May Repeats Trump Retweet Criticism. Microscopy Workshop.

President Trump tells Theresa May to stop criticising him and rather tackle Islamic extremism in the UK. However, the Prime Minister stands by her decision that re-tweeting items from a far right organsiation was wrong. Parliament showing various degrees of disapproval. Britain in a bind however, as leaving the EU also requires  a good trade deal with the the US.

Net migration to the Uk has shrunk by 90,000 to 250,000 per year, with the largest decline in EU citizens.

Ran a workshop on using the microscope at a nearby college today. I had learnt from the previous shorter session earlier in the month and ensured there was a staged structure to the session. The biggest hit was introducing the 14 students to growing your own vitamin C crystals and viewing them using polarisation filters.

They avidly photographed their work using their smartphones. Getting a steady picture was enabled by spacers made from short hosepipe rings to raise and support the cameras on the eyepieces. An enthusiastic positive group who should now be able to return to their workplaces as the microscopy experts. Looking forward to seeing and judging their pictures and videos.

UK-Divorce Payment Seen Through Different Lenses. Toxic Trump Tweets. Microscope Lamp Lightbulb Trials

Small package in big box

The rumoured Brexit UK payment deal is being interpreted and debated in different forms today. Hardline Tories could actually decide to vote against the Brexit deal as they cannot stomach paying anything, never mind £50bn to the EU as we leave. More moderate Tories want guarantees that the payments are at least linked to the trade talks. 

Remainers are wondering why we are promising to pay out such a large sum when it is actually cheapter to stay within the EU and actually retain all the benefits. 

EU representatives are cagey on what the payment is and also do not see it as being linked to the trade agreement, merely as paving the way to enter into negotiations. The EU also needs to agree that progress has been made on the other two bones of contention, EU citizens rights after Brexit and the Irish border question.

President Trump manages to cause outrage in the UK and elsewhere for retweeting divisive, inaccurate and unverified videos previously posted by a far right, radical anti-Islamic, Britain First leader, Jayda Fransen. Apparently this is directed more at influencing his domestic audience, presumably to garner continued support for his anti-islamic ban and other similar sentiments. Relieved that the Prime Minister has added her voice to condemning this particular set of tweets.

For some reason, could not sleep last night, so spent some time playing around with microscopes in preparation for giving a workshop tomorrow. Ended up trying three different lighting systems for a focussed microscope lamp; fluorescent, LED and halogen. 

The fluorescent light worked best for observations by eye but presented problems when trying photography due to the 50hz flicker causing banding on both the camera's screen view and in the photographs. The halogen bulb was suitably bright but I lacked a diffuser over the bulb. The diffused LED bulb was OK visually and avoided the flicker. however, at lower magnifications, I may have a slight radial brightness gradient from centre to the edge of the image. For low magnifications (up to 100x) the best light source, when using a microscope with a mirror, was a multiple LED map and diffuser to provide a large even illuminated light source. will post on Quekett FB page.

Annoying post of the day was delivery of a small package in a big box. The contents were not that sensitive and could have been wrapped and sent with smaller packaging.

Hints UK - EU Divorce Bill Agreed. High FLying NK ICBM. Cakes and Custard.

Mango sponge cake made by Nathalie Garbolino-riva

News is currently circulating that according to several diplomats, the UK has accepted its EU liabilities up to Euro 100bn, though it is likely that they will be half that. It is being kept muted as it is hoped to be part of a package to be presented by Prime Minister Theresa May, after David Davis and Michel Barnier meet next week. There has been progress on the EU citizens rights in the UK after Brexit but there is still work to be done on the Ireland border issue.

North Korea has launched another intercontinental ballistic missile. Whilst it flew about 620 miles to fall into the Sea of Japan, it flew higher than its predecessors. This is important as more height means greater range. The US, now potentially in range, sees this as a global threat.

A relative has been able to return from the island of Bali, via Jakarta. Thousands of local residents and tourists are still trapped as the Bali volcano Mount Agun spews ash and is possibly due for an imminent major eruption.

Our baker, Nathalie, outdid herself with baking three very different cakes for today's Community Cafe. We had a mango sponge, apple and mandarin lattice pie and brownies. With custard!

Royal Engagement Swamps Brexit Tech Investment. The Bane of Windows Updates.

Agama Lizard - featuring in a new book in progress

Today, the government announced a major set of investments in technology to promote growth in the high tech sectors of robotics and biomedical technology. These, and future announcements are part of a comeback from the gloom of Brexit, aiming to improve Britain's poor productivity. Commentators were quick to point out that these industries already had a higher than average productivity and that it would not be so easy to achieve an effect in more conventional businesses.

The news was however overshadowed by a more rapid and effective boost to the UK economy, the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Britain brings a ray of positivity to the world and will hold the public's attention with increasing expectation to a crescendo at the Royal Wedding. Meghan brings with her a tradition as an ambassador for equal rites, whether for women, against discrimination and the under-privileged. With Harry fifth in line to the throne, hopefully this can continue. Otherwise, total news domination likely for the next few days, I'm already tired of it! Let them be happy and get on with their lives.

Whilst the government might have been disappointed at being eclipsed by the royal revelation, it did also push some more critical Brexit news into the background. Close to the deadline, the brexit impact assessment papers have finally been handed over to the Exiting the EU Committee. However, they are likely to ignite a new row as Brexit Secretary David Davis has admitted that they were redacted of any commercially sensitive information that could impact on the brexit negotiations if made public, thereby rendering the papers less than useful.

