Bills Posts

Walking over the bridge I was greeted by a collection of swans that must have decided that I was going to give them lunch, because they all started to come towards me. It was only after I had offered my most profuse apologies that they realised I was of no use to them that they turned away from me in disgust and resumed normal grazing.

It turns out that a few swans I called a bevy. A lot of swans is called a bank. A group of swans in flight is called a wedge. I’m going to guess that around 40 or more swans is at least a bank.

We went to a birthday party today. The husband of a friend and former colleague of Elayne’s, 60th birthday. A very pleasant afternoon and evening.

The picture has nothing to do with the topic of this evenings post.

I wrote a bit of a skit on a whatsapp group that went along the lines of I had a conversation with the Station Manager (my wife, Elayne – Radio Amateurs call their their partner “The Station Manager”) around some rubbish bins were left in a bit of a state, well to be honest they were absolutely rammed. The expression I used was “that you and common sense are on diverging paths”. We were both laughing about it, as her riposte was; “Well, you should empty them more frequently” – fair enough/. I got the usual comments of “we’ll visit you in hospital”

Anyhow, I had entitled the message Danger Zones, but that then led me onto thoughts of a topic for tonight’s post. Now bear in mind that was at about 9AM. It is now 10PM.

At the time I had the danger zones though, I said to myself, I’ll need to write that down, because I though it was quite funny, and may have given you a bit of a giggle.

Of course, I didn’t write it down. And of course, I can’t remember what was soo funny. Hence the title of todays post.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading the book about TED talks, the situation about the Gosport TEDx hasn’t been sorted as far as I’m aware, and that means that I am back onto the history book again. This Tim about the early Stuart Monarchy, with James VI of Scotland not yet crowned king of England.

The first 40 or so pages have been about the state of politics in the British Isles, I don’t know why I’m surprised that things, society, appear to be so well organised. perhaps it was at the kings level, but what was the rest of society like?

Just to go back to TED for a moment, there have been two distinct occasions when I have stood in front of a reasonable (50+) people and delivered a presentation. The last time was 2005 (talks delivered via Teams don’t count in my eyes. The experiences were a little bit stressful, but overall I recall enjoying them.

I’d quite like to have another go.

There may be a bit of a problem with the TEDx scheduled for Gosport in November. I don’t have the full story yet, and hopefully I will find out soon, but I had an interesting phone call this morning. A bit of intrigue? Possibly.

In the meantime, I’m having a bit of fun developing a hypothetical TEDx talk myself, that I would like to try and deliver if I ever get the chance. That sounds a bit ambitious doesn’t it? Like I say, it’s all a bit of fun.

I’ve spoken in the past about the Richard Martin Gallery on Stokes Road. I’m waiting until Friday when I will be able to pop in and see him. I want to have a chat with him about the gallery window where he displays his books. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’ve just read through a planning application for the old bus station, including its demolition. There were a couple of things in the application that concerned me. One relatively minor was this plan didn’t include anything happening to the ferry ticket office. I wonder if that is because activity relating it (the ferry office) is covered in a previous, still valid plan.

Some interesting issues afoot. I’ll try and keep track of them.

I don’t have a picture that captures the essence of tonight’s club activity, so I’ve used one of the pictures I took on this morning’s walk. I must admit, when I took the picture I didn’t notice the ring of light arcing across the top of the ship from the tip of the Spinnaker.

Anyhow, back to the camera club. The instruction was to take our cameras in, as tonight we would be learning how to use the flash. There were some setups, where we could practice. Steve was looking for volunteers to model, so I stood up. I sat in a chair blowing bubbles for half an hour or so. People seemed to enjoy my bubble blowing. I took a few pictures when the next model took over.

I didn’t use any of the other setups, but I did have a very pleasant evening.

Last night I finished the current book, I had taken a bit of a break from my journey through history to read TED Talks The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. A very interesting book. I must admit, I did know that TED talks existed, but really had no idea what it is all about. I have to say that the book has been a bit of an eye opener.

One thing in particular I found out about is TEDx. TEDx Talks are local events organised under licence. Normally they are much cheaper to attend than a full blown TED talk. I looked at the website to see where nearest TEDx event was going to be, and lo and behold, there is one being organised in Gosport, for November this year. I am going to find out about it. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I went for a walk this afternoon. I wanted to try out a new videoing set up, it did mean walking around town carrying something a bit strange; monopod, with a bracket upon which were mounted the GoPro and the iPhone.

The thing I wanted to do was get a record of all of the commercial units on the high street. I walked from the Morrisons end toward the waterfront, taking pictures of the north side of the street.

