On top of Friar Gate Bridge, My Forgotten Places entry on the World Wide Panorama.

The current themed event has just closed on the World Wide Panorama website and the theme for this event was "Forgotten Places" so I created a 360x180 degree VR photograph looking over the top of Friar Gate Bridge in Derby. I had to go to great lengths to take this photograph as the wall is about 5 foot high and my triod is 2 foot high, I had to use an delayed infrared remote control to take the shots while trying to duck out of the way of the lens!

Here is my entry for "Forgotten Places" : This is an interactive photograph allowing you to look in all directions using the mouse.



Here is a photograph for camparison taken in 1958 from about the same place on the bridge  :

This excellent photograph is from a rare book that I have called Friargate Line: Derby and the Great Northern Railway by Mark Higginson
The photograph was taken on the 9th August 1958.
If you have a fast broadband connection and fast PC then try my high resolution fullscreen version of this 360 dgree photograph here :

Forgotten Places VR Photograph: On top of Friar Gate bridge.

People from all over the World have taken part in this event, you can see all the entries on here :
WWP Forgotten Places

Thanks
Andy

Derby streets used as massive backdrop to live Dance show in Illinois, USA

In February this year a choreographer from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois in America got in touch with me asking if he could use my staggered time-shifted Derby Streets at night video footage as a backdrop to a live Dance show he was working on. I created a special version of my video for him in and used DropBox to deliver the file to him.

My timelapse footage was displayed on a cyclorama at the back of the stage, this video projector screen measures about 30 foot by 30 foot.

How stange it is to be sitting here in Derby watching video footage of a dance show in the USA that features the streets of Derby as the background. If you watch closely you will see street signs for Outter Ring Road and A52. The distance between Derby and Winnetka, Illinois, USA is 3,845 Miles




The small video clip here is from this live show of original work called "it's not the way you roll; it's the way you merge" The complete show was 85 minutes long and was performed at The Cornog Auditorium, Northfield campus of New Trier High School, Winnetka, IL. U.S.A. in April 2010 by performed by Menz Dance at New Trier High School.

It was watched by the General public about 450 students and parents.

Explanation by the Choreographer, Christopher Rutt : This dance is an original work called "it's not the way you roll; it's the way you merge" It explores the culture of automobiles -- the sense of isolation in our own moving "bubbles," the power struggles/jockeying for first place, the hypnotic trance of high speed travel, etc. The costumes are intended to evoke crash test dummies -- impersonal, unemotional, homogenous.

This dance is a "work in progress."

The performers are 17 high school boys from the Men's Dance class at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois.

Here is a link to my original time-lapse video of which I created a special version of for
the show : www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwq1OgZGfro

I would like to thank Christopher Rutt and the Dance Students for allowing me to show this small clip which features my time-lapse driving video.

If you were wondering which Derby Streets are featured in the backdrop, here is a list :
Driving Route : Starting on Holcombe Street in Pear Tree, Derby Left onto Dairy House Road, Pear Tree Road, Normanton Road, Mill Hill Lane, Mount Street, Burton Road, Abbey Street, Macklin Street, Becket Street, Wardwick, Cheapside, Strand, Wardwick, Cheapside, Bold Lane, Cathedral Road, Full Street, Corporation Street, Morledge, St Alkmunds Way, Ford Street, Stafford Street, Friary Lane, Curzon
Street, Uttoxeter New Road, Corden Avenue, Chain Lane, Burton Road, Manor Road, Uttoxter New Road, Uttoxeter Old Road, Friar Gate, Bridge Street, Agard Street, Ford Street, Friar Gate, Vernon Street, South Street, Uttoxter Old road, Slack Lane, Cheviot Street, Lyttelton Street, Brakensdale Avenue.

Hope you found this blogpost of interest, Really putting Derby on the global map here!
Andy

Blackbrook Zoological Park, Winkhill. Half Price entry until end of June.

There is a currently a special offer on at Blackbrook Zoological Park until the end of June where by you can get half price entry just by saying the code word "Dave Bain" when you pay, as stated on their Facebook page: Blackbrook Zoo Facebook page.
We visted on Friday and saved £13.42 by using this deal.

Blackbrook is home to the largest bird collection in the UK, and is internationally renowned for it’s achievements in breeding some of the world’s rarest birds.
Blackbrook is just a 15 minute drive from Ashbourne (9 miles). Or 22 miles from Derby (about 35 minute drive) up the A52 to Ashbourne then A523 to Winkhill. Look for the Brown sign on right saying "Alton Towers. Blackbrook Zoological Park"

Here is a photograph I took of the Pelicans being fed at 2:30....

Usual Prices:
Adults: £8.95
Concessions: £6.95
Children: £5.50
Family Ticket: £27.00
Under 3's are free

Opening Times:
Open all year round except Christmas day

February half term - 5th November : 10 - 5.30 each day Last admissions 4pm
6th November - February half term : 10 - Dusk Last admissions 3pm
Address:
Blackbrook Zoological Park

Winkhill
Nr. Leek
Staffordshire
ST13 7QR
http://www.blackbrookzoo.co.uk/

Map location for Blackbrook Zoo :

View Blackbrook Zoological Park in a larger map

Google Streetview of the entrance to Blackbrook Zoo.

