Trump's Tariffs and Cautious Brexit Bankers. Lino printing.

Trying out lino printing

Today, President Trump imposed the 25% tax on steel and 10% tax on aluminium from the EU, Mexico and Canada. The tariffs will come to effect at midnight, presumably US Washington time. The EU has already responded strongly that it will retaliate and I understand that Canada and Mexico intend to too. According to expert commentators, the idea of the imposed tariffs is to push the EU and others into renegotiating trade terms that are more favourable to the US. the strategy also shows the President's rust belt voters that he is keeping his 'America First' promise. POTUS and Kim Jong-un of North Korea may be meeting after all, though whether they will keep to the original timetable in June or later is not yet set.

Europe and the financial markets are also reeling in response to the sharp shift to the populists, both left and right, and the inability to form a government. Meanwhile in the UK, energy prices are finally on the rise as the correction to increased international market prices comes through.

Barclays Bank is reviewing its lending and taking a more cautious line due to the slower growth in the UK and the uncertainty re Brexit. Lloyds of London is also moving 40 of its 600 UK-based jobs to Brussels in order to maintain its place at the heart of Europe.

Meanwhile, I've continued conducting interviews in preparation for the COS history, and fascinating it is too. The July Cambridge Open Studios are looming on the horizon and it is getting to the stage to decide which pictures to exhibit this year, with Jane having a good selection too.

I've also begun trying out Lino printing. It has been a challenge but I'm gradually getting to grips with cutting the lino. The one think I constantly have to remember is to flip any image to its mirror image, so that I get the correct positive print. I'm hoping to have some of the prints ready for COS too.

UK Chasing Brexit Fantasy. Trump Politely Calls of Kim Jong-Un Meeting. Kilauea Volcano.

Entrance to Norris Museum

Strong words coming out of the EU about the UK's unrealistic expectations in the current negotiations. It said that the UK was "chasing a fantasy" for trying to obtain benefits that were more favourable than those for other EU countries.

The irritation level was raised further with the UK by its threat  to recover more than €1bn of contributions to the Galileo satellite project unless the European commission lifted a block on the participation of  British firms being involved. “The EU doesn’t negotiate under threat,” the senior EU official said. “Such a request for reimbursement would be backsliding and unacceptable.”

The EU also rejected the idea that the entire UK could remain half-inside the EU’s single market, while benefiting from a special customs deal to avoid a hard border.

Whilst the EU increasingly sees itself as being presented as the fall guey for Brexit going wrong, the UK negotiators remain sanguine, putting all the negative comments as negotiation posturing.

Across the pond, President Trump has called off the summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore due to the angry responses from North Korea in recent days. POTUS's letter to the NK President is broadly a well phrased positive lett of regret with only one slight dig included in the sentence "You talk about nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.".

Meanwhile, the effects are hitting home of Trump's global ban on funding to organisations that provide advice on abortion as part of their family planning. Ironically, in Kenya, the disappearance of funding has actually led to an increase in back street abortions in Kenya. There have also been more more unwanted births as the same organisation provide contraception advice and access, pushing poor families even further into poverty with extra mouths to feed.

With GDPR registration due by this Friday, I had completed mine successfully for the company yesterday. Today the battle was with the formatting of our most recent book in a final form to send for review by the author before considering going to print. In the afternoon, I also finally whittled down the images I had taken of the Norris Museum Wisteria, edited and exported them. As Camilla sourdough needed feeding, I also set up a 40% rye - 60% wheat sourdough loaf to ferment during the day before baking and made a fresh batch of soft oat biscuits, flavoured with vanilla and three fruits marmalade.

With the news continuing to report on the Hawaiian volcano eruption and damage, I looked a bit closer into Kīlauea. Teh island of Hawaii is the largest of a chain of islands that stretch Northwest into the Pacific Ocean and continue underwater as a series of further elevations. All the islands have been created by the Pacific plate moving over the so-called Hawaiian Hotspot, where lava pushesthrough the Pacific plate and erupts, the lava gradually building a mound of volcanic rock that emerges from the sea. As the plate moves further Northwest, the resultant island moves away from the hotspot, it's volcanoes grow silent and erosion by the ocean and the elements gradually erodes the new island. Eventually such an island will disappear under the sea. Hawaii is the most recent island being formed over the hotspot and the volcanoes Kilauea and Mauna Loa locate its position, on the Southeast flank of the island.

