KITHRA ON THE MOVE

KITHRA WRITES: I have been offered a place in a Sheltered Housing scheme and, as these places don’t come around too often, I’ve decided to take it. However, I’ve yet to get a definite moving date, although it will be within the next month, and possibly sooner.

Read on


I am sure that everyone in bloggoland will join me in offering our very best wishes to Kithra for her move, and will be looking forward to her return to inthe internet...

RICHARD FREEMAN: The Monsters of Prague #13

Ulrych and the daemons
A dismembered corpse is said to haunt Celetna Street. It lacks a head, has only one arm and hops around on one leg. It is supposedly the wraith of a sorcerer called Ulrych who live at the end of the 10tth century. He is said to have called up a horde of fifteen daemons but he could not control them. The creatures tore him to shreds and condemned his spirit to walk Celenta Street forever more.

LINDSAY SELBY: The Tim Dinsdale Film

Tim Dinsdale shot a film in April 1960 that many believed was proof that the Loch Ness creature existed. In 1965 it was examined by the Joint Air Reconnaissance Centre (JARIC) and for those who have never seen the report I have scanned in the main points, from the HMSO document for you to read.

The film is dogged by controversy as there are those that say it was a boat filmed under bad light conditions. See : http://www.nessie.co.uk/htm/the_evidence/analysis.html
(you will find many other sites with this analysis, this was just the first I googled)

And those that say that is rubbish and it shows an animate object:

The only non-Nessie explanation the disbelievers have been able to put forward is that Tim filmed a boat which, under the lighting conditions then prevailing, somehow didn't show up on the film while the wake did. However, various computer enhancements of the film have failed to reveal anything like the shape of a boat. Tim had given me a 16mm copy of his film, and I recently had it scanned onto DVD. Frame-by-frame viewing of the right-to-left wake confirms that there seem to be fairly regularly spaced splashes, every few seconds, that seem to be TO THE SIDE OF THE WAKE, consistent with Tim's interpretation of them as "paddle strokes". However, the resolution of this commercial scan is not sufficient that I could be completely certain about this.

However, it IS certain that there is no boat making this right-to-left wake. A faculty member in the Computer Science Department at Virginia Tech was good enough to scan a number of frames at higher resolution and to examine them under various types of enhancing techniques to look for shapes and to vary the contrast. There is no boat making that wake.

Source; http://henryhbauer.homestead.com/DinsdaleFilm.html
(with kind permission of Henry Bauer)

In 1993 Discovery Communications made a documentary called “Loch Ness Discovered” .They featured a digital enhancement of the Tim Dinsdale film. They said a computer expert had enhanced the film and noticed a shadow in the negative which was not obvious in the film. The expert enhanced and over layered frames and then discovered what appeared to be the rear body and flippers plus two humps of a plesiosaur type body in the shadow in the water.

Tim Dinsdale also filmed a boat to compare the wakes with, so there could be no mistake. I suggest you read the two sides of the argument and make your own mind up. I found Tim to be honest but however a little naive , in that he thought that if he believed it was proof , others would too. Sadly we live in a modern sceptical world with computers and lots of technology, if only that technology had been around when Tim took the film, we might have proof one way or another now. I am glad he is no longer with us to read the controversy around the film as I think he would have been upset.

DONATIONS

I have two people to thank today. Thomas Goodey was kind enough to give us £30, and a friend of the CFZ and regular bloggo contributor gave us £60 but asked that we not reveal his name. This money will be going towards repairing the roof of the conservatory, which suffered somewhat in last winter's gales. This is very important, because the conservatory is now home to most of our fish collection, and if it fell down we would be completely scuppered.


Thank you very much, guys!

CORINNA DOWNES: Yesterday's News Today

My first entry of a week’s babysitting Yesterday’s News Today and I manage to bag a good one, and can quote from my favourite band. Babysitting can be fun after all:

Mitochondrial DNA Points to Multiple Killer Whale Species
Mountain lion believed sighted near Georgetown
Leopards and other big cats ARE on the loose in Britain - just don't tell a soul
Croc-like creature on the loose
NBC affiliate investigates Huntingdon lake monster
Beavers are back, thriving - and making it better for other species
Spray teams target giant hogweed

Turn and run!
Nothing can stop them,
Around every river and canal their power is growing.
Stamp them out!
We must destroy them,
They infiltrate each city with their thick dark warning odour.

They are invincible,
They seem immune to all our herbicidal battering.

Long ago in the Russian hills,
A victorian explorer found the regal hogweed by a marsh,
He captured it and brought it home.
Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge.
Royal beast did not forget.
He came home to london,
And made a present of the hogweed to the royal gardens at kew.

Waste no time!
They are approaching.
Hurry now, we must protect ourselves and find some shelter
Strike by night!
They are defenceless.
They all need the sun to photosensitize their venom.

Still they're invincible,
Still they're immune to all our herbicidal battering.

Fashionable country gentlemen had some cultivated wild gardens,
In which they innocently planted the giant hogweed throughout the land.
Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge.
Royal beast did not forget.
Soon they escaped, spreading their seed,
Preparing for an onslaught, threatening the human race.

The dance of the giant hogweed

Mighty hogweed is avenged.
Human bodies soon will know our anger.
Kill them with your hogweed hairs
Heracleum mantegazziani

Giant hogweed lives


Genesis: The Return of the Giant Hogweed (Nursery Cryme 1971)