February Newsletter

U3A PHOTOGRAPHY GROUP

The Photography Group had been meeting twice monthly, apart from a summer break, for twelve years when, early in 2020, Jeff Thatcher indicated that he wished to reduce his load as our long-time Group Leader. There was no wish by Jeff or any of the members to close the Group, but discussion on its future was delayed by the COVID-19 lock down in March. It was clear that we needed a revised format for our meetings, with more involvement and participation by the members.

Meanwhile, the Emsworth Arts Trail had been cancelled so we were unable to hold our usual annual exhibition at the Community Centre. Just to show that we were still in business, we put a selection from what would have been our exhibition images on to the Ems Valley U3A website. Our members have cameras ranging from smartphones to DSLRs. Any future programme had to appeal to all these users, so members were invited to suggest topics they would like to be covered, both theoretical and practical. Given this information, a representative six members of the Group, the most allowed at the time, met to plot a future programme. Left: ‘MOONRISE’ by Patick Colin

Prior to this, Jeff had agreed to stand down as the Group Leader and Roger Bleasby was ‘appointed’ to take his place. We were very pleased that Jeff was happy to remain as our Consultant to share his technical and photographic expertise as ever. Roger made it clear that, although agreeing to be Group Leader, he was not going to be personally designing and/or delivering the programme. That would have to be done entirely by the Group members. The Group would have to be proactive to maintain interest and thrive. The ‘representative six’ held outside meetings in their gardens, as then permitted, and decided that Group meetings should continue to be held twice monthly in the Community Centre. Every month one of the meetings would include a talk by one of the members, each one suggesting, researching and producing the material - it was not expected that members should be expert in their chosen field, just interested enough to explore the subject, with outside help as needed. The talk would then form the subject of an assignment, with members being invited to submit three images each for review at the following month’s meeting Outings and guest speakers would also be arranged, together with practical workshop sessions.

A 2020/2021 programme was produced, starting in September 2020, and circulated to our members, just in time to fall foul of a further lock-down! A field trip to Portchester had to be cancelled and also use of the Community Centre. Risk assessment requirements and increasing lock-down have put paid to other ideas for field trips in the immediate future. That said, several members made their way individually to Portchester and a selection of their photos from this ‘cancelled’ trip can be viewed on the U3A website. A prompt revision of our programme saw meetings cut to one a month on Zoom. Each meeting has included a talk and a review for the previous assignment. Carefully prepared and well-received talks have been given by Nicola Hammond (Low Light Photography), Shirley Court (Food), and Martin Stewart (How to Critique Images). At the time of writing we are looking forward to a visiting speaker, Jill Stanley ARPS, who will be talking to us at our February Zoom meeting about Flower Photography. Jill is a member of our U3A and was an original member of our Photography Group. She put together our first two Arts Trail exhibitions. Future talks by members will include Weather, Breaking the Rules, Portraiture, and Rural Landscape - and there remains a long list of topics that members have suggested. Left: FRUIT & VEG by John Harwood We welcome new members to our Group. If you are interested, please click ‘Groups’ on our U3A website, then click ‘Photography’ and leave a message after clicking on the bird (top right). There follows a selection of images submitted by members for the Low Light and Food assignments. Roger Bleasby

LOW LIGHT PROJECT top left: Town centre in blue hour, John Harwood top right: Dining out, Maureen Power bottom: Racing hut after sundown, Nicola Hammond

FOOD PROJECT

Red cabbage abstract, Martin Stewart

Yorkshire Alfresco Lunch - Roger Bleasby Croque Madame - Martin Stewart

How was “MURPHY’S LAW so named? Edward Aloysius Murphy Jr. (January 11, 1918 – July 17, 1990) was an American aerospace engineer who worked on safety-critical systems but best known for his namesake Murphy's law, which is said to state, "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". Murphy regarded the law as crystallizing a key principle of defensive design, in which one should always assume worst-case scenarios.

