I’m on holiday though I’ve had to fit in the odd day’s work in my busy Olympic schedule. There are going to be so many enduring images from these games. I’m probably not in any of them.
I was going to do one big post just containing lots of pics from my Olympic watching but on reflection am going to do it as a series of shorts.
This one was taken outside the Aquatic Centre. I was there as a guest of Cisco who are one of the sponsors of the games. The police in the pic had been drafted in from Scotland and were staying in Hatfield for the duration of their stint.
I learned to play the guitar when I was a kid instead of swotting for my A Levels. My mam and dad almost certainly got fed up to listening to renditions from the “Beatles Songbook”.
One of my early masterpieces was Norwegian Wood. Last night we had some friends round for a barbeque. Our bbq is also a firepit and when the eating is done we throw on some sticks, toast marshmallows, chat and maybe even strum the geetar.
On this occasion I was reminded of a line in Norwegian Wood – “I sat by the fire, biding my time, drinking her wine”. Knowing it would be of huge interest to all Beatles fans out there I took a photo illustrating the moment.
PS I am available for parties. I’m not particularly good but as long as everyone has had plenty of wine I sound fine:)
Posted using WordPress for android on my Samsung galaxy S3
Telling it like it is in real (ish) time. From left to right Dr Henry Kissinger, Trefor Davies and Calum Malcolm at the Cisco House at the Olympic Park.
Life is for living.
Posted from my Samsung Galaxy S3 courtesy of Cisco WiFi.
It’s been interesting to hear the observations of expert commenters that athletes perform better when the are relaxed. If they are not in the right frame of mind their chances of success are greatly reduced.
When you think about it this applies in many areas. In cricket, for example, your mind has to be totally in the right space to win. The same team can win one game but lose another against the same opposition just by not having their minds in the right space.
Watching the beach volleyball last night it was clear that the Brazilian pair did not gell and they were thrashed by the Chinese.
These are lessons we should take onboard in our business lives.
I also hear the mantra “it’s the taking part that is important”. Well of course taking part is important but so is winning. You try telling Victoria Pendleton or Christine Ohurogu that silver is ok when for the last 4 years their mind has been totally focussed on winning gold.
Taking part is nice but it is better to be a winner. Again it’s all about attitude. Mental strength.
What a difference 6 months makes. Went to Skeggy today with son Joe. It was packed with tourists enjoying the 26 degrees heat of the British summer. Can’t say it was bracing at all. There was a gentle offshore breeze which made it very pleasant.
Interesting to compare the scene with February when I presented the RNLI with their £6k cheque following the world record attempt for most comments on a blog post.
The pic on the left is the scene in February and the one on the right was today.
If you’ve never been you should go to Skegness – in August obviously. It’s a great British family seaside day out – beer ice creams, fish and chips, deckchairs, amusements etc etc.
Drove four 18 year old girls to Derby yesterday morning. They, along with three other pals were catching the train to Newquay for a week on the lash a week of post A Levels recuperation. They deserve it.
We had originally booked them on a low cost flight from East Midlands but the operator cancelled it and a hasty change to rail was needed. The best route was Lincoln – Kings Cross – Paddington – Newquay. £65 all told in second class. I did suggest they treated themselves to first as it was still cheaper than the costs of the flights but that didn’t get universal approval.
What’s more amid the pre-Olympics hype about London transport congestion the party grew nervous about going anywhere near the capital and opted for the Derby route which was £20 more expensive but perhaps a safer bet. They had a date with a cocktail in Newquay they didn’t want to miss.
With hindsight there have been no transport problems in London, due mainly to the hype that has scared anyone not going to the Olympics away from the place. So the girls could have gone in more comfort for less money!
As a footnote, I have a big jeep. The girls had a lot of luggage. It all fitted, just, into my car. I think the parents might collectively have to review the return travel arrangements as the person lined up to pick them up next Monday night was doing so in an Alpha Romeo!
Also it’s a good job they didn’t fly. The excess baggage charges would have paid for a limo to take them all down in luxury. They even took a laptop with them!
After the Global Business Summit at Lancaster House on Friday I went to Tower Bridge to look at the Olympic rings – lit up at night. Here are a number of pics from the evening:
You can’t see the rings in this first pic as they don’t turn them on until after the light show.
Pretty impressive setting I’m sure you’ll agree.
We caught the Canadian news readers doing their stuff in front of Boris’ office.
