Yesterday's weather in North Norfolk was similar (although not quite as warm). There were wide bright blue skies and sunshine again. And that of course is in great contrast to The Beast From The East which rocked up at the beginning of March a number of years ago.
I was amazed when I got back yesterday to find I had taken 150 photographs. My how photography has changed. Load a camera with a roll of 36 shots. Think carefully about which shots you take. Send the film off to be developed and wait a couple of weeks for the prints to come back. Then mount them in an album.
Now it's so easy to flash off 200 photos, just point the camera at everything. Come home, download them to a computer in about five minutes and put them on social media for everyone to see. How times have changed.
That does give me the chance to share my images (something I love to do). I am very much an enthusiastic but basic photographer. What I take isn't high art but I get tremendous pleasure that someone, somewhere, may like what I've taken. So today's shots are of Baconsthorpe Castle which I mentioned yesterday and which is one of Norfolk's hidden gems. Hope you like the shots. There will be more tomorrow.
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I usually read the Observer Newspaper on Sundays and yesterday's had plenty of coverage of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. The newspaper took an interesting angle suggesting that Putin is becoming more and more isolated due to the entire world being against him and China now pulling back from supporting him.
After the Second World War historians told us that never again would a single person have the power to do what Hitler and Stalin did. Now those comments look like nonsense. It is beyond belief that one man (Putin) can lead the world to the brink of war because of his megalomania. Putin is becoming a pariah but still he hurtles along his course of destruction. British MP James Heappey summed it up well when he said: "This isn't about politics, this isn't about Russia, this isn't about the Ukraine, this is about one man's lust for power."
Putin tries to justify what he is doing with rhetoric that is plain nonsense and would be considered to be the ramblings of a madman if he wasn't so dangerous. And as a human race we have to ask why this man has been allowed to act in this way? He sees Russian and Ukranian people as one, which in essence is an admission that he is killing his own people. That one man can have this amount of power is absolutely ludicrous. The world seems not to have heeded the warnings of the Second World War.
Putin rambles on about de-Nazification without any grasp on reality or what Naziism was anyway. He refers to the President of the Ukraine as a Nazi. The reality is the President of the Ukraine has Jewish heritage and relations who died in the holocaust - thus immediately making a nonsense of Putin's stance. How can one man destroy the lives of thousands if not millions of people because of his lust for power. I really thought we had moved on as a human race from this kind of thing.
There has to be an uprising in Russia from within. Putin has to be deposed by whatever means it takes and as soon as possible and Russia must be supported in setting up a democratic process but at the same time must be isolated from the rest of the world for a period of years until we can be sure that nothing like this can happen again. Putin is a war criminal and a murderer and must be dealt with as such.
That means no major sporting events being held in Russia, no participation allowed in sports events (they have already shown their colours by being technically banned as a country from the Olympic Games, although they have got round this by calling themselves the Russian Olympic Committee although even then one of their number was accused of being a drug cheat). Then there must be all the economic sanctions. Russia has to be re-built as a country that can be trusted and not one run by one man's greed and lust for power. This process will take time and cannot take place whilst Putin is in charge of anything. our thoughts have to be with the Ukrainian people but some times all the thoughts, prayers and love from afar just isn't enough. Sometimes actions have to speak louder than words.