Bills Posts

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.

Well, that’s the thing. I can’t really, not while I am in work, and definitely not for official bodies like charities. Way too much responsibility. Plus even within clubs, I have a habit of joining a club, and then getting on the committee.

When I do get on a committee, it might be with some ideas as to what I want my role to do, but I’m never good enough for it, so end up getting stressed and dropping the role suddenly. Not good for me of the body concerned.

So, by all means join clubs but just don’t take on any responsibilities., well, nothing more than organising the occasional breakfast. I seem to manage those. I’d like to do another, but I just need to buck up the courage to get back in to it, and would anyone be interested?

What a lovely day, we left mid morning to make our way over to Southsea common, near the navel memorial, there were stalls and activities and I think several thousand people, bringing to an end the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Without doubt the climax of the day was the display by the Red Arrows, and although there was a lot of fairly low cloud around, they as usual put on a magnificent show, it was really lovely to see them.

They were supported earlier on by a parachute jump, it was difficult to tell, but I think the team was drawn from across the services;

Always impressive to see them.

As you can imagine, the rush to get away meant that it was very difficult to get a bus and pretty much impossible to get a taxi (to be honest, we didn’t even try), so we ended up walking back to the hard to get the ferry home. Elayne did really well.

This is going to be one of those really short posts.

There, I told you.

Ok, if you’ve read this already, my apologies I wanted to get something down.

I’m bothered by the absence of any motivation to vlog. A few months ago I was really chomping at the bit to produce video, but at the time I was being driven by the move to Dorset, and knew what I wanted to vlog about.

At the moment, I’m not getting the same connection with Hampshire I was very keen to connect with all things pre-historic. It really isn’t the same here.

I do have to admit though, that there is a lot of recorded history here, and I’m keen to learn more about it.

At about 9PM last night, I had a thought that I need to do a blog entry. That was. It, the last thought I had about it. Until I woke up that morning that is.

Obviously, I didn’t do a post last night. I’ve missed nights before, it doesn’t really matter. But what it means is that my post counter goes back to zero. I’d got to 76 – I’d posted for 76 consecutive days. It would have been nice to have reached 100.

Oh well, we’ll start again.

There’s no point in ignoring that there is an election on. During the election period, I become increasingly frustrated (I was already frustrated) at the lack of a local newspaper, whether hard copy or digital.

I’m not satisfied with the lack of that service. Can’t do anything about it though. Can I?