Random Bloggages

The Royal Mail

2009-10-29T18:08:00.006Z

I had some post delivered this morning, which was quite a surprise in view of the Royal Mail strike.

I'm not at all sure how solid the strike is. I went for a walk earlier today, and, in the course of about three miles, I saw two postmen delivering mail, another emptying a pillar box, a Parcelforce van making deliveries, another Post Office van lurking at the side of the road and a postwoman apparently on her way home after work. Make of that lot what you may.

What did surprise me is that a number of post boxes (three out of the seven I passed on my walk) had been partially blocked up and would only accept small envelopes. According to signs placed on the boxes, this is due to "...persistent attacks with fireworks on this Postbox in previous years..."

All very strange. I've lived in this area for over thirty years, and I've never heard of any of these boxes being attacked with fireworks. What can it possible mean? I don't know, but I think we should be told.

Phenology: Steep Holm Peonies

2009-10-29T09:54:00.003Z

I've just noticed that my Steep Holm peonies (Paeonia mascula) have already produced the first shoots of next year's growth. I thought that they were very early on December 9 last year, but this is definitely the earliest appearance that they've ever made.

Comma

2009-09-19T21:01:00.001+01:00

A comma (Polygonia c-album) in our garden today.

I don't think I've ever seen one here before, but then I probably haven't been paying attention.

St Nicholas

2009-09-12T18:22:00.003+01:00

Today was Open Doors Day in Bristol which offered the chance to delve into some places not usually open to the public.

One of these was St Nicholas church. The church is redundant and, although I have been inside when it was a tourist information centre, it's now the offices of Bristol and Region Archaeological Services, so it was interesting to see what's become of it.

All I can say is that this is the sort of office I should like to work in. I wonder if it's too late to retrain as an archaeologist.

Google, Books and Copyright

2009-08-30T17:52:00.012+01:00

There's an article by William Skidelsky in this week's Observer that examines Google's book digitisation project.

It's an interesting piece, but Skidelsky is wrong when he states that "Outside the US, Google has made sure only to scan books that are out of copyright..." I can say this with a considerable degree of certainty, because a number of books of mine have been digitised: the four volumes of the Abstract of Bristol Historical Statistics published by the University of the West of England (Poor Law Statistics 1835-1948, Unemployment Statistics 1910-1997, Political Representation and Bristol's Elections 1700-1997 and Health Statistics 1838-1995) and The Bristol Coal Industry.

The Abstract of Bristol Historical Statistics was co-authored with a number of colleagues at UWE and the copyright is owned by the university, so all I can do is to assert my moral rights as one of the authors.

The Bristol Coal Industry, however, is all my own work. It may be a fairly insignificant pamphlet, but I own the copyright and I object to it being copied by anyone without my permission.

Google has reached an agreement with US authors over copyright. The trouble with this is that it's largely incomprensible and I'm not at all sure that anyone really knows what effect it has on authors based outside the USA.

I'm awaiting future developments with considerable interest, although not necessarily of a financial nature.

Temple Way House Redevelopment

2009-08-13T17:44:00.004+01:00

Building work still hasn't started and the site is deserted.

Art Criticism

2009-08-13T17:24:00.005+01:00

I see that someone has taken a dislike to the Banksy mural in Park Street, Bristol.

Wildlife Garden Report No 5

2009-08-02T20:35:00.004+01:00

For the last three years or so, I've been trying to make my garden more welcoming to wildlife.

It's not been easy.

Although our house is built on what used to be a market garden, one of the first things that the builders did when they moved in was to strip off all the topsoil and cart it away. What they left behind was a steeply-sloping garden which has no more than two or three inches of compacted soil over the underlying limestone.

Strawberries used to be grown here, but now it's a real problem to grow anything at all, even wild flowers don't seem to like it.

One of my most successful decisions has been to stop mowing the lawn and cut the grass with shears every two or three weeks instead. This year I've noticed a big increase in the number of butterflies and bumblebees in the garden, and today I found three frogs lurking in the grass. They were the first that I've seen since the three that I saw squashed in the road at Kewstoke and Sand Bay in February. My garden is particularly dry and I don't think I've ever seen a frog there in thirty-four years, so I like to think that their presence today shows that I'm doing something right.

Painted Ladies

2009-06-26T23:57:00.005+01:00

On 29 May I wrote about the arrival of a large number of painted lady butterflies (Cynthia cardui).

According to the July/August issue of the Bulletin of the Bristol Naturalists' Society the numbers arriving in the UK this year are the highest since 1996, largely due to a population explosion caused by heavy winter rains in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

They started to arrive over the weekend of 23/24/25 May and at one stage wardens at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire counted 3,000 in 45 minutes.

Moths

2009-06-23T21:16:00.006+01:00

There are six-spot burnets (Zygaena filipendulae) on the dunes at Sand Bay.

There are only a few of them at the moment and they seem to be somewhat preoccupied with each other.

Last year I first noticed them on 24 July; by that stage they were already present in large numbers, with most of them to be found on ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) flowers. Very few ragwort plants are in bloom yet, and it looks as if there will be eggs and caterpillars soon, so I hope to see the numbers of moths increase over the next few weeks.

