A magical glimpse into history

The age of the earth is estimated to be 4.54 billion years. It took quite a time for life to appear… the earliest fossils found go back to 3.5 billion years ago. But it took quite a while for life as we know to get started. Dinosaurs appeared a mere 230 million years ago, the latest 5% of earth time. And humans? We only started to appear 2.4 million years ago… just the last 0.1% of earth time. To use the clock analogy, that’s the last 46 seconds on a 12 hour clock face.

For much of human prehistory we’ve got remarkably little to go on but a few bones here and there. To quote Ian Tattersall, Curator of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, from Bill Bryson’s book ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’…

“You could fit it all into the back of a pickup truck if you didn’t mind how much you jumbled everything up”

Of course as we get nearer to the current day the amount of evidence increases. But in 1826 something magical took place which changed the way we view the past forever. The first permanent photograph was produced by a French inventor with the tricky name of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Unfortunately the first image, produced on a polished pewterplate covered with a petroleum derivative, was accidentally destroyed. But who could imagine the impact photography would have on the world, and more important on viewing history. Not only are we now more careful about retaining documents, but we can also see into the past. We’ve only got just under 200 years worth of historical images to view… how valuable will that be in a thousand years, in ten thousand years?

So here’s a series of photographs from the past, courtesy of that wonderful web site Listverse. A magical glimpse into history!

 

This photo was taken around 1848 and shows a hilltop house with a lawn surrounded by a picket fence. It also shows a blurred horse-drawn carriage in the foreground. Believe it or not it’s a photo of New York, Manhattan’s Upper West Side in fact.

Taken by Nicéphore Niépce, this is the first photograph ever taken which still exists. He called his method heliography (sun writing) and this photograph took 8 hours of exposure time (hence sunlight on both sides of the building).

This photo was taken on April 18th, 1906. It’s the most famous photograph of the devastation caused by San Francisco earthquake, taken by Arnold Genthe on a borrowed camera.

This is the only indisputable photo of Billy the Kid , said to have been taken in January 1880 in front of Beaver Smith’s saloon gambling hall in Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory. He was relatively unknown during his own lifetime but became a legend a year after his death when his killer, Sheriff Patrick Garrett, published a biography titled The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid. According to legend Billy the Kid killed 21 men, one for each year of his life.

This photograph from 1840 was the first that intentionally has a human as its main subject. What’s interesting is that it shows a part of history which is now long gone… a regular footman and a carriage.

This 1838 photograph is the first ever taken that captures the image of a man. The man is not clear and is slightly blurred (no doubt due to the long exposure required). He can be seen in the foreground – fortunately he stood still long enough (getting his shoes polished) for the 10 minute exposure to include him.

And finally the following set of photos are history in the making… the first showing the conditions troops had to endure in the First World War.

More mud…

My four minutes of fame…

…well, six minutes actually! Interviewed on local BBC Radio in connection with the St Ives Flower and Produce Show we’re putting on in the Corn Exchange on Sat 11-Sep… and which is steadily taking over my life at present!

We’ve been getting some good coverage in the local press about our quest to find the trophies from when the show was last held in 1995. So I thought I’d give local radio a try and popped them an email Thursday morning. Got a call by noon asking me if I’d like to be interviewed the following day about 08:25! Said yes, we would. Asked the team who’re working on the Show if any of them would like to fill a few minutes on live radio with  as series of hmms, erms and you knows. Rather surprisingly everyone thought I was just the person to do it… yeah, right!

So here’s the audio clip of the interview. Followed the politician’s maxim of answering the question you wished the interviewer had asked you and not what he actually asked, so was a bit embarrassing when he said ‘OK, you’ve got the plug in now’! Don’t I drone on about the web site… but they didn’t tell me how they would suggest listeners make contact and I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity for promotion. Oh, and if anyone’s counting, there are a total of 30 ‘erm’s in the clip.

We’re getting a lot of good coverage… two articles in the local press, the radio interview and there’s posters and flyers all around town. But with two weeks to go for competitors to get their entries in we’ve received exactly ZERO entries! I’m sure they’ll all come in a rush at the end, and today I had an email asking if it really was only £1.50 to enter the Show, regardless of the number of classes entered. At least we’ve got our costs covered with the £200 sponsorship money collected over just two weeks. Sure we’ll do a lot better next year on sponsorship if we allow more time.

So my main task over the next couple of weeks is to customise the spreadsheet I’ve been given for creating a database of entrants, classes, and which will be used to produce the entrants class cards and score the category winners. Oh, and to enter the details of the thousands of entry forms that’ll be flooding through my door shortly!

