Picture Of The Day : Until The Real Thing Comes Along

Today the weather was glorious : spring at last. I wanted to take Amy for a long walk through the woods to enjoy the green shoots and the blossom but we only got as far as the roundabout at the bottom of the road. Last Thursday my back lost out in an argument with a potted palm tree and I am still walking with a strange, doubled-up posture. I managed to take a picture of the trees on the roundabout. In the words of the old song, that will have to do, until the real thing comes along.

Neville Bishop And A Bag Of Yorkshire Mixture

Regular readers know that there is nothing I like better than to discover some new on-line digital archive. My little face lights up when I find that some splendid fellow has digitised the entire minute books of the Pontefract Band of Hope Fellowship and made them available on-line. I always think of such offerings as the digital equivalent to a bag of sweets. Like a bag of Dobson's Yorkshire Mixture they are sweet, enticing, tasty, and difficult to put down. However if one is to repeatedly dip into the sweet bag of digital archives one has a responsibility to occasionally replenish the bag. Unfortunately, I do not have a large historical archive waiting to be digitised and therefore you will have to be satisfied with forays into Uncle Fowlers' postcard collection and Uncle Frank's suitcases.

Today's selection comes from the latter (well from one of his scrap albums to be exact) and comprises a signed programme from a performance by Neville Bishop and his Orchestra at the Marina in Great Yarmouth in, I think, 1948. I know there is another Neville Bishop programme already available on-line in the archives of the Tikamoto Institute of Contemporary Culture (or some such organisation), but that is an earlier example. With my offering future researchers will be able to identify changes in not only orchestra personnel over time, but also programme elements. Of particular note to a mere amateur like myself is that by early 1948 Neville had already incorporated hit tunes from Oklahoma into his programme even though the musical had only been introduced a few months before (H K Longmoore et. al are going to have to revise their groundbreaking article "The Engagement Of British Riparian Entertainment And American Cultural Hegemony 1932-51" in light of this new evidence).

I have even included the back page of the programme in my scan as that incorporates several gems including "Popular Meals At Popular Prices at The Civic Restaurant" and the ever-satisfying "Pies From Pecks". Now that's what I call a bag of sweets.

Picture Of The Day : The Page Boy

I have not heard from my brother Roger for some time now. I know he occasionally checks out this blog (the Feedjit Live Traffic Feed is a wonderful thing) so in order to tempt him out of the woodwork, here is a picture of him. It was taken in April 1948 when he would be five and I was yet to emerge into the world. The event was the wedding of our Uncle John and Auntie Doris. Roger was the Page Boy. The photograph was contained in a wonderful album put together by the noted Uncle Frank and forms part of a sequence which has carefully crafted comments added in coloured crayons on the sugar-paper pages. Roger has swapped the soot-encrusted back streets of Bradford for the sub-tropical delights of the island of Dominica. So, if you are looking at the image above and recognise yourself, drop me an e-mail.

Friends, Mates And Webbys

I decide to start a new week by turning to the nominations for the 13th Annual Webby Awards to see if I get a mention. I don't. It looks as though it is going to be another of those weeks : disappointing, unfulfilling, the very opposite of life-enhancing. And then I remember that I beat my "friend" Martin twice at chess on Saturday night and the sun peeps out between the gathering clouds of despondency. As Saint Leonard once memorably growled, "the cameras pan, to  the stand in stunt man" and I decide to live for another week. 

I italicise the word "friend" not because I question his status as a true and loyal friend : I have known Martin for more years than Gordon Brown has been scowling and despite his obvious anger at frequently being beaten at chess he is what used to be called "a good egg". I italicise the word friend because he is my friend, at this point of time, my only friend. I'm talking Facebook here. 

Some time ago I joined Facebook to try and find out what my son was up to, but quite reasonably, he refused to be my "friend" and therefore I wasn't able to get access to his Facebook Home Page. After that, my Facebook site languished : slowly rusting away as it was being reclaimed by the primal Internet jungle (Yes, I am still reading the history of the Panama Canal!). On Saturday night, Martin - who is an active Facebooker - offered to be my "friend", which I think was a generous gesture from someone who had just had his intellectual heart ripped out on the chess board. Twice.

So my Facebook page is up and running again and I am the proud possessor of one friend. My son tells me that having one friend is really good and not many people have that many. He must be pleased for me as he has a wide grin on his face as he tells me this. Perhaps I can impress him even more by collecting other friends but I am not sure how to do this as there doesn't seem to be an Instruction Book.

Facebook doesn't seem to have any nominations for this years' Webbys but the full list of nominations in over 70 categories is available on the Webby site. It is good to see the Guardian listed in a number of those categories - a rare non-US nomination. If you feel you want to advance the Guardian's cause you can vote by using the Webby People's Voice voting site. If you can't be bothered you can always try and find my Facebook Homepage.

Picture Of The Day : The Engineers

It is quite liberating to realise that my "Picture of the Day" doesn't have to be one of my pictures. Despite my great age, I must stress that I didn't take this picture of a group of American engineers on a visit to the Panama Canal workings in February 1909. The picture comes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Library website. One of their recent Objects of the Day was the original letter  from President Theodore Roosevelt to the engineer John Ripley Freeman asking him to take part in the investigative visit. The photograph - which forms part of the on-line exhibit - shows the six eminent engineers : Isham Randolph, Frederic P Shearns, Allen Hazen, James Dix Schuyler, Arthur P Davis, and John R Freeman. The gentleman at the left on the back row is listed as being Henry A Allen. He wasn't one of the engineers appointed by Roosevelt nor can I find any listing of him as being connected to the canal project. So who was he? One of the great delights of the Internet is that someone will know and at some point - probably many years in the future - they will let me know.

