Tuesday 19 March 2024

Dredging

                                                                         Dredging

 Backhoe dredger Xcentric Ripper
Image courtesy Wikimedia
Trawling through YouTube recently we came across a fascinating video showing a huge dredger being used to widen a navigation channel in Southampton’s Western Docks.

Dredging is essential to maintain the viability of shipping channels, as sediment is constantly being washed downstream and filling channels and harbours. Associated British Ports (ABP) required the navigation channel to be widened by up to 46 m over a stretch of 2,300 m and for it to be commenced on December 1st 2023 and completed by 15th March 2024. These time constraints were necessary to minimise disturbance to wildlife, for example sea trout and migrating wild salmon.

Boskalis backhoe dredger 'Magnor'.

Photograph taken from television

The work was carried out by Boskalis using trailer suction dredgers and the enormous backhoe dredger ‘Magnor’. Boskalis is a Dutch company with 100 years of experience in dredging across the world. With more than 500 vessels and floating equipment, it has conducted work in 90 countries and employs 11,000 workers.

Boskalis backhoe dredger 'Magnor'.

Photograph taken from television

‘Magnor’ is the largest backhoe dredger in the world. Its bucket can hold 33 cubic metres of material. More detailed technical information can be found here.

Boskalis backhoe dredger 'Magnor'.

Photograph taken from television

Before the dredging work could start, sediment had to be tested for to discover the concentration of chemicals in it. Below specified levels, the dredged material could be dumped at sea in locations licensed by the Marine Management Organisation. Above those levels, the material would have to go to landfill.

The work has now been completed and all the dredged material has been dumped south of the Nab Tower in the Solent.

The Nab Tower, Solent

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

A professor of biology at the University of Portsmouth, Alex Ford, expressed concerns that the dredging would have deleterious effects on marine snails. TBT(tributyltin) used to be a component of antifouling paint, and was in use globally for 40 years, but was banned in 2008, following the discovery that it was extremely toxic to marine life, causing reproductive anomalies. In snails it caused females to grow male appendages and become infertile.

Marine snail

The professor said, “Since its ban in 2008, the incidence of imposex snails (females with a penis) has dropped considerably around our coasts but still persists in a few areas in the UK where there had been heavy shipping and ongoing dredging.

“Unfortunately, the concentrations of TBT in sediments do not need to be high to cause sexual abnormalities in marine snails.”

 


Monday 18 March 2024

Mid-March in the garden

 

Mid-March in the garden, 2024

                    Hyacinth, a beautiful perennial with a luscious scent

It seems, to me, anyway, that it has been a slow start in the garden this spring, so it was a joy to discover how much was putting forth its beauty.  


 More hyacinths


                                                                        Forsythia
Pieris 'Forest Flame'


                                                       Magnolia

                                             Kerria Japonica


  Kilmarnock Willow
                                            
  Hydrangea
                                  
We thought this hawthorn had died!
                                           Pear blossom
                                   Swiss Willow, Salix helvetica, 'Oliver'
                                                Rosemary
                                                Narcissus 
                                                 Tulip
                          Primula, slightly battered in parts
                                             Privet berries

                                             Apricot blossom
                                     Euonymus, Spindle tree

Sunday 17 March 2024

 

Microfiction 4

This was another 2010 microfiction prompt. The challenge was to write a response in 140 characters or less. Spaces are characters, too.                           

                What do you mean, “Where’s your cane?” I’m the White Rabbit, not Fred Astaire. I don’t dance! Ask Alice.’

(105 characters)

Erm, I don’t want to tell you your business, but shouldn’t I be inside the hat?

(79 characters)

Join me?


Saturday 16 March 2024

Would you rather . . . ?

 

Would you rather . . . ?

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons


Reading Denise’s post, I was reminded of a small incident a few years ago in a supermarket. It was quiet, the spacious aisles allowing easy access to shelves and their contents. Do shelves have ‘contents’, or do they simply ‘display items’? ‘Whatever’, as the young used to say.  

Anyway, I noticed another shopper, well dressed, neatly turned out, quite unlike me in my sloppy attire. Even if I attempt to present a decorous, though never decorative, image, I fail miserably and this I know when I catch sight of a scarecrow creature in a pane of glass and realise, with horror, that it’s me.

As I gazed surreptitiously at my beautifully styled fellow shopper, I suddenly noticed a hair clip in her hair. It wasn’t a decorative thing, an intentional addition, a pretty ornament, but a hair grip, intended to flatten wayward locks or entice hair to remain where required and then removed. It was not meant to be there.

I was in a quandary. Should I quietly alert my peer to the unintended accessory? Would she prefer not to know? How would she react? Tentatively, I said, ‘Excuse me,’ and she turned to look at me. ‘Did you realise you have a hair clip in your hair?’

Startled, her hand flew to her hair to remove it and she thanked me most profusely. I was relieved that she wasn’t embarrassed and glad I had told her. Certainly, I would prefer to have such an anomaly pointed out to me, though, to be honest, it would be quite difficult to settle on just one – there are so many inconsistencies.

I remember seeing one of my daughter’s teachers out shopping one day. She was wearing casual, comfortable clothes, which, if not actually shabby, had definitely seen better days.  Round her neck hung the most beautiful jewelled pendant. It was clearly valuable and completely out of keeping with the rest of her outfit but I imagine it had sentimental value and gave her great pleasure to wear.

When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, when all’s said and done, in the long run, and other inconsequential platitudes, so long as you’re comfortable in your own skin and choice of clothes, no-one else’s opinion matters.  

