Seemingly trivial things that cheer you up
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What are your thoughts? You have more experience of a direct comparison - Dartmoor and everywhere else.
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I'm not sure that walking on Dartmoor from time to time qualifies me to comment. But it does seem that the status quo that he's trying to overturn wasn't too disastrous, and certainly not a good reason to (in effect) return general Dartmoor open moorland to landowners being able to dictate what members of the public can do - that should be the job of the Dartmoor National Park Authority. My reading of the case is that he in effect wants to turn it back into private estate, with him 'generously' granting time-limited limited licences for various activities, rather than those activities being a right for everyone. He bought the estate knowing what the status quo was, so I've got no sympathy for him - he obviously thought he could ram through his 'landgrab' using the law courts and expensive barristers.
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I was thinking more about the right to roam in general. I agree that the Dartmoor status quo seems fine.
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People who don't just talk a good game.
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The wild camping that isn’t really wild camping is annoying. I went to do some night photography at a reservoir in the Beacons on August Bank Holiday naively expecting it to be empty by that time of night. Instead every car park was full of people camping in vans or cars and the verge along the dam wall was the same. Music, torch light, BBQs and fires going. Open access is generally a good thing I think but with protection as needed for rare habitats / breeding areas etc.
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There might have been some breeding going on, to be fair.
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Ah, sorry, not enough experience. I think we're quite lucky that Dartmoor is surrounded by low density population, unlike the national parks oop north. Other than Haytor, and Wistman's Wood (which desperately does need protecting), you've only got to go a few hundred metres from the car parks and you'll meet few people, even at weekends.
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Not allowing open fires or disposable BBQs would be a good start. Camping stove or piss off, basically.
I'm essentially happy with footpaths plus proper wild camping in selected areas of national park and common land for those willing to carry stuff away from roads.
As tempting as they seem, camper vans are a menace, and increasingly unpopular in Scotland. Again, because people can't be trusted to exercise good judgement. Or, indeed, empty the toilets not wherever they want.
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Yep, wouldn't disagree with any of that, and that's best dealt with at the National Park Authority level and bylaws derived therefrom.
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Clever cows.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
Ha, brilliant. We used to have a cow ('Caroline') who worked out which were the electric fence stakes that had the insulator at the top (stake itself not electrified) and those with the insulator at the bottom... I watched her one day casually stroll along the line, and only stop when she got to the first not-live one and push it over with her head, proceeding to walk over the electrified wire which was by then on the ground, so she could eat the fresh grass behind the wire.
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Bumping into the now-retired ex-manager of the garage I've been going to for about 25 years... he's a really good egg and not once done unnecessary work... when I went in recently, they told me he'd already retired, and I'd not had a chance to say thanks, so it was nice to be able to do so today.
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Northern Rail withdrawing pending prosecutions and reviewing past ones for people who have fallen foul of NR's confusing ticketing via their app and a disproportionate penalty regime.
"All prosecutions of people accused of wrongfully using a 16-25 Railcard to obtain a discount at the wrong time of day are being withdrawn and thousands of previous cases are being reviewed, the company said on Monday.
The announcement comes after The Telegraph discovered that Northern appeared to be breaking a rule whereby passengers with a railcard travelling on the wrong train must be offered the chance to pay back the difference on the spot.
The withdrawal of all live cases comes after the state-owned operator, which serves the north of England, threatened to prosecute a 22-year-old over a £1.90 ticket underpayment but did not allow him to make up the difference first."
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Jimmy Carter getting to vote in the presidential election at age 100.
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43 years since he was President and he’s only 18 years older than the incumbent!
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Yep, that shit ain't right.
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That no-one was killed or seriously injured in the Ardèche despite up to 700mm falling in 48 hours in some places (that's almost half the average annual rainfall for the general area). Just pity it was an old Mini rather than a modern one that was washed away...
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Having been using the same music notation (PrintMusic 2002) software for 22 years. Still works, but I've at last decided to update with MuseScore on the new laptop. Cheers me up that it's completely free... just the small matter of learning how to use it now. Their business model seems to be from people monetising their arrangements and compositions, which is handled through MuseScore's 'shopfront', which charges for the service.
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Ha I downloaded it last week (I’ve had the app on my phone for ages but it’s not very easy to use there). I use it to type out my part from new pieces I’m learning in my choirs then save it to mp3 so I can play it through. I need to work out how to copy repeated series of notes now though.
I’ve got another app that allows me to just scan / photograph the piece and I can then select an individual line or the whole lot. It’s generally good if each part has its own line but when they share a line it gets a bit confused.
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Yeah, the latter has always done my head in. I refuse to use the standard trumpet parts for Handel's Messiah for just that reason, so use my own copy every time. It's actually (thankfully) rare in orchestral trumpet parts, and never in big band parts.
A number of notational conventions developed because of the cost of engraving and paper, and people publishing parts these days ought to be careful in using some of them when the saving of paper is minimal but the possibility of screwing up is maximal (e.g. a seven-bar 'D.S. al coda', or the 'repeat previous bar' symbol). You always know when an arranger/composer is a practising musician, as they foresee pitfalls and lay things out well when they notate them.
Having spent a day in the BBC Music Library looking at orchestral parts, you realise the skill involved in being a music copyist with a good legible hand... the good parts are things of real beauty, all done in wet ink, and no mistakes/corrections in sight. Using notational software is an absolute doddle in comparison.
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Have a hospital appointment this morning with a 35 min walk each way. I like to listen to podcasts or comedy on my earphones during the walk. Couldn't bloody find them anywhere this morning and tore the house up in a rage/panic trying to find them. Couldn't. Put my hoodie on and made my way in a foul mood contemplating ordering some more on Amazon.
Halfway there I put my had in hoodie pocket an lo there they were! Cheered me up no end. I wasn't even going to wear that hoodie as I only got it last week and wasn't sure about it.
Sometimes. Maybe. Possibly.
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Ha, have done a couple of flute parts for my jazz band, and with the help of googling specific things, am quickly getting to grips with it. Lots of things I really like, there will several things that will probably fox me when I try to do more complicated things, I'm sure, but it's going to be absolutely fine for my needs, yee-haw.
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Yeah but some mistakes are famous
How Allegri's Miserere should really sound | The Marian Consort
(yer BT we know that's mickey mouse to you ;) )
We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
Haha, I'd not actually seen that. I do like a good bit of myth-busting and iconoclasm!
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At last getting a pepper grinder that holds more than seven peppercorns, to replace the wooden one I bought in Harrods in 1986.
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Getting Grindrs that grind at the top so they don't leave a residue when stored. How have we been getting it wrong these years?
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Cake is just weakness entering the body0
