as I went in through the entrance to look at the latest releases. Of all of the books that were on that shelf, the one that attracted my attention and I know wasn’t a new book, just a re-print by German Greer. I didn’t pick it up, but is it one I should read? Perhaps put it on the list? I’ll think about.

From the new releases, I walked over to the “books about writing” section. I looked to see if there were any books about creative non-fiction, several on creative writing but they all looked as though they were for fiction writers. Nothing wrong with that, it just wasn’t what I wanted. On the way towards the Travel Writing section I was briefly distracted by the local interest area. Several books about the South Downs Way – walk of which I would at least love to do a bit, but non really grabbed me. At the Travel Writing section, I am always interested in what is there by Bill Bryson, I do like his style of writing. Once again thought there was nothing that made me feel “Buy This”.

The religious section received only a cursory glance. I’m never sure what I’m looking for there. What ever it might have been, I didn’t find it today.

Just on the other side of that set of shelves are the Self Help and Smart thinking sections. After taking a brief look at the history section and seeing that there wasn’t a book called “The life of normal people in Bede’s time” (I know, there is no book of that name, or at least I don’t think there is – just googled it, nope). Resumed the search for the book that will bring clarity to my brain.

There were a number of sections in the Self Help and Smart Thinking area section. I am rubbish at Maths, but I am drawn to it for some reason. I have a couple of maths books, so I don’t need to buy anything there. The Astronomy section had a 2021 guide to the night sky, I thought about it, then thought not – we are halfway through the year, but later I thought maybe because the dark skies of later in 2021 are still to come, but I have something similar at home.

I see that Owen Jones has updated his book Chav’s. I have the original version. Chav’s isn’t a term we hear much these days. Is it still relevant? I don’t know, Nothing to buy there.

I had a look at the computing section. I’ve bought a raspberry Pi, it comes with a book that includes Python & Scratch tutorials. I’ll work my way through that one first.

I’m not sure how long I was in the shop, probably 30-40 minutes. It was an interesting & nice browse, but as usual frustrating. But there you go.

OK, this is not a religious text. The capitalisation is intentional, in this case the EV in EVangilisation means Electric Vehicle. We bought one a few weeks back. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely car and an absolute delight to drive, but it’s an electric vehicle. If the government sticks to its plans, by 2030 these will pretty much be the only vehicles allowed on the road, so eventually if you want the independence you are going to have to replace your petrol vehicle with an electric one.

In my simple mind, there are three components involved;

• The car
• The Battery
• The Infrastructure

The car is a delight to drive, it is quiet, smooth and surprisingly powerful, with excellent acceleration. It has all the gadgets that any petrol car has Absolutely no complaints there.

The battery, ah yes the battery. The Car Requires Active Participation. Now, I’ll give you a clue. I don’t normally swear on this blog, so if you are inclined to take the first letter of the first four words of the previous sentence, you will discover what I think of battery technology today. I am suffering from two afflictions with this car; Range Anxiety and Petrol Envy. In reality, they both boil down to the same thing, the ease with which a petrol car can be refuelled and the lack of need to plan a long journey because of the fuelling requirements. I don’t know how they are going to do it, and I accept that it “may always” take a bit longer to re-charge an EV, but at the moment, it really does take too long.

The Infrastructure, I went to a local fast charging point early this morning. I opened up one of the several different apps that I have to cater for the many different service providers – why isn’t there one app that covers all, which the providers are required to sign up to? There is an app, but signing up isn’t a requirement. There needs to be many more (almost literally millions) – every second or third lamp post should be a charging point for on street charging. The several thousand that are promised are utterly inadequate. This document describes the approach the UK government is taking. I acknowledge that I have only done a cursory read; https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7480/CBP-7480.pdf but what I read do appear to be the right words. What we need is the government to get on and deliver. It has to be a lot better than it is today.

It’s going to be a bit of a journey, and – this is where the evangelistic bit comes in, I intend to keep an eye on it.

It’s ridiculous isn’t it? here were are really not that far from 366, I still don’t really know what I am going to do next. And yet I do. It’s just letting it happen. In a way it won’t matter that I can drop the 366, and it won’t really matter if I don’t do a post every night, but one of the reasons why I started the 366 was because I wasn’t doing any posts at all, and I really wanted to, but I lacked motivation. I needed it and the 366 gave it.

So, (and I apologise for going on about this) I need the motivation, can I get away from the numbers, and translate it to the projects? I am thinking that I have generated my list of interests, I will create a list of interests and write something – even if it is a no progress, but I can be flexible, if there’s a particular interest which is in the ascendancy, there’s no reason that I can’t do a series.

It’s just making sure that I have something to write about. So there’s a little bit of planning to do. I’ve started making notes against each interest, thinking along the lines of a project or task. Not going to write about the projects here, that’s for when 366 comes to an end.

In some ways, the anticipation is almost exciting. It’s definitely a challenge. I need to make sure I am up to it!

