From Hillsdale College!

March 9th, 2010
Three Masted Sailing Ship Whitby

Three Masted Sailing Ship Whitby

The UK general election is not far away, I reckon that if one of the parties were to adopt the following strategy, we might be able to put the “Great” back into Britain; I wish.

“Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College

I just had to add this!

February 21st, 2010

This is a real laugh, it sums up exactly the corrupt science of global warming. Bye the way I emailed the met office about how the notian that CO² can re-heat the Earth as it absorbs the outgoing infra-red radiation, simply asked if they could explain it in the context of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Still nothing, but them I’m just a prole, why bother, they already have the scientific consensus, I think they are due a fall!

Panoramas

February 17th, 2010

Lotherton Panorama Jan 2010

Following the purchase of Manfrotto Pano head [Mentioned in an earlier post here] I am now busy producing exciting wide angle shots from locations around Yorkshire, and beyond. The picture above is a 17″ [42cms] wide reproduction of Lotherton Hall, resplendent in the thick coating of winter snow! Below is a detail view at 100% of the same image.

Lotherton Pano Detail @ 100%

Thought for the Day!

February 15th, 2010

Ruins of St Mary's Abbey York

Whilst strolling around York yesterday afternoon, on a dull St Valentine’s Day, I took the opportunity to get some pictures of St Mary’s a ruined Benedictine Abbey [Wikipedia reference], in the grounds of the Yorkshire Museum, the photo above is of the west wall and the return with the open arch on the north elevation. The weather turned sour and I put my camera away as I hurried back to the car, thus missing out on the opportunity to take a decent shot of the Sir Edwin Lutyens designed war memorial adjacent to the former North Eastern Railways Headquarters. The memorial is less impressive than the more famous work by him of the Cenotaph, Whitehall, however what struck me was that the memorial was commissioned by NER and commemorates the loss of over 2,300 soldiers during the First World War, all of whom were NER (North Eastern Railways Company) employees. A horrific reminder of the tragedy of war, this on the second day of our increased assault in Helmund, Afghanistan more destruction, all very distressing.

Rest in Peace Meg

January 27th, 2010



After a bad couple of weeks, our dog Meg has today passed away, she was around 14 years old or 98 in dog years, she has always been a true and faithful friend to all the family, and our friends also, so her passing is a great loss. I have selected a suitable location to bury her here at Parlington, following in the long tradition that the Gascoigne family undertook with their pets, as far back as the nineteenth century at least, to my knowledge.

Frost Damage to the Round Building

January 20th, 2010

Round Building Damage

The extreme winter conditions have had a toll on the roads and many buildings, however I was dismayed to discover that the Round Building in Parlington Park, classed as either a Deer Shelter, or Cattle Shelter according to the listing on English Heritage, had partly collapsed no doubt due to the movement caused by frost followed by thawing conditions. Hopefully it can be re-instated in the near future before it gets any worse. I have written about it previously, the design was by William Lindley, a Doncaster architect who trained under the famous Yorkshireman John Carr. Further information about the structure is on the Parlington History site here, about a third way down the page is a QuickTime VR 360° panorama taken inside the building late last year.

Sunrise at Parlington and everyday country life.

January 9th, 2010

Sunrise at Parlington Saturday 9th January

The temperature at 7:00 am today was around -5.0° and leaving the estate by car, the padlock securing the gates on the driveway was frozen, fortunately previous experience has taught me to have a warming device to hand, to free the mechanism. After a couple of minutes with my camping lighter, which is like a mini blowlamp, the lock mechanism freed up and I was able to open the gates and proceed beyond Narnia, which is how Parlington seems at this time of year, and over to Saxton. Passing by the Crooked Billet, on route, I noticed that the place looked decidedly undisturbed by visitors, perhaps it has closed down?

Save MySQL

January 2nd, 2010

Save MySQL Open source database

Although this may seem a little off topic, the proposed acquisition of Sun Systems by Oracle, will bring MySQL under the control of the world’s largest provider of closed source databases. MySQL is probably the leading open source database system on the market and is used by many sites around the world. For example this blog which is Wordpress based uses MySQL as do all Wordpress blogs, regardless of who hosts the site. Similarly my Parlington history site uses MySQL for certain aspects of its functioning. If MySQL is absorbed by Oracle and becomes a propriety format, the world will change, many, many blogs will be affected and the whole culture of the Internet will be damaged.

Barbecue Turkey and a Weber!

December 26th, 2009

Christmas Turkey BBQ

The intro photo was taken on Christmas day by my eldest daughter, Pip, she thought it worth capturing the moment! I have cooked the Christmas turkey on a Weber BBQ since the late 80’s. The BBQ in the image is the fifth I have owned, and with the ash collection system beneath the kettle, is, I can testify, the best yet! Behind and almost obscured is an earlier model, which had just completed cooking a duck to accompany the turkey.

Warmageddon: A breath of FRESH Air?

December 16th, 2009

Warmaggedon

When I was at school, I recall being taught physics and it is the lasting recollections of that time that have caused me to be confused about the science of climate change; the present daily dose of verbal abuse from our political apparatchiks and the endless stream of doom from the msm (main stream media), have left me wanting to know the truth about what is happening. I say this because I have lived through times of previous doom laden predictions, all of which failed to materialise to the extent predicted. But there is a difference this time, my understanding of basic physics is being undermined.