DARnet Andy Roberts

The Shape of Salt

2013-01-17T13:36:53Z

Moment exquisite

do not let it land.

The shape of salt in mid air

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The Shape of Salt

Pompeii Exhibition London – Mary Beard on R4

2012-11-25T13:00:49Z

Mary Beard on Pompeii Exhibitions

There was an interesting short “Points of View” programme by Mary Beard on Radio 4 this morning about the attitude of people towards the displays of dead bodies from Pompeii at the exhibitions. She explained how the casts are made by pouring plaster of paris into the cavities in the lava rock left by decayed real bodies which were originally captured and buried by the molten lava flow from the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79. So in a very real sense, these are not bodies but casts, reproductions of the shape of the bodies, and in some cases they are in fact modern recasts made from the original 19th century casts.

Casts of the Victims of Pompeii

There is no doubt though, that they do impart a strong emotional reaction in people when confronted by the postures adopted by families about to be engulfed by hot lava together. There’s also a dog which evidently died still tied up, straining at the leash in a vain attempt to escape. Her point was that plaster casts of people who died 2000 years ago don’t inherit some kind of right to privacy, which is probably not contentious now, but was an idea that was knocked about when these kinds of exhibitions were first put on show.

Pompeii Guard Dog Mosaic

British Museum Exhibition

It’s no so much a point of view as a kind of trailer for the British Museum exhibition which is coming in March 2013 until September called “Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum”. If the publicity is starting already, and it is, then this is going to an event that everybody gets to know about, and therefore quite a lot of people will want to go and see. So I suppose there will be queuing around the block again for timed entrance tickets, as happens with any major exhibition in London these days. Some people will even make a point of visiting London especially for the purpose of going to see the Pompeii exhibition as the highlight of their weekend break, by coach or train usually. Londoners themselves will mostly assume it’s too busy and not worth queuing up for, unless there is some kind of “speedy boarding” pass they can wangle through corporate entertainment expenses or something like that. Mary Beard herself had been to a similar but no doubt smaller show of artefacts from Pompeii in Malibu California and observed some reactions from visiting families, presumably Americans. When the children cried “erghh!! are these dead bodies real?” they were told variations of “Yes but they died a very long time ago so it’s alright” or “No, they are just models” which Mary argued were both true.

Pompeii itself

Then she went on to talk about the reaction to much earlier displays of the casts from Pompeii in the previous two centuries, and some interesting anecdotes about the state of the archeological buildings at Pompeii itself, which had been rebuilt twice, once after second world war bombing by the British, and therefore are kind of models or reconstructions themselves. Why did the British bomb Pompeii in World War 2? Was it because the enemy were hiding munitions there as a kind of cultural shield, and therefore it became a valid military target, or was it part of the strategy of demoralisation of the population that was adopted by both sides during the conflict ever since it had been proven to work in Guernica in 1937, but that’s another story, a song that has been sung. The exhibition of Life And Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum is still to come, roll on the summer!

Links

BBC R4 A POint of View : Mary Beard On Pompeii : www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ny0fr

British Museum : Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/pompeii_and_herculaneum.aspx

TBM London Breaks : Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum theatrebreaks.reader.travel/subcat.php?d=0&c=29&s=191

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Pompeii Exhibition London – Mary Beard on R4

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If Writing seems Hard Work

2012-11-19T10:49:40Z

I tell myself that writing is not hard work. Bending over in a field picking potatoes all day in the wind and rain, that’s hard work. Trying to sell altruistic ideas to tired commuters outside the tube at rush hour, that’s hard work. Washing, cleaning up, caring and providing for two young children on your own, that’s hard work. Catering for a hundred or so hungry souls with the sun beating down on the marquee and eight gas burners roaring at full throttle, that’s hard work. But sitting down at a keyboard in a warm room with coffee, and a blank screen – that’s just telling stories. Being comfortable with the notion that just maybe, nobody is going to be at all interested in what you have to say – that’s not hard work. It’s just blowing smoke rings at ghosts.

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If Writing seems Hard Work

Technorati Tags: blowing smoke rings, Catering, coffee, Field, gas burners, Hard Work, potatoes, rush hour, writing

Twixmas for Singles from Lancashire

2012-11-10T11:57:22Z

Twixmas : Thursday December 27th to Sunday 30th December 2012

Twixmas – was there really such a great a need to coin a single word phrase to describe the period between Christmas and New Year? Well it’s better than just calling the whole festive season “The Holidays” I suppose like they do in the US. Twixmas is more precise anyway, it’s less than a week long for a start whereas “the season” can go on for months, starting from when all the mad shopping and planning begins and continuing right through the January Sales and pantomime season. I’m not terribly keen on the whole build-up and fuss myself, but I’m not opposed to the idea of taking a holiday at this time of year, if only to get away from all that.