In 1952, after serving in the United States Air Force, Murphy carried out a series of rocket acceleration tests at Holloman Air Force Base, then returned to California to pursue a career in aircraft cockpit design. He worked on crew escape systems for some of the most famous experimental aircraft of the 20th century, and during the 1960s, he worked on safety and life support systems for Project Apollo, and ended his career with work on pilot safety and computerized operation systems on the Apache helicopter.

Let’s give you a few examples, even if we have stretched Murphy’s law a little:

1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

3. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.

4. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

5. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

6. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

7. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

8. Torch: A case for holding dead batteries.

9. God gave you toes as a device for finding furniture in the dark.

10. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of twelve people, who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

You maybe be left wondering about his brother, Sod. Sod's law is similar to, but broader than, Murphy's law ("Whatever can go wrong will go wrong"). ... While Murphy's law says that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong (eventually), Sod's law requires that it always goes wrong with the worst possible outcome. Have a good day….

WHY TEACHERS take to drink!

These are genuine answers from 16 year olds

Q. Name the four seasons A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar

Q. How is dew formed A. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire

Q. What guarantees may a mortgage company insist on A. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed

Q. What are steroids A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs

Q. What happens to your body as you age

A.. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental

Q. What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty

A.. He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery

Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes A. Premature death

Q. What is artificial insemination A. When the farmer does it to the cow instead of the bull.

Q. How can you delay milk turning sour A. Keep it in the cow (Simple, but brilliant)

Q. How are the main 20 parts of the body categorised (e.g. The abdomen) A.. The body is consisted into 3 parts - the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels: A,E,I,O,U

Q. What is the fibula? A.. A small lie

Q. What does 'varicose' mean? A.. Nearby

Q. What is the most common form of birth control A. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium.

(suppose that would work)

Q. Give the meaning of the term 'Caesarean section' A. The caesarean section is a district in Rome

Q. What is a seizure? A.. A Roman Emperor. (Julius Seizure, I came, I saw, I had a fit)

Q. What is a terminal illness A. When you are sick at the airport. (Irrefutable)

The latest advances in ZOOM!

1. Raising your Hand in Zoom (using an Icon) The location of the “Raise Hand” option has changed in the latest version of the Zoom app (officially called the Zoom client). This can now be found as follows:

· For Windows and MacOS clients – Select “Reactions” icon on the Zoom control bar then “Raise Hand”

· For Android and iPad – Select “More” then “Raise Hand”.

The raised hand icon is now yellow (previously blue) and is much more noticeable.

You can continue to use the keyboard shortcuts for raising and lowering your hand: Alt+Y in Windows and Option+Y in MacOS.

(With thanks to Tony Dale of BetaPlus for identifying the above changes, and to Susan Resouly for bringing them to our attention.)

2. Updating the Zoom client It is important to install new versions of the Zoom app to obtain new features and security improvements. Some updates will download automatically or prompt you to download, but many do not. You should regularly check if an update is available by doing the following:

· Open the Zoom client app on your device. Note that the version number is shown on the “Join meeting/Sign In” display box.

· Sign in with your email address and password

· Click on your profile image (top right) to open menu box

· Select “Check for Updates”

· If an update is available, it will download and then show an “Update” button

· Click on “Update” and the new version will install

NEW READING CONVERSATION GROUP We have now had two meeting, via ZOOM, of my ‘Reading Conversation’ group. We are a small group and it’s quite informal. We have a good time with animated conversation and its lovely to see happy faces and hear laughter. May I explain What We Do and What We Are Not: Unlike a Reading Group, we do not all read the same book and discuss it. One of us will discuss a book, article or poem (or as many ‘books’ we want to put forward) and we all chat about it. It could be a ‘book’ read recently or many years ago, something you particularly enjoyed or loathed. Its helpful (if you need it) to use the Internet to research anything about the ‘book’ or author etc. It’s a good aide memoir. Some of the books have been made into films and this can also be included in the conversation.