Kodachrome

2009-06-22T17:00:00.008+01:00

Kodak have announced that Kodachrome is to be discontinued.

I've been using Kodachrome in one form or another for nearly forty years. I first encountered Kodachrome 64 in 126 cartridges in the early 1970s, progressing to the wonderful fine-grained Kodachrome 25 when I bought my first 35mm camera, a Zorki 4K, in 1977. By the time that Kodachrome 200 was introduced, I'd got an SLR with some faster lenses, making year-round use possible. Finally, when I bought myself a medium-format camera, there was Kodachrome 64 in 120 rolls.

Now, only the 35mm version of Kodachrome 64 is left, and it looks as if it will only be in the shops for a few more months.

I'm not really surprised by this, since film use is declining rapidly as the quality of digital cameras rises, but...

Kodachrome first appeared in the 1930s. It's always been a difficult film to process, and there have only ever been a few labs that felt it was worthwhile to invest in the equipment needed to process it. Its colour rendering isn't the best available, but it's always been predictable and, more importantly, it's stable: Kodachrome colours stay the same as they were on the day the film was processed.

I've been looking through some old slides dating back to the 1950s. The Ilford has deteriorated badly; the Fujichrome which produced better colours than Kodachrome in the 1970s now has a strong purple cast; the colours of Adox and Perutz are still very good, but those films haven't been made for years. Only Kodachrome and Ektachrome are still the same, and I think that I prefer the colours of the former. I could get very sentimental about the imperfect colours of Orwochrom or the coarse grain of GAF 500, but I won't go into that now.

Kodak are recommending Professional Ektar 100 and Professional Ektachrome E100G as potential replacements. I'll try them both, as part of my strategy of shooting film backups of my digital work, but things will never be quite the same again.

Bristol Museum vs Banksy

2009-06-16T23:20:00.007+01:00

Banksy used to be controversial, but since his mural in Park Street attracted the support of Bristolians in 2006, he seems to have become part of the local establishment. In fact, he's now such a part of the establishment that a major exhibition of his work at is being staged at Bristol City Museum.

I went to take a look at the exhibition today. I've never seen so many people in the museum. This is some of what I saw.

And one question for the museum staff: what have you done with Edward Lear's painting of Thermopylae? Please go and find it and put it back.

Blue Tits

2009-06-06T18:28:00.000+01:00

This afternoon I spent rather more time than was probably sensible standing in the garden, in the rain, watching a family of young blue tits (Parus caeruleus) learning to fly. They've still got quite a lot to learn, as I had to duck to avoid one of them flying into my face.

Canada Geese

2009-06-05T18:02:00.005+01:00

I haven't been able to visit UWE for over a month, so when I finally managed to get there today I was surprised to see that the Canada geese that built their nest in a flowerbed have actually managed to produce four very healthy (and by now rather large) goslings.

Slow Worm

2009-06-04T19:32:00.000+01:00

Today I found a dead slow worm (Anguis fragilis) beside the road near my house. Slow worms are the only reptiles I've ever seen around here and unfortunately they always seem to be dead.

Foxes

2009-05-30T10:10:00.002+01:00

I looked out of the window at 3.30 this morning and saw two foxes, one chasing the other down the road.

Phenology: Painted Ladies

2009-05-29T22:22:00.004+01:00

A large number of painted lady butterflies (Cynthia cardui) have arrived in Weston-super-Mare today, probably migrants from Europe or north Africa. There are more than I can remember seeing in recent years and it will be interesting to see how many more arrive over the next few days.

Caterpillar

2009-05-22T16:58:00.002+01:00

A large, unidentified caterpillar that I found in a bush near the front door today. I can't help thinking that it won't be there for very long before something eats it.

Badger

2009-05-18T10:13:00.002+01:00

At 3.00 this morning a badger turned my dustbin over and started ripping open all the rubbish bags inside. It completely ignored me when I switched on the lights and banged on the window, and only ran off when I shouted at it.

Much as I like badgers, I wish they wouldn't do this sort of thing.

I saw this...

2009-05-09T19:34:00.005+01:00

...at Sand Bay today.

I don't know what it's called, but if I was twenty years youger and didn't have a gammy leg I'd quite like to try it

Phenology: Swifts

2009-05-07T21:07:00.003+01:00

I saw the first swift (Apus apus) of the year today, skimming low over the dunes at Sand Bay.

Rabbits

2009-04-29T20:14:00.003+01:00

Just to prove that Canada geese aren't the only animals to laugh in the face of natural selection, the rabbits at UWE are still showing their contempt for passing traffic and pedestrians.

Canada Geese

2009-04-29T20:07:00.000+01:00

Showing wonderful good sense, a pair of Canada geese have built their nest in a flowerbed just outside one of the main entrances to UWE. They don't seem to be bothered by the people or the cars that are constantly passing by, and I only hope that they don't attract the attention of any foxes.

Phenology: Cuckoo Pints

2009-04-20T18:48:00.000+01:00

The cuckoo pints (Arum maculatum) that I first noticed at Kewstoke on 29 December have finally flowered.

Speckled Wood

2009-04-20T16:31:00.004+01:00

A speckled wood (Pararge aegeria tircis) in the garden today.