Andy

The longest day of the year is today, clouds in time-lapse over Derby video.

Today 21st June 2010 is the longest day of 2010. I meant to set up my timelapse equipment to capture a full days worth of clouds in timelpase but I forgot, but you may enjoy the last video I made of clouds in time-lapse on the longest day in 2008. This video is on my Vimeo channel. Its recorded in HD, to watch it in HD you need to click on the HD is off icon then click the link that shows, fullscreen option is bottom right of the viewer....



The Longest Day, A full day of clouds in time-lapse. June 20th 2008 from Andy Savage on Vimeo.
The idea of this video was simple, I wanted to capture a whole days worth of clouds in time-lapse on the longest day of the year (20th June 2008). The sunrises in the summer are amazing but you tend to be asleep and dont get chance to see them. By means of "timed start" time-lapse I've managed to capture a wonderful sunrise which you can see at 0:23 in this video, this equates to 4.28am
I shot the sequence out of my front window in Derby, Derbyshire, UK. I did not notice the dirt on the window until after I looked at the images, oh well !

I set the software to capture and image every 14 seconds.
The first image was taken at 02:43, this is the first photo that you could start to see some daylight starting.
The last image was taken at 23:04 which was the last image with any daylight present.
The sequence is made from 5232 photographs, taken with a Canon Ixus 430.

To learn more about how the length of the day changes throughout the year see here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice

In 2010, at 7:28 a.m. Eastern Time, the Summer Solstice began, marking the first day of summer and the longest day of the year for those in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Earth, tilted on its 23.5-degree axis, is tipped closest to the Sun during the Summer Solstice while the opposite holds true for those residing in the Southern Hemisphere, for which today is the winter solstice. Today would be the shortest day of the year for them.

The Solstice does not always occur on the same day. The variation exists because our calendar has 365 days in a year, whereas an astronomical year has 365.25 days. The discrepancy is accounted for through our implementation of the leap year system, which adds an extra day to the calendar every four years

Andy

How to recover photographs from a corrupted or formatted memory card using Active File Recovery.

On friday I visited Blackbrook Zoological Farm and took lots of photographs of all the thousands of birds their with my Nikon D70.
This morning I removed the Memory Card from the camera and plugged it into the 8in1 card reader thats built into the PC and after a few seconds it showed a message "The card is not formatted do you wish to format it", Oh no whats happed to the card!!!
Its a branded SanDisk Ultra II 2Gb Compact Flash SD card and its never been a problem before so its a bit strange.
I then put the memory card back into the Nikon camera and pressed the Play button but the D70 showed "The card is not formatted" on the LCD screen. It gets worse by the second :(
I then put the memory card into my Kingston 19 in 1 Card reader and plugged the flying USB lead into my PC, I clicked on each of the removable drives that came up but every one says "insert disk"

How to recover the lost photographs from the faulty Camera memory Card.
I have tried several programs over the years that allow you to retrieve lost files from hard disks, The software I used here seems to be the best by a long way. Beats all the others by a long way.

The software is called Active File Recovery and is free to try
Click the Download button on here http://www.file-recovery.net/ and the next blue download button to get the file which is 4.47Mb and install this. It costs £23 to register the Demo version which will allow you to actually recover the files it has found.

Above is a screen grab of the software, click it to enlarge the view so you can see it.
I put my faulty memory card into the Kingston 19 in 1 Card reader and ran Active File Recovery, as you can see this software shows the 2Gb memory card as present.

Now you select this drive by clicking on it and then click the SuperScan button at the top/left of the panel.
This will show the "SuperScan Options" panel, in my particular case I only want to recover and .JPG files on the card, so in order to speed the scan process Where it says "File types to be recognized based on signatures" I selected Some and then the Select button. This shows a screen where you can pick and choose what files you want to recover.I cleared all selections and selected just JPEG Images (*.JPG)

It will now look through the memory card for absolutely every JPG file that it can find. While it scans the card it will show you how many files its found at the bottom. At this stage it is not recovering any data, its just showing you what its found.
Once the scan is complete you can view the results by expanding the results, See the SuperScan icon on the left panel.
In my case it shows as Found Files .JPG, once you click on this it will show all the files it found in the right panel. You can now select the files you want to recover, you may as well recover all of them.
Select all the files and click the Recover button, this will retrieve the images from the card and put them into  a folder that you select. If its a large memory card then it may take a few minutes to get the data from it

The Results:
This software not only managed to recover every one of the photographs I took but it also recovered hundreds of photographs that I had taken with this camera from years previous!
It just goes to show that just because you delete images and format the card over and over that all the data is still on there (as long as its not been overwritten).
Some of the photographs it recovered were taken in August 2008 and were still on the card because I had not taken "so many" photographs in a single session before so it had not overwritten that area of the card yet.
So if YOU ever have lost photographs like this then try this Active File Recovery.




