London | The Magpie Gazette

Everyone Knows it’s Windy

July 15, 2018 Techly DoRight

The Trump Baby balloon that floated over London, England, last Friday was the culmination of efforts on the part of graphic designer Matt Bonner and a team of political activists and balloon fabricators who wanted to make a statement about the petulant and childish temperament of the current American president. As a mocking indictment of his destructive behavior, it is an effective piece of work. The activists plan to have the balloon shadow it’s real-life angry baby model as much as possible wherever he travels around the world.

The Trump Baby balloon rises over London’s Parliament Square. Photo by Michael Reeve.

Large balloon caricatures came about with the work of Tony Sarg on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in the 1920s. Mr. Sarg was a German-American puppeteer who took the concept of marionettes and simply turned them upward and inflated them, though the comparison ends there because the guide ropes for a balloon caricature do no more than tether and control them, as opposed to the thin wires that puppeteers use to manipulate the movements of small marionettes.

The technology for creating large balloons with discretely modeled characteristics like arms and legs has changed over the years, of course, with the biggest difference coming in the planning stage when designers can now model the character with 3D animation on a computer, eliminating some of the trial and error involved in the design and fabricating of earlier balloons. Experienced engineers at the fabricating plant can then examine those computer designs and make or suggest alterations that will improve the balloon’s stability when floating overhead and streamline its manufacturing, all without greatly changing if possible the designer’s intent.

The statue of Winston Churchill in London’s Parliament Square. Photo by Braveheart.

These protest balloon caricatures appear to be gaining popularity, and it’s easy to see why since they fit the criteria of making an impact over a wider area than a hand-held placard and they can show up around the world as needed with a relatively small support team. An excellent graphic design can also generate revenue for the protest movement through merchandising. The main difficulty in deploying the balloons is in securing permission from government officials, which ought not be that much different from acquiring the usual permits for a protest other than stipulating a maximum height for the balloon when it is in the air.

Since the balloons are not intended to float higher than about 50 feet, conflicts with aviation should be minimal. The main obstacles aloft to safe deployment, besides high winds, are things arising from the ground such as power and light poles and electrical and communications cables. Let’s hope these symbols of protest continue floating freely wherever there’s enough helium a need for them, as a reminder to everyone that many powerful public figures need to have the air let out of them, not necessarily for their benefit since it can be all but impossible to deflate their often massive egos, but for ours as citizens in a still relatively free society.
— Techly

Symbols "Windy", 3D Computer Animation, America, Americans, Balloons, Caricatures, Engineers, England, Germans, Helium, London, Macy's, Marionettes, Matt Bonner, Merchandising, Parliament Square, President, Protests, Puppeteers, Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Association, Tony Sarg, Trump Baby, Winston Churchill

On Edging

January 28, 2018 Isidore Gnome

At mid-winter it’s still too soon to start preparing garden beds for spring planting, even in areas of the country that aren’t under permafrost. There are cleanup tasks, as always, and if the garden beds are in need of edging this would be a good time to do it as long as the soil isn’t too mucky and hard to work. For gardeners who will do the work themselves, the kind of edging to do, or whether or not edging is desirable, depends on tolerance for heavy labor. Those easy-to-install plastic edging strips are also quickly and easily heaved out of the ground by frost and soon become useless.

Flowers, Regent's Park, London - DSC07043

Garden vase, flower beds, and stone edgings in the Avenue Gardens, Regent’s Park, London, in July 2010. Photo by Rept0n1x.

Almost every heavy duty and reasonably attractive garden edging is going to take back breaking labor to install, though it’s true that installation may last a lifetime. There does appear to be one fair compromise between heavy labor, appearance, and durability and cost of the installation, which is to use a low profile nylon no-dig edging material that is staked down on the grass side of an edge made up of paver blocks laid on fast setting concrete. Dramatically decreasing the preparation work takes out much of the heavy labor, leaving only the lifting and setting of paver blocks, which can weigh up to 25 pounds apiece, and wrangling 50 pound bags of concrete mix.

