Simon's Blog

I have strange cloud of melancholia washing over me as I write this.   The MA course that I had started but couldn’t finish has just ended.  I am sad about this but I know I made the right decision.  Anyway, may I take this opportunity to wish all of the remaining students on the course all the best.

Now on to the blue tits.   We have put up a number of nest boxes n the garden this year and to date only one has been used by a family of blue tits.  Over the past few days the chicks have become louder and louder as they demand more and more food from their parents.   The chicks are starting to pop their heads out into the wide world and so today I thought I would take sometime to record this.   

The blue tits are incredibly pugnacious.  They will tell you to get of the way whilst they go and feed their chicks and we have become obedient to their shrill demands.  This makes it sound that we are bothering the birds, nothing could be further from the truth.  The nest box is above the garden shed and so we have to go in and out with gardening tools.  However, when we hear or see the blue tits we get out of the way.

Over the days the parents have become more and more bedraggled – this is not uncommon amongst blue tits.   They work really hard – go in and out the nest box about every two or three minutes.  that kind of effort will take its toll.  However, they have nearly reached the end of this batch of chicks – within a day or so they will fledge.  The parents will continue to feed them for a few days before starting the whole process again.   Their will to survive is staggering but really it is a numbers game.  Out of a clutch of six perhaps only one will survive so they have to have more than one clutch just to maintain the numbers. 
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

More info on  M69.in 

If this is correct then it starts to fit in with the hits I have been getting for the M69 photograph.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

Since the beginning of May I have had an increase of hits for a photograph of a bridge going over the M69 – see previous post.   Anyway, this has continued and now if you do a search for M69 on Google it is usually towards the top of the list – all very gratifying but I couldn’t understand why all the interest.  I checked the searches and they all were for M69.in.  Now I assumed that it was something to do with some star chart or something and didn’t give it any more thought.  But the hits kept coming in and this started to peak my curiosity so I searched Google for M69.in.  Once I did this all became clear. M69.in is a porn site (If you want to see the site then follow this link – however, remember this is a porn site) which I can only assume has recently been launched – hence the increase in hits.   

Whilst this explains a lot it still doesn’t explain why my photograph has become so popular with people looking for porn.  Perhaps some mysteries are never meant to be explained.  
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

Well sort of.   Most of the time I feel that Polly Toynbee is a strange detached person whose views don’t normally match up to mine.  However, having read her piece in Saturday’s Guardian I find that I agree with much of what she wrote.    She is right to point out that the last Labour government was pretty illiberal given that they introduced the Human Rights Act.   She is also right that we are entering a much more plural political scene and that this in the best interest of Britain.  But the thing I really do agree with is that the Labour party shouldn’t rush their leadership election.  

There appears to be a huge amount of bad blood within the Labour party at the moment and this needs to be treated.   The first step would appear to be an open and prolonged debate about the shape of party in the future.  This must be driven by leader who has been chosen after a period of reflection rather than steamrollered through.  David Milliband may the best person to lead the party in the coming years, he may not, but the last thing the Labour party needs right now is another coronation a la Gordon Brown.   They need to take time.

Here’s an idea.  Why not put off the election of new leader until the new year.  Harriet Harman can soldier on until then – there really isn’t any rush.   It is unlikely that current government will fall apart in the next six months,  there are too many political dangers for the Lib Dems for that to happen.   Even if it did the Labour party is in no fit state to fight another election, no matter who is the leader and will give them time to see how the coalition works.  If it appears to be working then the Labour party could then look at ways of trying to put together a stable partnership with the Lib Dems after the next election.  The worst thing is for Labour to assume that all they have to do is sit back and wait for all the Lib Dem voters to come running to them.  They won’t.   You have to remember that coalition government is the way that the Lib Dems want to run the country and if they can do it with the Tories, their least favoured option, then this will make then a real force in the country.  The hot air at the moment seeping out from both the Tory and Liberal parties has more to do with political careers thwarted as any real force.   

There is no popular outcry for a against the coalition – after all as Dara O Briain put it “… We live in exciting times, where political pundits talk up coalition as if it was the most amazing thing that has ever happened in politics, even though it is the form of government used by just about every western democracy in the world….” .  Perhaps people just want to see what is going to happen.  

So don’t rush the leadership election.  Think hard as to where the Labour party is going to go and then choose the leader to take them there.  

What is happening to me – quoting from Guardian columnists!  It must be my inner SDP coming out – are those were the days.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

For the past few weeks I have been getting a number of hits for one photograph I have on Flickr.   The photograph is of a track that goes over the M69 motorway.   Now for some reason this is now being viewed 10 – 20 times a day because people are doing searches for the M69.  I have no idea why the M69 is now so popular but it is generating quite a bit of traffic to my flickr site.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

The photo shoot on Wednesday had the aim of capturing some new small bird portraits to allow them to be used in my ARPS submission.   However, one of things that the assesses have said again and again is balance.  The photographs I made yesterday, whilst being technically competent, were far too bright.  The light was just too strong.  This is an important lesson to bare in mind as I try to make some more images over the next few months – the sun is only going to get stronger.   As in everything in balance is vitally important.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

So the plan this morning was to try and capture some small bird portraits for the ARPS submission.  I knew just the spot in Calke Abbey  and so I set out with the best of intentions.   However, whilst I captured some interesting small bird portraits these were not the photographs that made the day.  No, instead it was the cowslips and great spotted woodpecker, hardly a small bird.  This is what happens when you go out into the real world rather than working in a studio.  You just have to go with the flow – long may that last.
 

One final thought about the title of this post.   Where I used to work they had a rather brutal filter system to internet surfing.  One morning I was looking up a web site about stolen working digs, a very legitimate search.  However this was blocked by filter as the site contained a banded word.  And the word was ‘bitch’.  It is hard to see how a web site about stolen female working dogs could not use the word bitch.  In everything context matters.

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

What indeed?   There is clearly a very caustic answer which may well be true  but I think all new governments deserve a chance before the carping started.  However, in a 24 hours news cycle this is unlikely to happen.  However, enough of this as I think there are two pieces of legislations that, if enacted correctly, will be one of the best things that has ever happened to this country.  The first bill is the Great Reform Bill.   This should remove so much of the authoritarian stain that marked the previous government’s record – there.   3,500 new offences in 13 years is not a record that any ‘progressive’ party should be proud of.   So lets us hope that much of the nonsense that came before is removed from the statute book.

The second is the constitutional reform bill.   This will contain the proposal to move to an Alternative Vote (AV) system.  It is unlikely to be enacted as it will have to be authorised by a referendum – but it is a step in the right direction.   Perhaps the most important thing that will be included in this bill will be the reform of the House of Lords.  Hopefully we should do away with all the retired politicians having a guaranteed retirement home for life at the other end of the palace of Westminster.  A reformed and elected House of Lords would have a much better chance of acting in a democratic manner.  It should also see the end of the bishops of the church of England also having  a say on matters – surely it will only a matter of time before the Church of England is disestablished (although I suspect this will only happen once the current monarch has passed away.)

The great thing about both bills is that they have no cost implications to talk of – in fact the Reform bill will save money.  So there is a real chance they will come to pass and if they do then the face of British politics will have been changed radically and we might live in a more civilised country.    We can all hope.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini

We are having some building work done at the moment which entails having a couple of radiators removed.   They started to dribble yesterday but today one of them sprung a major leak.  Half an hour of frantic bailing out the water and the leak appears to have stopped – I am assuming we have emptied much of the system.   So we currently have no hot water.   Should be sorted out by this evening – oh I am the optimist.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini