Weekend in Leicester

I spent the weekend from Thursday 29 September to Monday 2 October in Leicester, playing in the Chess Congress and attending meetings at Secular Hall. The weather was very hot and sunny, not what I had expected for this time of year, and not ideal for playing chess. However I suppose I can't really blame the weather for my poor results, just two draws (in the first and fifth games) and one of those was against a junior.

At Secular Hall there was a lecture on 29 September about the situation in Libya, though the speaker was a supported of the Gaddaffi regime, who described his 40-year rule as a type of socialist utopia! What is going to happen there in future is of course difficult to predict. On Sunday there was a meeting of a new History Group in the afternoon, and in the evening a most interesting talk on Thomas Babbington and his friends and family and their work for the abolition of the Slave Trade. They did a lot of the work in preparing evidence for William Wilberforce to use in his speeches in Parliament (from which Quakers and nonconformists were excluded).

I travelled to London by train, and to Leicester by coach. On the return journey, also by coach from Leicester I thought I would try the coach to Hastings. This proved to be a mistake, as the so-called 'Express' took nearly 4 hours! It began by going south-west to Mitcham, and so on to Coulsdon and East Grinstead. Then it went on a grand round tour of East Sussex, stopping at Uckfield, Hailsham, Eastbourne, Pevensey, Bexhill and other places.

Allotting Computer Time

Sorry I've not found time to post anything here for several weeks. Most of my time on the computer has been taken up either with Twitter or trying to improve my understanding of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) so that I can improve my website and also help to improve the Hastings Chess Club's website. If you click on the "Events" link you will be taken to a page I've designed, and you will find another if you click on the link to the page abour Jude Lenier's simultaneous chess display. I would like feedback to know how this style is perceived, whether the rest of the site should be updated similarly, and if anyone can offer suggestions for improvements. I've also done a lot of work on sections of my own website, but the pages can only be posted to the site when they are all ready, because they all link together, so there is nothing new to see there yet.

The Birds!

This photo is taken from the window that faces the opposite direction to the previous photo. The local pigeons are usualy flying about in disordered groups. However on this occasion I noticed that they all lined up with miltary precision along the roof ridges of the Holy Child college (formerly a convent), and stayed there quite still for a longish time. I wondered which is the general: the one on the point of the gable, or the one on the head of the christ child? (You may need to click on the photo and look at the larger version to see it clearly).

The local pigeons are of very varied colours, a few white, a few black, and quite a number an attractive brown. On the old RDFRS forum I queried why this might be, when the common pigeons seen in Warrior Square are more uniformly the traditional blue-grey, and seagulls have no noticeable variation. I was informed that this must be due to human intervention. Perhaps by the nuns who used to live there breeding and selecting them.

The Eyes in the Sky!

I've been intending to post this photo since the day after I posted the last message. I was half-dozing in my chair in the afternoon and suddenly woke up to see what appeared to be two demonic eyes glaring at me through the narrow window opposite. By the time I had realised what it was and got my camera ready the cloud formation, with the sun behind it, had moved on slightly, but the two "eyes" are still visible, but not so dramatic as they looked a minute or so before. Also the view shown is much wider than the one I saw framed by the window. One can appreciate from such an experience how people can attribute such phenomena to the actions of supernatural beings, and perhaps interpret them as personal warnings, since they depend on the location of the viewer and would not be seen much more widely.

The Two Ritas

This morning around mid-day I felt in need of some exercise, and it was a sunny day, possibly the last for a while, so I decided on a walk along the prom towards West St Leonards and perhaps a meal out. On the promenade near the Azur restaurant I was stopped by two ladies, who turned out to be Jehovah's Witnesses. I'd met at least one of them before, having argued with her at the door of my home, and she remembered me as being a Humanist. We exchanged names and some banter. She was Rita, and so was her companion.

I carried on with my constitutional, which Rita had called "power-walking", as far as the end of the cycle-path. No sign yet of it being extended to Bexhill. Turning back there I noticed that the "Bridge Cafe" on the corner was open, so went in for a late breakfast and cup of tea. I didn't remember it being open on other times I've walked past, but apparently the people who run it have been there for ten years. While I was there a group of eight businessmen came in, though there's not much sign of business around there now, since the wood-store closed down.

Maybe I ate my sausage, egg, bacon, beans and tomatoes too quickly, or didn't rest long enough to let them digest, because as soon as I got back home I began to have a bout of hiccups. Once it starts I find it difficult to stop. After a rest it seems to stop, but as soon as I make some strenuous move it starts up again. I think I will call it a bout of "The Two Ritas" in future!

Digging, Hacking and Tweeting

On Tuesday morning I finally got round to weeding and digging over the little strip of front garden I have. The next day I felt very stiff, no doubt due to using unaccustomed muscles. There was a forecast of rain for the afternoon, and I was thinking of sowing some grass seed, but the rain never came, and it has remained dry since. I suspect if I sowed the grass seed in the dry ground the pigeons would soon have it, so I'll wait for some rain.

Yesterday I had an email fron Vodafone saying they were sending me a SIM card. This was odd since I've never had any dealings with them. I deleted it as spam. Today I received the SIM card. It says "We're delighted to enclose your free SIM card and details of the Vodafone TopUp and Get International Freebee you selected." But I've never "selected" any such thing. I have an old pay-as-you-go mobile phone that I got from Virgin but have not used for over a year, and have no intention of reviving. I did think of emailing Vodafone, but their website wasn't very helpful and came with lots of warnings and popups, so I think it best to just ignore it.

My twitter account was apparently hacked a few days ago, and a message under my name was sent to a number of my "followers". Originally the message came from someone I follow and said "is it you in this photo" I clicked on this thinking it might refer to the photo of me with Ken Ham taken in Leicester in 2006 that was published on the Answers in Genesis site. However the link just led back to the twitter log-in site. I changed the password on my account, and the problem has not recurred, but it seems this sort of annoyance must be very easy to do.

I've now sent over a hundred tweets and have over 30 followers, though a number of them just seem to be local businesses in St Leonards that are no doubt angling for my trade. The most useful contacts I have made are with mathematicians who have provided a lot of interesting links, to websites and PDFs. I also had an amusing exchange with Bob Churchill, formerly of the BHA, about the type face "Comic Sans" which I use for the navigation links on the Mayhematics site, but he doesn't like. He wrote that we must be "aesthetically incommensurable", to which I replied that that must mean I'm rational while he is irrational (a mathematical joke for those not in the know).

Light Music Festival

I've been following the series of programmes on Radio 3 in the BBC's "Light Fantastic" music festival over the past week, since I enjoy this type of music, at least when it is well done.

An article by Stephen Hough in the Telegraph on line praises light music and has some links to several classics.

On the Sunday however I went to the concert put on by the Cory Band at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and, although I stood it all through to the end, found it extremely disagreeable simply because of the sheer loudness. Their only interpretation of forte was as fortissisimo. Maybe on a bandstand in the open air the sound dissipates, but at the back of the hall it was unpleasant.

Some pieces I've not heard for years, and have not so far heard on the programmes are "Parade of the Tin Soldiers" by Leon Jessel and "Do Not Forsake Me" (from the film "High Noon") by Dmitri Tiomkin; but I suppose these don't count as British Light Music. Another is the Oxford Street march by Eric Coates, although I have a CD with an old recording of this; I found the tune running through my head earlier today, and had to check that's what it was.