I’ve spent several Christmases, late Decembers or Twixmases in Spain where they don’t make quite such a big deal of it all, or at least didn’t used to, until three Kings on January 6th by which time most of the UK has thrown away the tree and been back at work for a few days, and some have already started booking up next summer! It’s all just about bearable as long as you have somebody to spend the time with, usually. I spent a few festive seasons as a single person alone on alternate years during my kids’ childhood, mercifully not too many though. I hung about with own parents and their friends once, at a bit of a loose end, and I’ve also used the time to throw myself into new work projects with the promise to myself of a better holiday in the springtime. That can work, but one thing I never took advantage of is the opportunity to join a group on a package holiday type thing, to go away with a bunch of strangers where everything is laid on and just take it as it comes. A change of scenery, away from the same old four walls, somebody else doing the cooking and washing up, with a little bit of luxury and cultural interest are what’s on offer with one such North Wales Twixmas 4 day coach holiday offered via Omega Holidays and TBM Readers Offers, which is a new site in addition to our existing Theatre Breaks offers.

The Dreaded Single person Supplement

The single person supplement is only £40, that’s just £10 per day¹ for a single room instead of a double in the 3 star Celtic Royal Hotel, at Caernarfon. I know, it feels a bit like persecution to have to pay any single person supplement at all, especially if it applies to travel – that just doesn’t seem fair – so to find one so low is almost like finding a specially designed single person package – except it isn’t – and that’s probably just as well because you can imagine what some of those might be like. No, on this one there are likely to be mainly couples and small groups as per usual, but with a good smattering of single people taking advantage of the much more single-friendly pricing than that often offered more as a disincentive than an enticement.

Things to do In North Wales

Welsh Highland Railway in Snowdonia

It’s not just about the pricing though, what exactly is there to do in North Wales at the top of the year? Well if it was me I’d be keen to take a ride on the newly restored Welsh Highland Railway which can take you from Caernarfon itself right down alongside Mount Snowdon, through the wonderful Aberglasyn pass all the way down to Porthmadog by the sea. That would make a brilliant day out. You’d have to find a way of fitting it in with the busy itinerary already laid on for you though, with visits to Llandudno, Conwy, Bets-y-Coed and Llanberis. I suppose it all depends how you get on with making new friends quickly in such a conducive environment. There’s nothing to stop you opting out of the coach tour day trip and go off on your own instead. There’s still the evening entertainment to catch up with everybody else on the Twixmas holiday. It’s a lovely part of the word and I think this would make a deeply enjoyable winter holiday break for anybody regardless of family status.

This has been an advertorial post by Andy Roberts about Twixmas in North Wales – 4 days by Coach via Theatre Breaks Magazine Readers Offers.

Celtic Royal Hotel, Caernarfon

The prestigious Celtic Royal Hotel is a 3 star luxurious hotel in the famous town of Caernarfon, near Bangor in Gwynedd. It’s right in the town, between a nice green open space behind and the little harbour/marina in front and has 110 en-suite bedrooms, a fine dining restaurant, a chic Art Deco bar, conference/meeting facilities, and a superb leisure club. Also:

Gym
Indoor heated pool
Sauna, Jacuzzi & steam room
Wi-Fi in public areas
TV
Tea/coffee making facilities
Hairdryer

Forget the trouser press, this is meant to be relaxing! The 4 Day Coach Package designed by Omega Holidays can be joined from any of the following departure points, mostly in East Lancashire, North England:

Accrington, Blackburn,Blackpool, Burnley, Chorley, Clitheroe, Colne, Darwen,

Leigh, Leyland, Nelson, Padiham,

Preston, St Helen’s, Wigan.

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Twixmas for Singles from Lancashire

Technorati Tags: Aberglasyn, Breaks, Caernarfon, Celtic, christmas, coach holiday, Holidays, Llandudno, Magazine, north wales, Porthmadog, Snowdonia, TBM, things to do, Twixmas, Twixmases, welsh

a bit more per night, as it’s only three nights.

Charing Cross Theatre

2012-11-06T21:48:24Z

There are lots of little theatres and theatre-pubs in London as well as all the well known West End theatres, and this is one of them – the Charing Cross Theatre located under the arches near Embankment tube station.

If you come out of Embankment towards Charing Cross and immediately turn left into the underneath the arches section, then the Theatre is just after the South African shop where I sometimes buy my Laager rooibos (redbush) tea.

It’s a 275 seater theatre with a restaurant and a bar licensed to 2.30am, the current show being a production of “La Boheme” by Puccini.

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Charing Cross Theatre

Technorati Tags: embankment, laager, London, Puccini, redbush, rooibos, south africa, theatre, west end

Blog Action Day – Why I Won’t be Taking Part This Year

2012-10-12T18:58:47Z

It takes place every October but this year I won’t be involving myself in Blog Action Day at all.

Blog Action Day is an annual online event that aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of lots of people all blogging about the same topic on the same day. This year 2012, it all happens on the 15th of October.