The basaltic lava that emerges from the volcanoes in Hawaii is relatively fluid, which has two consequences, it can flow fairly rapidly and the volcanoes are relatively flat and disk or shield shaped. Kilauea is relatively young geologically speaking at 300,000 to 600,000 years, and eruptions are relatively frequent, even by human standards. Kilauea is likely to continue to be active within a human timeframe. However, there is already a newer volcano just southeast of it, three miles off the Hawaiian coastline, Lōʻihi Seamount. This is yet to emerge to create it's own new land to add to the island of Hawaii.

For those wanting to buy property in Hawaii, the volcanic activity stamps its authority on house prices, with those in the Southeast, closest to the active volcanoes being much lower than those to the Northwest. Insurance is also more expensive in the Southeast and is likely to exclude lava damage. So the question every homebuyer in the Southeast of Hawaii will ask in a Clint Eastwood kind of way is "Do I feel lucky?"

Compassionate Britain? HMRC Slams Mac Fac. Kiev's $400k for Trump Lawyer.

Baits Bite Lock, Milton, with cyclist and river boat.

Some new wonderful examples of of the compassionate Britain we now live in. There is the nurse who went to Jamaica on her retirement after 30 years in the UK, to look after her parents. She continued paying UK taxes on her pension. But when she became ill on a return visit to the UK, receiving the shock diagnosis of bone cancer, she was then hounded for £4,388 before she could receive further treatment. Yes, since April 2015, if you leave the UK to live somewhere else, you will have to pay for medical treatment if you become ill on a visit to the UK. Then there is the former mayor of Ipswich. She had lived for 40 years in the UK, married a Brit and became a Liberal councillor for 19 years. The Home Office rejected her application for citizenship, which cost her £1,282, because it “cannot be satisfied” that she is permanently a resident in the UK.

Hard Brexiteers were dealt a harsh blow today, by none other than the Chief Executive of HM Revenue and Customs Jon Thompson. He suggested that a hard Brexit would necessitate an estimated 200 million customs declarations at a cost of £20 to £50 each for companies, accruing to between £17bn and £20bn a year. This is more than the £16bn cost of EU membership for 2016. Theresa May's preferred option of a customs partnership would in contrast cost about £3.4bn a year. In either case, the HMRC thinks it would 3 to 5 years to bed in any new system, and that would start from next year's brexit date.

Meanwhile President Trump had two irritations today. The first was that sources in Kiev claimed that Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, had received a secret payment of at least $400,000 (£300,000) to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump. This was of course denied, and POTUS himself was not party to this. The second was the judgement that President Trump could not block people on Twitter from viewing his tweets if they held views contrary or different politically from his own. He can mute the tweets, ie, he can choose not to see the critical responses from individuals.

Spent today conducting a longer interview for my COS history research and arranging some more appointments. Took a walk down to the river this evening and tried taking a photo of the lock using my Huawei P10, held stable on a surface, with surprising success.

Trump's Stick for Iran and Rage for Spy. Brexit Hits Company Registrations. Train and Phone delays.

Letchworth fountain

With a bullish attitude apparently having an effect in intimidating North Korea into action over nuclear disarmament and initiating a response from China re the trade imbalance, President Trump is turning to Iran and putting it under economic pressure. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised the harhest sanctions ever - and woe betide anyone daring to cross them, like the Europeans. He issued a full twelve demands for Iran to comply with. The demands might on the surface all seem perfectly laudable as ideals to the presenter, but they are going to rile the recipient, Iran and are therefore not realistic. Any nation would be strongly irritated by the imperial tone. But perhaps, these are meant to fail as the idea for the US could be regime change - and I presume that would require continued suffering of Iran's people for a while to foment discord.