If anyone reading this would like to participate, but you’re ‘shy’ of doing this, you can always join the meeting ‘anonymously’ i.e. do not switch-on ‘camera’ or ‘audio’ . You will then be able to watch and listen as an unknown attendee. Of course any attendee can leave the meeting at any time. If you can use a p.c. or laptop that is better than trying to use a small ‘device’ (e.g. ipad or smart phone). If you don’t know how to do any of the ‘technical’ aspects, you are welcome to phone me and I will try (I’m a novice too) and talk you through. Kate Wiggins

A dreadful language? Having read two very interesting articles in our U3A newsletter about English spellings, I thought readers might be interested to know why there are so many irregularities in our spelling. Of course, you could look up the reasons on the internet, but I came across an article written by David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language in 1987 (whilst I was clearing out some of my old teaching files) and according to Crystal, our irregular spellings are all to do with our history. Our problems started with the Anglo-Saxons. The 23 letter Latin alphabet and four other symbols had to cope with 40 sounds so had to be written with a combination of letters. When the Normans arrived in Britain they decided to re spell the language and used ‘qu’ instead of ‘cw’ for queen and ‘gh’ instead of just ‘h’ as in ‘bright’. They were also responsible for the ‘i before e except after c’. Then came the invention of the printing press. The early ones came from Holland and of course, they used their own spelling norms and added extra letters, usually an ‘e’ rather than a space between words. That is why so many English words end in ‘e’. like ‘love’ instead of ‘lov’. In the 15th century printing couldn’t ‘keep pace’ with the sound changes in the Anglo-Saxon words so some letters were printed but not pronounced like the ‘k’ in ‘know’ and ‘knight’. The fashion to make English spelling reflect Latin or Greek happened in the 16th century. For example, the letter ‘g’ was added to ‘reign’ – from the Latin ‘regno’ and the ‘b’ in ‘debt’ from debitum). David Crystal points out that there were some misleading forms, like the ’s’ added to ‘island’ because it was thought to come for the Latin word ’insula’ but it’s actually Anglo-Saxon in origin. New loan words were added from other languages in the 16th and early 17th centuries– French, Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. This is when more spelling difficulties happened - double ‘l’ as in ‘galleon’ double ‘r’ as in ‘bizarre’ adding ‘que’ to the ends of words as in ‘grotesque’ – I could go on! I found the following poem by Margo Roark on the inyernet! ‘Eye halve a spelling checker It came with my pea sea It plainly marques for my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it to say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite It’s rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it Eye am shore your pleased two no It’s letter perfect awl the weigh My checker tolled me sew!

‘Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Man alive! I’d mastered it when I was five! (by Richard Krogh, in D.Bolinger and D. Sears, Aspects of Language, 1981) With thanks to: Hazel Willhard, Hazel Wihlard, Hazel Wellhard, Hazel Wilihard, Hazel Willard Please note: It was the Editor who made the above spelling errors of Hazel’s name, after reading the article carefully…….

Some interesting thoughts on our now older age.

It’s weird being the same age as old people.

It’s probably my age that tricks people into thinking I’m an adult.

Never sing in the shower! Singing leads to dancing, dancing leads to slipping, and slipping leads to paramedics seeing you naked. So remember…Don’t sing!

I see people about my age mountain climbing; I feel good getting my leg through my underwear without losing my balance. I’m at a place in my life where errands are starting to count as going out.

I’m at that age where my mind still thinks I’m 29, my humour suggests I’m 45, while my body mostly keeps asking if I’m sure I’m not dead yet.

Don’t be worried about your smartphone or TV spying on you. Your vacuum cleaner has been collecting dirt on you for years.

I’m getting tired of being part of a major historical event.

You don’t realize how old you are until you sit on the floor and then try to get back up.

