Bills Posts

No, the picture has absolutely nothing to do with sparrows, or my forgetting to do a post last night. Except a blind alley which is causing me a lot, and I mean a lot of frustration.

I’m playing with a spreadsheet, and I am trying to do something with the INDEX and MATCH functions, working on an array. The really annoying thing is, that I’ve done it once, and it works perfectly.T

I want to do something similar, further along in the spreadsheet, and do you think I can get the wretched thing to work? No, I can’t.

The hanging feeders have attracted a flock of half as dozen or so sparrows (house and garden by the looks of it). What I noticed was that the occasional one would be attracted in the morning, and may be a tenth of what was in the feeder may get eaten.

By the time for bed, the flock had been back almost emptied the feeder. They are also eating two fatballs per day. Lovely to see.

I was looking for a general picture of the high street. I was very surprised to find that searching back through all of the pictures I have taken in the last year, this was the closest I could get.

Gosport is like any town, it has its good bits, and it’s bad bits. I, personally, think that the high street could do with a bit of work. It remains to be seen of course how the new traffic flows on the cross streets will work, but as a shopping area, there are a couple of things missing.

As you might expect me to say, the first thing we need is a decent book shop, doesn’t have to be one of the chains, a good second hand one will do, especially since the closure of the British Heart Foundation, which had by far the best book section, and even that wasn’t fantastic, OK to moderately good I would say.

The next thing is a good technology shop. Now, there is CEX, but that is a 2nd hand place for tech. Where are the Dixon’s and the Tandy’s (Radio Shack)? They went decades ago.

I’m fine with the cafe culture, that’s OK, but is that tghe only thing to draw us there, when there isn’t a market on? Even then, when it’s not a “special” market, they do tend to be unexciting. I’m sorry, I’m having a bit of a down on the town at the moment.

When you pause for a second, and think just about the history that abounds in the town, you realise what potential it could have. All you need is the people with the vision and the nouse to make it happen.

Yes, yes, I know. The birds in the picture are not sparrows. I started getting serious about putting hanging feeders out a couple of weeks back.

I had been putting fat balls out, but the birds appeared not to like them. I admit, they were cheep. 150 for £17. Who would. Think sparrows would be so fussy? They barely went near them.

QI bought some that I thought were of a better quality, and the birds are getting through about two per day, which is north bad going, but they are still not the ones I really want. I haven’t given up looking.

Then, there is the birdseed. This no-grow, no waste seed is sitting a four slot feeder, and the birds are almost emptying it every day. IT seems that there is a group of about half a dozen sparrows that have adopted our feeding station. We can be sat in the garden and they always appear from the eastern side, I do wonder if they move between stations,

I love it, I love having birds in the garden. I wish I could get them to understand that I would never harm them, and that they are quite safe from us (not sure about the cat though).

I would like to plan some blogging activities. In order to do that I need to do things. Like for example, getting up in the mornings and going for a walk on a regular basis. I can’t be 100% certain of doing that, but I will try.

I continue to read The Plantagenets, we are approaching an interesting time in history, and I’m only a third of the way through the book. The author, Dan Jones, writes a very readable history. The book refers to Portsmouth, but frustratingly, not Gosport. But why should it? Although the town and its fortifications will form an important part of the defence of Portsmouth, if not England, the Manor of Gosport only came in to being in 1204, granted by the Bishop of Westminster. That importance will not become reasonably important for a couple of centuries.

Vlogging remains a determination of intent on my part. But what and when remains to be determined. In the meantime, as I mentioned recently, I should take the opportunity to practice filming in public. I need to get my tripod and wireless mic out again.

Then of course, there are the various activities that are afoot in town, the activities that the cross street and the bus station developments are progressing, but as I have done a fairly extensive update on facebook only on Friday, I shan’t be doing one tomorrow.

Let’s see how we get on shall we?

I went into The Range today (well, it was yesterday, but that’s part of the distraction, I’ll write about that in a minute) I was looking for Ericacious compost, which until a couple of weeks ago I had never heard of, and of which until a couple of minutes before walking in to The Range I had no idea what it was for (Thank you Gosport, for having an excellent 4G service, and to Google for supplying the answer) that it is used for plants that prefer acidic soil. They didn’t have any out the front so I walked in to the gardening section as I turned into the aisle which as it happened had bird & pet food in it, I saw the discerning pigeon I walked slowly and it trotted along, pausing occasionally I presume to consider the benefits of mealworms over guinea pig food, it did not seem in the least bit bothered by my presence, until of course, i intruded into its personal space, at which it trotted off at speed.

