the sweetest things

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165/365: Stanley Baldwin statue, Bewdley
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I fear that today's revelations about 7,000 Afghans being relocated to Britain, but this being covered up for three years by successive governments, make it even more likely that Reform will win the next election. Superinjunctions are enormously unpopular (deservedly so) and immigration has become a major wedge issue in Westminster politics. Both the Tories and Labour will suffer politically for this, all the more so as parts of the (original, non-super) injunction remain in force. There's also the underlying data security issue, in that (it's been at least suggested) personal data of these Afghans was kept in a simple Excel file. That's absurdly bad practice for something as sensitive as this. As I've seen elsewhere, maybe this was a reason Ben Wallace (then Defence Secretary) refused to stand for Tory leader after Boris Johnson's exit. He'd probably have won -- but maybe he didn't want to be PM when this came out.

Embarrassingly, much of the media is not leading on that but on John Torode's "sacking" (actually contract non-renewal) from Masterchef. The BBC says it relates to "an extremely offensive racist term" being used in the workplace -- not specified, but I'm sure we're all thinking of the same word here. Torode says he can't remember the event. Myself? If he did use that word then it's clearly unacceptable -- but I still confess to being pretty uncomfortable with one stupid remark, eight years ago, which other people around for apparently didn't see as malicious, having these consequences. It's not "cancel culture" exactly, but I'm not sure anyone will have gone eight years without saying something out of line, even if not this kind of out of line. I do have to wonder if this is all there is to the Torode story. But we may see.

Then we have the 12-year-old girl prevented from giving a speech on a school's culture day when she wore a Geri Halliwell-style Union Flag dress (in a more school-and-age appropriate design). The school's apology and statement, reported in the Guardian article linked to, is boilerplate waffle and so it's hard to tell what actually happened. If the girl was prevented from talking about British culture purely because it was British then that wasn't fair. I don't think it's analagous to the old "But where's Straight Pride Day?" whines, not really. Now, if there were other factors -- some of which may not be reportable due to privacy, safeguarding etc -- then there may be more to it. The father's Facebook post, also in the article, can be read in various ways. But I'm absolutely certain Reform will make hay with it.

Anyway, talking of British culture, have that rare thing these days -- a relatively new statue of a British politician! Stanley Baldwin, three times Prime Minister, was born in Bewdley in 1867. Various local groups including the Civic Society had wanted a statue in the town centre for decades, but it was only finally unveiled a few years ago. As far as I can tell, it hasn't caused any controversy at all.

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163/365: The Holding Pens, Bewdley
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My cheery historical reading today has been on the ancient Neo-Assyrians of around 700 BC, who -- it turns out -- were absolutely detested for their apparent revelry in cruelty. They not only went in for flaying alive, impalement and much more besides, but unlike other harsh empires they made a point of depicting the atrocities on their monuments as a way of ruling by fear and terror. They called this "calculated frightfulness", and they were hated for this even by other civilisations in that violent age. From what I've gathered, which is inevitably partial (in both senses) this contributed to their downfall, with some other rivalries suspended for a joint assault on the Assyrians.

Meanwhile, back in the modern world, it was a mere 28 °C today. I still had an ice cream, though (orange and dark chocolate flavour) and was very glad to get it. Today's 365 photo comes from Wribbenhall (the part of Bewdley on the eastern bank of the River Severn), very close to the Severn Valley Railway viaduct -- in fact, that's just about visible in the extreme top left. This is what's left of the Holding Pens. Before the railway arrived in the 1860s, there was a butcher's shop close by, and this is where animals were kept before slaughter. The more regular of the holes you can see in the sandstone are artificial, and once held fence posts and the like.

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162/365: Worcester Engine Works
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It was a mere 32 °C today. I was in Worcester, and it was still fiercely hot in the unbroken afternoon sunshine. Today's photo subject will be a familiar sight to those who know Worcester, as it's very close to Shrub Hill station. This imposing (if rather neglected) structure is the Worcester Engine Works. The company of that name existed for under a decade, having been set up in 1864 as a reaction to the Great Western Railway moving its carriage works from Worcester to Swindon after a fire. The Worcester company did well initially, but it faltered during the Panic of 1866 and never really recovered, going into liquidation a few years later. In recent years the Works building has rather struggled to find a role: its Grade II listed status restricts how much alteration can be made, and mostly it's been occupied by a succession of small commercial offices.