Hope you found this software review of use.
Andy

AGM results and some thoughts on "governance"

A total of thirteen members attended our branch AGM yesterday, so we were comfortably quorate and everyone standing for re-election to the committee got in. However, thirteen people out of a branch membership of roughly 300 people is really not all that great, and a total membership of 300 isn't ultimately going to be enough to sustain services to 4,000-odd people long-term. Add in the wider population who expect us to be able to help with wildlife casualties, injured strays and so on, and it's just impossibly top-heavy.

The RSPCA is a very democratic charity—if you want to get rid of me, you can vote me out—but it depends on people being willing to participate, put in some work to achieve our goals and accept that majority decisions must be final. The idea of working within a structure of rules puts some people off because they think it's "bureaucratic" but without rules to decide who can make decisions and when a decision has been made the result would be chaos and nothing would ever get settled.

To participate in the decision-making processes of the RSPCA the first requirement is to become a member. Anyone with a genuine desire to help animals may join, although application from someone who wanted to use their membership for an ulterior purpose might be rejected (for example someone who joined in order to reverse the Society's policies against battery farming would have their application refused).

Three months after joining a member is entitled to receive voting papers for National Society elections and to attend their local branch AGM and vote in the election of the branch committee. They are also entitled to stand for election to their branch committee, but are not eligible to stand for election to the National Society's ruling council until they have been members for at least five years.

Branch elections do sometimes result in policy changes (although a lot of the time just getting enough people elected to form a committee is a struggle). Thirty years ago this branch did no rehoming at all, and this was only changed when a group of new people were elected to the committee. What happened wasn't exactly like a parliamentary election as members of both the old group and the new group were elected at the AGM (creating a much larger committee than before), but the new group formed a majority and put through the policy change. This kind of sudden shift is comparatively unusual and most of the time committees gain just a few new individuals each year.

This poses a problem in itself because new members are essential if committees aren't to wind up composed entirely of octogenarians, but being the only person who doesn't understand what's going on can make newly elected members feel the rest are forming a clique to exclude them. If you join a branch, be patient, and don't expect to understand everything immediately. Branches are complicated organisations, handling substantial amounts of money and requiring a lot of sustained work to keep them going. If you join in and help with existing activities you'll find it all gradually falls into place (and you'll have a wonderful command of acronyms—NCC, IET, RTA, RHQ—just like everyone else!)

Spread the word

Download it.

Reveal forgotten passwords masked by asterisks using the free Asterisk Key utility.

Asterisk Key is a small bit of software that reveals your masked password....

This is one of those tiny utility programs that is an absolute Godsend when trying to solve certain computer problems, read on for full details of how to use it.

If you use Outlook Express as your email client and have never used anything else (i.e. Webmail) then its likely that you may not remember what your email password is. Its not a problem while everything is working well but what if your hard disk crashes or your pc security gets compromised due to some malware and you want to change your password. Looking in the email Account part of Outlook Express will only show you your password as a series of *s so unless you can guess what it was by how many characters long it is then you are stuffed. Not a problem though because the Asterisk Key utility will decode the password for you.

Here is my Scenario for why I found the Asterisk Key program so invaluable.

I had to look at someone's computer recently whose security has been compromised due to an infected webpage installing some nasty software onto the system which has made the system untrustworthy. In order to protect it I wanted to change the e-mail password in case the software had stolen it. So I disconnected the internet from the infected PC, the person could not remember what the e-mail password was and could not find where it was written down either.

I then used a different PC and logged onto the ISPs website and tried to use their "forgotten my password" option in the webmail section, this asks various security questions and then asks for you to type in a new password you want to use BUT that was not working. It just showed "An internal error has occurred please try later" which I did but but it was still not working. This left me with a bit of a conundrum, how can I get the password? After searching for quite a while for software to retrieve passwords, most of which you have to pay for I stumbled across "Asterisk Key", not only was it free but it did exactly what I needed.

So if YOU are stuck in this situation of trying to work out what the password is then this software is for you.

Download "Asterisk Key" by visiting the webpage here

www.lostpassword.com/asterisk.htm

Click the blue Download button (top right of the webpage)
The downloaded file is only 452Kb (last software update May 2010).
It works on all Microsoft platforms 98/NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista and Windows7
The installation is pretty quick and simple requiring just a few mouse clicks.

How to use the software to get your Outlook Express pre-stored password back.
1) Run Outlook express
2) Goto the tools drop-down menu and select Accounts.
3) Click on the Mail tab at the top and select the email account you want to find the password for (you may only have one account).
4) Click on the properties button.
5) Click on Servers tab at the top.
6) In this panel, below Account name: is the Password area which will be filled in with asterisks like this ********
7) If you have not already run Asterisk Key do so by Going to the Windows Start button and across to Programs then select Passware and then Asterisk key.
8) Click on the Recover button and within a couple of seconds it will convert your masked ********'s into your actual password, as per my screenshot (note I made this email account up for this demo)
Its worth noting that when you click the Recover button it actually hunts for any masked passwords that are currently on-screen, so if you have two web pages open and Outlook Express then it will show all three passwords.
9) Now you know your password write it down somewhere safe, Quit Asterisk Key.

I notice that the company also have lots of other software for specific password recovery on certain programs such as Excel, Word, Access, Outlook etc. See their main site:

http://www.lostpassword.com/

Hope you find this handy little program of use, I know I did. If so let the world know by posting a comment to this blog post, tell us what program it worked with.

P.S. REMEMBER Now you have used Asterisk Key to retrieve your password write it down somewhere safe, i.e. not a PostIt stuck on your monitor!!!

Andy

Open garden this weekend!

That Channel 4 programme

Grim shop meeting this evening at 188 Mill Road. It's now long enough since the Channel 4 anti-RSPCA "documentary" to assess some of its impact and donations have been hit significantly. At least one commercial house-clearance agent who regularly gave the shop old books it was too much trouble for him to sell has stopped because he now believes we've got plenty of money and aren't spending it on the animals. The antique centre round the corner in Gwydir st is apparently telling customers not to give to the RSPCA: "because they've got loads of money and don't care about animals".

I'm sure the Channel 4 programme makers thought they were very daring and anti-establishment—it would be daring and anti-establishment to cut NHS funding (after all it's got a million times as much cash as the RSPCA) and just let sick people die, but that wouldn't make it a good idea.

Ironically Dogs Today this month is featuring the Animals Count party as "the political party that wants an NHS for dogs". It would be more useful if they hadn't done their level best to destroy the closest thing to an animals' NHS that exists, although I respect Beverley Cuddy for being willing to allow honest discussion in the comments of her articles.

Reminder: Branch AGM this Thursday

Just a reminder that the branch AGM is this Thursday, 17th June at the Friends Meeting House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge. Meeting starts at 7.30 pm. Anyone interested in the RSPCA is very welcome to attend, but only adult members of the Society can vote in the election of the committee.

If you are a member, please do try to attend as we need to have enough qualified voting members present for a valid election.

Map  below. There is parking close to the hall in the multi-story car park nearby in Park Street.

View Larger Map

How to make a video of recorded movements on a QTVR Panoramic photograph using Pano2Movie.

This blog post is about a useful software tool that I use from time to time which may be of use to panoramic photographers.

The purpose of the Pano2Movie software is simple, it will create a video file based on the recording of movement of a QTVR panorama.

So why would you want that?, well this is very useful if you want to create a DVD showcasing your VR Photography, you can record some nice pans using your portfolio of work and then create a regular DVD from the video files. The app has other uses too such as..
I will be using this software quite a bit in my next youtube video about Dovedale. I visited Dovedale to take lots and lots of 360x180 degree VR photographs but also took a few short HD video clips, but looking through the videos now I wish I had taken more video sequences, but not to worry as I have lots of VR photographs which can be made to look like live pans by using this software.

The software is fully working for 30 days so you can try before you buy.
Get Pano2Movie from here (PC and MAC versions available):

http://www.pano2movie.com/

If you find the software useful then its worth investing in it, This costs around £39 (price depending on exchange rate at the time of purchase).

How to use the software

I will assume that you already have a QTVR panorama (.MOV file).
Personally I use PTGui to stitch my shots together then use Pano2VR to create my QTVRs using the Add "Quicktime" button in Pano2VR.

Anyway first download the Pano2Movie software, this is downloaded as a zip file so you will need to extract the files (right click, extract all if using XP/Vista/Windows7)

The software does not require installing, you run it by simply double clicking on the exe file. So obviously if you intend to use the software often then its worth moving the files to a safe place on your hard disk such as C:\Program Files\Pano2Movie\   then creating a shortcut icon on your desktop to to exe file.

When you run Pano2Movie you are presented with the main panel you can see in my screenshot.

Now goto the File dropdown menu and select Load QTVR. Find your .MOV file (Quicktime Panorama) and load it in. This should then show in the preview window.

Click on the Dimensions selection and pick the size you want to record to. This will be the size that the video will be recorded in. In my example here I have selected "1280 x 720 -HD" as I want to use the video on Youtube in HD mode.

Now select the Frame Rate that you want to use, this will depend on what you are going to do with the final video, in my example I will be importing the video file in Sony Vegas 9 Pro and mixing it with HD video clips that are recorded at 29.97FPS.

The next thing you need to do is have an idea of what sort of movement you are planning on capturing to video. The viewer behaves exactly the same as viewing your panorama in Quicktime player. So you can try moving around and zooming.

Once you are ready to record get the start view how you want it and click the Record button. Note that even though you have clicked the record button its not actually recording anything at alll until you move the view. If you want the final video to have a few seconds of static view before moving the scene then you can alter this using the timeline controls at the end.

Now move, Pan and zoom the view in the way you want it, all of your movements will be recorded. As you move around you will see the Duration counter increase, this is the amount of playback seconds captured.

When you have finished with panning click on the Record button again to stop recording.
On the timeline at the bottom you will see curves for P/T/F (in other words Pan, Tilt and Field of view/Zoom). You can use the many controls on this timeline to change the recorded movement to get it just how you want it.

Remember at this stage all the software has done is capture a sequence of numbers that relate to your Pan Tilt and Field of View movements, no video has been generated yet.

To see how your video will look you can click the Preview button, this will playback your movements in the window so you can get an idea of how its going to look.

If you are happy with your recording click on the Export button, the software will start the conversion process by creating a sequence of frames (.jpg or .png images.)

There is a progress bar showing the conversion progress, be aware that this can take some time if you have selected large dimensions and its a long recording.

Selecting "high quality (but slow)" in the export preferences panel increases the conversion time three fold.

Once its generated the image sequence (when the progress bar is at 50%) it then creates the video file by sequencing these frames, this part of the conversion process is faster than the first stage of conversion.

Once its completed this, it will purge the image sequence from the folder and create a video file. The default video file format will be a .MOV file but you can specify all manner of video formats including H624, just create a profile using the settings in the export panel.

Now you have your video file you can play it using Windows Media Player or Quicktime Player if you have generated a .MOV file.

When you play it back, it should replicate the exact movements that you recorded in Pano2Movie.

You can now import this video file into your video editing software for whatever purpose you need it for, for example using Roxio 2010 Pro DVD creator to make it into a DVD.

In my case I will be importing the video clip along with many other panned Pano2Movie recordings into Sony Vegas 9 Pro so I can intersperse the recorded pans with real HD video footage to make a complete HD movie for Youtube.




Hope you found this software utility review of use.

Andy

Better to light a candle than curse the darkness...

But it is b. annoying when someone is trying to knock the matches out of your hand.

It is truly terrifying that this was apparently written by a fairly senior politician.

He says:

"Now I gather the RSPCA like other animal welfare charities receives no government funding which makes this policy change even more bizarre"

Why is it bizarre that the RSPCA needs to make choices about which animals are in greatest need because we depend on donations and fundraising instead of being able to raise income from taxes?

He says:

"we have had both cats and dogs from their branch at Radcliffe on Trent - and was never happy that they only housed animals for 7 days before putting them to sleep, but now to just shut their doors is shameful."

If he had looked at the Radcliffe's website he would have seen that many of the animals advertised for rehoming had been in their care for many months and the "only 7 days" claim is just not true. If he had bothered to read the main RSPCA website he would have seen that the RSPCA is not "shutting its doors"; we are giving the most needy animals priority so that they are guaranteed a safe place.

He seems incapable of understanding that reducing donations to the RSPCA will mean fewer animals can be helped and he has no idea that the Radcliffe home is run by volunteers, or indeed what a very large part of the RSPCA is run by volunteer trustees who are permanently worried about raising funds to carry on. Judging from his Twitter feed he doesn't see any reason at all why someone like me should be upset—after all I am only a volunteer. He doesn't appear to know or care about the very low-income families who use RSPCA clinics and hospitals for their pets.

 

It's the irresponsible, campaign mentality that's so terrifying. He really does think all he needs to do is to put enough pressure on us and we'll magically do everything he wants out of a bottomless pit of funds. I don't think it much matters which political party is in power—only that the people at the top should have experience of running something productive themselves, not predominantly campaigning.

Branch animal welfare statistics so far this year

Rehomed: 13 dogs, 23 cats, 4 rabbits and 6 miscellaneous animals.

Veterinary treatments given: 1,110 dogs, 505 cats 46 rabbits and 26 miscellaneous animals.

67 dogs and 57 cats neutered, 44 dogs and 52 cats microchipped.

Spitting tacks!

Why do people who can't afford any veterinary treatment choose to keep big dogs and breed from them without making any effort to find out beforehand whether any help is going to be available if things go wrong?

Yesterday our clinic had a phone call from an owner saying his dog couldn't stand up and he wanted one of our vets to go out to see her. The reception staff on duty persuaded him to find someone who could bring her to the clinic and fortunately he managed this before the duty vets were due to leave. It turned out that she had mastitis and high fever, which hopefully can be treated with antibiotics, but if he'd left it any later she'd very probably have died. We don't know the status of her puppies.

It's one thing if an animal has an expensive accident out of the blue, but to breed a bitch knowing that you can't afford to take her to a vet in normal surgery hours if she gets an infection and not make any effort to find out whether there is an RSPCA or PDSA clinic locally, or how to go about registering there, really takes the biscuit.

Re-homing widget

If you click the "get widget" button, you can share the widget on facebook, myspace etc. If you have accounts on any of these, please share it, so that our most recent pics of animals looking for homes are shown as widely as possible. Thank you in anticipation.

Screening prospective adopters

There's a lot of argument about how far rescue organisations should go in screening potential animal adopters. On the one hand, it's possible that good homes might be lost if the procedure drives away prospective adopters who feel it's too intrusive or if the criteria are too rigid. On the other there are a few people who are not "abusive" but who simply will not go along with reasonable safety instructions (such as keeping a new cat indoors for long enough to ensure bonding to a new house, or not letting dogs out in the street alone).

Arguably anyone who is rejected can always go out and purchase an animal, so that being excessively fussy about adopters simply denies homes to animals in need without actually saving any from incompetent owners. I'm not sure this is entirely valid, because owners who couldn't cope with a large adult dog in need of training might well not have any difficulties if they purchased a puppy belonging to a small, docile breed. If they're not capable of understanding that an adult shelter dog won't be bonded to them initially and almost certainly will run off and get lost if they simply let him out in an unfenced garden or off the lead in a public area they may be perfectly fine with a pup who more obviously needs constant attention.