How many of us have looked around at a family reunion and thought “Well, aren’t we just two clowns short of a circus?” We all get heavier as we get older, because there's a lot more information in our heads. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Comic revue!

Well, my appeal (or Richard Swaine’s) for nostalgic memories of your ‘comic’ secrets did rouse a few comments!

Liz Reynolds wrote: I like your bit re comics, but you have missed one – ‘Schoolfriend’ which came with the newspaper each Tuesday. I also had the Annuals at Christmas.

Hazel Willard wrote (in support): I’ve looked at all the old annuals Richard compiled and the one I used to receive every Christmas until I was about 13 is missing – ‘SCHOOL FRIEND!’ I used to buy School Friend every week and loved the stories of ‘Princess Anita.’ I hardly ever read ‘Girl’ as found it a bit stuffy! I also used to read ‘Girls Crystal’ but it was missing from Richard’s list! Are we suffering gender discrimination here?

Gary Willard was more precise: My meagre contribution was a regular order for the Beano and the Lion - and an occasional Dandy. At Christmas I can remember Rupert the Bear annual on a regular basis. But I gave up taking comics quite early on – well before I retired….

Ann Sims: Yes, I DID fight my three younger brothers to get first hands on The Beano and The Dandy – to such an extent that my father threatened to stop taking them. He eventually did so and replaced them with “Arthur Mee Children’s Newspaper” – there were no fights to read THAT one first!

Disappointing that not one member has written to say that either Lord Snooty or Dennis the Menace were role models who helped shape their future life….

I was the only one to acknowledge that I was left with a lifetime urge to eat cow pie (with the horns of course). Editor

Join the Circus….

While other rebellious, angst-filled teenagers might have threatened it, Gerry Cottle actually did it: he ran away to join the circus when he was 15. He made a tape for his parents which a school friend played down the line from a phone box: “Please do not under any circumstances try to find me. I have gone for ever. I have joined the circus. You do not understand me. You are not listening to me. I do not need O-levels where I am going.”

This week I read his obituary in the Telegraph and apologise if you are already familiar with it. There was some amazing and also sad contents:

“He founded his eponymous circus, the biggest in the world which flourished until a growing addiction to cocaine led to his arrest and a series of bankruptcies. But in the best circus tradition, he always bounced back! In the course of some forty years, Cottle worked as a juggler, unicyclist and clown, stuck his head in the crocodile’s mouth and performed with a duck that quacked in time to a trombone. He shared a bunk with Klemendore the India rubber man from Sri Lanka, took ice skating chimpanzees to Iran and staged the world’s largest Custard Pie fight ever.”

Mishaps? His human projectile quit when he became too fat for the cannon, his Llamas escaped and ran amok on a motorway, a caravan was squashed flat by a runaway lorry and a ferocious gale ripped his Big Top to sheds in Galashiels.

But he always loved the rawness of the circus, It “has to be a bit in your face” he opined. He was unimpressed by the Cirque du Soleil (they’d die in Basingstoke). When local councils were getting twitchy about performing live animals, he quickly saw the trend and replaced the animals with “razzmatazz, daredevil acts and magic, and included his Circus of Horrors!” Cruelty to animals was out but the same didn’t apply to humans… He fell in love with the circus when he was eight when he was taken to see Jack Hilton’s Circus at Earls Court. I wonder how many of us were there, I remember that I was, it was 1953! Early days were tough, he had to shovel elephant dung, scatter sawdust, load big cats into the trailer, put up the Big Top, share a bunk with Butter Bean the Midget and get used to being the back end of the pantomime horse. He married Betty Fossett of another circus dynasty, bought a tent for £60.00, joined forces with Brian Austen and launched the Austen Cottle Circus in 1970. (He was just 25 years old). Four years later he was able to split and form The Gerry Cottle Circus. His big break came when the BBC invited him to host “Seaside Special” from his own big top. By the end of the century he owned and presented the Moscow and the Chinese State circuses as well as his own.

