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The photograph is of the classic Sparkman & Stephens yacht Southerly, used to publicise an opportunity to make passage from Bilbao towards Nantes across the Bay of Biscay, starting Saturday 28 July 2012, with skipper Michael Boyd | |||||
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| Rosie | Book reading | Rosie's book reading of her Wordswoth's White Wife | ||||
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| Rosie's Canoe | In the late summer of 2015 Ned and Lindsey Neve brought Rosie's canoe over to the Island. My plan was to keep the canoe in my garage, launch from a convenient point and canoe up the River Yar with a good companion and a picnic on sunny summer days. But first, the canoe would have to be restored from the rather sad state in which it had been for some years. So Chris Temple recommended Matt McCleary of Shalfleet for the job. Here is the story of the restoration. [So far just pictures of the completed task] | |||||
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| Olympic bells | Hythe bellringers ... | A couple of dozen people gathered in St John's Churchyard to ring their bells, celebrating the day the Olympic Games open in London, 2012. This hopefully countrywide activity, timed to start at 0812 (exactly twelve hours in advance of the magic number 2012 and presumably exactly twelve hours before the opening Ceremony begins) was set up by the Turner Prize-winning 'artist' Martin Creed — he of the 'lights on and off' exhibit which won the prize in 2001 | ||||
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| ... ringing their bells | ... and here is the sound of those Hythe Bells. I was there, clashing a couple of empty wine bottles en route to the bottle bank, but you won't hear my noise because, well, I don't have three hands | |||||
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| Violin Music | Salut d'Amour | Lyrical music by Edward Elgar: sheet music for violin, downloaded under licence from Load.CD | ||||
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| Nigel Kennedy | ... and here is the sound of Salut d'Amour played by Nigel Kennedy | |||||
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| Wonders | The Glory of The Lord |
The text of Handel's Messiah originates in biblical texts. Here is number four from part one: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 40: 5)
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| Wild Orchid |
A wild orchid growing in a chalkland meadow
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| Glorious rainbow |
A Glorious rainbow in Oxfordshire, 25 February 2014
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| Union Jack |
Here is the most weird and wonderful thing: our national flag, and why it is weird . . . I was going to try to explain all that myself, until I found this amazingly good explanation, produced by Woodlands Junior School at Tonbridge in Kent. There are lots of other weird and wonderful things on the School website, so why not explore it: click on 'school home page' at the top left, to start
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| Cabbages and Kings | A recording of The Walrus and the Carpenter taken from the website of the Poetry Foundation | |||||
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| Musical scales | A short introduction to the physics of musical scales: the Pythagorean and Even-tempered scales in particular | |||||
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| Potato bomb | Have you ever had your potato explode in the oven. Well, if you have, or if you ever do, you may like to know how I dealt with mine . . . . | |||||
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| Temperature scales | Herr Daniel Farenheit and Mr. Anders Celsius were two of the scientists to develop temperature scales. Here is my explanation of what they did in the beginning and what happened since then | |||||
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| Pope Francis I | Professor Garry Wills is a prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, journalist, and historian, specialising in American history, politics and religion—especially the history of the Roman Catholic Church. In this seven minute clip from the BBC Today Programme, Garry Wills speaks his mind about popes and priests at the time of the inauguration of Pope Francis I in 2013 | |||||
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| George Osborne | An interview of George Osborne by John Humphrys on the BBC Today Programme. Humphrys asks about Scotland wishing to keep Sterling after a decision to seek independence, and then—oddly—about Osborne's weeping at the funeral of Margaret Thatcher | |||||
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| Planetary orbits | How do planets move through the solar system? What sort of path do they trace though the heavens if the sun (their parent star) moves round the galaxy they both inhabit? Here are a few words and pictures to introduce a few ideas on this fascinating subject | |||||
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| Campaigns | GIST | The drug Regorafenib was approved by the UK Cancer Drugs Fund for patients with advanced Gastro-Intestinal Stromal Tumour (GIST), a rare type of cancer found in the digestive system. Regorafenib is used to treat GIST cancer when that is unresponsive to other drugs but Regorafenib is being de-listed from the Cancer Drugs Fund. But we know it works, so de-listing Regorafenib is not acceptable. We need 100,000 signatures on an e-petition to stop the withdrawal of CDF support. | ||||
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| Contact | john@johndexter.co.uk | |||||
| phone | 07812 635953 | |||||
| home page | www.johndexter.co.uk | |||||