Some animal rescuers may not have ideal personalities to front rehoming drives if they love animals but can't get along with people, or if they're unwilling to accept that adopters may have differing views about some aspects of caring for animals. These are the kind of people who are so obsessed with pet overpopulation and the need for neutering that they absolutely will not rehome a spayed bitch to a home with a resident dog who hasn't been castrated, or who won't believe an adopter might be telling the truth when she says she's arranged a dog-sitter to call in while she's out at work. These same people may well be the ones who are prepared to put in 80 hour weeks for the rescue and it can be very difficult and traumatic to get them to take more of a back seat with rehoming, especially if they genuinely believe that altered policies are going to result in animals they've devotedly cared for being hurt or even killed.

I think we need to discuss what is or isn't reasonable to expect of adopters. It ought to be reasonable to expect them to be normal, good, animal-loving pet owners. It probably isn't reasonable or sensible to insist that they love animals as much as those of us who've re-arranged our lives to a frankly bonkers extent in order to care for them. So, it probably is reasonable to insist that adopters should keep up vaccinations and either insure their pets or be in a position to register for treatment via the RSPCA, PDSA or Blue Cross. It isn't reasonable to insist that they should be willing to spend all their savings on veterinary treatment.

If you think a rescue organisation has unreasonable adoption policies and want to get them changed, please do a bit of research before you start.

• Are the policies actually being set by the organisation's governing body, or is a single individual being unreasonable or excessively rigid?
• Do you know for sure that lots of adopters are being rejected for no good reason, or are the complaints from isolated people?
• Does the organisation actually have suitable animals available? It may be that adopters are being turned away simply because they want a particular type (e.g. poodle) and the rescue doesn't have any.
• If you volunteer your help to improve the rate of adopting, is it accepted?

If you just dive in and start a public campaign to force the organisation to change its policies you may be doing harm by discouraging adopters and you will certainly put everyone in the organisation on the defensive. If you are wrong and the organisation isn't being unreasonable about the people it screens out, you will have diverted effort that should have been spent helping animals into countering your campaign.

The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive website includes a neat "Dog Adoption Tool" which encourages potential adopters to think through what kind of dog would fit their lifestyle.

Claymills Pumping Station, see this magnificent Victorian beam engine in steam.

Have you ever seen Leawood Pumping station in Steam, or are a fan of Victorian engineering and TV programs about such things by Fred Dibnah and Mark Williams then I highly recommend visiting Claymills Pumping Station. You will absolutely love it and its only a few minutes drive out of Derby in our neighbouring town of Burton on Trent.

Below is a photograph I took when I visited on May Bank Holiday, its shows one of the two restored Gimson 13 ton Beam engines as seen from the top floor of C/D Engine House.

Read on for details....

The pumping station is maintained and run by a dedicated team of volunteers who give up their time and effort to restore the site for the public to see.

There is plenty for you to see when visiting...
There are two engine houses, one of them houses two fully restored Gimson steam engines that you will see operating. The other engine house has yet to be restored and when you walk around that one it makes you appreaciate just how much work as gone into restoring the other engine house.
Between the two engine houses is the boiler house, with five Lancashire boilers. These boliers date from 1937 and replaced the original boilers.
The Dynamo house which houses the oldest electrical generating equipment in the UK.
The is a Blacksmiths and a Joiners shop where you can see items being made.
There is a small Tea Rooms which includes a visitor centre and toilets.
On steam days there are vintage cars to look at and you can go one a ride on a small steam engine.
This pumping station site is Grade II listed and is described by English Heritage as “The most complete site of its kind in the UK”

Why was Claymills built:
The town of Burton upon Trent had a more acute problem of sewage disposal in the mid 1800's than any other town or city in Britain, due to the large number of breweries situated in the area. The brewing processes generated a large quantity of foul smelling, high temperature, sulphate rich effluent which also contained a lot of suspended matter. This was all discharged into local brooks and streams, which became open sewers, until eventually the crude sewage ran into the River Trent.

It was decided to build a pumping station on the site of the sedimentation tanks to pump the effluent some 2¼ miles to a sewage farm which would be built to deal with the sewage. The Burton on Trent Corporation obtained an act of Parliament in 1880 allowing them to execute these works.
The site has four Woolf compound rotatative beam pumping engines located in two seperate engine houses.

Here is a list of dates when Claymills Pumping Station is open.
June Open Days 19th & 20th June (Engines are not in steam)
July Open Days 10th & 11th, 24th & 25th July (Engines are not in steam
August Bank Holiday 29th & 30th August
Heritage Open Days 11th & 12th September (Engines are not in steam)
September 25th & 26th September
October 16th & 17th October
New Year 2nd & 3rd January 2011

So the NEXT "steaming day" at Claymills is August Bank Holiday: Sunday & Monday August 29th & 30th (10.00 am - 5.00 pm)

Admission prices on Steaming Days:
Adults £4 Concessions £3 Children £2 Family £10

The Museum is also open for static viewing on Thursdays (10:00am - 3:00pm) and Saturdays (10:00am - 5:00pm) When admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted.