In 2003 he sold the circuses and bought Wookey Hole caves where he added a theatre, a circus museum, a hotel and a circus school where local lads could train in circus skills.

Then, missing life on the road, he revived the travelling circus, with graduates from his own circus school. “There was this guy who shoots an apple off a girl’s head (she used to work at Somerfields), a blindfold high wire act and the boneless boy who squeezed into a bottle”. An amazing character, our very own Barnum; Gerry Cottle died recently, aged 75, from the Covid virus. Alan Borrow

A Salutary story We don’t often have a negative story in this newsletter, but this is perhaps one which we should all read, digest and keep foremost in our minds at all times. It is written anonymously for obvious reasons, but that should not be a reason why we all do not give it due thought. About six years ago, a new member attended our monthly meeting, viewed the “groups membership table” and signed up for one of our interest groups. At that first group meeting, on entering the room, no acknowledgement was offered, save one couple who smiled and then returned to chat with others. Having made his/ herself known to the group leader, who said “please sit down – we are starting in a minute”. This new member, being normally a cheerful and chatty person, made some conversation with the person sitting next door, who briefly responded. This was the only communication during the whole meeting. No mention of this first impression of an Ems Valley U3A group meeting has been made at any stage since by the said member, until this little article. Needless to say the new member concerned was not impressed and did not return for many months, until in fact he/she was persuaded to do so by a friend, who also did not know this story. The group in question is still going (successfully) with the same group leader. The purpose of this little article? How easy it is to be unaware or to forget a new member attending our group! Of course, we all may have been at fault at one time or another, such are the trials and tribulations of leading a group. But what about the other members on that occasion, we are all in this together! The group leader is not there solely for our benefit, we all have a responsibility to make any meeting successful, to ensure that we do not sit with our own little “clique” each meeting, to welcome a new face and ensure he or she goes away from that meeting feeling ‘wanted’!

John Blaber writes:

Those of you who read the recent interview conducted by Alan and appearing in the Newsletter will know of my love of Horse Racing, particularly the Jumps variety. In all the newspapers and magazines covering horse racing there are always articles featuring “the greats” of horse racing, by which they usually mean the horses. In all my years of reading such articles I have never come across one featuring my chosen horse, which I consider to be the finest hurdler of a fence that I have ever seen.

Make A Stand, for that was his name, packed all his brilliance into just one season (1996/7), but what a season that was. As someone who spotted his brilliance early on and followed him that season, I was very pleased with the accrual to my betting funds.

As is quite common with hurdlers, Make a Stand started his career racing on the flat for 3 seasons (1993/5). It would be difficult to describe his flat career as anything other than mediocre, winning just two races from 12 starts, a maiden race at Newmarket and a very low grade “claimer” at Leicester some two years later. A “claiming race” is one where the winning horse can be claimed by another trainer for a set amount, determined before the start of the race. Make a Stand was claimed for just £8,000 by Martin Pipe, a trainer who was beginning to earn a reputation as a gifted trainer who could transform other’s discards. A feature which did not always make him popular amongst the ranks of more established trainers.

His first season in the care of Martin Pipe was uneventful, with just one run, coming in a remote ninth, but interestingly sent off as 15/8 second favourite, suggesting that he had been showing something at the home gallops. He was not seen again that season.

He began the next season (1996/7) in early May with a succession of 3 wins in 24 days by an aggregate margin of 36 lengths, setting off in front and never seeing another horse. These were fairly low grade Novice events. He was then given a rest until the main season stated in the Autumn. He appeared next at Sandown, where I first saw him and saw him win a high quality handicap hurdle. As usual he set off in front, quickly gaining a significant lead and maintaining it to the finish. He took his hurdles with such ease that they did not slow his speed at all, in fact he seemed to gain speed in the air. He went on to repeat the exercise in three more high quality events at Ascot, Kempton and Newbury. By this time I had him established in my mind as the best hurdler in the country and the most likely favourite for the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in March.