Been experiencing the unbelievably poor standard of some of the bank staff. Son in law Chris has been attempting to set up his bank account and get overdraft facilities for his new limited company, C. S. Carpentry Contractors Ltd. It was his bad luck to fall into the clutches of Anita Hans, the local Barclays Bank business account person. Should have seen how it was going to go when she tried to avoid seeing us by explaining she didn’t handle transfers of business accounts. Why? We got over that hurdle by persuading her it was a new account set up.

Things looked brighter as she sounded very positive during the initial meeting and confirmed all should be set up in about seven to ten days. Over a month later and Chris still couldn’t access his new account on-line, and after much hassle she confirmed no overdraft facilities!

In the process she explained to Chris how tough it was for her having to read all sixty pages of his method statement and business plan (several weeks after she actually should have done), how successful she’d been arranging an overdraft for another company, ignored his ‘phone calls and told him just how lucky he should consider himself that he had her to look after him (I’ve added that bit, but that was the general theme from Ms Hans).

Bear in mind she’s saying all this to a young man who’s working unbelievably hard both physically and in the hours he does to make a success for his young family (and to keep my daughter in the manner she’s become accustomed!). So we’ve gone to Lloyds, who were much more professional.

So if you’re looking for a business bank account in the Huntingdon area, make sure you avoid Anita Hans of Barclays Bank!

Sister in law Trudy popped up with niece Sarah for a few days. Had the usual good laugh, particularly when we’d had a few pear wines. Trudy’s sense of humour is a lot like mine; for example, just seconds before I was going to do the radio interview she quipped ‘What a time to develop a stammer!’… cue loads of laughter.

Been pondering the wealth of foliage in the polytunnel that should be butternut squash. Trouble is they all look like summer squash. Sure I planted the butternut squash in here said I to Linda. And then she’s wandering about the front plot when she spots a couple of plants she put in some weeks ago… ones I was going to throw away as excess to requirements but she thought she’d plant anyway. Yes, you’ve guessed it, the missing butternut squash. They’re going well, but my lack of organisation is somewhat embarrassing and a source of merriment to wife and daughters. Thank goodness Linda is now organising both me and the plot, leaving me to amble around doing the planting.

Lots more photos below. Click any to enlarge.

 

How to create a blog newsletter

If you’re responsible for producing a newsletter and have reasonable PC skills, why not do it by way of a blog? There’s far more advantages than disadvantages, and although the guidance below looks pretty long it’s not at all hard to do. Once you get into the swing of things you’ll find it actually saves you time.

Read on brave adventurer! And let me know what you think, or if there’s anything I should add, by clicking Comments and including your views.

 Why try it?

Our allotment association had been running a couple of years when I took over the role of Secretary, one of the tasks being to compile the quarterly newsletter. The first was done, as earlier issues, in pdf format. But most effort was taken up getting the content to fit exactly into an even number of pages.

In spite of doing the email equivalent of brow beating association members for articles, it’s often the happy lot of the Secretary to create half the content as well. So anything to make the whole thing more efficient would also help give more time to improving the content.

The first attempt was the Spring 2010 issue, which included a poll asking association members to vote on the new format. With a pretty enthusiastic vote for, the Summer 2010 issue took the same format.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages of using a blog to create a newsletter?

Advantages

• Formatting is much easier… just copy the content of each article into its own page (the blogger’s term is ‘post’) without any worries over the size of the issue.
• Photographs can be included with equal disregard about issue size.
• In fact images to brighten each article up, even where no photos were provided, can be included to make the newsletter much more attractive.
• You can make the publication much more interactive; readers can…
  • Respond to surveys where the result is updated immediately.
  • Add comments and set up a thread of discussion.
• Useful links can be included.
• If you’ve got a big readership you might earn money for your organisation by including adverts.
• Try including video in your pdf issue! With a blog newsletter it’s easy.
• You’ll get a wider readership since the web page will be picked up by search engines
  

Disadvantages

• When you hand over responsibility for producing the newsletter your replacement might not have the skills to continue in the same format.
• Assumes your readers can access the web and are comfortable doing so.
• Although you can include a print friendly button the output probably won’t look as good as if a pdf file.
• For some you just can’t beat reading something in your hands.
• If you want the newsletter to be around for a long time, will your blog provider also be there when you need them?

How to do it

• Preparation 
  Firstly set up a new blog account. Do this even if you have your own personal account… at some point you’ll no longer be responsible for producing the newsletter and you need to hand the account over to your replacement. So register the account to a generic email account for your organisation (e.g. info@) and use a password you can hand over.
  