Then finally I took this photo of the inside of a nearby pub – not because I went in for a drink – just because it was so bright and colourful as I was passing.
If you are the single person in the UK not caught up with Olympic fever you need therapy. This is big time excitement. There is no way you should be doing anything other than sitting in front of that box taking in cycling/yachting/rowing/running/long jumping/kayaking/swimming/tennis/ano etc.
That said I played golf this afternoon when Murray was whopping Federer. Parental duties you know. However I have also just returned from the Olympic city where on Thursday at the Lee Valley kayak slalom venue we watched Britain’s Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott paddle to gold with team mates David Florence and Richard Hounslow taking silver in second.
One of the major features of these Olympics has been the support of the home crowd. I’ve got to tell you the TV doesn’t do it justice – you just don’t get a sense of the noise. Fear not dear reader for I have recorded it for your entertainment, education and general edification.
I herewith present to you a number of short videos that should give you a taste of the atmosphere at Lee Valley on Thursday.
Firstly the start of the British gold medal run:
Then a little later in the run – perhaps even louder:
I was very privileged to be invited to the Global Business Summit at Lancaster House in London on Friday. This was a showcase of the best of British Technology Businesses and the guest list was a mix of UK and overseas business leaders. It was one of a series of sessions promoting different UK market sectors and ours was the last one. Being right next to Clarence House security was about as tight as it can get. The cops here always carry guns. I had forgotten my passport at home but fortunately my driving license did the job for photo ID.
We were treated to a keynote speech by Vince Cable, UK government cabinet minister with responsibility for business and by CEO of Facebook EMEA, Joanna Shields. I won’t comment on the specific of the speeches by either of these two or by any of the other speakers in the morning and afternoon. They were all positive, upbeat messages from people involved in the technology industries of which we should be proud.
It must be said that we do know how to put on great events in this country. Obviously there are the Olympics which on the face of it are a huge success. This was very much a networking event. As well as showcasing technology they were showcasing the best in British food and drink. We did our very best to sample it all – good manners and all that.
The food and drink was sponsored by the suppliers, I’m told. I’ll name a few: Bibendum, Nyetimber champagne (I realise we aren’t supposed to call it champagne but you may have noticed I’ve been feeling rebellious of late and it is just as good as the French stuff), Chapel Down and Primrose Hill wines – great I can recommend them.
The food was terrific – little bowls for lunch so that we could circulate and chat. Crab, braised beef, quail spring to mind. The canapes at the cocktail party after the talks were also very tasty – steak and chips, seared tuna, pea puree, amongst others. We had them with gin and tonics made with Tanqueray and Sipsmith gin and a cocktail called “English Country Garden” whose constituents I don’t totally recall (perhaps for obvious reasons) but which included Chase vodka and some kind of elderflower juice. I’ve included a short video of the Bibendum staff mixing the cocktail.
We aren’t supposed to take photos in “Royal residences” but everyone was doing so and the bar staff even took some of the shots for us. Also there were loads of official photographers clicking and recording away. No prizes but can anyone guess what the tapestry is behind the cameraman in the photo inset right. It’s quite famous. The artist’s name will do as an alternative.
Also click on the photo of Vince speaking to see some of the other guests – names? Finally who is in the photo of the panel? – click on it to enlarge and see more. As I said no prizes this time as I’m on holiday but lets see if anyone comes up with right answers.
Travel to and from the games: – a joy – the train to Cardiff was standing room only but we had booked seats – no problem. I travelled back in first class early the next morning with the lad so don’t know how the people up the back were. Most of the fans from the previous night will have either gone
back that night or still be in bed sleeping off the beer. For the record the lad had two hot chocolates, a diet coke, a Fanta, a packet of hand cut crisps and a croissant – taking advantage of the free food and drink up the front.
At Kings Cross I noted no queues at taxi ranks. Easier by and large than a normal day in town.
Connections in London to get to Lee Valley for the kayaking – trouble free and swift with plenty of seating. We sat in first class between Tottenham Hale and Cheshunt despite not having the right ticket – you know I’m a reb. Nobody checked the tickets in either direction anway.
On the way back we joined the 12,000 spectators emptying out of the venue for the 30 minute walk to the station. At the station we got on a train straight away and were whisked away within 30 seconds – unbelievable. In fact almost every connection we had to make had a minimal wait. The train was full but hey…
Security at the games – reassuring without causing lengthy delays. The coppers were very friendly and happy to indulge tourist Tref with photo calls. The women PCs smiled beautifully (steady Tref). The presence of armed police showed the underlying serious approach to security.