Friday 15 March 2024

Red Nose Day

 

Red Nose Day

Frankie, aged 7,  wearing a red Mickey Mouse top and a red nose in 2019

Today is Red Nose Day in the UK. As the highlight of the charity Comic Relief, the brainchild of charity worker Jane Tewson, it is an annual fundraising campaign to alleviate child poverty in the UK and around the world. It was initiated by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and the comedian Lenny Henry in 1985, at a time when Ethiopia was experiencing severe famine.

The slogan for 2024 is ‘Do something funny for money’ and many organisations and individuals rise to the challenge. The BBC evening schedule is taken over by Comic Relief from 7.00 with comedy skits from otherwise ‘serious’ people like news presenters, parodies of popular programmes and challenges. There is a live telethon and the aim of the evening is to raise as much money as possible.

In schools throughout the British Isles children will be sporting red noses and possibly red clothing. Ordinary people will be doing extraordinary things and everyone is invited to donate to the cause.


The red nose looks more like a teapot!

Brookwood

 

Brookwood

Italian graveyard, Brookwood

All images courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I mentioned Brookwood in a recent blog post. Its name refers to the many small streams or brooks that once rose within the area.

The cholera epidemic of 1848 – 1850 in London created problems of disposal of the dead. An idea was mooted to develop a large cemetery outside the capital and 220 acres of common land in Woking, Surrey, were acquired for the purpose. The London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company (LNC) was instituted by Act of Parliament in June 1852. The first burial was conducted there in 1854.

French Memorial 

Bodies were transported to the cemetery from the London Necropolis Railway Station, next to Waterloo, which ran funeral trains to Brookwood. At that time, there were three classes of carriage, according to the class and means of customers. Separate carriages, again in three classes, transported the coffins.  Mourners bought return tickets, but coffins were carried on a single ticket!

Third class coffin ticket - single only!

People selecting a first class funeral could choose and buy a grave site anywhere in the cemetery for £2.10 shillings – that is around £250 at 2024 rates. The LNC expected patrons to erect a memorial stone after the funeral.

Buddhist burial plot

Second class funerals were cheaper, about £1 (£100 in 2024) and allowed for some choice of location. If mourners wished to erect a memorial, they paid an extra sum of 10 shillings (£50). If they decided not to buy a memorial, the LNC was entitled to reuse the grave in the future.


Czechoslovakian section 

Third class funerals were for the poor. Unlike all other cemeteries at the time, Brookwood did not have mass graves, so each pauper had his or her own grave. If there were a desire to mark the grave with a permanent stone, that could be arranged with an upgrade to a higher class. It rarely happened.


Entrance to Parsi (Parsee) section

About 80% of burials were pauper funerals for London parishes and prisons, and remain unmarked, but the LNC also provided dedicated sections of the cemetery for different societies, religious communities and other organisations. The thinking was that those who had lived and worked together should be allowed to remain together in death. For example, the Royal Hospital Chelsea has buried its Chelsea Pensioners at Brookwood since 1893.

Second World War German plot, Brookwood Military Cemetery

Brookwood is a peaceful graveyard, set with beautiful flowering shrubs and trees. The objective was to create a sense of ‘perpetual spring’. It is open every day apart from Christmas Day and New Year’s Day and anyone may visit it.

                                           Brookwood American Cemetery and Memorial

Around 235,000 people have been buried there since 1854.

Emblem on RAF shelter

Notable graves accommodate the American artist John Singer Sargent, Abdullah Quilliam, 19th century convert to Islam, who founded England’s first mosque and Islamic centre, Dennis Wheatley, occult and mystery writer, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, Alfred Bestall, author and illustrator of Rupert Bear, Sarah Eleanor Smith, widow of the Titanic’s captain and Horatia Johnson, granddaughter of Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton.

 


 



Thursday 14 March 2024

Wrinkles

 

Wrinkles

                    General Douglas MacArthur, with his corncob pipe

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I wrote the following quotation in my Commonplace book a few years ago and wanted to learn a little more about it.

‘Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.’

Samuel Ullman (1840 – 1924)

These lines come from Ullman’s poem ‘Youth’, written when he was 78. It was a favourite poem of General Douglas MacArthur, who was deputed to oversee the rebuilding of Japan after the end of WWII.

 When he was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Japan from 1945 to 1951 he had a copy of the poem on his office wall. It became very familiar to the Japanese, who admired the General and his diligent work routine. MacArthur regularly quoted from the poem in his speeches, which inspired a nation occupied in rebuilding their ravaged country.

From Birmingham Historical Society:

In 1945, Reader’s Digest published the poem and reported that MacArthur posted the poem in his office. Yoshio Okasa, a Japanese businessman, upon reading the article, was inspired to create a beautiful and moving translation in Japanese and display it in his offices. The popularity of “Youth” in Japan soared. Many carried folded-up copies of the poem in their pockets and wallets. 

In 1985, the Youth Association was formed in Tokyo. Its corporate and individual members across Japan are encouraged to study “Youth” and the writings of other philosophers and to share the joy and hope expressed in the poem. 

Writing in 1992, Jiro M. Miyazawa, who wanted to share the message of the poem and who had distributed more than 10,000 copies across Japan, stated: “Japan has been completely rebuilt since the devastation of World War II. I believe Samuel Ullman’s poem ‘Youth’ played a part in this process by sustaining the Japanese mind with its inspiring message.’


YOUTH

 Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing, child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

 When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

 In 2020, Birmingham Historical Society published an article about Samuel Ullman.