I'm pretty annoyed that I had to head off to World of Computers to see if they could resolve my recently occurring laptop problem. After a recent update, the laptop functioned OK for a while and then the display stretched the screen images and displays. Unable to solve the issue myself over the weekend, despite googling, trying to find possible drivers and reverting to previous restore points, it was time for the experts to have a go. I am currently writing this blog on an older laptop running Linux, without any problems after updating.The built in redundancy and pressure to buy ever newer digital components is not environmentally sustainable in the long run.

Ireland Brexit Border Shenanigans. Steampunk at the National Space Centre.

The Irish border with Northern Ireland has become the new crunch point in the Brexit talks, prior to getting agreement from the EU to move on to the next stage of negotiating the trade arrangements with the EU during  and after Brexit.

The Ireland leader stated that they would block progress on the EU Brexit negotiations if the border issue is not resolved.

UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Dr Liam Fox, countered today that the Irish border issue won't be resolved until EU-UK trade deal struck.

 The EU's agriculture commissioner, Phil Hogan, thinks that if the UK stayed in the customs union, this would resolve the issue. Hardliners in the UK government would not accept this.

The Northern Ireland leader categorically rejects displacing the border between the UK mainland and the Irish island as this would cut Northern Ireland from the UK.

A scandal in Ireland may actually derail the Irish government, confusing the issue further.

We visited the National Space Centre in Leicester today, with S & L, a 90 mile drive. It was a special weekend including 'Steampunks in Space', which meant that the museum sported a fair proportion of visitors in Steampunk attire and a smattering of steampunk displays. Men with magnificent Victorian moustaches, glorious waistcoats and HG Well inspired jet packs were matched by women in corseted ruffled dresses with various levels of lace and military insignia of the female steampunk space contingent. Following on from the Victorian tradition of young children as chimney-sweeps, one gentleman was trailed by the steampunk equivalent of a smaller lad for cleaning minor rocket boosters and a taller one for larger nozzles. Among the displays was an impressive life-size steampunk reconstruction of a steam-powered R2D2 robot.

Despite wearing a fairly modest 6 inch badge proclaiming it was my birthday today, numerous eagle eyed people observed the fact. The best moment was when we were in the planetarium and the presenter asked if I was present, announcing it was my birthday and the audience broke out in singing Happy Birthday.

There was almost too much going on so we used the visit to familiarise ourselves with the displays, from the two full rockets standing in the Rocket hall, the Soyuz capsule and an early Gemini TTV-2 wheeled capsule for paragliding landings, the solar system and astronaut training displays, and the Europa Landing simulation.

A wonderful, if tiring, day out.

Trump and Clinton Support Obama Family. Brexit and Food. Crumpets

Crumpets!

With the harsh polarised political debates in both the US and UK, it is great to see the presidential families in agreement on one issue, the right of their children to privacy. Most recently, President Obama's daughter Malia became the focus of the media. Both Ivanka Trump and Chelsea Clinton tweeted in the teenager's defence, saying she had the right to the same privacy as her peers and not be media 'clickbait'. Chelsea had also come to the defence of Barron Trump, the current president's youngest son, in the past.

Australia's Trade Minister Steven Ciobo has criticised the UK's plans to continue to maintain the quotas for imports into Europe from Australia after Brexit. This leaves the UK less able to negotiate a more positive arrangement with Australia for food imports in the future. Other future trading partners such as New Zealand, United States, Canada and Brazil, would also be affected in the same way.

Worryingly, in the run-up to Christmas, there may be a shortage of brussel sprouts due to Brexit! Many farms are struggling because there are not enough pickers from the EU. This follows a bad year where moth pests caused damage to the crop for the 2016 Christmas and wet weather led to damaged crops back in 2014. There will be tears in many homes and children may march in protest at the absence of this vegetable from their Christmas dinners - or not.

Other news looked at the horrendous aftermath of the massive attack by IS on a Mosque during Friday prayers in Egypt.

With the sudden cold snap, I had a sudden urge to make crumpets. I followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe in his 'Bread' book, but halved the ingredients, aiming to make six instead of twelve. It is a strange mixture in that it is a thick batter, first fermented with yeast to get bubbles into the mix, then cooked with added baking powder to get the big bubbles. Jane had bought me some crumpet rings a couple of years ago and i put them to good use. The results were moderately successful with the first three crumpets being a bit soggy in the middle. They were so filling that the next batch of three were allowed to cool and stored for toasting on another day.

Tusk Caution re Brexit progress. Trump to Solve Middle East and play golf.

Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Boudicca at the Norris last Summer

Donald Tusk tweeted after his one  hour meeting with Theresa May “Sufficient progress in Brexit talks at December [European council meeting] is possible,” Tusk tweeted. “But still a huge challenge. We need to see progress from UK within 10 days on all issues, including on Ireland.”

President Trump apparently planned to talk to Turkey's president today to sort out the Middle East problem, before setting off for his 76th visit to his Golf Club during his presidency, to play a a quick round with Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson.

A quick planning meeting for a microscopy session in Milton before setting off to the Norris Museum today. Helped with some image editing and had a fascinating conversation with a volunteer who had worked in the UK space industry in the 1990s.

This evening, bedevilled by my Windows 10 on the laptop suddenly losing the ability to display properly in 16:9 ratio, stretching images and display horizontally instead. Googling online, lots of others have had the same problem, without clear solutions.