The pointers too were very friendly and efficient. The numbers of staff on hand to help was overkill but you didn’t feel that. They were great and all out to enjoy the occasion.
The presence of the military was also comforting. The troops approached their last minute call up with professionalism and I have to say we all felt that much safer with them around. They looked confident in everything they did & also had a special Olympic cloth badge (fwiw:)
Other logistics – the number of portable toilets stood out – I don’t think I ever say anyone queuing to go to the loo – got to be a result.
We arrived at the Lee Valley venue at lunchtime which consequentially meant huge queues for the food concessions. Because of this we waited until one of the breaks in the sport and were able to buy food with very little wait. £9.5 for fish chips and mushy peas if that’s your fancy. A sausage bap and a diet coke were around seven quid. Good quality nosh but v expensive. One man handed over more than fifty pounds to feed his group.
Connectivity – as in the Millennium Stadium I didn’t get on with the WiFi but didn’t need to because the 3G was good – 3.8Megs down and 1Meg up. WordPress for Android with a few photos didn’t work very well. Admittedly one was a panorama shot which seems to mess it up. This post was originally written at Lee Valley but I’ve had to retype it on the laptop at home.
I’m back at the Olympics next week and will try and take advantage of the WiFi at that time and report back.
John and I are wending our way back from Cardiff to London in First Class with First Great Western. I like to teach my kids the right way to travel.
FGW doesn’t have WiFi like Eastcoast does but actually I’m finding that power is more important. 3G is good enough and having a fully charged phone for this afternoon’s Olympic kayak slaloms at Lee Valley is more important. I think 24 hours of battery life at flat out use needs to be the benchmark – 2 days for contingency. We aren’t there yet.
The lad is dozing whilst listening to some sounds on his phone. His copy of the Times newspaper made him nod off:)
I’m feeling a little rebellious. Last night we took a vuvuzela type horn into the GB v Uruguay match. It was on the list of prohibited items but if the Uruguayan supporters could take an entire drum kit into the ground it would have been entirely unfair to confiscate our modest source of atmosphere and excitement.
Today I am wearing my HP branded Commons and Lords Lions tour polo shirt and we have a Nike day bag. Totally against he rules laid down by the Locog heavIes. We also have a packed lunch which is apparently ok provided we don’t take too much – presumably in case we start selling food inside the venue. We could undercut the concessions and make a fortune, our only overheads being a modest Waitrose bill and the cost of the tickets. The latter has been covered by the mortgage so repayments will hardly be noticed over the 4 years between Olympic games.
I read somewhere yesterday that some politician (I can’t remember his name, which will obviously be a disappointment to the individual concerned) has said that the food prices are in line with other major events and that a family should be able to feed themselves for forty quid. That’s as may be but for most people forty pounds is a lot of dosh and I bet his family only consists of four people. Being a highly virile couple we have four kids which by my reckoning works out at sixty notes for lunch or roughly twelve pints of lager if you live in London as many readers of this blog do.
What a choice. Feed the kids or drink lots of lager. I suppose I could drink slightly fewer lagers and save some cash for a curry or a kebab afterwards (the hidden costs of a night out on the town). No no no only joking. Honest :).
Look out for me In the kayakIng crowd in my red HP polo shirt. Hasta la vista baby.
More later on my OlympIc holiday, from the WordPress dashboard of the Samsung Galaxy S3…
The mobile data service turned out great.I suspect if you weren’t on o2 it might have been a different story though I have no evidence of that.
The upload capacity did come under a bit of strain. It started at round 1.6 megs and dropped to 0.85 megs at half time but that is still good going.
I only really had 2 problems. One was with WordPress for android – it didn’t like the panoramic photo I included in the post.
The second was battery life. I hit the s3 hard with a lot of internet use and photographic activity. I was at the millennium stadium for two matches. By the second half of the second match the battery was running low so I switched off as I needed to make phone calls afterwards. This still wasn’t bed. After roughly 4 hours of pretty solid use I was down to 24% battery power remaining.
The catering at the ground was a different story – It was sIxquId for a sandwIch! My son queued for 45 minutes for a pizza only to find they had run out when he got to the front of the queue. This was during the first match! Whoever the caterer was I don’t have anything good to say about them.