Meanwhile, the President is in paroxysms of rage about the possibility of a spy being placed in is election team, according to his weekend tweets. He had demanded an investigation into his claims that the Obama administration inserted an FBI spy into his 2016 campaign. He tweeted:
"I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" Barbed comments were also directed towards the previous (Obama era) CIA director John Brennan, who Trump apparently regards as the possible initiator of the Mueller investigation. All this before the new director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, was sworn in.

Since the initiation of Brexit, company registrations in the UK by foreign businesses has dropped dramatically by between 38%  (Belgian applications), to 48% (France). According to the Guardian, " OECD figures show that foreign direct investment into the UK tumbled in 2017 by 90%". Apparently analysts lay the blame squarely at the feet of the split and indecisive British Cabinet.

On a glorious sunny morning, I set off on foot to Cambridge North station to catch a train to Letchworth. This on the day where more than 60% of rail timetables had been changed over a significant part of the network and trouble was anticipated. The journey started off late due to difficulties with power to the train. Eventually we got underway and I had an interesting conversation with a septuagenarian marathon and half marathon runner from Devon, on the first leg of his home journey. The Broadway in Letchworth proved a pleasant walk to my destination, for a Quekett related meeting. After a light lunch, it was back on the train to Cambridge, fortunately catching one that wasn't cancelled. Ensured a revised flyer was printed and delivered correctly to one of our authors. Caught a delayed train back to Cambridge North. Jane not answering the phone, so walked back home. Only to find that whilst the phone seemed to be ringing on my smartphone, it was actually silent at home - courtesy of BT's newest hole and box on our pavement. Phoned BT (yet again) to get the problem resolved!

A Royal Wedding. May Asserts Control. Value Alignment in Artificial intelligence. Asimov's Robots.

Finally, the UK media and news are getting over the anticipation of the royal wedding of Harry & Meghan, the pre-wedding news on the day, the wedding and the post wedding analysis. Even we watched the wedding on TV and I can recount interesting facts such as the bride's veil being embroidered with floral motifs from all the commonwealth countries, that the couple left in an electric e-type jaguar, and that the bridal bouquet would be laid on the tomb of the unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey, a tradition begun with the Queen Mother in 1923. You could have stuck your head in a rabbit hole in the middle of the woods and a passing stranger would have somehow conveyed a facet of the event to you.  From my perspective, the most impressive part was the oratory and body language of the reading by Reverend Michael Curry.

Mind you, the wedding was a pleasant diversion from the general news. President Trump's potential trade-war with China was apparently averted by a Chinese delegation travelling to the US and giving assurances that that more purchases from the US would be made (to redress the trade imbalance).

A bit of late news to arrive out of Prime Minister Theresa May's talks with her parliamentary MP's on the brexit solutions was her dressing down of arch brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg. Apparently he asked her why she could not forget any deal and just keep open the border after Brexit - take the hard Brexit. According to the sources feeding back to the Guardian, the Prime Minister "spelled out in no uncertain terms the serious problems and costs that would result from having to resort to World Trade Organisation rules, while also stressing the potentially grave security dangers that would follow if and when the Republic of Ireland had to reimpose border controls on the orders of the EU in order to preserve the integrity of the single market."

On a warm sunny Sunday, we actually took to doing some gardening. I made a fruit flan in time for afternoon tea and also continued with preparations for Cambridge Open Studios. The previous week had been quite busy with some interviews of Cambridge Open Studios organisers as research for the COS history book. I finally finished reading the Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, a complicated tale that jumped between separate individuals and their descendants, the history of wartime cryptography and a tale of amassed gold to be recovered.

Last Thursday's Cambridge Enterprise and Technology Meeting was on Artificial Intelligence. Rupert Thomas covered the topic of the complexity of processors recognising emotions. Professor José Hernández-Orallo took a longer term view of AI, and the message that I took away was that with the development of ever more intelligent AI, it is essential to ensure that there is a value alignment between the objectives of humans and developing AI. However, the more fascinating insight that came to me during the talks was that currently we see humans and machines developing separately, but as humans we are already adapting and evolving with technology. Just think how the first reaction today is to use your smartphone to communicate with people or to gain access to information and memories that are stored in your external memory on the web.