A surprisingly pleasant looking little close right in the middle of the town. This isn’t far, less than 10’s of yards from North Cross Street. North Cross Street has become nervously entertaining on my morning walk;

What are the chances that two people would be at the same point of their journey on two days of a week? Actually, it seems the chances are pretty good. Watch the video, the seagull has been buzzing me for several weeks now – I’m assuming it’s the same one. On two occasions this week I have been along here at roughly 6AM when a cyclist passed going in the opposite direction, the first time he watched the gull buzz me, and looked at me as he went past. I said “for some reason it really hates me”. I heard him laughing as he rode on. The second time, this morning we were in almost exactly the same position, it was buzzing me again, he was looking and laughing as he approached I said “Good Morning, It’s got it in for me again”. He was laughing again.

Surprisingly, the smoking lady wasn’t about.

St Mary’s church on the High Street. The church is run by Marian Franciscan Monks. I quite often see them, walking around town, I was stood behind one when I went to the bank a few weeks ago, we exchanged pleasantries.

Looking up towards the Ferry Terminal showing the tower blocks and the water front. It was a very pleasant walk this morning.

It’s B&W photography time, the Magazine turned up a couple of days ago, and as usual I am working my way through it, but it always reminds me how much I like B&W, and how much I love digital!

These two beauties swam past the Haslar Marina Sea Wall. They weren’t in a rush. The water wasn’t really rough, but it was “busier” than normal. I had a vision of them paddling like crazy whilst maintaining the serene image they gave above.

I have two magazines, with a possible third on the way, and three books, one arrived today, and another on the way and one given as a donation. I am keen to read them. I am barely halfway through Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, whilst it’s not true to say I am losing interest, I do feel less dedicated than I did at the start of the book, so I shall take the magazine break as I normally do, and then perhaps a bit of a sabbatical from Bede.

But then I have to make up my mind on the order of the books and the magazines., the mags are easy, I’ll just read them in the order in which they arrived, the books are a bit harder, I’ll have to have a look at them.

I have a bit of a problem with procrastination, one of the books is about defeating that. I’ll give it a read and see if it helps.

First thing this morning, when I woke up it was blowing a gale and absolutely chucking it down. I fell back asleep, and woke up just after the time I would normally be up. I hadn’t expected to get up or go out for a walk.

The second time I woke up, I felt a bit guilty that I was being lazy. I looked out the window and couldn’t tell whether or not it was raining. Well, I have a perfectly good raincoat, it didn’t look like it was raining heavily, so I thought I’d risk it, except because of the raincoat it wasn’t really a risk.

As it happens, it did rain a couple of times, but not too heavily, and not for too long so it was fine. There wasn’t much happening in the harbour, because I was running late, I got to the Waterfront just in time to see the Mon St Michel passing the spinnaker, from a distance that meant I couldn’t get a good picture.

The clouds were quite high, and there was a bit of a breeze blowing. There were a couple of breaks in the cloud. I had previously approximated the amount of cloud as a percentage of the sky covered, but a few years ago a close friend said no, it’s not %ages, it’s 8ths. As you do, tonight I just googled why 8th’s – the actual unit of cloud is an Okta (I get the derivation of the unit). The explanation, which as usual is more complicated than you would expect is copied of Quora in an answer given by a gentleman called Robert Johnston. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-cloud-cover-measured-in-oktavs/answer/Eric-Burns-22?ch=99&share=0de59aee&srid=uYORF

Cloud cover on the visible sky, also known as ‘the celestial dome’ is measured in octas: That is in eighths. If the whole sky is overcast with one type of cloud it would be eight eighths cloud cover. But each of any different type of cloud is estimated in the same way so an observation might record 3 octas cu, at 1000 ft 4 octas sc at 2000, 5 alto cu @ 5000 and so on : The total can be more than 8 or less on a fine day when there is more blue sky. The reason cover is measured in eights is because it is easily divisible: Half cover would be 4, quarter 2 and an eighth 1 in any case the amount of cover can only be estimated approximate.
An earlier system divided the sky into ten ‘decas’,.This had two disadvantages: It attempted at over accuracy and also ten is only divisible once by two. Decas were clumsy.

The next thing I want to do, is when it is dark is get out and find Leo – I’ve never known how to find it, and I found an excellent YouTube channel that tells you exactly how to find it. I also found an excellent method of making my iPhone display red so that it doesn’t blow my night vision. Although, the light pollution here is so bad I don’t think it’ll makes any difference. All I need now is for to get dark and for there to 0 Okta of cloud! https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+to+do+a+shortcut+to+make+my+iphone+screen+red+for+astronomy&client=safari&hl=en-gb&ei=zbHkYKr5H8GAi-gPzemcuA8&oq=how+to+do+a+shortcut+to+make+my+iphone+screen+red+for+astronomy&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAM6BwgAEEcQsAM6BAghEApKBAhBGABQuIICWPjHAmDyzAJoBnACeACAAV6IAZAPkgECMjWYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6yAEIwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjqk7nQmc_xAhVBwAIHHc00B_cQ4dUDCA0&uact=5

I studied Geology at a very low level, for a very short period of time. We did a couple of field trips, one was to Barton-on-Sea, the area is known for the ease with which fossils can be found. Belemnites, small toothlike fossils molluscs. It was a lot of fun looking for them.