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160/365: Toy ducks, Bewdley
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An even warmer day today (Thursday). My highest reading was 31 °C, which is the equal hottest day of the year for me. There's a strong chance that Friday will beat this mark. I needed to go down to Sainsbury's in town for a couple of things, so I made sure to do that well before nine. On the way I found these amusing toy ducks in Dog Lane, not far from Sainsbury's. The road name's etymology is not certain, but it may be a corruption of "Duck Lane", since the road runs down to the river and the town's ducking stool may have been situated there centuries ago. The residents of this house have given that possible earlier name a much cuter interpretation in their tiny front yard!

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158/365: Eastern edge of Wyre Forest
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Well, on the outskirts of it, at least. The Wyre Forest is a pleasant place on a warm day, given the shade it provides. Here's a photo from near the eastern edge of it at Coppice Gate. As you can see, this afternoon was pretty much cloudless, and although the air itself wasn't uncomfortably hot, we're at the peak of sun strength with UV up to 8 (as high as it can get here) so I was careful to keep to the shade as much as I could. This particular location has no facilities bar a small car park and a simple map board, so it isn't usually very busy. That was the case today -- I only saw one person walking her dogs all the time I was there. The lack of rain is starting to tell, though, as you can see from the yellowing of the grass here.

Also, have a meme question I noticed somewhere:

What is an unusual form of transport you have used?

(The original says "transportation", but I ain't American! :P )

To many people, I suppose "steam train" would count, and I've been on those masses of times -- but it's not unusual to me. That being so, the obvious answer is "hovercraft". Back in 2007, I flew (you don't sail a hovercraft) from Portsmouth to Ryde on the Isle of Wight (and back) with Hovertravel. That route remains operational and is the only regularly scheduled year-round passenger hovercraft service in Europe.

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("You" here is a general term, not aimed at any specific person.)

My feeling is that it is almost certain that you have already seen and liked and/or favourably commented on an image, song or video that has been created at least partially with AI, without knowing it. Unless you're in the industry and/or a specialist, I suspect you are quite a bit less good at picking human from AI than you think you are. I know I am. It's not 2022 any more. As an imperfect analogy, think back a couple of decades to when 320k MP3s first became widespread. Lab tests at the time demonstrated that most people, including self-professed audiophiles, couldn't reliably tell the difference between 320k MP3 music and lossless under remotely normal conditions, however much they'd previously insisted they could. I suspect something similar is going on with AI imagery/sounds. Cheerful, eh?

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156/365: First wild blackberry of the season
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I always look forward to the start of the blackberry season. I'm not a proper forager, so blackberries are the only fruit I regularly pick wild. In fact, they're about the only fruits I don't really eat much at all out of season; it's extremely rare for me to buy tinned blackberries, for example. The law in this country allows non-destructive foraging, as long as it is for personal use and not for commercial purposes. Obviously you can't go into someone's garden and pick their carefully planted fruits, but a wild bush by a right of way? Yep. Anyway, here's a photo of the very first blackberry I picked this year: 6th July is a bit earlier than usual, which says something about our dry, warm summer so far.

In other news, it's always irritating when people do idiotic things that mean I have to come down on the side of other people I dislike. There's been an example of this today: the leader of Brighton & Hove Council, Bella Sankey, has said she has reported Rod Liddle to the police for a Spectator article in which he said things would be improved by a nuke on Brighton and another on Glastonbury. I detest Rod Liddle, for a whole variety of reasons -- but in this specific case, the Spectator article in question is very obviously satirical and about as worthy of police attention as John Betjeman's "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!" was -- which is to say, not at all. Please, Ms Sankey, don't make me defend Rod Liddle again. It's really not something I want to be doing.

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155/365: St Matthew's Hall pub, Walsall
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A belated post for Saturday's waffle! I went to Walsall today -- I'd discovered that the whole thing could be done exclusively on Diamond buses, so a single £9 Network Day ticket covered the three buses each way. By no means the most beautiful journey I could make, but quite an interesting ride nevertheless. I just pottered around for my 2-3 hours in Walsall, but I did make sure to have lunch in the pleasant beer garden out back of the local Wetherspoon pub. (Steak and ale pudding with chips and mushy peas.) The front of said Spoons is my 365 photo for Saturday. St Matthew's Hall was originally built in the early 1830s as a subscription library, but that quickly failed commercially. Later the building was used as a courtroom, but it's been a pub for some years now.