  If you’ve never created a blog before, don’t worry. It’s really easy… I use Blogger, provided by Google so should be around well into the future. To create a Blogger account click here. It only takes three steps to set up a really attractive blog site.
  
  Make sure you call the blog something logical… if you combine the name or initials of your organisation along with the issue name, number or date that should do. I’ve called ours hraaspring2010 and hraasummer2010 (hraa being Hill Rise Allotment Association).
  
  I’d then recommend downloading Windows Live Writer to write your posts. Blogger’s own interface has improved greatly over time, but you just can’t beat the ease of using Live Writer and some of its plug-ins… not only do your posts and keep an archive, but to let you post something really impressive with minimum effort or technical know-how. To download Live Write click here. Part of the set up is to allow Live Writer to identify and download to your blog.
  
  There are some extra tweaks I’ve put on my version which help make it look more like a standard web site. If you’re interested in trying some of these why not leave me a comment at the foot of this post?
  
  
• Create the publication issue
  For each issue you’ll need to create a separate blog. The first time around it’s easy… setting up the blog account will also set up the first blog.
  
  If this is the second issue click to Create Blog and go through the same steps you followed when setting up the first blog. Call the blog the next in sequence (hraaautumn2010?). Choose the same template design if you want to keep a consistent theme.
  
  If you’ve not added any tweaks as mentioned in the previous section that’s all you have to do. If you have added any tweaks then it’s easiest to copy the HTML code from the previous blog into the one you’ve just created. That means you’ve copied the design of the last issue exactly without including the posts. In Blogger this is easy, as follows…

1. Go to the Design tab in a previous blog and click Edit HTML
2. Click anywhere inside the Edit Template box where you can see the HTML code
3. Press keys Ctrl and A to highlight all the HTML code
4. Press keys Ctrl and C to copy the code
5. Now go to the blog you’ve just created, and to the Design tab
6. Click anywhere inside the Edit Template box where you can see the HTML code
7. Press keys Ctrl and A to highlight all the HTML code
8. Press keys Ctrl and V to paste the HTML code from the previous blog
9. Click Save Template at the bottom of the Edit Template box
10. The design of your new blog should now look the same as the previous one
    

• Create the Welcome or Home page
  If the newsletter is on behalf of your organisation this will normally be the Chairman's bit. In Live Writer you should find yourself in New by default. Make the Post Title ‘Welcome’, click in the body window and copy (right click and copy) the text you’ve been given straight in. You can then edit the contents for grammar and add an image. Remember to periodically Save Draft if it takes you a while to come to the finished article.
  
  If writing directly in Blogger the process is almost identical. Click New Post and remember to periodically Save Now.
  
  In both programmes you can periodically Preview what you’ve created so far to check it looks OK.
  
  When you’ve finished the article you can choose the publish date that’ll be shown to readers at the bottom of the page… in Blogger that’s under Post options. Then publish the post.
  
• Create the rest of the pages
  Follow the same process for all the other content using a separate post for each article. However, make sure you set the publication date for a day earlier than that set for the Welcome page. This will ensure the Welcome page is always presented to readers first when they access the newsletter.
  
  The best idea is to decide the order you want the articles to appear in the Contents section, the Welcome page being first, and then to date each article with a different date, the Welcome page being the latest, what will effectively be article two being one day earlier, article three being two days earlier etc etc. This makes things a bit easier in the next section and the newsletter won’t show these dates anyway.
  
• Create the Contents section
  First of all let’s ensure those dates mentioned above don’t actually show in your newsletter…
  1. In Blogger go to the Design tab and under the box headed Blog Posts, click Edit
  2. Firstly set Number of posts on main page to 1 page so only the Welcome page shows to new readers
  3. Next, untick the boxes beside the date, posted by and time
  4. Scroll down and click Save

  Now let’s create the Contents section. You should still be in the Design tab and to the right of the Blog Posts box you’ll see Add a Gadget. Click that and do the following…

