Documenting long forgotten history, especially in my home county of Worcestershire. Neolithic to Roman and 1939 onwards history. Bit hazy about the bit i...
1 : something devised or contrived: such as a(1) : a piece of equipment or a mechanism designed to serve a special purpose or perform a special function Merriam-Webster Dictionary I'm not, it must be said, the worlds most practical man. I can do a few things however, and have enough practical background to recognise when something is a truly beautiful example of a tool. Something made to be used,…
Day out to an orchid nursery - pretty pics below. Came back with a new Paph (one of those photographed, but mine isn't in bloom and a very cute new Neo (vanda) falcata
Since doing an awful lot of thinking about the value of books my brain has gone down some weird rabbit holes. 20 odd years ago, in a different life when I was a different person, I very briefly worked for a company involved in book data. At the time, as now, I had a deep love of books, but the company and life moved in other directions and I was only there for about 9 months. In the same period I…
I've been going down lots of rabbit holes on finding new blogs last day or so - mostly tech as that’s what there is, some accessibility (in tech), some books (about tech) etc etc. Today I was met with this. Look I know I know only too well this is a result of ridiculous UK Internet law. I know its a problem brought about by various streams of idiotic, tech illiterate, hateful UK political…
Time for a minor orchid update. First off the UK has essentially been seeing temperatures in the high 20s°C and regularly over 30°C since May. This summer has been the hottest and driest I can remember. I largely grow cool growing cloud forest orchids in a grow tent under L.e.d lights in my garage. It should be cool enough in the summer and able to be heated easily and cheaply in the winter. This…
They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em. Rage against the machine - Bulls on parade There's been a lot of discourse on my remaining social media this week about certain AI companies purchasing what used to be called 'long tail' books when I worked in a book data company (admittedly it was a long time ago). The purpose being, that these books of all types are a form of undigested, pre…
I wasn't going to give this church a full post as it was more an amusing distraction on a hike than a destination in its own right, but I decided it had enough interest to warrant its own post. First off, I'm not going to say where this church is, although its not a secret. I am in a round about and slightly pretentious way, making the point that the breadth of the UK is filled with places like…
This is a slight precursor to launching my other blog page on fully researching and documenting the entire remaining parts of Western Command Stop Line No 28 / Teme stop line . Of the defences put in place in 1940-41 to prevent an assumed German Nazi invasion of the United Kingdom and especially the defences around Worcestershire to prevent or slow the invasion reaching the industrial heartland of…
In the earlier blog about the actual castle at Richards Castle , I looked briefly at the history of the castle ruins, but this also is tied to a rather nice church just in front. St Bartholomew’s, Richard’s Castle is no longer a working parish church, but is still consecrated ground and now run by the Churches Conservation Trust (to whom I really should become a member). The church was originally…
I'm a bit late to this party, a number of bloggers and social media people have been posting about the XTEINK x4 e-reader for some time. But mine has turned up so I'm now getting around to doing my version. I ordered mine direct from the manufacturer and it came from China in around a week. Apparently 3rd party sellers might be cheaper but lock the firmware (not entirely but its an added…