Whilst my racing friends recognised that he was a very good horse, they just did not think it was possible to lead all the way and win the Champion Hurdle. The betting market supported their view and he was sent off at 7/1. I followed my instinct and for me had a bit of a plunge at a price I considered to be very generous. Needless to say the horse did not disappoint and did his usual thing and won by a clear 5 lengths. The performance being accurately described by the Sporting Life as “a remorseless display of speed and precision hurdling”. Although he looked to have a wonderful career in front of him, he was never to win again. Three weeks later he attempted to make all in the Aintree Hurdle, at the Grand National meeting, but tired into third place in the straight and finished lame. Injury prevented him from running again for three years and when he was next seen in the 2000 Champion Hurdle he was sent off in front but soon tired and finished tailed off. He was retired from racing in 2001, enjoyed his retirement in the hunting field and eventually died aged 28 in 2019.

Why does Make a Stand not get the recognition I believe he deserved? I think probably for two reasons, the one very understandable, the other less so. The first reason being the name of the person who trained him. Martin Pipe, who revolutionised the training of jump horses in the 1980’s and 90’s did not come from a typical race horse training background, being the son of a bookmaker he was looked down upon by the racing aristocracy. It took a long period of time before he was recognised as one of the training greats.

The second; because Make a Stand’s star shone for just one season, the memory of his brilliance fades when compared to horses who went on to repeat victories in subsequent years; Istabraq and Big Bucks come immediately to mind amongst winners of the Champion Hurdle. But to my mind their abilities were second to my Champion.

Best of Matt this week!

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally agrees to visit a remote northern reserve in Canada.

The Prime Minister asks the chief if there was anything the people need.

"Well," says the chief, "We have three very important needs. First, we have a medical clinic, but no doctor."

Trudeau whips out his phone, dials a number, talks to somebody for two minutes and then hangs up. "I've pulled some strings. Your doctor will arrive in a few days. "The second problem is that we have no way to get clean water. The local mining operation has poisoned the water our people have been drinking for thousands of years. We've been flying bottled water in, and it's terribly expensive." Once again, Trudeau dials a number, yells into the phone for a few minutes, and then hangs up. "The mine has been shut down, and the owner is being billed for setting up a purification plant for your people.

Now what was that third problem? "We have no cell phone reception up here," the chief says………

(Nothing changes in Politics – the whole world over)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally breaks down and visits a remote northern reserve.

The Prime Minister asks the chief if there was anything the people need.

"Well," says the chief, "We have three very important needs. First, we have a medical clinic, but no doctor."

Jane Yoward, our Vice Chairman writes: "In light of our current situation, you may be interested in a free talk by Professor Chris Whittey on Vaccination at 18:00 on Wednesday 10th February.

He is Professor of Physic (Medicine) at Gresham College as well as the Chief Medical Officer for England, the UK Government's Chief Medical Adviser, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care and head of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

To register for this talk, go to: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/vaccination Gresham College have numerous free talks and you can watch previous talks from the last year."

Stop Press: Legend has it that in Nullagine, Western Australia, pictured left, a local stubbed his toe on a 20 ounce nugget of gold when walking down the main street! (todays value £27,000!) An EMS VALLEY u3a member tried gold prospecting in this very place a few years back and her adventures will be serialised, starting in the next newsletter!

• At the business meeting held on Thursday afternoon 28th January, one speaker asked if the list of Interest Groups could be inserted into this newsletter. This information is already clearly stated on our website. • Go to emsvalleyu3a.org.uk • click on the third heading "GROUPS". Scroll down and you will see all 48 interest groups. If you click on the one you are interested in, up comes a resumé, and you will see a pigeon in the top right hand corner. Click on the pigeon to send a message to that group.

All contributions for the next newsletter please to: [email protected]