I should explain the mix up with yesterday and today, I am writing this at ten minutes to one in the morning. Having realised that I hadn’t done the blog (and I had a good idea of what I was going to write as that is in the previous paragraph) I have been playing with excel and was having so much fun (no, seriously, I was) that I lost track of time, and it was only when I picked up my IPad to do the nights post, that I realised the significance of the time and thought “Oh Dear, I’ve missed the boat, and now the counter will be back to zero” – so frustrating.

Anyway, I am now going to post this, shut down my I-Pad so that I have no screens to upset my internal clock and return to my book on the Plantagenets. That’s getting interesting, King John is upsetting everybody with his harsh justice, and inclination to tax everything and I think we are heading toward a big event (said somewhat tongue in cheek, as I think I know what’s coming). It’s getting so exciting. So, I’m going to say good night and wish all my readers well. Apparently, there are 67 of you now. Thank you so much for sticking with me.

I have been reading The Plantagenets I’m at present reading about King. John, it’s around 1204 or 1205, John has lost nearly all his lands in France, and is becoming dependent on income only from England.

I’ve been reading that King John is moving around the country, a lot. Taking with him a huge entourage, his court.

The question is, imagined that the King is somewhere in the south of England. A member of the aristocracy who lives in York needs to get an urgent message to him. He gives the message to a courier who sets off on their horse to deliver it. How do they know where to go?

This is where ChatGPTv4 can be very useful. You can ask the question phrased almost exactly like that.

It turns out that the king lodges an itinerary with his administrators in London, so the messenger will go there first. From there onwards, if the king has deviated from the schedule then the courier must just ask around, obvious and simple really. Interesting.

I’ve never vlogged, video’d a couple of very short (what is the correct terminology – what would have made it easy would have been to say either; I videoed a couple of short videos, but that doesn’t feel right. I filmed a couple of short videos? Now, that “feels” right, but is it appropriate to use the reference to a technology (film) that although it does the same thing, really couldn’t be much different, is even the term video correct, as that implies video tape, and I am talking about digitally recorded images, I recorded some shots ({singular?), no, scenes – no, I don’t like that.

I think I’ll stick with I filmed a couple of videos, it’s much simpler.

I obviously haven’t given up with the desire to vlog, it’s just I am not inspired at the moment, literally – there’s nothing there. I think I need to find a focus. Then a thought occurs to me; I could use this lack of drive to film a particular thing, I could use this time to practice my technique, and I still have this issue with filming (videoing, no, I’m not going to go there, I’ll stick with filming) in public, I almost got over it at one point. This could be an opportunity to crack that problem.

This plaque is on the front of the Alverbank Hotel, which is behind Bay house School, which houses the Marine Centre, which is the current home of the Gosport Society.

The Gosport Society is not just a historical body, because it has close links with Gosport Borough Council and is regularly invited to comment on planning applications within town, and is also associated with the Gosport Heritage Zone Project.

I joined a few years ago, mainly because of the historical aspect plus they were having some very interesting presentations. I gave up membership as we got closer to the move to Dorset, but have now rendered contact with the society. Tonight’s meeting was the AGM.

The Chair of GS when delivering his report, told about a plan that amused me, and which I think would be fun to go and see. During the Civil War in the 1650’s and 6t0’s Gosport was taken over by Parliamentarians and Portsmouth by Royalists, the two towns exchanged several cannonballs Portsmouth’s cathedral was damaged and I believe one person killed, although I’m not sure which side they were.

Anyhow, it turns out that there was never a peace treaty signed at the end of the war (I know peace treaties between towns weren’t the norm, but lets pretend) so they are preparing a ceremony that will take place at Battery No. 1 (next to Trinity Church) where a peace treaty will be signed. I’m sure there will be some argy-bargy before the ceremony.

With a risk of duplicating some of this morning’s walking report on FaceBook, it was just too bright to not get up for a walk. I went out in just a t-shirt. That was almost, kind of a mistake. The wind was cold, not just chilled, cold. I should really have come back to the house and picked a fleece or something.

I normally try and avoid the sun, but this morning I made a point of trying to stay in it as much as possible. There was bit of a problem, the high street was completely shaded. I just walked down the middle of the street. It was OK.

I did talk about the water front frustration, a rather spectacular sailing cruise ship was due to come in, but I couldn’t hang around and wait.

Still it was a pleasant walk, and I’m glad I went.

The picture was taken at Lee-on-the-Solent, the closest I could get to Titchfield. Somebody asked today, why was Titchfield a historic town, and I had to look the answer up.

It’s played a significant role at certain points in in history, it’s abbey was established in 1231, and was visited by Henry VI and was used as a hideout by Charles 1 during the civil war.

It also has links with Shakespeare.

I wonder if its 13th century church was restored by the victorians (called vandalism by others). It was an important market town, and a a busy port until that silted up.

I think it’s quite reasonable for it to claim its historic status.