Previous year’s topics have included:

2007 Environment

2008 Poverty

2009 Climate Change

2010 Water

2011 Food

The topic is chosen each year by an authority who decides what the subject shall be and then informs everyone taking part. This year they have plumped for the headline: “The Power Of We”.

Call me grumpy if you like, but from my point of view this topic is at best ambiguous but more probably meaningless, and what irritates me is that it’s monocultural, devisive and most worryingly of all, totally ungrammatical so for that reason, I’m out.

Grumpy about BAD2012

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Blog Action Day – Why I Won’t be Taking Part This Year

Technorati Tags: #andforthatreasoniamout, #bad12, #powerofwe, 2012, action, blog, Blog action day, Day

How to move a WordPress site to another host

2012-10-09T09:36:39Z

This is one nice simple way to move a WordPress installation, usually a blog, from one hosting service to another. Web hosting companies can turn flaky anytime, so it’s always good to know your escape route.

1) Login to the CPanel at the existing host. Always keep this login handy, at least be able to find the original welcome message from when you bought the hosting, or do a password reset to your original email address.

Compress and download

2) From the file manager, navigate to public_html, then to the files for the domain name in question, and highlight the wp-content directory. Click on “Compress” , Compress files, then highlight the resulting wp-content.zip file and “download” to download it to your computer.

3) Now go back to the main CPanel tab and scroll down past File, Logs, Security etc to Databases and go into “php MyAdmin”. Select the database that belongs with your site. If you have multiple domains on the one account, created the WordPresses with a script and don’t know which of the many databases it should be then you’ll need to go back into the file manage and view the wp-config file to find out. Select “Export” and “Go”. This will download a file called something like “database_name.sql” in your downloads folder on your computer.

4) Now is a good time to switch over the DNS records for your domain name at your domain registration account so that they point to the dns servers for the new hosting. That’s just like buying a new domain name and pointing it at your own hosting, except that you are amending your existing record there to replace one pair of nameservers with the new set. The exact entry you need to put in for the nameservers will have been sent to you when you purchased the new hosting account.

5) Log into the cPanel for the new hosting and choose “Add On Domains” to set up the transferred domain there.

6) Now use Fantastico or Scriptaculous or SimpleScripts, whichever is provided under Software/Services to set up a brand new WordPress install into the top level directory just created by adding the domain. This will create a new database, database user and WordPress files and directories for a new empty site with just one “Hello World” post.

7) In the File Manager at the new hosting, go into the domain name top level directory and upload the wp-content.zip file from step 2. You should see the wp-content folder created by the script and now the wp-content.zip there as well, a bit further down.

cPanel File Manager – WP-Content

Highlight wp-content.zip and “Extract” to overwrite the contents with the plugins, themes and media files from the old installation.

8) Now go into “php MyAdmin” at the new hosting and find the new database set up by the installation script. You might like to make a backup, but then blank it by choosing operations, Structure, check all and “Drop”. Now select “import”, choose the file created in step 3 and away you go. All the settings and tweaks and options and things will have been duplicated in the new site from the old one, but in a nice and clean new WordPress installation.

9) When the dns changes have propagated through the new version of the site will be visible with very little noticeable changes. There may be a new “Hello World” post at the top of the lastest posts which can be moved to trash.

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How to move a WordPress site to another host

Technorati Tags: database name, databases, dns records, dns servers, domain registration, Fantastico, hosting service, installation, password reset, Scriptaculous, SimpleScripts, software, web hosting companies, wordpress, WordPresses

London’s West End Theatres

2012-10-05T11:38:54Z

Last Saturday we went wandering around London’s West End theatre districts photographing a number of the theatres dressed up for their current shows. We were armed with the theatreland map, in case of memory lapses, but we didn’t plan a meticulous route to take in as many as possible. We arrived by bus from Liverpool Street and got off at the top of High Holborn, near to the Shaftesbury theatre where Rock of Ages is still going strong.

Rock of Ages at the Shaftesbury

The Shaftesbury Theatre is a large fronted building and you need to cross to other side of the road to even attempt to fit it all into one photograph.

From there we went down into Covent Garden, diverted around to see the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and a few restaurants in the area. The Fortune Theatre, where Woman in Black is just to one side also, but we somehow missed the New London Theatre on the way out, but managed to catch Warhorse on the way home as it happens.

Down on Aldwych and the Strand, there’s a nice cluster of theatres including the Novello, The Duchess, Lyceum, Savoy, Vaudeville, Adelphi, the Aldwych theatre itself but the Strand Theatre must be dark? After that lot we needed more coffee and after rejecting a few suggestions ended up at the Cafe Rouge in Villiers Street.

Refreshed we headed back up to weave our way around Trafalgar Square past the Duke of Yorks, Garrick and Noel Coward theatres and around the side of Wyndhams, currently dark, through into Leicester Square and Piccadilly circus. At this point I had a sudden memory lapse disorientation and lost the Haymarket, chasing off in the wrong direction. We’d already found the Harold Pinter theatre though. Time for lunch in Chinatown, and a bit of food shopping for later. Where else can you but two salmon tails for a couple of quid?