It dIdn’t spoil the overall enjoyment of the evening which was a super family affair. The caterers could have taken a lesson from McDonald’s where I fed my son afterwards. It seemed as if the whole of the 70, 000 present at the ground went there. The queue went down quickly and it felt that those burgers were being served at speeds Usein Bolt would have been proud of 🙂
The game hasn’t started yet but the atmosphere is building up.this is a great family event but be warned. Queues are horrendous for the catering concessions and not a McDonald’s in sight – so much for the exclusive sponsorship. Maybe they only care about the London venues.
The mobile data connectivity is superb though I’ve not been able to figure out how to register for WiFi. I’m not a customer of BT broadband (I am but via BT Wholesale) and though I have a KeZone account with an Openzone roaming agreement I can’t see how to use it.
This actually doesn’t matter because much O2 SIM is giving me a fantastically reliable 7.5Megs down and 1.5 Megs up.
I have 3 pics for you. 1st is a panoramic shot of inside the stadium – just worked out how to do it properly.
The second shot is a screenshot of the speeders for the mobile data.
Finally there’s a photo of the 3g small cell antenna deployed in the stadium.
Am at the footy at the millennium stadium & trying to upload a post with pics. WordPress for android keeps crashing when I try to publish. This is to see if it uploads without photos.
The gathering of the mighty quadtracs was foreseen. 50 of these giants of the agricultural world formed the biggest ever congregation of their kind at Hemswell in Lincolnshire last Saturday.
5 minutes at 3.5kph (speed set so as not to run out of field in the regulated time) saw a new world record set for the most number of quadtracs simultaneously working a field.
Before harvest:
After harvest:
The event raised thousands for cancer charity in memory of John Rainthorpe with over a thousand cars worth of spectators in attendance – amazing.
The quadtracs came from far and wide with two of them travelling 433 miles from Scotland (on the back of a lorry – they would still be on their way otherwise).
For more see here.
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I’ve got tons to do but I’m on holiday after this week (yay) and the Olymic coverage is building up to near frenzy already (gawd knows what it will be like when it really gets going) so I’m doing Olympic posts. For the avoidance of doubt that’s the London2012 summer Olympic games if any of the Locog police are reading.
You will remember the post I wrote ages ago about the BBC’s own forecasts for iPlayer traffic based on the which sport is happening at the time. Now of course that time is upon us. Today the ladies of Team GB football are taking on the mighty All Blacks at the Millenium stadium. Actually I don’t know if they are mighty or whether they are even called the “All Blacks”. I mean New Zealand ladies.
I’ve never watched a ladies football match, at least not in its entirety. I did watch “Bend it like Beckham” which I thought was a very enjoyable movie but I digress. The Beeb reckons that this first ladies match will be more popular than the men’s game tomorrow. Do they know something?
The Beeb has in fact identified six sessions it has labelled as having the highest iPlayer demand. These are the opening and closing ceremonies, the mens 100m and 200m finals (good old Usain – don’t let us down), Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton on the afternoon of Tuesday 7th August (yay cmon guys) and the afternoon of Saturday 11th which has the finals of the men’s footy, hockey and basketball (yawn).
As I write I’m scanning through the BBC’s schedule showing its demand forecast and I’ve just found something that casts the whole process into doubt. On a scale of 1 – 4 where 4 is the highest demand the women’s beach volleyball finals are only rated a 2. How credible is that?
That’s it for now. I normally adopt radio silence when I’m on holiday but this time I will be posting live from Olympic events using my trusty Samsung Galaxy S3 and WordPress for Android. I must get a speed tester app on the phone. Also I’ve not gone yet 🙂
Click the inset box to see which events the BBC thinks will be busy.
If it’s Tuesday it must be London. Not if you’re a tourist. I’m down here for meetings but the place is remarkably calm. No queues at the taxi rank at Kings Cross Station, not many people around.
The taxi driver told me it has been one of the quietest summer he has ever seen. The regular tourists have stayed away. I’ve even been able to get a great last minute deal on 5 star hotel at a rock bottom price – only a few quid more than the Kings Cross Travelodge that is my usual haunt.
The London2012 games will soon be upon us and excited I am. I’m confident that they will be a huge success and the PR failures of Locog will fade from the national memory (not mine though – i don’t forget these things:).
I’m taking a chunk of the Olympic fortnight off. Not all of it – I’m off to a British Business Embassy meeting with Dave, George and Vince (apparently) on Friday 3rd August. If you’re going I’ll be the one wearing a suit! (I know – WTF do I hear you say?).
