I don’t use Spotify and now I barely use Twitter, FaceBook Instagram etc. What does that make me? Well I suspect fairly unusual – better? I doubt that. One consequences of this digital hermit lifestyle is I don’t follow the latest whatever social media trend and I mostly sleep well at night. Am I disenfranchised? I don’t think so I just have too many other things going on in my life to really notice or care about the constant binary babble.
So what does any of this have to do with this image you might ask? In one sense nothing. But in a chronological sense it reflects the many changes in my life since it was captured in the early days of 2007. I have changed so much and so has the world. Back then I liked to keep abreast of the latest technological developments. Now I’m not that fussed. Getting old is a strange thing – it certainly changes your view of the world. I guess you see the emperor’s new clothes for what they are.
Of course not being on Twitter et al how would I know?
So in just over a month’s time it will never be possible to capture such an image again. Ratcliffe upon Trent power station, the final coal powered power station in Britain, will be slowly powered down and the fires steadily extinguished. Something that has, for much of my life, just been there will slowly disappear, perhaps not as suddenly as the collieries that once served her or her other sisters along the banks of the River Trent with an ending supply of coal. Yet it is now ending. I know and accept the clear arguments for moving to a more ecologically sustainable power supply. Yet I will miss her.
The nights are drawing in. This morning dawn wasn’t until just after 5 am. Shocking!
I was out and about capturing images from one of my favourite parts of the world – the Welland Valley. It doesn’t matter how many times I visit I always find there is something new to take in. Here endeth the promo for the Harborough District Council tourist board (I doubt such a thing exists.). I had been out and about on Friday with my good friend David but that was during the bright summer light. This morning it was mellow mists and radiant ironstone buildings.
On the road again in chocolate box country or should that be Jane Austen? This is what the early 19th century looked like – right?
In Austen’s time, as well as her literature, the Church of England was very rich. It had huge tithes coming in from the booming agriculture sector to pay for the upkeep of the church. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case in St. James’ Church, Horninghold. This once proud building is slowly rotting away.
I have made a profound self discovery! My playlist of One Hit Wonders is very similar to my favourites playlist. What that says about me is anybody’s idea and to be quite honest I am rapidly reaching the point in my journey through the cosmos that I don’t really care what other people think.
There reaches a point in most people’s life that you start to realise that the number of morning’s you have in front of you is less than you have already enjoyed/endured (I am also old enough to realise that too many people never have the opportunity to reach this philosophical point. I’m not sure whether this qualifies as a first world problem because my career has introduced me to some of the shittist human experiances by people also living in the first world – as a species we leave a lot to be desired!)
Yesterday, I spent the day walking around one of my favourite places – Hidcote and I captured many images of the beautiful flowers. However, I have been drawn to the more reportage/street photography images. Which, Mr Spock might say is ‘fascinating’
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” –
Douglas Adams
Every now and then, on a clear night, we should just look up and marvel at the majesty of it all. Of course in many places around the world that is just not possible due to light pollution I feel sorry for you.
Or you could have some expensive camera gear and capture an image of the most familiar object in the night sky. Then perhaps while editing the resultant image you zoom in on the inky black background to the image and…
I have just finished watching the latest Star Wars TV series ‘The Acolyte‘ and I have to say it really didn’t work for me. This is a shame because I wanted it work but it didn’t. Now of course I could start off on a clickbait attention seeking rant about this but that is not really my style. If I like something I like it. Equally if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t. I didn’t hate it or anything like that it just didn’t work.
My son thinks it is really good so it just depends on your individual tastes.
However, if I was to throw faint praise on The Acolyte then it wasn’t anything like as bad as Ahsoka which again was a real shame. I guess this puts much greater pressure on the second season of Andor
Remember the year when Summer never really started? Instead all we experienced was a series of damp days with the occasional sunny day scattered randomly amongst them. No? well perhaps I’m a bit older than you. Or perhaps it is just a trick of an ever more decrepit mind giving up the ghost…Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Whatever the case it has certainly been a disappointing summer so far. Of course the truth is that there are millions of people around the world who might enjoy a cool damp day or two – perhaps help save their subsistence crop that is dying in the strong remorseless sun. Sometimes when moaning about one’s lot it helps to realise that many more people would love to have such problems.
So here it is the first attack on the incredible Labour victory – attack the percentage of the vote. Now I don’t remember the Daily Mail complaining about the size of the percentage of the vote cast over the previous 4 general elections.
As can be seen from the table above over the 14 years of the last Conservative governing period the Tories have gained 288 more MPs than they were entitled to if we go by the vote share. But we do not use a Proportional Representation System to select our MPs. We use first past the post method and so it doesn’t really matter what the overall percentage is. What really matters is the efficiency of the vote distribution between constituencies . What this means is to win a seat a candidate needs one more vote than the candidate with the second highest number of votes – every other vote above that is wasted. However, if a political party were to be able to spread the voters out more evenly over more constituencies then they are likely to win more seats. This is what Labour achieved at this election.
To illustrate this point further just compare the number of seats that Labour won in 2019 to 2024. In 2019 Labour won 32% of the vote, just under 3 % less 2024 yet they crashed to one of their worst defeats with only 209 seats compared to 412 seats in 2024. It doesn’t matter how much Jeremy Corbyn might claim that he got almost the same size of the vote as Sir Keir Starmer. His record was disastrous when it comes to converting the number of votes cast for Labour into seats won. This lesson was well learnt by Sir Keir Starmer and today he sits in No. 10 and Jeremy Corbyn sits in his allotment shed. (I know he was re-elected but as an independent.)
Now I am not defending our voting system it is just that Labour really really played system to its own advantage. I might have more sympathy with those gnashing their teeth over Labour’s percentage of the vote if they had been complaining over the last 4 elections when the Liberal Democrats should have received an extra 236 MPs to the number they got. They did not.
Another attack on Labour is that their small percentage of the vote means they are vulnerable at the 2029 General Election. This is just nonsense. Back in 2019, after the General Election, Boris Johnson was master of all her surveyed and there was talk of him winning another two General Elections. How did that work out for him?
We live in a volatile world and now it would seem that that volatility is matched by the British electors behaviour when they vote. I have no idea what will happen between now and 2029 but I doubt the percentage of the vote Labour received in 2024 will have much influence at the next general Election.
So it is election day, you’ve cast your vote, what do you do then? The answer to that is as varied as the number of people who bothered to vote. For me it was a steady trundle up the M1 to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) and the new Bharti Kher exhibition. Well what can I say other than I was underwhelmed. Far more cogent reviewers of art than me would be able to dissect why was that might be. Having sort of slept on in it for a couple of days (not sure what might also have been on my mind?) all I can come up with is a deep breath followed by a large sigh. It was not one of the most memorable exhibitions I have experienced at the YSP
Of all the pieces the full body casts of the sex workers, see above, had the most impact.
Your mileage may well vary but for me it just didn’t work.
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