Eating rice and fish for lunch is not such a great idea on a working day though, and after a few more theatres visited and photographed the feet and legs started to feel heavier. One thing you can always do in central London though, as an Oystercard holder, is to jump on a bus. Any old bus, as long as its headed in the right direction. No actually, we made sure it was going to Victoria, a long enough rest and a remote cluster of West End Theatres, well two. The Apollo Victoria for Wicked and The Victoria Palace Theatre where Billy Elliot has been on for years as well.

Nearing the end of our sensibilities, we walked down Vauxhall Bridge road for some reason, then hopped on another bus heading back to Aldwych just in time to catch the coach breaks parties parking up outside Shrek, and mopped up War Horse at the New London Theatre. That was a pretty comprehensive round trip of the theatre districts in Central London but which theatres did we miss that we need to plan a route more carefully to take in another time? Well there is the London Palladium, out on its own up there by Oxford Circus, the two theatre in the Haymarket: Her Majesty’s and the Theatre Royal Haymarket, the Piccadilly Theatre we did cover, because that’s where Viva Forever posters are up already, also the Criterion for The 39 Steps and The Prince of Wales for Let It Be were on part of our route, but we never went down to the the river so that leaves the Playhouse Theatre (what’s on since Dreamboats?) and anything on the South Bank such as the Old Vic. We also managed to avoid Tottenham Court Road this particular time, leaving out the Domion for We Will Rock You, The Phoenix where Blood Brothers is ending a long run, and the big umbrellas outside The Palace Theatre, Singin In The Rain.

Agatha Christies The Mousetrap at St Martins Theatre

Also saved for the next time out were The Arts Theatre, St Martins Theatre and the Trafalgar Studios.

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London’s West End Theatres

Technorati Tags: aldwych theatre, central london, coach, duke of yorks, fortune theatre, garrick, Leicester Square, new london theatre, piccadilly circus, shaftesbury theatre, strand theatre, theatre royal drury lane, theatreland, west end, Wyndhams

Negative Interest Rates

2012-10-01T06:24:30Z

Negative Interest Rates

The following news snippet about negative interest rates made me sit up and think:

A curious auction of German bonds this morning saw investors agree to negative interest rates, but more than half the debt was left unsold.

The Bundesbank sold €1.17bn of 12-month bonds at a yield of -0.0184% (which means buyers will receive slightly less than they paid when the debt matures in September 2013).

A total of €3bn of bills were on sale, but despite receiving €6bn of bids it held back €1.83bn which it now plans to sell in the secondary market.

What does it mean to have negative interest rates? It means that the lenders (institutions) are actually willing to invest their money into these bonds, knowing that the risk of losing a tiny fraction of their money is 100%

They are in practice paying a small fee to the German government to keep their money safe for them. All investments carry a small risk of losing money, share prices can go down as well as up, and banks, financial institutions and governments can go insolvent and renege on their debts. The people who bought these bonds perhaps considered all other possible investments as riskier than the German bonds, but they have to put their money somewhere, so were willing to pay the price. Either that or they have some kind of portfolio management policy which requires a particular spread of investments and risks, and this was the only way they could make it balance on that day.

The precarious state of the world’s economies is such that despite governments printing money, energy prices rising and other inflationary pressures, the debt crisis and austerity policies being implemented may result in real monetary deflation, where wages and consequently prices fall in real terms and it may be worth trading €1 One Euro for the promise of €0.9998 ninety nine point nine eight cents in a year’s time. Where else can you keep your money safe?

The psychological effect of this on financial confidence and market stability should not be underestimated.

Are there any other examples of negative interest rates out there?

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Negative Interest Rates

Technorati Tags: bundesbank, debt crisis, deflation, energy prices, german bonds, Government, interest rates, investment, Monetary, negative interest, portfolio management, printing money

Orbit Tower blogging the Olympics and Paralympics

2012-08-21T09:22:46Z

Blogging the Orbit Tower during the Olympic Games and Paralympics

Orbit Tower Media Centre

For the duration of the London 2012 Olympic Games and the run up to the Olympics and Paralympics I’ve been blogging daily over at The Orbit Tower ¹ . It’s been quite fun and a little bit exciting at times such as one particular weekend when a post about the Yorkshire Medals Table went viral on Facebook and Twitter. I’d prepared the site beforehand for big surges in traffic and I’m pleased to say it held up really well.

I learned or rather re-learned the practice of rapid interaction spread over multiple channels feeding back into developing more content on the main site. Success breeds success in this respect, so it seemed to work better for me when I was concentrating on the same topic every day for an intense period rather than spreading myself out over multiple diverse areas of work.

Realtime Analytics

One new tool which came into play was the Google Analytics Realtime beta service. This shows how people are finding and navigating a site on a minute by minute basis, rising from a dozen or so at a time during the main period up to over 120 simultaneous visits during the peak. When you have that amount of traffic you can really see what the hungry visitors are trying to find at that particular juncture in the developing story.