Roger Cook of This Old House gives an overview of the easier ways to edge.
The durability of such edging can be increased by resorting to some of the shovel work and use of drainage rock or sand that is the method for standard paver installation. Without a drainage base under the concrete, no-dig edging, and paver blocks, there will inevitably be some cracking of the concrete and consequent heaving of the materials. As mentioned earlier, however, this type of installation is a compromise between all of the elements of an edging job, and is particularly intended to cut down on back breaking shovel work and cost of additional materials. The best way to ensure the eventual frost heaving does not render the edging completely useless and unattractive is to deploy paver blocks that are as large and as heavy as possible without themselves being back breaking.

No-dig gardening is a method that has been gaining adherents for over a half century now, and it makes sense for gardeners interested in saving themselves some labor and possible injury to apply the same method elsewhere when possible, such as in edging garden beds. The simplest method of edging, and certainly the cheapest, requires digging an edge straight down three or four inches into the lawn, and then shaving that edge back in a slope toward the garden bed. This presents an attractive edge for a few months, but grass and weeds from the lawn inevitably infiltrate the bed, muddying the clean line of the edge, with the result that the gardener has to renew a cut edge at least once a year to keep it looking its best. That is obviously the opposite of no-dig gardening.

Mark Powers of This Old House demonstrates the full on labor and expense method of edging a garden bed. The editing makes the job look easier than it is, and while the edge looks great, this method is only for the most dedicated gardener.
A gardener who is healthy and strong and unafraid of hard work can certainly install a beautiful and durable garden bed edge and stand back to admire it as a job well done when it’s finished. The extensive materials required for a really top notch installation may cost quite a lot, but since the goal is lifetime durability, then the cost is a one time expense. For the gardener who may not be entirely healthy, or very strong, or interested in expending enormous energy in the garden, there are easier and cheaper edging alternatives, but such a gardener should beware foolishly wasting money and time on some of them advertised as cheap and easy.

No-dig edging seems a reasonable compromise, though one thing to be aware of when installing an edge on top of the ground rather than level with it is to avoid grading soil down from the top of the paver blocks toward a building. To avoid improper drainage toward a building, soil should always grade away from it. It would appear to be a rather obvious error to avoid in theory, but it is an error too often made in practice, though usually gradually over a long time. That means there may still be some shovel work necessary to finesse a no-dig edging installation. It would be nearly impossible to do every job in the garden without wielding a shovel at all, though some can thankfully be made easier on the gardener’s back.
— Izzy

Pause from Work, a road sign diagram posted to Pixabay with the Portuguese caption Pausa no Trabalho.

Gardening Avenue Gardens, Concrete, Drainage, Garden Beds, Garden Edging, Gardeners, Grasses, Lawns, London, Mark Powers, No-Dig Edging, No-Dig Gardening, Pause from Work, Paver Blocks, Regent's Park, Roger Cook, Shovels, Soil, This Old House, Weeds

What’s in Your Head?

January 16, 2018 Techly DoRight

Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries performs at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in Australia in March 2012. Photo by Eva Rinaldi.
The title of this post is taken from a line in the 1994 song “Zombie”, written by Dolores O’Riordan and performed by her and her band mates in The Cranberries, namely Noel Hogan, Mike Hogan, and Fergal Lawler, on their album No Need to Argue. She wrote the song in response to news of an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombing in 1993 that killed two children and injured dozens of bystanders. The zombies of the song are those emotionally hollow, walking dead who will not let go of old political grudges and slights, and persist in their violent ways without concern for whom they harm. The song exerted a large influence in pushing the warring sides in Northern Ireland toward peace. Dolores O’Riordan died unexpectedly Monday at a hotel in London, where she was staying while she worked on a short recording session. She was 46.