We learned about Mohs scale of hardness. Looking at crystals, learning about the different types of rock; igneous, sedimentary and (I just had to look up) metamorphic. I have three geology related books; one of them is specifically about geology, but it is american, and I almost discarded it for that reason, but of course, rocks don’t care about nationality, and it was just the way the book talked about geology in the USA. I’m going to have another look at it to see if I can adapt the projects to fit in to this area.

The second book may help with that. It’s a book about the history of Gosport, but for some reason the author decided to include a section on the geology of the area, so I shall see if I can use the books in conjunction with each other.

The third book is also apt for this area, it’s about pebbles. Now ordinarily, I avoid beaches like the plague. They are boring, smelly and full of sand, and the other, when the beach is full of pebbles, it’s awkward to walk on. Ironically, both of those factors may now act to draw me to beaches. I offer up this link, who new sand could look like this under a microscope? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sand+under+the+microscope&client=safari&hl=en-gb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFj7e20szxAhW7TxUIHZjLBpIQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1261&bih=1663&dpr=2

Then there are the pebbles. So many different types, so interesting when you look at them, and then of course, there is the geological aspect. It’s all just so interesting.

Not one of the best weeks for walking only just over 19 miles. So I made the Walk1000 but only just. I didn’t go out very much yesterday and I didn’t go out today.

It’s unusual for me to have a bout of writers block. I hope that’s not a sign I’m running out of steam. I don’t think so.

Back in 2015 or thereabouts, I had the idea of Locality, I am interested in the area where I live, I do want to learn more about it, and there are places I need to visit. I didn’t just envisage Locality as being exclusively Gosport, I set an edge as the western and eastern ends of the solent but then you see, you hear on the radio about Hengistbury Head, and Christchurch Harbour. We visited there a couple of years ago, it is a delightful place, and I would like to go back there. Then there is Hurst Castle. I was saddened to hear that fairly recently a part of the infrastructure of this famous location had collapsed. I am sure it will be restored to its former glory.

There is a lot to see within this area, but then if you go east and stick to my self imposed limits, you exclude places like Chichester and Shoreham, I’d quite like to go and visit the harbour there.

I had a bit of a thing about the Nab Tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nab_Tower

I did a trip over to the Isle of Wight on my bike, I took the train to Brading, and then cycled to Culver Down, actually, I pushed my bike for most of it, it is a pretty steep road up to the high point. I could definitely see it, but still not close enough. I considered hiring a boat to take me out to it (not to get on to it, just to see it close up).

I really wanted to get out and see it, and then we did a cruise to the Canaries, around 2016 time, and we passed quite close to it. I took a fair few pictures of it. Do you think I can find them? No, I do have to pictures off when we were on the cruise, but not the ones I was looking for.

Another trip I did was to Calshot, I timed it to be there for arrival of the cruise ships, which meant I needed to leave here about 3AM, that was a bit of an adventure.

These were some of the adventures I had under the Locality Banner. I need to resurrect that, because it really got me out and about.

Over the last few days, I’ve been busy churning stuff out about my interests. I’m not sure I’ve finished yet, but I am taking a break. Actually, the break is a juddering halt. Not to the 366, just tonight.

Tonight I am reverting to my technique for dealing with writers block, which is to write about it. Sometimes, what causes the block is my brain has so many things running through it that I can’t make up my mind what to write about. There was a bit of a focus in my mind, debating whether or not I should include ornithology in my list of interests. Well, I do like watching them, but I’m definitely not obsessed with them in the same way that I am with other things.

There’s a nature reserve not far from us, Titchfield. I’ve been there a few times, and have really enjoyed watching the birds. You have to pay to get in, and I have thought of buying an annual membership which would give me an incentive to go. Then I was watching the bird tables, and it was the sparrows that was making me smile. They are like mini vandals – they turn up in a gang. A bit like the starlings, they turn up encase, but they then spend most of the time arguing amongst themselves.

We get a lot of Canadian Geese here in Gosport. I love seeing them. They fly over in formation usually heading for one of several grazing points calling as they come in to land. Lovely to see.

The picture was an accident, but once again it’s one I like, the thing about it is the background would normally involve views of Portchester, but because it was misty, the background is almost the same colour as the sea, it’s not the mono aspect, I think it’s more the minimalism.

Over the last few days I’ve been giving you a run down on things that interest me;

• Astronomy
• Photography
• Pylons
• Clouds
• Meteorology
• Geology
• Writing
• Trains
• Railways
• Technology (context dependent)
• Microscopy
• Micrometeorites
• Locality

So, I’m interested in Astronomy, or Geology or trains. It’s good that I’m interested. But what does that mean; that I’m “Interested”? Do I want to get a PhD inn each of the subjects that I’m interested in? That would be nice but just a little bit impossible.

What I need then are a series of mini-projects, a goal something to aim for in each interest. For example, in Astronomy, I am ashamed to confess that I do not recognise all of the constellations. I think learning the constellations, one at a time – do I need to say that is northern hemisphere?

I’ll have to think about the other interests!