The topic of value alignment between humans and technology is now regularly featured in SciFi, - just look at Westworld or Humans. It reminded me of two older works, the Cyteen trilogy by C. J Cherryh and of course Isaac Asimov's Robot stories. The latter deal with the issues of giving robots a value system (the three laws of robotics, later extended to four.

The original three were:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Azimov later added a preceding or overriding zeroth law, so that the laws are now:

1. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
2. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
3. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
4. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I've dug out my Asimov 'The Complete Robot' to read and may go through the following series too.

North Korea Turns Frosty. Brexit Whitepaper Promise and Scottish Rebellion. A BT Phone Saga.

The North Korean mood music changes to frosty with an abrupt cancellation of talks with South Korea and a warning that the meeting with President Trump might be called off. The reason was the beginning of two weeks of joint air exercises between the South Koreans and the US, something the North Koreans have always accused of being preparations for an invasion of the North. The US currently stays pofaced, simply stating that they have not heard anything from North Korea on the issue of the Presidents meeting and continues to plan for the event.

The death of 60 palestinians, resulted in a repeat of past stalled debates on the Israel-Palestinian question. The US fully supported Israel, whilst the UK reiterated its commitment to the two state solution.

In an attempt to show that progress was being made, despite all the talk of a deadlock on Brexit in the British cabinet, the Prime Minister's promised a white paper on her priorities for Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, to be released in June, before the critical meeting with the EU. Hopefully, a solution acceptable to the EU will be found in the next 30 days or so.

Meanwhile, the Scottish MP voted in their parliament for a cross party rejection of the UK government’s EU withdrawal bill by 93 votes to 30. The stumbling block is that the UK parliament wants control of regulations currently held by the EU to initially fall back to it on Brexit, rather than allowing the powers to go to the devolved parliaments.

Today we had another installment of the adventures of BT internet and phone repair saga. It started when the neighbours began having problems with their internet. The first hole was dug by the contractors, by the lamp post. This remained open for several days till the engineer arrived. Unfortunately the hole was in the wrong place, as evidenced by photographs of previous holes from past telecoms malfunctions, thoughtfully retained on our computer.

The digging contractors returned on a separate day and dug the second hole in the correct place and temporarily filled in the first hole. Again the hole remained open for several days till, during the time of torrential downpours, the BT engineer came to effect repairs on the neighbour's line. The contractors returned and filled both holes properly. The neighbour's internet problem had not been resolved and now our telephone line had developed a severe crackle.

I called in the fault, the automated tests by BT over the phone did not detect a problem. I still requested an engineer to come, with the risk that we would have to pay if it was an in house fault. Several days passed. The engineer arrived and first ended up at the neighbours, confirming that they had a fault. He then came to use and established that we had a fault and that it was in the same location of the neighbours fault, the last filled hole. The engineer took profuse notes and attached them to his report and departed.

The contractors returned and started digging the wrong hole till directed to the correct spot by us. The hole was open for a period of time. An engineer returned, without any of the information generated by the previous engineer. He repaired our line but possibly not the neighbour's, and left. However, he established that we still had a residual fault and marked a new area on the pavement close to our house, it could be that we will be having our own hole soon.

Meanwhile, waiting for his repair, the neighbour called BT to point out the potential hazard of the new existing hole: the plate covering it was barely big enough to cover the deep hole and was at risk of falling in (with anyone or any vehicle passing over it).

Today, the contractors returned and filled in the hole promptly. As they drove away from the site down our road, they passed a BT engineer coming in the opposite direction to arrive on the neighbour's drive. Finding the hole filled and after a phonecall on his smartphone, he departed.

We now wait to see how the saga continues!

Jerusalem Embassy Celebration and Riots. Brexit Dawdling. Mastering Hugin.

Cross section of Marram grass. Panorama of 20 image stacks.