The original music video of “Zombie”, which has made an enormous impression around the world since its release in 1994.
The notable thing about Ms. O’Riordan’s singing voice, besides her range, her clear enunciation in an Irish accent, and her use of keening and wailing, was her honest, unaffected vocal presence. There are so many recording tricks available to music producers now that things like a poor, thin voice can be masked with production and electronic effects, and the lyrics can be lost in all of it, though for some songs and performers listeners may not care about that. But while The Cranberries and their producers, notably Stephen Street for the early albums, took advantage of such effects as layering Ms. O’Riordan’s voice with multiple recordings, they never appeared to do so in an effort to disguise a lack of talent, but in the interest of adding depth and harmony to a song. Listening to her sing in settings where no recording gimmicks were available confirms that sense. The tremolo in her voice when she sings parts of “Linger” is all from her and her talent and her capacity for investing emotionally in the lyrics she wrote.

A 2012 visit to the NPR studios showcased the quality of Dolores O’Riordan’s voice and the musicianship of The Cranberries. The set list of five songs from first to last was comprised of “Linger”, “Tomorrow”, “Ode to My Family”, “Zombie”, and “Raining in My Heart”.
Something Else, the last album Dolores O’Riordan and The Cranberries made, was a 2017 collection of some of their hits along with a few new songs, all done acoustically with the accompaniment of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. For almost any other rock band such a presentation might come across as a pretentious, formulaic repackaging done primarily to generate revenue by capitalizing on past success. The Cranberries could get away with it because they were unassuming musicians surprised by their own success, whose sincere desire was to record an album of something genuinely new for themselves and for their fans. The songs they crafted were their own style, despite the pigeonholing common in the music business, where styles are called grunge or pop or folk or rock. They were some of all those things, not wholly invested in any one style. They were who they were (and remain, of course, while three of the four band mates live), young people from working class families in and around Limerick, Ireland, without grand desires to upend the world of music, which they did not do in any event. No matter. They worked steadily at crafting some great music while saying worthwhile things in their tunes, and the Irish songbird Dolores O’Riordan was not just a singer and guitarist and songwriter for the band, but an exemplar for them and us of a true original.
― Techly

News "Linger", "Ode to My Family", "Raining in My Heart", "Tomorrow", "Zombie", Australia, Dolores O'Riordan, Fergal Lawler, Ireland, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Irish Republican Army (IRA), Limerick, London, Mike Hogan, National Public Radio (NPR), No Need to Argue, Noel Hogan, Northern Ireland, Something Else, Stephen Street, Sydney, Sydney Entertainment Centre, The Cranberries

All the Time in the World

November 3, 2017 Techly DoRight

It was a little over 100 years ago when the Germans enacted the first daylight saving time as a measure to conserve energy, and the practice has been part of most of the western world in one form or another ever since. Besides the dubious argument that extending daylight at the end of the day through spring, summer, and early autumn saves energy, it’s hard to rationalize continuing the practice. Continue it will, however, for the time being, as daylight saving time ends on November 5th with the return to standard time over the winter in the United States and much of Europe.

George Pal’s The Time Machine, from 1960, explored questions of altering time and circumstance within a gripping adventure yarn.

Contrary to myth, daylight saving time was never instituted on behalf of farmers. Farmers are generally opposed to the practice. They would rather take back that hour of daylight from the end of the day in summer, when the heat of the day has built up, and return it to the beginning of the day, when the cool of the night lingers. It was office workers and the mercantile concerns that catered to them who had an interest in extending daylight past office hours, thereby opening up more time for shopping and other money-spending activities.

The energy conservation argument for daylight saving time was more valid a century ago, when inefficient electric lighting was a big consumer of power. Air conditioning did not become a factor until the 1930s, and then only for public buildings like theaters, department stores, and office buildings. Home air conditioning did not come into widespread use until the 1960s or 1970s. The situation then by the 1980s was that in the summer people were returning home from work at five, six, or seven o’clock in the late afternoon and early evening, when evening cooling had not begun to overtake the built-up heat of the day. If standard time had been in effect in the summer, those hours would have been closer to sunset by one hour, and therefore cooler.