Paralympics to come

It’s all quiet again now, almost, and there isn’t as yet any sign that the Paralympics are going to be anywhere near as high profile as we would like, but that may change once the TV coverage gets underway again on Channel 4. The actual number of Paralympic athletes themselves is 4,200 competitors from 147 nations taking part in 21 sports compared with 10,820 at the Olympics from 204 nations in 26 sports, so the amount of buzz generated by participants, coaches, trainers, entourage and families etc might be just under half, it all depends whether the inspirational trailers such as “Meet the Superhumans” really do deliver a brand new audience around the world and not just in the host country UK.

The US is a waste of time of course, with their NBC only scheduled to show a few short edited highlight programmes. They didn’t even show the whole of the epic Opening Ceremony from July, so we can forget about them.

The Orbit Tower

Searching for Orbit Tower Tickets

And what of the Orbit Tower? Well the ticketing has been a major complicating factor, restricting the number of people who could manage to navigate the obstacles to obtain the correct combination of orbit and olympic or park tickets to a mere trickle, but millions of people around the world caught sight of the sculpture on the Olympics coverage and many formed instant opinions about the artwork. I even quite like the way the very presence of the Orbit seems to cause a little bit of outrage in some people. They want to know what it’s for. What purpose does it have? And in that respect it is doing its job as a piece of art to make people question what a tower can be.

People who fell in love with the Olympic Park while they were there tended to learn to love the Orbit Tower a little bit as well. What will become of it after all the sport is long finished and forgotten, only time will tell.

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Orbit Tower blogging the Olympics and Paralympics

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Orbit Tower blog at http://orbittower.org.uk

Finding The Jade Horse

2012-08-01T17:42:54Z

There’s a Jade Horse figure at the British Museum, somewhere..

I went to The British Museum on Monday, which happened to be the first working day of the London 2012 Olympics, having first checked their website at http://www.britishmuseum.org/ , to make sure the North American Landscape Garden was still there. It was.

We saw it. I have to say we weren’t so impressed by the layout or contents of the installation by Kew Gardens, compared to previous years’ Australian and South African Landscape and other representations. But never mind, it was a nice day and pleasant enough to walk around. There was no problem going inside the free areas of the British Museum either, and right in the middle of the grand courtyard is the gentle spiral stone staircase leading to gallery where we saw the Grayson Perry exhibition last winter. The current exhibition is called The Horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot which didn’t sound too promising to Linda, but I encouraged her with the suggestion we might see the figure of a horse in jade. This was only half a thought, really, left over from having viewed the British Museum website the night before, and understandably linking the image of the jade horse with the horse exhibition.

The history of the horse in art provided some special examples to look at and I particularly liked a couple of pre-hittite clay horses that were described as having some religious purpose but looked more playful or practical than that to me. The film of rock painting was really good too. No sign of the jade horse though, so we went round again in case we’d missed it. No. Never mind, I may have been mistaken.

British Museum Great Court photo by Chris Robinson

Back on the ground floor, there’s a large circular information desk, in fact two of them I think, and a couple of staff with only one busy with a visitor so I strolled up and wondered if they could help me. “Could you tell me where the Jade Horse is please? I was on your website last night and noticed a jade horse, and I’d like to see it if at all possible.”

“It’ll be in the Horse exhibition”

“We’ve just come from there, and didn’t see it.”

“Let me look it up for you”

….

“Ah, here it is. It’s on loan to us.”

“Where is it please”

“Unfortunately I can’t get the actually location within the museum for the objects, only the descriptions and details. If it’s not in the Horse Exhibition, as it’s on loan, I suppose it should be in the temporary exhibits space, near the entrance, over there, then turn left.”

“Thanks”.

So we went and had a look around the temporary exhibits space, which is worth a visit for the prehistoric bone carvings and lots of other stuff but doesn’t have a jade horse. By this time, finding the jade horse has turned into some kind of quest. I wasn’t really that bothered about it before, but the challenge beckoned. Heading back out to the courtyard I saw that the information stand person was still underoccupied and caught his eye.

“Was it there”

“No we still haven’t found it”

“In that case, if it isn’t in the Horse exhibition and it isn’t in the temporary exhibits space then the only other place I can think of to look would be the China and Southeast Asia Gallery”

“Where’s that then?”

“Gallery 33″

“How do I get there?”

“Straight out the back there, straight on through the doors then turn left”

We headed in that direction, found Gallery 33 and looked at the Thai and Indian exhibits there. The China gallery seemed to be the one opposite, which would have been found by turning right through the doors.

We spent some time looking carefully through the ancient artefacts in the China gallery, but began to despair as we neared the end and still found no jade and no horses. I spotted a British Museum gallery assistant or security bod sitting on a chair with headphones on and woke her up by asking

“I don’t suppose you know if there’s a Jade Horse here somewhere?”