Today, to rapturous applause, the US inaugurated it's embassy in Jerusalem. Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and a slew of US congressmen were there. Meanwhile, the six week protest in Gaza and the West Bank culminated in mass protests where 58 Palestinian protesters were killed by Israeli gunfire and possible a further 2500+ wounded by the fence to Israel and amongst the roiling black clouds of smoke billowing from burning tyres. On the one hand, the US states that it was simply acknowledging  a basic fact, that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. On the other hand, of the 83 countries with embassies in Israel invited to attend, 50 did not, including the UK and most of Europe. With the controversial Evangelical Pastor Robert Jeffress giving the US prayers at the event, you might wonder if this is all a cunning plan to fulfill the prophesy believed by many american evangelicals, that when all the Jews return to Israel, it will be the precursor to Armageddon. Suddenly withdrawing from the Iran Deal makes sense.

Brexit has also been engaging the media with two meetings taking  place. The first was by Theresa May, who invited all her MPs to give an even handed presentation on the two options on Brexit currently the cause of the stalemate in the UK cabinet. Meanwhile Former Deputy PM Nick Clegg, David Miliband and Nicky Morgan launched an cross party campaign on the Brexit Bill, arguing against a hard Brexit. Michel Barnier, EU Brexit negotiator stated that “More work is needed to prepare for the UK’s orderly withdrawal... Allow me to repeat myself: we are not there yet,”. This was a reference to the current Brexit negotiation schedule. Progress in June is an important step towards a final Brexit deal in October, to allow enough time for the EU ratification process before the Brexit day next March.

Spent most of the day running panorama assembly of microscope images taken and stacked last week. I've finally found out how to use the opensource software Hugin to assemble panoramas with exposure correction. this minimises exposure gradients across images and can cope with vignetted images. I was able to run the construction of panoramas in the background whilst catching up with PC work during the day. Gradually accumulating work for the July Cambridge Open Studios. Jane also coming up with some lovely miniatures in mixed media.

Brexit Increased intolerance. US-Europe Split widens. White House Scraps NASA Carbon Monitoring

Wisteria at the Norris Museum

UN special rapporteur on racism, Professor Tendayi Achiume, said that Brexit has contributed to an environment of increased racial discrimination and intolerance in the UK. This has extended into worrying hostile policies towards immigrants, unequal treatment of black and muslim communities by the police and the judiciary. The professor of law at University of California, Los Angeles, reported that “Many with whom I consulted highlighted the growth in volume and acceptability of xenophobic discourses on migration, and on foreign nationals including refugees in social and print media.”

What is remarkable about Damian Gayle's report in the Guardian is that it does not appear to have hit the other news media yet. Perhaps they are waiting for her full report on her 11 day visit to the UK to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June 2019.

Newsnight did report tonight on another example of the "hostile environment". It was the banning of asylum seekers from continuing their studies in the UK. Agencies from different parts of the UK had come across asylum seekers being given their immigration bail letters with explicit statements forbidding them to study. Now that the item is in the open, the government has confirmed that asylum seekers DO have a right to continue their education and studies and take exams unless and until their applications have been refused. The guidelines to civil servants on this matter are being revised accordingly.

The rejection by President Trump of the UK's, Germany's and France's arguments to stay within the Iran Deal has widened the rift with Europe. Prime Minister Theresa May spoke with the President reiterating the UK's commitment to stay within the deal and, according to a government spokesman,  "The Prime Minister raised the potential impact of US sanctions on those firms which are currently conducting business in Iran. They agreed for talks to take place between our teams." The biggest impact in the UK will be for the major airplane manufacturers, who have billion dollar deals with Iran. They use many US sourced components and are therefore susceptible to the imposed trade sanctions.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said European companies should not have to pay for the US decision.

The White House has also quietly scrapped NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS). If you don't measure greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, you jeopardize plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, according to Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts.  "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement. Canceling the CMS is a grave mistake."

The Cambridge climate was still bright and sunny this morning but decidedly chilly as I set off to St Ives today. The big challenge was to capture the beautiful wisteria in bloom at the Norris Museum. I took numerous pictures and tried a few panoramas as well in the morning. I was hoping to repeat the procedure when the sun had moved around a bit more. I wanted fewer shadows in parts of the gardens, but the clouds forecast for the weekend scudded over the sky. In the meantime, I finished researching the cartographers for a set of web pages on historic maps.

