Author: Araminta

Man Jailed for Racist Internet Post

Man jailed for racist internet post


A man who used a social networking website to post sectarian comments about Catholics and Celtic supporters has been jailed for eight months.
Stephen Birrell, 28, from Glasgow, was also handed a five-year football banning order at Glasgow Sheriff Court for writing the comments on a Facebook page titled Neil Lennon Should Be Banned.
Sentencing him, Sheriff Bill Totten said the courts had to send “a clear message to deter others who might be tempted to behave in this way”.
One of the comments, posted a day before a Celtic v Rangers game on March 2 this year, read: “Hope they all die. Simple. Catholic scumbags ha ha.”
Two days after the match, he wrote: “Proud to hate Fenian tattie farmers.”

Unbelievable!

I have no idea if there is more to this story than meets the eye;  yes, the comments are not pleasant but one reads such things on the internet on a daily basis.

On the one hand I applaud a stand against this sort of idiocy, but a custodial sentence seems to be quite draconian.

Ewelme

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Sunday afternoon and a beautiful day, so we called into Ewelme and had a wander. Very pretty village in the Chilterns, with lots of interesting history, and watercress beds!

We visited the Church, the School and almshouses and then adjourned to the pub for a cooling ale or two.

To give you some idea of the place, do follow the links above. They are all extracts from a book,

Ewelme – A Romantic Village, its Past and Present, its People and its History by Mrs M Prister-Crutwell.

Fashion and Personal Shoppers

I have been contemplating Wedding Outfits of the Mother of the Bride type for some months now. I have been searching the Internet on and off with an increasingly panicked hysterical awareness,  growing increasingly more profound,  that there is nothing for sale anywhere in the world that I would be seen dead in!

If you Google Wedding outfits on the Harrods website you may get some idea of my problem. I decided that even if I could afford to spend what seems an obscene amount of money on one outfit, I was unlikely to find anything I liked.

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FAO Tocino

I have just received an email from you, as one of a distribution list.

I have deleted it without opening. You might want to check, but it appears that your account may have been compromised.

If you acknowledge receipt of this message soonest, I will delete it. If I am not still on line perhaps one of the admins would do so.

Thank you.

Students

Well said, Christina. He made a mistake. He’s young and did something foolish. It is a shame his life has been ruined.

Interestingly, Girton has let him sit his second year exams.

PS. Oscar Wilde’s poem was an indictment of the Victorian penal system; ironic really.

For goodness sake, he didn’t kill anyone, and I doubt he would do so. I wouldn’t dispute he needs a lesson but….

11th Photo Competition Results

Thank you so much for your entries. I think you appreciated what I wanted from you!

Soutie’s post illustrated my point beautifully, as did Nym’s

Janus, you almost managed it, but the resulting crop, delightful though it was, didn’t have enough pesky pixels.

Low Wattage, lovely find in your view from the window!

Bravo, very amusing detail. Did you intend to photograph it, or did you just find it in another shot?

The winner, however, is Nym; lovely close-up portrait of Brian, the snail.

Over to you, Nym, and thank you all again for your entries.

Pesky Pixels made simple

For Janus when he’s feeling better!

If you want a comprehensive explanation of the relationship between pixels and resolution then you will find it here.

This however is a very simple piece without any technical jargon.

If you imagine pixels are just dots of colour which when viewed all go to making your photo a reasonably accurate representation of the image you intended to photograph, it may help.

The general rule is the more pixels your photos contain, the more detailed and pleasing the image. My camera is set to take photos of roughly 2000 pixels in width, which is the maximum allowed. Yes, it is a bit old now and modern cameras will allow you to take bigger pictures. These are big files!

Now on this site, the maximum width for photos is only 700 pixels in width in posts and 600 in comments. So by reducing the number of pixels you are effectively throwing them away. The pictures still display pretty well on your screen at home, so you don’t need the additional pixels, and they take up room in the Media Library.

But once you have thrown away these pixels, you can’t put them back. Your photo-editing software will allow you to try, but it doesn’t work. You can, however, go back to your original large image to crop it and focus on a different part of your image without losing the crispness and turning it to mush!

If you are reducing or cropping photos, it’s a good idea to practise on a copy, so your original image is still intact, and you don’t have to worry.

11th Photo Competition.

Crop It, or Move Closer!

It’s always difficult to set the theme for this competition. Does one aim to inspire greater efforts of photographic brilliance or keep it fairly open?

Since most of my better efforts are achieved more by luck than judgement – I usually know what I’m trying to photograph, but don’t always think about the composition – I’m a great believer in Cropping! It can change the composition and the focus of the picture wonderfully and usually for the better. You have to start with a reasonable number of pixels in the first place, or the results can be disappointing. It’s sort of the reverse of the Devil is in the detail.

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