“Wuh… ah Jade! Yes, the Jade exibition is straight on down there, around the corner on the right.”

“Thankyou!”

And there it was, a little corridor with a small sign that said something like “7,000 years of Jade Art in China” with some exquisite pieces on display and about half way along, two jade horses including the one from the website allelulia! We had in fact found the exit to the Jade exhibition and after taking it all in, we exited through the entrance which nobody would ever find by themslves not even if they had EIGHT thousand years to wander around in the British Museum.

That was the long story. I could have instead told the short story, which goes like this: The information desk in the British Museum cannot confidently direct people to the physical location of an unknown object within the museum because their database doesn’t contain this essential information.

It’s not the fault of the workers on the information desk. They did the best they could with the knowledge they have and the tools provided. The people who publish the website messed up, by promoting an object with a beautiful image but not bothering to mention the temporary exhibition with which the object is associated. It’s also possible that the database of objects has been designed without the fields for inputting a gallery number or other location data.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/asia/j/jade_figure_of_a_horse.aspx

Jade Horse Figure from China

Late Ming or Qing dynasty, 17th century AD

This impressive horse belongs to a small group of carved jade animals, mainly horses and buffaloes, carved on a much larger scale than usual, and all in the same range of green opaque stones. There is no direct evidence to help us define precisely when and for what purpose these large creatures were carved.

The slender and elegantly smooth carving shows the horse lying down, its hind legs tucked under its body. The mane and tail are carefully worked to represent the hair, with the other features – eyes, jaw, limbs, muscles and sinews – shown in fine grooves.

J. Rawson, Chinese jade: from the Neolith (London, The British Museum Press, 1995, reprinted 2002)

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Finding The Jade Horse

Technorati Tags: british museum, grand courtyard, information desk, Objects

All Quiet in London During The Olympics

2012-08-01T13:48:30Z

Yesterday was the first full working day of the Olympics in London with commuters and Olympics fans rubbing shoulders on the public transport network. I decided to ignore the warnings and venture out anyway, as the weather forecast was good and I had a hunch that part of the city I was headed for would be quiet. Well I was right! Leaving home at 10 o’clock meant missing the morning rush hour entirely but you would still expect Stratford station to be even busier than normal, as the location of the Olympic Park. It was positively relaxed, and I was able to photograph the Olympic Orbit Tower, cross the platform from the Greater Anglia train to Liverpool Street onto the Central Line tube and get a seat, no problem. At Holborn there was a slight slowdown at the platform exit as a hundred or so people with shorts and rucksacks made their way out to cross onto the Piccadilly Line, presumably headed towards Horseguards’ Parade but out on the streets in Holborn and on the way to the British Museum there were definitely less Londoners and tourists out and about than you would normally expect on any day of the week, mid morning in summer.

Londoners and Olympics fans intermingle on the Tube

What’s going on?

What IS going on? Have the measures to mitigate against transport congestion worked too well and kept people away? Or is it just the beginning, with a lot of people taking the day off or working from home, only to return to normal tomorrow? We shall see about that as far as the London commuters are concerned but for the millions of tourists who have decided to keep away from London as a destination this summer, and go elsewhere for te duration, then it’s already too late for all the businesses and activities in central London that depend upon them. I bet there are empty rooms in some of the hotels right now. It reminds me somewhat of Cornwall during the solar eclipse of August 1999. Scaremongering officials and media combined to paint pictures of the army being brought in to help feed people stuck by the roadside in traffic jams for days on end, but the reality was that the Cornish tourist industry had its worst season for decades. I was there and had a lovely time being able to get around the small towns and empty car parks just as if it was an off-season break. Now the same thing appears to be happening to London. There are lots of activities planned in the National Houses and other venues across London, expecting a kind of party atmosphere to break out throughout the capital, but most of them are very badly attended for now. Londoners, having been told to prepare themselves for longer journeys, plan alternatives and “don’t get caught out” (Boris on the buses) have either stayed at home or booked themselves a holiday abroad, and are now being urged to come out and join, and help make up the numbers!

Things to do in London during the Olympics

I went to the British Museum. No queues, no bag searches, a gentle stroll around the North American Flora Exhibition by Kew Gardens and inside to see a free exhibition about The horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot (More about trying to find the Jade Figure of a Horse later).

North American Garden by Kew at British Museum

Lunch in Soho. Fabulous sushi bento box in my favourite Japanese canteen restaurant, usually full of Japanese students and some adventurous tourists but able to walk in and get a table with no waiting yesterday. Maybe I was lucky, but Chinatown is one of the epicentres of camera toting tourists and felt determinedly less busy.

St Katherines Docks is the location for the ‘Danish House’ IMAGINATION, one of dozens of National Houses set up by participating countries in the Olympics to host parties and exhibitions, to follow their national teams and mingle with athletes and celebrities. One site which lists them all, especially those that are free to the public is LondonPrepares.com

Above: The London Orbit Tower during the Olympic Games

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All Quiet in London During The Olympics

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Opening Ceremony Day #London2012

2012-07-27T07:05:07Z

Well its raining quite hard here in Newham, host borough of the London 2012 Olympic Games, at 07.30 in the morning but the nationally broadcast local weather forecast says we can expect it all to dry up in time for the long awaited opening ceremony this evening.

