Christmas postage stamps

click photo to enlarge
I remember doing a quiz many years ago in which one of the questions was, "Which is the only country not to feature its name on its postage stamps?". The answer, of course, was the United Kingdom, the country that introduced the adhesive postage stamp, the "Penny Black", following the ideas of Rowland Hill. This method of paying for postal deliveries was adopted across the world. Designers and artists were tasked with devising designs for the stamps, and unwittingly their endeavours set in motion a hobby - stamp collecting (or philately) - that was eagerly pursued by children and adults.

I collected stamps as a young boy and was particularly pleased when the UK's Post Office started to produce a wider range of stamps than those featuring just the head of the reigning monarch. Many interesting and often beautiful designs in a variety of sizes have been produced down the decades. Moreover, each Christmas a distinctive and seasonal set of stamps is issued and reported on in the press. Perhaps its my age, perhaps its designers exhausting the possibilities, but I feel that stamp designs are less inventive than formerly. Today's photograph shows part of a sheet of stamps featuring this years Christmas design for the 2nd Class (i.e. slower and cheaper) postage. The paper cut snowman and surround are fine but lack the bold, jewel-like qualities that I remember from my youth.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: UK 2nd Class Postage Christmas Stamp 2016
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm macro (120mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Black Friday

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It was my intention to post today a shot of dappled sunlight falling on a path through the woods, but the "success" of Lord Snooty and his pals (or is it Little Lord Fauntleroy) in the UK general election has soured my mood and so here is a black and white conversion of a shot of the small, old and battered church of St Michael at Martin, near Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, that was the destination of one of our recent walks.

The British electorate as a whole has little interest in politics. Consequently it is frequently persuaded to vote against its own, the wider community's and the country's interests, by the Conservative party and its wealthy and influential backers in the press, the City of London and elsewhere. It will do this even against the evidence because it takes little interest in factual details and is much more interested in, and influenced by, "personality", scare stories and downright lies. So, the fabrications spun by the Conservatives and shrieked daily by the press take the place of facts in the minds of such people and become the reason for voting for them. The result is that the most inept and deceitful government of my lifetime has been re-elected, this time with a majority. Any non-UK readers looking at the table below must wonder what sort of ridiculous electoral system we have whereby securing a mere 36.9% of the vote can give a majority in parliament. They will be gobsmacked to hear that a system of proportional representation to replace it was rejected in a referendum less than 5 years ago. Truly, the idiocy of our electorate knows no bounds.

So we are consigned to five years of austerity, demonisation of the poor, privatisations, marketisation of the public sector, handouts to the rich and daily political incompetence. Not until the Conservatives have demonstrated their ineptitude repeatedly, in ways that impact at an individual level, and in ways that the press cannot disguise, will electors finally vote for a change of government. I'm not holding my breath.

What I'd like to see is a compact between the new party leaders of the non-Conservative persuasion coming together to argue loudly and clearly for proportional representation and an electoral system that produces a parliament that reflects all the disparate political views. Fat chance!

                                         Seats in Parliament           % of votes
Conservative                              330                               36.9
Labour                                        232                               30.5
Scottish Nationalist                      56                                 4.8
Liberal Democrat                           8                                 7.8
UKIP                                              1                                12.6
Green                                             1                                  3.8
(Other parties not shown)

We cannot keep disenfranchising a large section of the electorate by producing outcomes like that shown above. It's simply wrong.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm (40mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Alien invaders and birds of prey

click photo to enlarge

I didn't realise, until the other day, that of all the alien wildlife invaders in the UK the worst of the worst was the so-called "killer shrimp" (Dikerogammerus villosus), a native of the Ponto-Caspian region of Europe, that is killing off our native shrimps and small fish. The BBC website carried a report by the UK's Environment Agency that listed (in the way that people do today) the "top ten" alien invaders. The list reads (starting with the worst) "killler shrimp", water primrose, floating pennywort, American signal crayfish, topmouth gudgeon, giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed, Himalayan balsam, and parrot's feather. What this list said to me is what a good medium water is when it comes to the spread of exotic plants and animals. The murky depths make it so much more difficult to detect the arrival and initial spread of an introduced species, to the point that when it does become apparent to scientists and lay people who spend time in and on water, it has reached a situation where containment or eradication is difficult, if  not impossible.

But, native wildlife has a remarkable propensity for holding on even under the strongest pressure as our red squirrels have shown in their fight against the onslaught of the introducd grey variety. Our birds of prey have been among the most oppressed species. Here it has been man that has caused their decline as landowners tried to rear ever larger numbers of gamebirds and farmers tried to kill off insects and plants that harmed their crops. But, with wider public pressure and awareness, legislation and scientific management, what appeared to be a hopeless situation has been turned around. Not for all species, of course - hen harriers are still being persecuted and numbers have fallen again after something of an increase - but for many. I read a while ago that the common buzzard has usurped the kestrel as the most numerous British bird of prey. They're certainly fairly frequent sightings in most parts of the country where formerly they were unusual.

One evening when I was photographing the strongly silhouetted shapes of these electricity pylons near a Fenland substation I became aware of a softer, "natural" shape among the sharp angles of the metalwork. Binoculars reveealed it to be a Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) surveying the island of waste land below the steel "trees". Even in this instensively cultivated part of England the buzzard flourishes. Can you spot this one?

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On