Author: ChrisC

Yorkshire Wildlife Park Expansion – Late August 2019

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So I went back to Yorkshire Wildlife Park at the end of August to find that they’ve started work on their recently approved expansion.

The expansion comprises the lower right section of the map. Unfortunately, the map images on the YWP website are in quite a low resolution and are difficult to gain any sense of detail on. I’ve looked on the Doncaster planning portal and, while I think everything is there, I’ve not yet been able to beat it’s unwieldy interface into submission and find HD versions of the approved plans.

First, a pair of shots taken from the leopard enclosure viewing platform showing the new connecting bridge in context with the existing park. The enclosure to the left of these images is the tiger enclosure.

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The Unicorn and the Penguin – Images from a trip to Edinburgh Zoo

More pictures uploaded, this time a gallery from a February 2019 trip to Edinburgh Zoo.

The Zoo itself feels very much like an organisation in flux. Some of the enclosures – the pandas, the tigers and the chimpanzee – felt very new and very modern while some of the others – I’m thinking of the lion enclosure in particular – felt very ‘old-school’ and old fashioned. Indeed, the lion enclosure – effectively a large metal cage that you walk up to and is very reminiscent of the what you might have expected 40 or 50 years ago – is worth contrasting with both Edinburgh’s own tiger enclosure – bright and open, with landscaping and an interesting walk-though section for the public – and Yorkshire Wildlife Park’s lion enclosure – large, interestingly designed with subtle and complimentary landscaping.

On the other hand, the large amount of building work we observed suggests that they know parts of the zoo need improvements and so we can hope that they get around to the lions sooner rather than later.

The day itself was cold, grey and dark but ultimately dry. At times fingers were cold and my camera struggled with the light and I think both of those are reflected in these images. Eventually I would like to make a summer trip back – as I think the summer sun zoo would show it’s best side – but even the crowds we encountered in February make the thought of summer holiday traffic seem daunting.

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Does anyone else get this? I seem to have broken the BBC website. I don’t seem to get it anywhere else and it doesn’t happen all the time but, when it does, I don’t seem to be able to get that chrome session to ever load that page.

It’s worth noting that I’ve never seen this with FireFox, so it might be either a browser issue or an issue with the two plugins I use (HTTPS Everywhere and uBlock Origin).

Lions and tigers and (polar) bears… oh my!

Another gallery added — this time two dozen or so shots from a trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park in June 2019. I actually have two more sets from YWP that I need to process but time really does seem to have go away from me recently.

I also have another blog post to write, one similar to my Barnsley Glass Works post from last week, that covers some of the work done for YWP’s expansion.

Addendum: Though it’s well hidden, YWP’s news page actually has a populated, subscribable RSS feed. The whole site looks to be a fairly standard WordPress implementation and, though they’ve hidden the feed with the site’s theme, these feeds can be picked out of the HTML quite easily.

Glass Works, Barnsley

A couple of shots from the Glass Works redevelopment in the centre of Barnsley. They’re not that great – I snatched them quickly whilst on the way to the station – but they do reflect the current state of redevelopment in the town centre.

The New Library. It doesn’t look that bad from the outside – however I’ve yet to go in and have a poke around and see what it’s like from the inside. It’s got a silly name though – the ‘Library @ the Lightbox’ sounds very named-by-committee.

Steelwork for the south-west entrance to phase two. Taken on Cheapside outside of the grotty looking Alhambra Centre.

A west facing shot taken from the temporary foot bridge over the railway. New steelwork has been added to the large hole that will eventually form the bulk of phase two. This area will contain the covered shopping area and Cineworld Cinema.

Hot Dog. Jumping Frog…

Another day, another ear-worm. This time it’s Prefab Sprout’s irritating catchy ditty The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

I suspect I picked this particular ear-worm up during a repeat viewing of Top of the Pops ‘88 on BBC 4. The body of the song isn’t much to write home about (late 80’s synthy with a slight edge to the lyrics) but oh! the chorus, that bloody chorus… It’s not left me alone for days…

‘Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque…’

You’ll Float Too

Some video I found of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s floating bowls installation. I suspect that the gentle chimes of the colliding bowls would be wonderfully relaxing to listen to in person.

And while it is, I think, certainly art, I just don’t really understand the thought process that would lead you to create it in the first place. Perhaps that’s why I potter with computers and just look at the creations of others?