A Severe Defeat

I don't seem to have featured many of Uncle Fowler's postcards recently so here is one which, although not sent by post, does include a written inscription on the back. The photograph is of Langholm New Bowling Green and the Langholm in question is in Dumfriesshire in the Scottish borders. The message on the reverse reads : "This is where we got the severest defeat this season. Score : Langholme New 95; Longtown 62; No. Against 33". From the quick search I have just undertaken it seems that Langholm New Bowling Club is still in existence. When I undertake my long-promised visit to this area I will be able to check whether the rather solid and angular building next to the green still stands out proud against the border hills.

Picture Of The Day : The Runaway Car

I am trying a little Blog Consolidation again and thinking about incorporating the Daily Photo Blog into News From Nowhere. I will try it for the rest of April and then decide whether to make it a permanent feature. 

So the picture for today comes from the on-going negative scanning operation. It probably dates back to the early 1980s and shows Isobel's mother and father (Edith and Raymond) with their old Morris car. I remember the car well, it had a dubious handbrake and was inclined to run away at will. Raymond used to always carry a collection of wooden wedges and building bricks in the boot to help stabilise it on any kind of gradient. You may think that the picture shows Raymond lovingly caressing his motor : in fact he his stopping it from running down the hill into the adjacent Police Station. Ah, happy days of carefree motoring.

The Google Cam Driving Down An Archive Near You

Much is made about the dangers of Google becoming an all-powerful, all-embracing force which will soon control the Internet and stifle the anarchic individualism which has always been a key element of this most democratic of all mediums. Many such claims are simply re-workings of the allegations which were made about Microsoft a generation earlier, and practically all the claims are nothing more than sour grapes served on a bed of envious salad leaves.

In its prime, Microsoft brought enormous benefits to computer users which far surpass any associated drawbacks resulting from its market dominance. And today Google is pushing back the boundaries of on-line information at a pace that can be bewildering, but at the same time has the ability to take your breath away.

As I noted the other day, I am currently reading David McCullough's excellent description of the construction of the Panama Canal, "The Path Between The Seas". I always find that the reading of history is enhanced by the ability to cross-reference key events in contemporary archives, and the best archives are so often contemporary newspapers. In the past this could often be a difficult, time-consumer and costly task. Newspaper archives were difficult to access and often expensive to use. Until Google stepped into the picture, that is.

Imagine the now famous Google Street View Camera Van with its roof-mounted 360 degree camera, driving not down the back streets of leafy Surrey, but through the great newspaper archives of the world. It may sound far-fetched, but this is what is happening in a tiny corner of the Google empire. The results of this exercise are increasingly available on the Google News site. Just type in your search term and get Google to search its archives rather than current news sources. The results are absolutely fascinating. Try it for world events, try it for your local village, try it for your grandfather (Just see what the New York Times has to say about your grandfather JGC!), or try it for the Panama Canal. When this Google cam comes driving down an archive near me, I will cheer it on its way.

The Titanic, A Lost Suitcase And Champion Jack Dupree

I am reminded by one of my favourite daily newsletters - the Daily Perspective from www.newspaperarchive.com - that today is the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. As someone who will set sail on a frightening large ocean liner in a few weeks time, perhaps I should steer clear of stories about the Titanic, but my efforts to avoid the subject are about as successful as Captains Smith's efforts to avoid the icebergs.

As can be seen from the extract from the newsletter, the original newspaper reports suggested that all the passengers had been saved. As with so many later disasters, the full extent of the tragedy only became apparent in the days that followed. The anniversary started me thinking about a story I heard many years ago and have subsequently been unable to verify and that is the story of how the news was first broken in the United Kingdom. 

For some reason I remember that the news was broken by the Halifax Evening Courier (and this, of course, is Halifax Yorkshire rather than Halifax Nova Scotia) and that the first the White Star Line offices in Liverpool heard about the disaster was when someone contacted them having read the report in the Evening Courier. Exactly how the Courier obtained this scoop is less clear, one is tempted to wonder whether the news was conveyed by accident in a message misdirected to the wrong Halifax.

There has often been confusion between the two Halifax's. I well remember hearing the famous American blues and boogie woogie pianist, Champion Jack Dupree (who for some unaccountable reason lived on a Halifax Council Estate in the 1970s) saying that his luggage was so often misdirected to Halifax NS that the airport authorities there had a permanent area given over to him alone.

One never had the problem of lost and misdirected cases when one crossed the Atlantic in a stately liner. Other than when they drifted off on the evening tide, that is.

Good Game, Whatever The Rules Might Be

Saw my first ice hockey match last night : Sheffield Bears versus .... well someone or other. Alexander plays for the Bears C team and can just about be made out in the centre of the above photograph. The Bears are the combined Sheffield universities team (Sheffield University and Hallam University) and they were playing another university team from the north-east. A good time was had be all : the Bears won 13-4 and Xan managed to score a goal and the audience was treated to a fast and exciting game. All I need to do now is to work out what on earth the rules are and who knows, I might become a fan.

Spending Easter With The Thoracic Inlet

Everyone will have their own ways of enjoying the Easter holidays. Mine will be testing my son on his anatomy ahead of his forthcoming exams. At first I tried using commercially produced "Anatomy Flash Cards", but everyone agreed that these were less than satisfactory. So I have now started manufacturing my own (see the example above). They seem to be going down a lot better, but it is a considerable undertaking when their is only one Medical Student as a potential beneficiary. I am therefore trying to persuade Amy the Dog to take up anatomy in order to achieve greater economies of scale. So far she seems quite enthusiastic but she has a tendency to take the illustrative examples and bury them in the garden!