Big Ben in London, England, the most famous public clock in the western world, displays the time on a sunny day in September 2005. Photo by Robin Heymans.

By the late twentieth century, people no longer had to resort to public buildings to enjoy air conditioning. The argument then that people would take advantage of some extra daylight after working hours to circulate among shops and spend money was not as valid as it had been a half century earlier. The energy conservation argument similarly went out the window. People could and did go directly to their own air conditioned homes, where they cranked up the air conditioning to compensate for the day still being hot at five, six, or seven o’clock.

The original three singers of the vocal group Bananarama reunited recently, and in this performance of their 1980s hit “Cruel Summer”, they show great timing 30 years later.

What’s the rationale then for daylight saving time in the new climate, when an hour of summer sunlight at the end of the day is hotter than it used to be? Because we’ve gotten used to extended twilight in the mid-latitudes in summer? Using the extra daylight time at the end of the day can be nice for cutting grass after work, or coaching a children’s soccer game, or socializing with neighbors. People did all those things and more (substitute baseball for soccer) in the past, and life went on. Like farmers, office workers may find it more pleasant to arise a bit earlier to do some chores in the morning. Leaving daylight saving time behind will cost only a little in convenience and schedule readjustment, but the saving in energy will put dollars back in the pockets of everyone but the fossil fuel companies, and may help bring back the cool of the evening.
― Techly

Energy "Cruel Summer", Air Conditioning, Bananarama, Big Ben, Daylight Saving Time, Department Stores, England, Europe, Farmers, George Pal, Germans, Homeowners, London, Movie Theaters, Office Buildings, Office Workers, The Time Machine, United States

Planting for Tomorrow

July 16, 2017 Isidore Gnome

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
― investor Warren Buffett, known as the “Oracle of Omaha”.

If you have to be outside in the heat of a summer day, there is no sweeter relief than the shade of a large, spreading tree. Even staying indoors you can benefit from a shade tree if it helps cool the building you’re in, reducing the need for air conditioning. The first six months of this year have been the second warmest on record in the lower 48 states, after 2012. The National Weather Service accounts for climate data from 1895 onward, and according to their records 2016 was the warmest year of all.

Trees and shade in London, England; photo by TomasEE.

Drought has not developed as widely this year as in the recent past. The northern Plains states and southern Arizona have been hit hardest with drought this year, but elsewhere rainfall has been adequate. When it’s very hot, sufficient rainfall to keep plants, and especially trees, alive is crucial to mitigating high temperatures in the short and long terms, and maintaining trees as counterweights to further warming. A mature shade tree such as an oak can transpire over a hundred gallons of water in a day, drawing it up from it’s roots and losing it to the atmosphere from it’s leaves. Drought stresses trees and makes them vulnerable to pest problems, and if dry weather continues for several years in a row, the decline and death of trees can be due as much to pest damage as to lack of water for metabolic processes.

Summer is not the best time to plant trees because heat stress makes keeping up with watering difficult, but it is a good time to plan for planting in the best season, autumn. Balled and burlapped trees have been grown in a field, dug up with a root ball at least two or three feet wide and tall, and then the root ball wrapped in burlap to retain moisture until replanting. Such trees are tempting to buy because they promise shade sooner since they are bigger than container-grown trees. There are a number of reasons to resist the temptation.

Balled and burlapped trees are more often than not never root-pruned in the field, with the result that when the nursery digs up the tree, they cut off almost all the fine, fibrous roots at the outside of the tree’s root zone, and those are the roots which do the bulk of water and nutrient uptake for the tree. Because they are bigger than container-grown trees, balled and burlapped trees are more expensive to purchase. They are also more expensive to maintain for the first several years after replanting because they need intensive care on account of having to regrow fibrous roots. Until then, balled and burlapped trees will often not grow at all, and will even be surpassed in size and vigor in many cases by initially smaller container-grown trees.