US Prisoner Release Joy. Stark Ambassador Warning to German Business, Human and Spider Snacks

There was a big welcome, filmed in slow motion, for the last three American prisoners released from North Korea. Despite taking place at 3 am in Joint Base Andrews, there was a big media presence as a grateful Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang Duk shared smiles with President Trump.

The consequences of the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal were spelt out in a direct manner by the US
Ambassador,  Richard Grenell. He tweeted, within hours of taking up his post, “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”. He later defended the tweet stating that it was his manner to be honest, that he had a different style of diplomacy.

I spent the day catching up with a week's worth of emails and arranging appointments. Whilst making a cup of tea, I also thought I would make some use of the almond grounds left over from making almond milk for the mediaeval pudding on Monday. I added sugar to the pulp and lad out marble sized balls on the mixture onto non-stick baking paper and roasted them in the oven at 180 degreesC for about 20 minutes and then again for the same time at about 120 degreesC. The balls flattened out, resulting in a fused sheet with a pattern vaguely like that of carp scales. However, when cooled, they did form a passable snack whilst sitting on the garden bench for an afternoon tea break.

Whilst the almond scales were baking, I saw movement outside on the kitchen window ledge. A bee had caught it's hind-leg in an invisible strand of spider's silk. As I watched, a small spider, one eighth of the size of the bee approached the trapped insect and began trying to further entangle it with more invisible threads. The response of the bee was to try and brush off the strands, thus inadvertently self-entangling itself further. Over a period of 10 minutes, the spider patiently and cautiously continued to add more silk. Only when it was safe enough to approach without being clubbed by the much larger bee's legs, did the the spider move in and administer it's bite, then scurry back to the safety of its home in the gap under the window. Checking back a couple of hours later, the tiny spider had hauled in its giant haul to its hiding place. Today it would eat well. It could then be without another meal for up to a month.

Damaged Iran Deal. US Prisoners Released by NK. Brexit Spin on Galileo.

Normanton Church, Rutland Water last weekend

One man's decision on the Iran Deal in the US has created uncertainty and fault lines in Europe and the Near East. The last time, President Trump's poker game with another nuclear aspirant, North Korea, appears to have borne fruit. The mood noises from Kim Jong-un were suddenly conciliatory and positive and tonight, the US rejoices in the release of three imprisoned US citizens from North Korean prison and their anticipated arrival back in the US. Will the same strategy work with Iran? Or is the longer lasting legacy be that whilst the President has kept his election promise, the past promises made by the US as a nation are now less reliable.

A future Brexit could now have another unexpected consequence. The EU satellite navigation system being built, called Galileo, is still in construction. However, on Brexit, it could be that the UK does not have access to the highly accurate military navigation systems of Galileo. 'We'll just build our own!" is one touted solution. Feasible, but expensive.

Jane and I spent an afternoon with one of our authors on the final details of their manuscript.

Trump Quits Iran Deal. Mosses, Sound Recorder's Corner of Hell and Remembering Alfred Russel Wallace

Eros at Piccadilly Circus

President Trump held to his promise and declared his intention to withdraw the US from the Iran deal. He has ignored his allies and has demonstrated that the president is capable of making decision in straight contradiction to the advice he has received.

Everyone else thinks that whilst the agreement with Iran is not perfect, the nuclear controls have been effective.

POTUS also signed a reintroduction of hard sanctions against Iran. This could create difficulties for the other countries of the EU, Russia and China who wish to continue trading with Iran and thus uphold the security arrangement with Iran.

At least Boris still has a job despite the double whammy of not being able to convince the President to stick with the Iran Deal and brazenly calling his Prime Ministers plans for a customs partership 'crazy'. The Government is still frozen on Brexit.

We had a minor miracle today. A plumber had not only said he would come between 8:30 and 9am this morning, he actually appeared and repaired our rather dramatically leaking bathroom cold tap within half an hour.

