Update on my Historic Churches Website

For my #weeklyblogclub blog this week I’d thought I would do a quick update on my Historic Churches Website, www.peterandsusan.co.uk/church

The story so far - I started photographing pretty looking churches. I set up a website to display the photos, I added a section to list churches I’ve yet to visit. Mainly to list stuff that is interesting in that church so I don’t miss it when I visit. This lead me to download the Places of Worship data from the Ordnance Survey Open Data website. This gave me 22,000 points on a map of various Places of Worship, some modern, some historic. And also some missing e.g. Westminster Abbey and the like.

Since then I’ve been working on that data. Deleting the modern churches and putting names (dedication) to the historic ones. It’s a big task. Whilst all counties have had some work on them, so far I managed to ‘complete’ three counties. I’ve deleted all the modern churches and put names to all the historic ones. Those counties I’ve done are Hampshire, Dorset and Norfolk. I’m not saying that my list is the definitive list of historic churches in those counties but I’d like to think that it’s the vast majority of them. My next step on those pages is to add photos and a bit of text about each church.

So far this has taken me some 18 months of work. There is still a huge about to do. So any information from #weeklyblogclub people would be very welcome. Adding names to churches, useful information about them and any photographs would be very gratefully received. Even a line to say that church number 12345 on your site is a modern building would help. So I can remove that dot on the map and concentrate on the historic churches. Any general comments on the site, constructive criticism would also be very welcome either as a reply to this blog or direct to peterolding at gmail.com. In the mean time, I’ve got some work to do!

Spotting (Part 2)

Aircraft spotting. What does it entail? What are the rules? Are there rules? These questions I hope to explain in part two of my occasional series on spotting.

All civil aircraft (I’ll talk about military aircraft in a later blog) will have a registration allocated to it before it is allowed to fly. (I’ll gloss over A-class and B-class registration for the time being as well). The beginning part of the registration will denote which countries civil aviation authority the aircraft is registered with. Aircraft registered with eth Civil Aviation Authority here in the UK will have registration starting with G-. Ones registered in Ireland will start EI-. Aircraft registered with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in the US will start with a N. A complete list of all the country codes can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration. Now the idea of aircraft spotting to try and collect as many registrations as possible.

So what are the rules of the hobby?

Well quite simply, there aren’t that many. Obviously you can’t count aircraft that you haven’t seen. Seeing them on TV doesn’t count. In the old days you used to have to have read the registration yourself to count it. That is something no longer the case. I’ll talk about some of the electronic gadgets we have in a later blog, which makes seeing the registration obsolete.

There are those spotters that the registration isn’t that important to them, so called frame spotters. An aircraft could have many different registrations during its life. A frame spotter will count the first registration they see the aircraft carrying and not worry about any subsequent registrations and they have already seen that airframe. A registration spotter will want to see the aircraft carrying as many different registrations as possible.

Apart from identifying each aircraft individually are there any other reasons for a registration?

Three things I would like to mention here, First is that it denotes which countries aviation authority the aircraft is registered with. Ryanair, being an Irish company, registers all its aircraft in Ireland. The plane will fly under Irish aviation rules. The Russian airline Aeroflot register their aircraft either with the Irish authorities or with the authorities in Bermuda. Again when you fly with them, you fly under the rules of that country.

Secondly, if you own a pilots licence of one country you can only fly aircraft registered in that country, unless there is a reciprocal agreement between the two countries to allow pilots from one country to fly the aircraft of another. So if you have a British licence, you can’t fly and American registered aircraft, as there is no agreement between the two countries.

Lastly, one other quirk of aircraft registrations. Breaking up aircraft for spares is big business. But customers prefer spare parts that have a traceable history especially when it comes to something like an engine. They like to know the paper work for that spare part is in order. The most trusted source of spare parts will come from American registered aircraft. As such spare parts from US registered aircraft will attract a premium. So to maximise their profits, the first thing an aircraft breaker will do when they buy an aircraft for breaking is to registered that aircraft on the US register. This is really a paper exercise as many of the aircraft would have already been grounded before this registration is allocated. So the aircraft would never fly under its US registration but the breakers can advertise the spares as being from a US registered aircraft and thus attract a better selling price.

Abbi Signs

In my last blog I talked about subtitles on foreign language films and why I tended to avoid them. Of course there is one section of our community where subtitles are a must, even on TV programmes and films in English. They are of course members of the deaf community. I’ve seen on occasion how deaf people can struggle in this hearing world. As far as I know British Sign Language (BSL) isn’t taught in main stream school and my main question is why not. This is a section of our society that we are alienating here.

I have dabbled on and off learning BSL, even singing up for a very basic on-line course once. But the cost is an issue for me here. Yes they do evening classes in them, but the cost and knowing that I won’t be able to make every class has put me off.

I turned to YouTube to see if anyone had uploaded any learn BSL videos. Whilst many people knock YouTube for some of its content. There is a huge amount of educational stuff on there. It was searching for learn BSL videos that I came across a young lady named Abbi.

Abbi is a twenty year old Cambridge University student who, suffers from steogenesis imperfecta (Brittle Bones) and in her younger days it was thought that he condition would eventually cause her to go deaf. Hence she learnt BSL. Luckily, thanks to ‘Yay science’ (her words) she underwent surgery which has meant that she has kept her hearing.

Abbi has two YouTube channels. One dedication to Learn BSL tutorials and I’m working my way through them. I thought that even if I could just fingerspell the alphabet it would help in communication with any deaf people I meet.

Abbi’s other channel is dedicated to Music . Songs are played and she provides a sign language interpretation of the lyrics. She describes herself as a Sign Singer. Her videos are brilliant. Now if any school teachers need something to encourage their pupils to learn BSL then these videos are an excellent way to learn BSL whilst the kids are enjoying their favourite songs. Even I enjoyed listening to a One Direction song thanks to Abbi providing the sign language interpretation.

Young people of today get such a bad press, but here is one young lady, who is showing that young people can make a great contribution to the world. Check out her video and if you are a parent / teacher or just someone with an interest in BSL then use them. Abbi’s videos are a great learning resource. She deserves credit for her innovate use of YouTube and how she has added to the wealth of educational content that is available on the net.