How do I get there from Derby?
Claymills is just an 8 Minute drive down the A38 from Derby (The A5111 Kingsway Island). If you are using a Sat Nav then use the postcode “DE13 ODA” to get to the end of Meadow Lane.

Once there you need to drive straight over the level crossing, assuming the gates are up :) then follow the road around until you come to a left turn at which you need to drive straight on, eventually this road will take you to the car park. Once parked up you need to walk back the way you drove in and look for the Gatehouse entrance to Claymills pumping station.

See my map below for exact details, Use the link below to the map to get a large map that you can print out and take with you.


View Claymills pumping station, Burton upon Trent. in a larger map

This pumping station is maintained by The Claymills Pumping Engines Trust Ltd, Meadow Lane, Stretton, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, U.K.



For more information on Claymills Pumping Station please visit their website:

http://www.claymills.org.uk/

If you have never been to this place before and like Victorian engineering then get yourself along to the next open day. Post your comments to this blog post if you enjoyed your visit there.

Andy

Cheering news all round

Still short of cash but animal related things are looking up a bit. The rottie who was vomiting blood stayed in overnight on a drip and hopefully will be fit enough to go home tomorrow. Being a sizeable adult she's got much more reserves to draw on than a tiny puppy would. 

Her owner spontaneously phoned to thank us for our help and to make arrangements to pay us back, so I'll forgive him for being a royal pain for much of the morning texting me at work to find out how she was. The branch contact phone is my own mobile and while I'm at work I switch it over to our chairman who works from home so isn't disturbing other people if she takes RSPCA-related phone calls. Unfortunately this only works for voice calls, not texts, so I still get the occasional  RSPCA client whose finances are in such a state that he doesn't have enough credit on his phone to make voice calls. It's quite difficult for people to understand that the branch is run by volunteers who have their own livings to make and that we're not actually inside the veterinary hospital, so we can't give updates on animals by popping down and taking a look at them and we don't have time for hugely involved conversations.

From a personal point of view, the other major good news is that Fern's biopsy results came through today and her thyroid tumour isn't malignant. She's still got a combination of problems which will mean she'll have to be on medication for the rest of her life, but anything more drastic seems to be out at least for the moment.

The famous garden slug from Derby on the DVD release of the film Flushed Away.

What’s the connection between the Aardman animated film Flushed Away and a Garden slug in Derby?
Read on and you will find out....

This blog post is about something that happened back in 2006 but thought it would be of interest to local readers.

In 2003 I was experimenting with time-lapse photography using my Olympus 2020 digital camera, and in  August I noticed some large slugs in my garden and thought it might be interesting to do some timelapse of a garden slug moving around so I took a series of 150 photographs (until I got bored!) of this slug moving along the path in my back garden.

I took the photographs by hand every 5 to 12 seconds and very roughly followed the travel of the slug. I then made the sequence of frames into a short movie as an AVI file and uploaded it to my website.

Then out of the blue in November 2006 A company called Blue Collar Productions contacted me on behalf of Paramount Studios asking if they could use my original frames as a DVD extra on a forthcomming animated film release. It turned out that that the film in question was the DreamWorks/Aardman Animation film Flushed Away.

Flushed Away is a 2006 computer animated British film. It is a partnership between Aardman Animations of Wallace and Gromit fame, and DreamWorks Animation, and is Aardman's first completely computer-animated feature as opposed to the usual stop-motion.
The film stars the voice talents of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie and Jean Reno. The story was by Sam Fell, Peter Lord, Dick Clement, and Ian La Frenais, and the screenplay was written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Christopher Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and William Davies.

The DVD for Flushed Away was released on 2 April 2007, For more info on this film see :
http://www.flushedaway.com/

If you own the Flushed Away DVD and want to see my Derby Slug perform these steps on the DVD
From the main menu select Special Features then select More>
then select Super Slug Stuff then click Slugcam.



How strange to think that a Slug in a garden in Derby is on this DVD film release, seen around the world.
Perhaps I should try and trace the descendents of that slug in my garden and tell it how its now famous throughout the world:). Im not sure how long a UK Slug lives for, perhaps the star himself is still alive now?

Poorly rottie

Absolutely fantastic, but exhausting, flat clearance, which we finally completed at 10pm today. I just hope I am as mentally alert at 90 as the gentleman who previously owned it, as he obviously kept up his varied interests right up to the point where he went into hospital with his final illness. His collection of books and DVDs will keep both the Cambridge shops well-stocked for several months at least.

Much less welcome was a series of increasingly frantic phone calls from the owner of a rottie bitch registered at our clinic and suddenly very ill with vomiting and diarrhoea containing blood. He lives about half an hour's drive from Cambridge and doesn't have a car or any money. The lack of money was fairly moot given that no taxi firm is likely to be happy to transport a large vomiting dog. Getting a vet out to him on a Sunday would have been astronomically expensive, and probably not a solution as the dog was ill enough to need inpatient treatment which would be even more astronomically expensive done privately.

Finally organised the Pet Taxi to drive the dog to our emergency care provider on the promise that the owner will pay us back by installments. 

I do wish potential pet owners with no funds would consider the charms of the Jack Russell! At least they are portable and the majority have cast iron stomachs capable of digesting the most horrible things.

