Thursday, 27 December 2018

A few local pictures and not a lot more

Postcards from the heap, straight from camera to blog, as we are still having a family Christmas and I haven't really much to blog about.

 The photo would have been taken before Sept 1912, note the bathing machines, most of them disappeared after WW1









I'm still working towards New Year resolutions, I gave up smoking several years ago, after that I gave up vaping. In both cases you don't really need to draw a diagram for those who do.

When things get tough I chew gum containing nicotine. one boots own make mixed with one ordinary Wrigley's is the only combination that doesn't laminate dentures and for sudden incidents a nicorette QuickMist sprayed on the tongue, does the trick. I suppose I could give that up, but I do have teenage children.

At the moment the only preventable thing I am doing that is harming me is screen use, the research on this is too new for anything other than reducing it. A 20% reduction in cognitive ability doesn't sound good. I am already getting a bit of flack for blind typing with auto correct, so you can expect some pretty odd feeds if not posts.

On the work front in the bookshop, I guess this will increase physical book sales, so always look on the bright side.

Today's local photos didn't come to much as I took the shopping trolley out to top up supplies and you really need free hands for a camera.

Anyway back to work tomorrow, the first trading day after Christmas is usually a busy one in the bookshop, smartphones in particular have increased adult literacy to the highest levels ever and yet functional bookshops have mostly vanished. By functional I mean a reasonable range of books that are mostly priced less than they are on the internet. 








Wednesday, 26 December 2018

Ramsgate Christmas lights gif some old Thanet picturres and a ramble.

First of all a gif of the Christmas lights in Ramsgate Harbour, not perhaps as good as the laser one the other day, initial photos with my phone Oukitel K3 not the best of cameras but the limited choice of phones that have charging OTG meaning I can use it to charge, camera, sound cancelling headphones, transfer images from the camera's SD card to the phone and then on to the internet, use it like a memory stick that I can't loose (as soon as the phone gets into wifi it saves everything online so if I then drop it in the loo, all of it pictures and data will automatically appear on the replacement phone, which will cost around £100)  Oh if only I was more efficient - well maybe not!

With he gifs do photos and so on, do feel free to save them to your device and use them, friends social media and so on.

Local photos and the lazy approach again, off the pile and up the Nikon P610, hand helnd, set on macro, but how does it do it in poor lighting conditions?

 Yep telling us all the photo was taken before 1906 will do, thank you very much.

 1907 note the jib (little mast and sail on the back) this would reduce the time spent working the boat and give much more time for fishing etc.

 Before WW1 when the sand built up because of the invasion defences






 So is tramway info wrong here is the link I think what you can see in the background here is the side of the old Queen's Head I think there must have been two different accidents there.

 This looks like Lapthorn's hand, so probably his questions and answers

 Draper's Mills Margate

 Before 1913


The Japanese - I just don't understand it, I am reading Murakami's book South of the Boarder West of the Sun, at the moment. This is the last of his novels for me, from my fairly recent discovery of his work. To my mind, an important magic realist. so to what's the impact on the individual Japanese citizens - Hell teeth I'm embarrassed enough when in the company of European academics about BREXIT, at least we haven't suddenly legalised bear bating or hare coursing again.

Fox hunting has always been a tricky one for me. In a general sense I approve of free range eggs, once worked on that sort of farm. That given foxes have to be controlled, I quite like domestic cats too, which foxes tend to kill out of hand and on passing. If I get reincarnated as a fox and am given the choice between being gassed with my cubs in my burrow, shot out of hand or taking my chance with the hounds - well you know how it is.

So with the whales, do the Japanese have some cogent argument like that, the trouble is that I can't see that less whales would benefit mankind that much. Are they eating our fish? I've never been that keen on fish or fishing. More of a steak and sausages man myself, not lamb though, complicated story. As I said I did a bit of being a sort of farmworker, when I was at school and of course if we all have to become vegetarians then farm animals will become extinct - perhaps there will be a few vegans keeping pigs as pets until they die of old age?

Milk of course is the cruellest farm product and I have it in my tea.

I am writing this post in Wetherspoons using my mobile phone without looking at the screen. typing on a folding Bluetooth keyboard, what this does to my my grammar, not so very good to start with, God alone may know. Aquinas probably had something to say about that sort of thing, not the keyboard and phone but the rest of it. Sitting at home and looking at the screen sucking out 20% of my mind, no thank you very much.



Home now, blog sorted, more food

Tuesday, 25 December 2018

Happy Christmas and another lazy blog post

First the old local pictures, click on them to expand them, the lazy approach of just photographing ones near my desk and loading them to the blog.

 This one says C1904 on it
 The Sea Caves were a tourist attraction housed in Pugin's gallery in the cliff by The Grange which collapsed in 1947
 1937 postmark so before then

 Ramsgate old town hall now The Halifax

 1916 postmark so during WW1

 A possible solution to "I want a pony"
 Two halfs of the same postcard
 and here is the back ofit
So why post on Christmas Day? Well partly for the people who can't get out, don't have children who live at home - well that type of kidney. But a lot of it is selfish, if I get to Christmas 2028 I would like to be able to look back on Christmas 2018 and tell the difference from Christmas 2017.

Present wise I suppose the best recent one I have had was the Nikon P610, this is a hand held shot taken today of Deal Pier from Ramsgate.

Like most cameras, the main thing is learning to use it, with this one I still have long way to go. We went for a walk in Ramsgate today

Here are the links to the photos I took.

Link  1

Link  2

The pictures are in the order they were taken along the walk, which helps to understand the story they tell.

I am working up to generating if not New Year resolutions, the tweaks to life's directions for 2019.

I guess my latest change in the way I am going about things is related to the new research into screen use. The latest batch of scientific data published this month, which seemed to be hoping to show that teenagers and young adults should use their phones less. Well the prognosis is not good, it seems to be showing that a lot of screen use, including TVs and and computers, results in a 20% reduction in cognitive ability, curiosity and stuff.

A serious issue for me, as I have to use a computer to price books in the bookshop, the last paper secondhand book trade reference books were replaced with computer files in about 1995, with the new booktrade main reference work Books in Print going onto microfiche in about 1980.

I take there to be a reasonable chance that there is a relationship between watching TV when young and the increase in dementia when old. And while fortunately I have not watched much TV I have certainly used screens a lot.

The main thing I am doing is to turn the screen off while typing and switching to trying to read everything I can on paper.Trying to use mobile phones without the screen active, which is what I am doing now, this Christmas Day is a bit of a tricky business. I think close to writing a letter without l looking at the paper.

The other side of this coin is just as bad or possibly worse, particularly when associated with old people. Having a reasonably good up to date smartphone that you can use fairly well is a considerable aid to getting through disability, especially dementia and time in institutions.