I took the train to London this afternoon, for the annual Presidential address of the Quekett Microscopical Club. It was held at the Linnaean Society of London, in the very room where Charles Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's ideas on evolution where presented.

President Joan Bingley talked on the Joy of Bryophytes - mosses and liverworts to you and me. Often ignored because they don't have visible pretty flowers, their small structures can  be beautiful at the microscopic scale. They also fulfill vital functions, providing homes for numerous small organisms, including the small and strangely cute tardigrades or water bears. What most people do not know is that a significant amount of carbon in the UK is actually captured out of the atmosphere and stored in sphagnum moss peat bogs and peat deposits.

I was filming the talk and was reminded of the fact that, if there is a  hell, there is one corner specifically reserved for members of the audience who come in late, leave the sound on their smartphones to ping as they surreptitiously send and receive messages; who manage to create those rustly noises when attempting the impossible task of opening a pack of sweets quietly; all that close to the recording camera. Hopefully the separate microphone at the front of the room was sufficiently far away not to be contaminated by the distractions.

Sound recording cropped up again on the train journey home when chatting to a fellow traveler. He specialised in creating podcasts of talks at his local history group, something we have done at the Milton Local History Group. He too was familiar with Alfred Russel Wallace and his work on the Malay and Indonesian archipelago, though for a time we both struggled to remember his name, something gradually being rectified in accounts of the history of Biology.

Democracy Seen in Action in Cambridgeshire. A Glorious Bank Holiday Trip and BBQ

Friday LibDem Joy at Southcambs Victory

The Lords have now defeated the government peers 10 times on different aspects of the EU withdrawal bill. Paradoxically, rather than Britons making decisions for Britain, the Lords are now decried as traitors and EU sympathisers for in effect saying, 'hold on a minute, parliament needs to have a say in the final Brexit decisions'. The noisy hard brexiteers have also been trying to put pressure on the Prime Minister to drop her preferred option of a special customs partenrship with the EU.

In the meantime, There is the threat of President Trump deciding not to renew the approval of the existing Iran Nuclear deal. All the other partners, Russia and the EU countries, feel that the deal though flawed, is working. In a sign of the UK's special relationship, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson flew to the US, to meet with the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to push the case for the US to stay within the agreement. Boris made his case directly to the President in his own state rooms, by appearing on the president's favourite news channel, Fox News. A sure sign of the seriousness and weight the UK will hold in future UK-US trade negotiations after Brexit.

There was a local ray of light with last weeks local government elections. I was able to attend the Ballot Count for South Cambridgeshire District Council as a counting agent for local councillor and neighbour, Hazel Smith. My role was to watch the counting of the ballots. I was not alone. The ballot counters were arranged in groups of eight on one side of the benches at different counting areas in a school hall. Opposite them were all the counting agents and candidates who watched every single ballot paper be sorted.

The counting proceeded as follows:

• For example, for Milton and Waterbeach Ward, there were three councillor posts to be elected but 13 candidates. We had three liberals and three Conservatives as well as several Labour, Green, and Indendent candidates.
• Initially, the ballot papers were placed individually into baskets arranged by the block votes (all Labour or all Conservative or all Green or all LibDem.)
• Ballot papers where too many candidates had been ticked or where the mark made in the voting boxes was unclear at first glance; these went into a separate tray.
• Ballot papers where the three votes were spread across two or more parties were placed in their own tray of mixed votes.

Once all the ballot papers had been sorted in this way, The mixed ballot papers were counted using 'Grass Skirts'. The basic mechanism is as follows:

• Ballot papers are arranged horizontally on a pre-prepared large white board in batches of 25, with only the voting boxes showing.
• The votes across a row, corresponding to those of a particular candidate, are counted.
• The total number of votes for that candidate are recorded.
• The process is repeated row by row until all the total votes for each candidate have been counted.
• Not everyone voted for three candidates.
• Therefore the columns of every ballot paper on the board were checked and the number of unused votes in that column was recorded.
• The accuracy of the count was then checked by adding the total sum of unused votes to the total sum of actual votes. This should be 75 if the count was correct.