Lego Olympic Park at the Danish House

I’ve seen the hoards of people streaming in and out of the Olympic Park at Stratford the past few evenings as the final dress rehearsals have taken place, and they are all very keen on the idea that nobody should spoil the surprise of watching the spectacle live on TV by revealing any of the big transformations or details about the processions and acts. All that has been confirmed so far in the public domain is that the Orbit Tower is not the Olympic Cauldrom

Danny Boyle

The name of Danny Boyle is on everybody’s lips today, as he is the man chosen to be artistic director of the opening ceremony, but who is Danny Boyle?
Best known for having been director/producer of the film “Trainspotting” he was also the man behind “Slumdog Millionaire”, “Shallow Grave”, “127 Hours”, “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine”, Danny Boyle has also been involved in theatre production including the Royal Shakespeare Company and a theatre production of “Frankenstein” that was broadcast live into cinemas. By the way, another Hollywood director, Stephen Daldry, is one of the executive producers of the opening and closing ceremonies, having directed “Billy Elliott” “The Reader” and “The Hours.”

So what can we expect tonight? Well 9 geese, 70 sheep, 12 horses and three cows. A giant hillside that may or may not open up to turn into something else. A smaller version of the London section of the river Thames, Paul McCartney and James Bond probably. No morris dancers – phew.

The buzzword for the East London games opening ceremony is “British quirkiness” hmm.

Gloriana

Oh yes, the Royal Barge Gloriana is bringing the Olympic flame down the Thames and quite possibly up the River Lea Navigation and into the Olympic park. I remember when it was all overgrown towpaths and supermarket trolleys.

Gloriana – the Royal Barge

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Opening Ceremony Day #London2012

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15 Days To Go until London 2012 Olympics

2012-07-13T16:36:58Z

I live almost exactly 2 miles away from the London 2012 Olympic Games main stadium at Stratford, East London.

So far, the main effect on my life has been to have watched the building of the iconic structures on the skyline. The Main Stadium, The Aquatic Centre and The Orbit Tower.

I don’t have a car but when I rent one and try to drive home via central London I found the closure of Carpenters Road a nuisance. Newham Council sent me some guff about registered visitors car parking during the games periods, which I ignored.

Concrete blocks appeared on street corners around where I live, and then notices about parking zones were attached later.
There are notices on some of the tube stations saying these are expected to be congested during the period of the games, and before, so Londoners should be planning alternative routes or ways of getting about.
I can see the construction of the controversial temporary police muster station at the other end of Wanstead Flats.

That’s about it it, so far. The items in the national news about ground to air missiles being installed on blocks of flats are a little alarming, but it doesn’t feel quite like a military police lockdown, yet. I’m dreading any increased helicopter noise, but you never know, maybe the no fly zone will actually make it quieter ?¹

Will lots of neighbours be taking advantage of the locality and to rent out their houses or receive loads of extra visitors for the duration? I’ve no idea. I’ll be staying put, and hoping for a quiet time. I’l let you know how it goes as the opening date comes ever closer.

London 2012 Olympic stadium from Stratford

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15 Days To Go until London 2012 Olympics

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Apparently the no fly zone doesn’t apply to scheduled passenger aircraft

Lego Sculpture

2012-07-15T18:09:53Z

I woke up after dreaming about a life sized lego house. It all started when somebody wanted to include see-through bricks, a bit like real glass bricks that are used to let light in, but plastic. “No” I said. They make look trendy now, but in few years time they will just look brash and urban. Angry. The problem is the plastic surfaces. The only way to get a bit of texture out of this medium is by mixing up the colours. And so I laid down the following stipulation:

Rules for building the life size lego house:

The last two words “and size” are a refinement, a slight relaxation of the original rules, to allow for the occasional small continuous pool of monochrome when it is of irregular shape and scale. So a single large green brick may be entirely surrounded by small bricks of mixed colours, one or two of which may also be green without breaking the intent of randomness.

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Lego Sculpture

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The Fourth of July

2012-07-04T11:53:43Z

Today is the fourth of July. This is a date which holds no significance to me whatsoever, so here’s a picture of a lift at Broadstairs.

Lift at Broadstairs

How about you though. Does the 4th of July mean anything?

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The Fourth of July

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London Cable Car Oystercard Deals?

2012-06-19T13:24:07Z

The London Cable Car Crossing Opens

According to “The Orbit Tower – London Cable Car” and other sources, a single fare across the Thames on the new London Cable Car opening on June 18th will cost £3.20 if you pay by Oystercard Pay-as-you-go.

But they also have a special offer return trip non-stop bargain price of only £6.40!