So, enormous gratitude to the family whose generosity gave us so much stock to raise the funds we so badly need today.

Another injured stray

Royston Vet Centre have just phoned to let me know that an injured stray cat was taken in to them last night on an RSPCA National Control Centre log number. He's got a broken leg and jaw, but they think the injuries are at least several days old as he's coping well and eating ravenously in spite of the jaw injury.

They scanned him for a chip and found one, but it looks as though the owner may have moved and not updated the record as there's been no response to any of the landline, mobile or email contact registered in the PetLog database. For the moment we'll have to treat him as an ordinary unowned stray and organise continuing care and fracture repair via our clinic. The Royston vets have kindly volunteered to contact other local vets in their area in case he's been transferred to another practice or possibly rehomed to another owner.

If your pets are chipped, please remember that it's essential to update your details if you move or change your mobile or email providers. If you're going on holiday for a significant length of time and leaving the cat to be fed by neighbours make sure you remain contactable in an emergency.

Whew!

All day at the shop today and a house-clearance tomorrow. Really nice people and I'm hopeful that, in combination with another generous donation of end-of line stock from Tesco, this will set the shop up for another month.

We're reaching a state in which takings are at a peak that's limited by our ability to get donated items out on the shop floor for customers to buy. It's noticeable that, although we're very busy, it tends to be the more inexpensive items that sell quickly and I think people are still being very careful about spending money. The only dearer things that seem to go are stuff that might be classed as "basics": dinner and tea services and other items that are going to be for use, not just for show.

The Saturday morning volunteers worked like Trojans and got lots of items priced and put out, but by five o'clock gaps were starting to show again. We could use at least two more volunteers to help out on Saturday afternoons; if you might be interested, please do drop in to have a chat. Making money to fund our clinic and other welfare work depends on having a continuous stream of goods going out onto the shop floor and that means we need a team of people continuously sorting, cleaning and pricing, then filling up the gaps as they appear.

How's this for Xtreme footware?

We looked them up and they are  around £200 new, and these are hardly used (it would be difficult to use them!), so we've put a price tag of £50 on them. If there's no interest in the shop then we'll eBay them.

The Big 1 Chaddesden Park (Chaddesden Carnival) is on Sunday June 6th 2010.

This Sunday, June 6th 2010 is when this years Big One takes place on Chaddesden Park in Derby. Now in its 30th year (The Big 1 was formally known as Chaddesden Carnival).

This annual festival which has taken place for many years returns to Chaddesden Park again and is expected to attract around 20,000 people.

Events and attractions include a live music stage, entertainment arenas, dance acts and more. There'll also be arts, crafts and fun workshops, charity and information stalls, food and drink stalls, Cycle Derby events.
A fun dog show, Falconry display, fun fair, climbing walls, Donkey rides, balloon modelling, face and pot painting, circus skills, Japanese kites and lots of stalls. There is even a Car Boot sale.

There will also be a variety of free arts activities to take part in, and a music stage with various bands and other artists.
Age Concern Chaddesden Park (next to the library) will be open from 11.30am to 3.30pm presenting The Feel Good Factor. A day to relax and enjoy talking to experienced therapists about enhancing your health and energy the alternative way. There will be demonstrations throughout the day and the opportunity to try out some of the therapies.

There will also be a Fair Ground on Chaddesden Park from Wednesday 2nd June to Sunday 6th June.

The Chaddesden Carnival will begin with a parade of people in fancy dress, decorated pushchairs and mobility scooters. The parade will start at 11.30am, from Sussex Circus Local Housing Office and will proceed along Max Road, Wood Road, Chaddesden Lane, Maine Drive and then onto the park.
Line the route to cheer along the people taking part!

There will be a "graffiti mural", a plywood panel which is 50ft by 8ft, fixed to the sports pavilion.
It will stay in the park afterwards and will provide a "legacy for Chaddesden Park". It will be sprayed by some of the country's leading graffiti artists.

You may remember that last years Big 1 at Chaddesden had to be cancelled twice due to heavy rain left the park waterlogged, first time it was cancelled was the 7th June so it was rearranged for August 2nd but yet again heavy rain forced the festival to be cancelled. Hopefully this year the weather will be better for them.

Here is a detailed map showing the location of Chaddesden Park and also the Parade route that will take place at 11:30 on 6th June. I'm sure that everyone already knows where Chaddesden Park is but perhaps you are visiting from outside and are not aware of its location. Parking near the park is limited so its best to try and catch  a bus or walk or get someone to drop you off!

The Big one @ Chaddesden Park Map :

View The Big 1 Chaddesden Park Carnival parade route. in a larger map

So put these details in your diary.....

The Big 1 @ Chaddesden Park

Sunday June 6 2010

11:00am - 6:00pm

Hope it all goes well.
In 2011 the Big one takes place on Sunday 5 June from 11am - 5pm.

If you like these kind of Family Fun day events then you may also want to put this one in your diary.

Spondon Village Festival takes place on Saturday 11th September 2010 at the Asterdale Sports Ground on Borrowash Road, Spondon, Derby

For more details of this event see :

http://www.spondonvillagefestival.co.uk/

Andy