In the meantime, Some of the counters were collating the block votes into sheaves of ten ballot papers with paper clips, and then into blocks of 100 votes using rubber bands.

 There is a good video here demonstrating the principle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwPlhwiI418.

The whole counting process was overseen by eagle eyed counting agents who would immediately call out any errors in placing votes into the wrong basket, point out mistakes in the grass skirting, and checked that there ballot papers were being collated into tens and hundreds.

This apparently cumbersome process does however guarantee the accuracy of the counting and also protects the counters from undue influence or attempts to rig voting, An extreme example quoted was that of criminals trying to influence the voting by holding a counter's family to ransom. Because the counters were scrutinised so heavily, they could not influence the vote.

It was an exhausting and exacting process for counters and counting agents. But the fact that errors were spotted and corrected quickly was a fantastic demonstration of fair democracy in progress.

However, excitement was gradually mounting as the Returning Officer announced the results for the elections for the different wards as the counts came in. The Lib Dems had been hoping to turn the Conservative majority into a hung council at SCDC. As the day wore on, the LibDem wins gradually overtook those of the Tories and crept to the break even point. Then they broke though to a clear majority!. The Conservative MP Heidi Allen and many of the conservative supporters had disappeared by the latter stages. Local Newspaper, Radio and TV reporters realised that something momentous was happening and the LibDems were becoming ever so much more ecstatic and loud in their celebrations. Having gone to the count with Hazel, expecting us to be finished by lunchtime, we stayed on till all the counts were done by 5pm.

The tension and euphoria had not stopped democracy continuing. The votes for certain Parish Councils were still being counted, though by late afternoon, the quiet dedication and perseverence of the counters continued unnoticed in the background. Some of them had been involved in the counting of the previous night and had then been counting in the hall all day today. They deserve applause and recognition.

Personally, the past week or so had its ups and downs. 

Jane and I were outraged when a design prepared for an organisation was dramatically altered without consulting us. An apology was made to us for the error and the altered material was taken out of circulation.

On the plus side, four books are finally in print, making our workload more manageable.

With the promise of a warm and sunny bank holiday, we made a sightseeing trip to the village of Oakham, by Rutland Water on the Saturday.After a light lunch in the gardens of the Garden Cottage cafe/restaurant, we wandered through the back streets and visited the castle there. The Main Hall of the castle is really all that remains of the buildings, dating from the 1180's . The inside is covered with giant horseshoes. It is a tradition that visiting peers of the realm leave a horseshoe at the the castle. The earliest one on display is from Edward IV in 1470, after his victory at the Battle of Losecoat Field. The tradition continues to the present day! On our way back, we stopped off for an ice-cream and tea near Normanton Church, which was being used for a wedding on this glorious sunny day.

Sunday, we pottered about, with me doing some baking. I started off making a Pommesmoille. This is a mediaeval rice pudding with apples which I found in the book Pleyn Delit (Plain Delight). Ali Naylor from the Demowbrays Retinue gave us an excellent talk on the roles of the different people in the retinue of the Duchess of Norfolk back in Elizabethan times. Ali plays a variety of roles in the Demowbrays Retinue as they travel around the UK and in Europe, from noblewoman to camp cook. She recommended the book and I wanted to try out one of the recipes for the following day. I also made a cheese cake following the recipes first tried out in February (see earlier in Blog). This time I did mix the whipped egg-white into the cheese mix again. The cake turned out perfectly without a falling centre as it cooled. I had placed non-stick paper around the inside of the baking tin and this allowed the cake mix to contract evenly on all sides on cooling.

Today we had the Hall End Barbecue,.This used to be a regular fixture in our street when our children were younger, but we missed a few years due to bad weather. This Monday was glorious and all the neighbours brought out their chairs, tables, sunshade umbrellas and of course food and drink. The younger children coerced some of the adults into get soaked by crawling though a water filled play-tunnel, or played volleyball, football and play-fights with water-pistols. We started setting up at about 12:30 for lunch and had only finished packing up by around 7:30pm. It was an enjoyable, if tiring end to a bank holiday weekend.