  1. In the Add a Gadget box that pops up, scroll down to Text and click the + button
  2. A box entitled Configure Text appears, in the title box enter ‘Contents’
  3. Now go to the newsletter you’ve created on-line
  4. Click the title and then copy the web address appearing at the top of the web page, it’ll be something like…
     http://hraasummer2010.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome-to-summer-2010-newsletter.html
  5. Return to the Configure Text box and paste the web address in
  6. Of course you don’t want it to appear like the above example in the Contents readers will see, so click Edit HTML and look for the bit of text before </a> and after “>… in the example I’ve given the text you’re looking for is as highlighted below…
     <a href="http://hraasummer2010.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome-to-summer-2010-newsletter.html">http://hraasummer2010.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome-to-summer-2010-newsletter.html</a>
  7. Replace that text with what you want to appear in the Contents section, for example…
     <a href="http://hraasummer2010.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome-to-summer-2010-newsletter.html">Welcome</a>
  8. Click Rich Text and you should now see the entry showing as Welcome, click your return button to go to the next line ready for another entry
  9. Go back to your newsletter web page and click Older Posts at the bottom of the Welcome page until you come to the next article in he Contents sequence
  10. Repeat steps 4. to 9. above until you’ve added all the articles under Contents, each time looking under Edit HTML for the web address you’ve just added and replacing the text between “> and </a> with a more appropriate description

With each entry you’ll need to be careful about the text you select to replace when in Edit HTML. As you add more and more Content entries the mass of HTML code can seem a bit daunting… but if you just add sequentially and then look in Edit HTML at the bottom of the code for the entry you’ve just added all should be well!

Whatever the actual title of each article, the Contents entries look snappier if they’re short enough to fit on a single line when the newsletter is seen by readers. How much space you’ve got depends on the width your blog and the side bar are set to. You can adjust this in Blogger under the Design tab, click Template Designer, and under Layout you’ll see an option to Adjust width.

While you’re there, you might also want to look at some of the other options under the Designer tab. For example, why not try out a few of the really attractive Templates? Note… the changes mentioned under Designer qualify for the earlier definition of tweaking under ‘2. Create the publication issue’.

Additions to consider

Within Blogger you can consider adding other Gadgets to the side bar. Try adding a Link List and call it ‘Useful links’. Even better, why not add a Poll to get an on-line survey of readers’ views?

You can also add functionality from external suppliers. Some of your readers may prefer to print articles to read them, so make that easy by adding a Print Friendly button.

One thing you’ll certainly want to do is get an idea how many people are reading your newsletter, how many pages they’re reading, how long they stay reading, where they’re from, what days you get most readers etc etc. Do all this by getting a SiteMeter account to monitor your site.

Best of luck!

Did I just miss July?

Blog-wise I think I’ve just had a big senior moment. No posts for a month. Should I employ the usual tactics when similar things happen? Maybe you’ll find some of the following useful yourself.

Deny everything
When I misplace my car keys I find denying ever having had any in the first place can buy you a bit of time. Might be going a bit far to deny ever having had the car itself, but if you’re having similar problems and think you can carry it off, give it a go!

Be creative
If my wife accuses me of watching the same film for the third time when it appears new to me, it puts her off the scent when I explain the film has deep inner meaning and a complex plot undertone which I want to understand better.

You could try another play on this theme. When arriving home without the car having forgotten you’ve taken it, explain to your partner in great detail the technical fault that’s ‘happened’, which should immediately turn them off the subject.

Get physical
I haven’t had to use this strategy yet, but it’s useful when the senior moment is so obvious anything else won’t work. For example, if you’re introducing your wife to someone and suddenly can’t remember her name, just faint right there and then! Sudden concern will make everyone forget the faux pas you were about to commit.

Be careful employing more extreme physical measures. Suddenly pointing up to the sky and claiming you’ve just seen an alien spaceship land in the next street and everyone should run for cover might just confirm to all present that you really have got a season ticket to la la land.

It's a conspiracy
My more natural defence… to accuse everyone around, for example of moving the object I can’t find… car keys, the tool I’ve just been using, the TV remote control, my spectacles etc etc. The problem is tempers rise when people are blamed, and in the case of the spectacles I feel a right fool when it transpires they’ve been on the top of my head all the time!

For more serious events such as my wife's birthday I’ve found because you need to employ a much more serious reason for the omission you’re again at risk of confirming what everyone’s beginning to suspect. So explaining the lack of a card and present were due to a world shortage in cardboard and paper, or that you’ve been employed by the Government in work of national importance and haven’t had the time, might be going a tad too far.

It's the generation gap
I’m on strong ground putting forgetfulness down to passage of time when the event was thirty years ago, but that’s a difficult excuse to carry when you forget the name of your fourth child. You can only call him ‘thingy’ so many times before he twigs… he’s in his twenties for goodness sake!

