Not exactly Four Candles but four candle Canterbury phones and stuff and the enviable old Ramsgate and Margate photos, a ramble.

 As I put up old local pictures on the internet pretty much every day and have been doing so for years it is difficult enough to remember what I have published before, recently.

 The croppings republishings and colourations make it pretty much impossible. 

 that said it's the little variations to the background, small changes to which buildings are shown and which are different that is the bread and butter of the "very local history" that interests me and the readers here.

 These two, same company, same numbering which should make the card around 1907, same photo, different picture.

So the four candle – in the Beaney reminded me of the Wetherspoon dispute and got me thinking – that when – for example as the new Wetherspoons in Ramsgate is consistently very good and this has to be down to the efforts of the staff and management there, then there is a sense in which you can review it in the way you can review an independent.  

The stained glass in the Beaney in Canterbury, mostly dating from between 1600 and 1700 with a reasonable amount of it secular, fascinates me. A glimpse into the past and often the past of the ordinary folks. 

Hard to photograph because of the reflections.

I was ostensibly shopping in Canterbury today but a fair amount of the day was spent trying to work out aspects of perspective for the next watercolour painting.

I had one of those phone incidents this week, the easiest solution was just buying a cheap new phone in my case a Motorola XT1604 Moto G4 Play for about £100 as I don’t have a contract but just use pay as you go with internet on a sort of buy as I need basis.

Interesting to me as this is the sort of phone that would be a cheap starter phone for someone on a tight budget, the photos in this post were taken with it.

I have seen some bad situations develop recently for people who don’t have a smartphone, particularly some older people. This is mostly because having an internet enabled smartphone and the ability to use it has become like basic literacy.

The closest I can get to this is large group of people – particularly older people – who can’t read or write. At best they are occasionally touching metaphorical wet paint because the can’t read the signs. At the worst though they are suffering some very bad outcomes.

To be honest I don’t think a home computer is an essential, but  smartphone is another matter altogether.  

Back in the world of conventional of literacy here are the books that went out in the bookshop yesterday http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/illuminatus-in-bookshop.html