I’ll be with son number 3 (kid4) at the Team GB versus Uruguay clash of Titans at the Millenium stadium and with sons 1,2 and 3 (there are no more as far as I am aware) at the Kayak Slalom finals at Lee Valley wild water rapids fun centre.
Then the following week I’m at the ladies high diving final with Cisco, the men’s handball semi finals with KCom (yea I know – I’ll tell you what handball is when I get back from holidays if I remember) and then finally I’m with BT Wholesale at the closing concert in Hyde Park on the Sunday.
Thanks for all the invites for what are very important relationship building networking occasions.
I did um and ah a little about revealing all these tidbits but what the heck. Life is for living. The Olympics will not be here again in my lifetime and it is a useful way of building up to saying if anyone wants to invite me to the athletics at the Olympic Stadium itself then there is a fair chance they will become my new best pal. Preferably Mens 100m or 200m finals or any other blue riband event.
I’ve discussed what BT has done make sure the athletes, journos and hangers on have a great communications experience during the Olympics. That’s fine. For me though the biggest test is going to be what kind of experience we punters have. There will be far more of us and we will be wanting to upload stuff and tweet just as much as the highest profile media type.
It’s been a tough one but boy have we got some great pics in the trefor.net phone photo competition. The standard of entries was very high and the judges have had to be brutal in the shortlisting process.
For total transparency the judges were myself and Scott Wroe – Timico’s head of graphic design. Neither of us entered the competition ourselves. We had around 150 entrants and although I did suggest that we would have a separate class for “edited” photos in reality most of the entries were straight off the camera so we have bundled them all into one single mega category. If you entered but have been left out of the short list I’m sorry about that but we have tried to be as objective as we can.
I did get a few suggestions for a polling process but to keep things simple and to allow you to give your views on the photos I’ve decided that voting will take place using the “comment” method. In other words chose a single winner and leave a comment telling me which picture you think that winner should be. By all means tell us what you think or how you went about chosing that particular photo as your winner.
You have until 5pm Lincolnshire time on Friday 27th July which is when the Olympic games start and when I go on holiday. I will count up the votes at that time and tell you who the winner is.
One vote per person please. A person is defined by a discrete email address. By all means get your friends to vote for you. Please don’t abuse the process by conjuring up multiple email accounts and voting for yourself many times. This is a white hat blog and its readers are trusted.
I will award as many prizes as looks right. If there are 5 photos that get far more votes than the rest then there will be 5 prizes – Timico mugs. The standard of the competition has been so high that it merits a better first prize than the mug. I will take the winner out for a curry or simlar provided that person is within sensible easy reach. Perhaps we can meet in London or somewhere.
We have had entries from as far afield as India, Indonesia and New Zealand. A meal out won’t be practical in these cases so if you win you will have to settle for the mug and the deep satisfaction of knowing that you have won a major international photographic competition which will be forever visible as long as this blog remains on the world wide web.
My thanks to all of you who took the trouble to enter and good luck to all those on the shortlist. Get voting…
PS I’ll sort out the prizes when I get back from holiday.
If you’ve ever grown peas at home you will know how wonderful freshly picked peas from the garden can be. The only problem is that they need to be planted in industrial quantities to get a decent crop. In my own experience a single home grown crop only lasts one meal. Rubbish eh?
So when Christopher Day (@themanorhousebb) invited me to see the Lincolnshire pea harvest in action boy did I get excited:). On a dank drizzly Sunday we turned off the A15 and drove down a track looking for pea viners.
The Green Pea Company Ltd had 3 machines working fields near Hibbaldstow in Lincolnshire where the harvest is in full swing – keeping the nation fed. Where would our fish and chips be without peas? This is vital work.
There was a mobile workshop in the corner of the field and we stopped there to talk to the vining team. Once it has begun the pea harvest continues 24 hours a day for two months. Teams work 12 hour day/night shifts on a 2 week rotation. After donning a fluorescent safety jacket I got a ride with Glen.
The cabs are not as high tech as the Quadtrac but that is quite possibly a personal choice of the owner of the kit. All the driver has to do is steer though. Everything else is automated. Harvesting rate, weight in the tank – all controlled by computer.