Since everyone’s used to my grumpy old man act complaining about nothing in particular, starting up a good rant about the generation gap, about constant change, about how kids these days don’t know what they want, about… well, I just keep on going until everyone’s forgotten what it was all about and has exited stage left to leave me by myself.

 

Actually, the real reason I’ve not posted for a month is because I’ve been doing things for our allotment association. We did get away for a few days blissful peace and quiet early in the month at Hunstanton. But since then it’s not that I haven’t been hammering away on the keyboard most mornings from about six until nine… I have all too much and haven’t had any time to do one of my favourite pastimes… switch on the radio, open a good book and relax.

We’re going to start up the St Ives Fruit and Produce Show again on Saturday 11-Sep in the Corn Exchange after a break of fifteen years. So there’s been lots of work to do. I’ve emailed over 100 local firms seeking sponsorship… after an initial excitement when the first £50 cheque came in within days it’s been a bit of a struggle since and a couple of us are going to try the face to face approach in the next couple of days to see if we can get more commitment, especially to the raffle prizes which currently stand at a single donation.

By the middle of August we’ll have posters around the town, an article in the Hunts Post and programmes available for competitors. Even what to put on the display tables has been quite an effort to decide for the team working on the event. We may have up to 70 square metres to cover and are unsure how much we’ll make on the event, so we’re having to be careful with money.

Apparently the former association had a number of silver cups awarded at the show, one of which is Victorian. But we can’t find where they are now after all this time. Rumour was they’re in a bank vault, then in someone’s attic. We’re hoping the newspaper article will jog someone’s memory.

Then the deadline for getting the allotment association’s summer newsletter crept up. Fortunately got a few articles in from members as well as quite a bit from Richard (the chairman), but still had to write about half the content. You can read the summer newsletter by clicking here.

And the association is talking about preparing to bid for Lottery grant money as soon as the Show is over. The aim is to get a communal portacabin where we can have meetings, sell stuff and store equipment. But that’ll be a huge amount of work right through into next year, as well as care and maintenance afterwards. Do association members want that… if yes, are they willing to help organise?

So onto my allotment and other things. I’m now sadly down to three hens and a cockerel after Milkbottle passed on to chicken heaven. Found her still in the chicken hut one afternoon, looking very poorly. At first I thought she’d already gone, but she wasn’t far off and the next day she was stiff as a board. I’ve been kicking myself, since I think the signs were there for a while that not all was well. She was always very docile but I should have noticed that she was particularly showing a lack of energy. I think feeding the feathered fiends too much lettuce was the problem, and Milkbottle’s crop appeared too full… maybe it got blocked. I’ve decided I need to give the girls a health check once a month or so.

The loss of Milkbottle particularly affected Sammy (who loved to carry her around) and Izzy (who’s chicken Milkbottle was), so I built a shrine over the grave to give the whole thing some solemnity. See pictures below.

Otherwise things have really moved on since my wife Linda started to get interested in the allotment and to come with me on every visit. She LIKES WEEDING… yes, you did read that correctly, she actually likes going around and tidying things up. So the strimmer’s  back home in the garage and the push along mower might be consigned to the scrap heap… anything that shouldn't be there gets snipped with the shears Linda bought for her birthday with some of her gift vouchers.

There are some small downsides. I’ve had to move the rhubarb twice… first ‘cause it’s original position along the back of the chicken fence wasn’t viewed favourable, second when she noticed everyone’s rhubarb seemed to be planted on a mound whereas I’d planted ours in slight dips to make watering easier. Additionally I’m getting lots more advice about what I should be doing plant-wise. There’s even lists being made! To be honest I do need a bit of organising, since my natural approach is to bumble around doing a bit of whatever takes my fancy.

The polytunnel is doing really well. Getting loads of really plump juicy raspberries, nice cucumbers and the tomatoes are just starting to ripen. Bit puzzled about the squash, which are creeping about in all directions. Thought they were all butternut squash, but I’m being advised most of them look like summer squash for which we haven't got quite so many uses.

Finally, I’ve just achieved the family sports accolade of holding all three titles simultaneously… squash, darts/pool and pitch and putt. For the latter, the one I enjoy most of all, I’ve been winning for a few weeks now by some margin ever since I got a hole in one on the sixth hole. David’s even talking about going out and buying his own clubs. I must really have him worried!

Loads more photos and video clips below from the last month.

 

Beth and Chris playing swingball in Becky’s back garden… is Beth really winning?

Connor takes on his mum and Aunty Beth at swingball

Sammy has a good wobble on his new bike

Sammy and Becky set off for home

Baby blackbirds in an allotment neighbour’s shed