So it’s exactly twice as much to stay on and ride back and firth once as it is to combine two singe trips with a stroll around the other side, or whatever.

What’s the sense in that?

But more to the point, how do you click in and click out to ensure you are always charged the correct fare?

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London Cable Car Oystercard Deals?

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Earthlings Start Polluting Interstellar Space

2012-06-18T12:28:15Z

The action was taken by NASA in 1977 but the effect is just being felt outside of the solar system for the first time ever, about now. Plutonium powered Voyager 1 has three large radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). Each RTG contains 24 pressed plutonium-238 oxide spheres, and these are all now headed out of the Kuiper belt and into Interstellar Space.

Voyager 1

What is the effect of plutonium on interstellar space? Well nobody knows because we’ve never tried this particular experiment before. Maybe it will be harmless like genetically modified fish , but what if it isn’t? And in any case, who gave the North American Space Agency the right to go there?

They still don’t know exactly when the 34-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft will cross over into interstellar space, but that boundary is definitely fast approaching very soon, like any day now. The problem is that the exact boundary of where the solar system ends and the inter stellar space begins is not a precise thing to identify. It’s not as if there is a big sign or a toll both there saying “You are now leaving system Sol, please travel carefully” but if there was no, there’s no doubt that NASA has no valid passport for crossing this border. It’s too late to turn back now though.

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Earthlings Start Polluting Interstellar Space

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Steam on the Overground

2012-06-17T09:47:03Z

A steam train ran along the Gospel Oak to Barking branch of the London Overground today June 16th pulling vintage passenger coaches. I’m trying to find out more about it, as I’ve seen or heard this before. The sighting was near Woodgrange Park station heading West so it may have destined to switch tracks onto the mainline towards Stratford, something to do with the Olympics opening ceremony perhaps? There was certainly a steam hauled train crossing one of the main bridges over the Thames in central London for the Queen’s Jubilee River Pageant last bank holiday weekend so it may have been the same one, or maybe the Orient Express making its way around London avoiding the main terminus stations.

A Steam Engine, Not on the Overground

Thanks to Jim Easterbrook who alerted me to http://www.uksteam.info/ I now know that the steam engine I heard and saw on the Barking to Gospel Oak line must have been the BR Cass 8P 4-6-2 no 71000 Duke of Gloucester pulling the THE CATHEDRALS EXPRESS on the Steam hauled: Southend-Gloucester-Southend run. How about that then! And given the timetable information, It should be possible to catch the return passage at about twenty to nine this evening, weather permitting.

Yes, isn’t the internet clever sometimes.

Here’s a picture of the said Duke of Gloucester steaming through Woodgrange Park station only about 5 minutes late at 8.49 pm tonight.

Duke of Gloucester

1Zxx
0.0	Southend Central	d 09:34	71000
	Pitsea	09:50
		d 09:46
	Upminster	a 10:04
		d 10:06
	Barking	10:18
		d 10:22
	Leyton Midland Rd	10:35
	South Tottenham	10:45
	Harringay Park Jc	10:50
	Gospel Oak	10:57
	Willesden Jc HL	11:11
	Acton ML	11:25
	Southall	11:36
	Heathrow Airport Jc	11:39
	Slough	11:49
	Maidenhead	11:59
	Reading	12:16
	Didcot Parkway	12:33
	Challow	a 12:45	water
		d 13:08
	Swindon	13:23
	Kemble	13:47
	St Marys Crossing	13:57
	Standish Jc	14:09
	Gloucester	a 14:20
1Z83
0.0	Gloucester	d 16:58	71000
	Standish Jc	17:10
	St Marys Crossing	17:19
	Kemble	17:32
	Swindon	17:49
	Challow	18:02
	Wantage Road	a 18:07	water
		d 18:43
	Didcot Parkway	18:55
	Reading	19:15
	Maidenhead	19:29
	Slough	19:36
	Heathrow Airport Jc	19:46
	Southall	19:48
	Acton Main Line	19:55
	Willesden Jc HL	20:01
	Gospel Oak	20:15
	Harringay Park Jc	20:20
	South Tottenham	20:25
	Leyton Midland Rd	20:35
	Barking	20:46
	Upminster	a 21:08
		d 21:10
	Pitsea	21:25
	Southend Central	a 21:42

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Steam on the Overground

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Paris Eurostar, War Horse, Wildlife time capsule

2012-10-30T08:59:11Z

Eurostar Breaks to Paris

Taken June 9, 2011 at 8:39 am

Betty Blue Eyes

Taken June 18, 2011 at 2:31 pm

War Horse

War Horse theatrebreaks.co/wiki/War_Horse

Taken June 20, 2011 at 2:41 am

Epping Forest Theydon Bois

Epping Forest Theydon Bois One of my favourite spots for quick breaks away from London.

Taken June 14, 2011 at 10:36 am

Greylag Geese and Goslings

Taken June 21, 2011 at 10:52 am

via posterous

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Paris Eurostar, War Horse, Wildlife time capsule

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