Pea pods are “bashed” by metal tines under the viner and are effectively sucked into the belly of the machine where the casings are mechanically removed and the peas “popped” into one of two storage tanks. When the peas are offloaded to an external tractor-towed hopper they start with the most recently filled tank so that the “older” peas remain near the top when taken to processing. That hopper is taken to a bigger lorry which transports the peas back to the factory, in this case near Hull.
The viners are pricey – at £300k a pop they re even more expensive than the Quadtrac. With three of them on a job plus the other kit we are looking at a million pounds worth of cash driving around the field. They are also not as wide because the whole vehicle needs to be able to travel on the public highway without having to unbolt the front mechanism so they can’t process as much acreage as a Quadtrac. The average speed depends on many factors – weight of peas on the vine, ground conditions and instructions from the Birds Eye factory on how much tonnage they need at any given point in time. A typical average over the whole season is around a hectare per hour per machine.
Peas must have been a luxury item in the “old days”. No machines then, just men with scythes and teams of workers picking the pods off the vine. Expensive to harvest plus in my mind likely to have more losses due to the imprecise nature of the scything.
Today each machine weighs 27 tons and can carry 2 tonnes of peas. That’s heavy man. If you happen to find yourself stuck behind a convoy of viners consider yourself unlucky. They travel at 25kmh. With a convoy of 3 viners, a tractor towing a hopper, water and diesel trailers together with outrider vehicles overtaking is going to be a problem but hey… what price peas?
The teams work to specific instructions from Birds Eye who also send testers1 into fields beforehand to test the peas for quality & readiness to pick. Birds Eye even tell them how much weight of peas to store in the tank before tipping into the hopper.
All so that I can enjoy my steak and chips (and fish and burger and sausage and chicken and veggieburger etc etc 🙂 )
The Green Pea Company harvests thousands of tonnes of peas in a season using 15 viners. I went away with two carrier bags full as a memento of my time there. Thanks to farmer Christopher Day, The Green Pea company, Birds Eye and finally to Glen for letting me drive around the field in the viner with him.
They are big boys toys – quadtracks and viners. The question is where do I go from here?
1A lot of testing goes on in the farming business. The two photos below show Christopher Day’s soil samples and testing kit. The days of the bumpkin farmer with a long piece of straw between his teeth and a straw hat are gone. The complexity of the business is such that you need qualifications and certificates to grow stuff these days.
Last week we had the annual Timico watersports evening at the Activities Away lake on Lincoln bypass. As usual a great time was had by all. I’m going to let the pictures do the talking other than to say our team won by a country mile nautical league. This was mainly thanks to the raft building prowess of Ian P Christian but also of course great teamwork.
The first couple of pics are of Foxy’s team – travelling hopefully but failing to make the grade. Stay away from the high seas guys.
The second two pics are of the totally victorious Hodges’ team. We could have carried on to the Caribbean (man). Hoist the pirate flag. Splice the mainbrace.
I’ll finish off with a pic of couple of the lads diving into the water. Thanks to Carl Wright who stayed dry to take these photos but also got to ride in the boat:). You can see more of them on Google+.
I met Christopher Day on Twitter. I’ve no idea when. People follow you. You follow people. You start to connect. Connect often enough you begin to notice and engage with them which is what I’ve done with Christopher. His Twitter name is @themanorhousebb.
I’ve met him a couple of times before today, once at LincUpLive and then again at LincsTweetMeet. During some online conversation I mentioned that my favourite vegetable is the pea. Christopher grows peas and he invited me to see some pea picking in action.
Hreodburna, which in Old English means reedy burn, is as you may know, the historical name for Redbourne in Lincolnshire. Redbourne is your idyllic English village and was to me only previously known for its pub. The Red Lion is a wonderful 17th Century coaching Inn and a stopping off point for Lincoln RFC on the way back from away matches in the North of the county.
The car park of the Red Lion on this occasion was the place that I had arranged to meet Christopher to go and see some vining action.
What I would never have noticed in my rugby playing days was the fact that attached to the Red Lion is a fire station containing an original horse drawn fire engine (click on the header photo for a better view of the fire station). Made in 1831 by Hadley, Simpkin and Lott of London the engine is manually operated with bars on either side that were raised and lowered to pump water.
The sign in the fire station window informs the enquiring mind: “The rural disturbances of 1830-1 provoked at least 28 cases of Arson in Lincolnshire. The owner of the Redbourne Estate, the Duke of St Albans certainly owned an engine by 1834 and it is reasonable to presume that this is the same engine, bought to protect his property. There was no county fire service in Lincolnshire until 1948.”