Towards the ferry end, I almost got waylaid by some chuggers (charity under the guise of research) I have to confess, I told a blatant fib to get away from them. I don’t know why I just didn’t walk away from them.

I finished the north side, went to the waterfront front and did a bit of videoing sat down and watched the waterfront for a few minutes and then returned taking pictures of the southside.

It was as I was nearing the end of the part of the exercise that I was passed by a young man heading towards the ferry, as he passed me, he said quite distinctly “Weirdo”.

I stopped and called out did you call me a weirdo, I said I wasn’t photographing you, I’m not interested in you. I’m quite happy to explain what I am doing and why. I think the fact that I challenged him caught him offguard. I said again that I was happy to explain. He said have a good life and walked off. I sat on the conservative club (closed down. Probably to be converted into a pub). I recorded a bit of video explaining what had just happened and how I felt about it. I may post that once I’ve reviewed it.

How do I feel about it? Well, what I was doing was innocent, I need feel no guilt about it, I will do it again, and I will happily talk to anyone about what I am doing and why. I do it out of interest, and something to keep me occupied in spare time, and possibly retirement (not a full time activity I hasten to add). Does that make me a weirdo? Perhaps in some peoples eyes, when they see me out with my gadget stick, and no context as to what I am doing – it’s an interest, almost a hobby and that’s it.

I felt “normal” when I got up this morning and that feeling continued right up until just before lunchtime. We had family around so it was going to be a big meal, lots of veg to prepare it was all fine, the family turned up, all lovely and good and then I sat down.

I immediately came over all tired and could barely stay awake. I enjoyed the meal, it was lovely, and then I moved back to the comfy chair and the tiredness hit again.

It ended up with going to lay on, not in, the bed at about 5pm. I slept. I surfaced long enough just before 8pm to tell my friend Pete that I wouldn’t be on the radio the radio this evening and then spent the next hour or so drifting in and out of sleep.

It’s 2142 now, and all of a sudden I feel the closest to being normal since about 1PM. I don’t know what’s going on but I am going to read for a bit and then try and get a nights sleep- let’s see how that goes!

several years ago, I bought a Gopro. These cameras produce imgaes of an amazing quality. Yet I have mostly ignored it. Probably because I think, it means carrying another tool (the camera). But in reality it is compact, easily fits in the pocket and not heavy.

I don’t know what made me get it out, b ut having done so, and having had a bit of a play with it I am slightly more than annoyed with myself for having neglected this amazing tool.

But what then happens to my phone? The main thing is that it is still a very important tool, but there will be circumstances where it will take second place. On the otherhand, there is an immediacy of the availability of material recorded on the phone, whereas there is a very mildly annoying separate process whereby I have to access the camera through an app on my phone, and transfer media off. The good things with this are; that if the camera is turned off, accessing the app automaticually turns it on, transfers the media and turns the camera off – pretty seamless. The media is stored in my online account and is immediately accessible from my desk top and can be transferred out, so that’s good. Fairly straighforward really, and mostly pretty seemless.

I need to reconfigure my working arrangements slightly to fully incorporate the gopro, but I have most of what I need. All I need to do is get out and record some video.

I’m not sure how this snail got to the top of the bird table, but if it did climb up, and I have found snails half way up the post before, well done to it. I couldn’t bring myself to take it off. I’ll check in the morning to see where it got to.

Snails are fascinating beasties, and whilst I do sometimes tread on them I am always sorry when I do so, as I don’t like hurting/killing them.

We spent a bit of time working in the garden today, and I put some food on the bird table, the pigeons and starlings were getting a good meal as I had left the screen mesh open so they the pigeons and starlings can get in and clear the table.

I had a pleasant few minutes cutting back the centre of our olive tree and then cut the grass.

This is a picture converted to mono of some litter that was thrown in to the Cockleponds, something which doubly annoys the heck out of me; the fact that people treat these lovely resources with such disdain and disrespect and the fact that for some reason the pictures really appeal to me. I can no more tell you why than I could flap my arms and fly.

So what’s with the title “is there a point” and this one is version two. In last nights post (if you read it) I mentioned briefly about shop units on the high street being converted in to flats. There are several application in for this kind of change now. The question I have is;

When does a high street stop being a high street and become little more than a housing district? Annoyingly, as customers who use the high street, there is little we can do about it. Partly because we are so wedded to online shopping, and partly because running a shop I suspect has become so expensive as to be impractical. It is surprising how many new shops open, only to close a short time later.

These questions go through my mind.