Ngrams

Following on from http://some-randomer.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-new-sort-of-literature-search.html this post, I started a new blog of "Interesting Ngrams"

Seed potato geek

I've been to Dundry Nurseries before - especially each January because of their seed potatoes. This year, they'd expanded the seed potato department to cover about a third of their large shed near the Airport. Their web site claims 162 varieties which makes Heinz a poor second at 57.

All these varieties are set out in sections for first earlies, second earlies and maincrops with growing and tasting notes. There's a handy chart showing which varieties have some resistance to Phytophthora infestans (known to its many enemies as Potato Blight - the one that caused the Great Famine in Ireland)

They've got a flexible attitude on quantity, Here we have racks of very plain 3Kg bags but they offer to supply any quantity including single tubers for 20p. For these smaller quantities there's a pile of  brown paper bags and a biro. (so you can write the variety name on the bag)

Perhaps the most pretentious aspect of the place is that they seem to have put the growing notes through a laminator. It's a real garden centre, not a shopping destination. (Well, yeah, there is a small rack of greetings cards and few "gifts" but you could easily miss them)

 So what did I buy?

• Ratte: A bit like the better known Pink Fir Apple. An ancient long variety with fine flavour. Even harder to find in food shops than Pink Fir Apple
• International Kidney: A variety that when grown on Jersey can legally be called Jersey Royal. A "first early"
• Duke of York: Fast, well flavoured new potato

 And all for 60p!

What interesting varieties did I decide I didn't have space for this year?

• Edzel Blue
• Shetland Black
• Mayan Twilight or the other "Mayan" brothers.(Bred from  Solanum  phureja instead of the more usual Solanum tuberosum)

Sharpness 2

After my previous visit to Sharpness I reckoned there would be more to discover- or at least more pictures to take.

Ship with a cargo of scrap

They're trying interesting architecture to attract business to the dock area

...it's not always successful

From here, you can see three nuclear reactors

Not a new foe for "Dr Who" - it seems to be a modern lighthouse

 

 

The lighthouse in its setting - it doesn't flash

Near Berkeley Pill. Forest of Dean in the background

Berkeley Pill with a couple of nuclear reactors in the background

Oldbury Power Station and the Severn Bridge

Bracketing exposures

Even back in the days of real film, I quite often bracketed my exposures - took at least one extra shot with the camera set to over or under expose the film. I knew that the scene was sufficiently unusual to fool the automatic system. Now I use a digital camera (Panasonic Lumix TZ20) I bracket even more - I'm not wasting money on film and there's a setting to automatically fire the extra shots, one over and one under exposured. Perhaps the only thing wrong with the feature is that the camera "forgets" it every time you switch off. Still, it does mean I can select and keep the "best" exposure when I get home.

The three autobracket pictures that follow are unusual - I feel they all have some value.Click to enlarge.

1/640 F5.9 ISO100

1/320 F5.9 ISO100

1/160 F5.9 ISO100

Tesco Pricing

There's been quite a bit of bad press about supermarket pricing and I spotted this example earlier today.

Cottage Pie: 620g for £2 OR 450g for £2.30 (Any 3 for £6!)

So the best value for money is the  620g Cottage Pie  for £2. It was the only one in stock too! Presumably, other customers had "snapped" up 3 smaller packs at £6.

A new sort of "literature search"

Francis Davey has shown me a fantastic geeky toy! Google  put their library of books through a word counter and built a nice web front-end. Here's an example that shows the growth of the word "Google" in books.



To see which UK political party leaders have got written about, see here
Whatever happened to the "Warsaw Pact"? Not only did this "Eastern Bloc" organisation die, people stopped writing about it pretty fast.
Was HIV ever "new"? Yes it was as was the "New Town" called Milton Keynes.

And what do you call that country bordered by China, Thailand, India, Laos and Bangladesh? Is "healthy eating" a new fad? Maybe not but the expression (and some close ones) is. Real Ale was born in the 1970s while Alcopops were a child of the 1990s.

Wow! I wonder if it will go viral?

Nottingham Hill

Winter in Gloucestershire