The horse for the fire engine lived in a paddock at the back of the Inn and the first job the firemen had before attending an incident was to catch it.
Things have moved on from those days. We moved on to see the pea harvest which is going to be the subject of another post. In the meantime Christopher was kind enough to show me around his farm which includes some carp fishing lakes. I offer here some photos of one of the lakes – a hugely relaxing place to spend a day. Note the bait set up. Click on the thumbnail photo for a close up shot of some of the bait – not for the faint of heart.
Alternatively watch the short video (18 years and over only). Amazing where you can get using Twitter isn’t it?
Despite being the CTO of an ISP I’m not a geek. The project to install an Olympics communications infrastructure, although being highly technical, has nuances and beauties that you don’t have to be a geek to get your brain around. Read on for more information.
Ok guys, on the spur of the moment I have decided to hold a photography competition – open to anyone who cares to enter. There are only a few rules:
You have to email me a max of 3 photos to tref at trefor.net
I chose a shortlist – max 10 photos (say)
I’ll come up with a polling mechanism/widget that allows blog readers to vote for their favourite
If we can get enough entries byFriday 1pm Entries due by close of play Friday 13th July.
I’ll see what I can come up with re prizes – say 1st, 2nd, 3rd. The photos can be of any subject matter – it’s up to you. You decide how arty etc. Even I can enter as it is going to be a crowd based judging.
By request I’ve added a second category to accommodate people who want to supply edited shots (instagram etc)
If anyone can suggest a suitable polling widget please let me know.
Good luck & happy snapping.
PS don’t forget to tell me what phone you used. I’ve had a few requests to extend the deadline – this is reasonable – it was done on the spur of the moment – I’ve extended it a week to Friday 13th & judging will take place over the following week with the result decided at 1pm on the 20th.
The leap second caught me a bit by surprise over the weekend. I guess I knew it was coming but had forgotten all about it.
Some well known sites that rely on accurate time synchronisation were caught out by the change. These apparently include Reddit, FourSquare, Yelp, LinkedIn, Gawker and StumbleUpon.
There is a bit of noise about this in the media. One might ask “do I care?”. In fact I don’t. None of those sites are of any real interest and none of them are critical to my existence.
What I am more concerned with is the fact that the world has a central clock called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). I realise that it is useful but it does seem like another attempt to organise our lives. Everything happens so quickly these days.It’s all about time.
Really time is not what it should all be about. It should be about contentment. If the world was run on the basis of contentment then everyone would be a lot happier instead of rushing around like blue arsed flies.
At this point I’m going to stop – I’ve just spotted early symptoms of hippyness and flower power. I have things to do, schedules to meet, money to make etc etc etc. If you want to know more about the leap second Google it – I don’t pretend to be as informative as Wikipedia and readers of this blog are in any case well read and highly intelligent individuals who know all this stuff 🙂
Taking a look at the narrow letterbox shaped photo that is the header to this post you might be forgiven for thinking that it was a police identity parade. The strange thing is that the guys, Ashley, Carl and Luke are smiling. Clicking on the photo you will see that they are Timico staff, proudly wearing their branded shirts.
The mirth is becasue they have just had a haircut after betting that one of colleagues, Adam Rutter (photo withheld to protect the innocent) could not go for a whole shift without swearing. I know, I know wtf do I hear you say?
Well Adam, who is a really nice guy is an inveterate swearer and undertook to maintain expletive silence in order to raise cash for the “Dogs Trust”. Adam brings his dog into work every day and keeps him in the kennel in the data centre car park.
The guys figured he didn’t have a hope so said that if he succeeded in going the whole day without upsetting Mary Whitehouse they would have their hair shaved off.
Tbh they really needed the haircut. They will benefit from huge side effects of the act of generosity – their consumption of shampoo will plummet and whenever they go out on the town will be able to squeeze in that extra beer because they won’t have had to spend as much time “doing their hair”.
Thanks to Faye Hemingway for performing the shearing – she has undoubted skills in that direction. Thanks also to Graham Busby for the photographs.
They raised a total of £250 which is great – if you want to chip in you can do so here.
Life is such a wonderful journey but it is short and needs living to the full. If you need any affirmation of this take a look at this rose. It featured in a post a couple of weeks ago.
In the picture on the left it is just about to come to its prime. Two very short weeks later it is a picture of decay, purpose served, perhaps. Enjoy it while you can…
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