Trees provide shade at the Santa Fe Plaza in New Mexico; photo by WikTalksmart.

The reason is trees grown in containers have all or most of their fibrous roots. You can check this with a gentle tug on the trunk to see if there is some resistance to coming out of the container. Some unscrupulous nurseries will dig undersized field-grown trees and pot them up, knowing they could not sell them as balled and burlapped trees. Such trees will give little resistance to coming out of the container unless one or more of the large anchor roots is stuck in the side. There will be minimal fibrous root development. Another, perhaps simpler way to check for fibrous roots is to brush away some of the potting soil, making sure to replace it (when doing these tests, be gentle and put things back the way they were).

Artist.painting.at.Central.Park.New.York

Artist painting a picture in Central Park, New York City; photo by SpyON.

Whatever tree you buy and however it was grown, when you get it home, dig a ten dollar hole for a five dollar tree, but don’t overdo it or the tree will never try to extend its roots beyond the hole. Give it a little compost in the backfill and keep a light hand on the fertilizer. Water deeply and mulch lightly, and don’t pile the mulch up against the trunk, no matter how many “professional” landscapers you’ve seen do it! For as long as you take care of your tree, keep grass and other plants at least several feet away from the trunk, which will not only reduce competition for water and nutrients, but eliminate the possibility of mechanical damage from mowers and trimmers. Planting the right tree for your location will help reduce its need for extra water as it matures, though when absolutely necessary in the hottest, driest part of the summer, by all means give it water if you can. In time, your tree will reward you or someone in the future with cool relief from summer heat.
― Izzy

Environment Arizona, Autumn, Central Park, Compost, Drought, England, Fertilizer, Heat, Lawn Mower, London, National Weather Service (NWS), New Mexico, New York City, Nurseries, Oracle of Omaha, Plains, Santa Fe Plaza, Summer, Trees, Warren Buffett, Water, Weed Trimmer

Green Grows the Grass

December 11, 2016 Isidore Gnome

Winter dormancy is settling in on lawns almost everywhere but the pampered ones in National Football League stadiums. The groundskeepers who maintain stadium turf have an especially difficult job this time of year because they are staving off the natural tendency of grass to retreat into dormancy and turn brown and stiff as winter approaches. Not only does that look unappealing on television, it is difficult for the players who have to compete on it. If the ground becomes frozen hard, natural turf can be as dangerous to players as the old artificial turf fields which had insufficient cushioning beneath them.

Preparing the pitch with grow lights at Stamford Bridge, London;
own work by TheBlues

Modern NFL stadium natural turf stays green into December and January because groundskeepers take measures to prolong its growing season, from heating systems underneath to grow lights overhead. They effectively keep the grass in a condition most homeowners have not seen in their lawns since September. The “frozen tundra” of Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is a memorable phrase evocative of the hard knocks of winter football outdoors in the upper Midwest, but it hardly applies any longer to the actual playing conditions considering modern turf management techniques.

For the average homeowner who looks out at a brown lawn throughout the winter (when it’s not covered in snow), the remedy lies not in trying to replicate the green turf of NFL stadiums. That would require an enormous input of money, time, and effort equivalent to what an NFL franchise invests, albeit considerably scaled down. Better to let the grass go to sleep for winter, but to tuck it in with some lime, some compost, maybe a light application of preferably organic fertilizer, and then a last mowing at a short setting to mulch the last of the fallen tree leaves. For the rest of December and January it’s time to settle into a comfortable chair in the warmth indoors and watch the football games on TV play out on the greener grass of early fall, maybe with snow falling on it for added dramatic effect.
– Izzy

View of Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin;
own work by JL1Row

Turf Compost, Dormancy, Fertilizer, Football, Green Bay, Groundskeepers, Lambeau Field, Lawns, Lime, London, Midwest, National Football League (NFL), Stamford Bridge, Wisconsin

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