Mapping in Gedling on Saturday 18 March in foul weather (it was raining hard; goodness me, could this be England by any chance?) (well, yes). My new smartphone turned out to NOT be as England-proof as my ISODRY-10000 jacket, but that’s another story.

There were one or two pleasant scenes & I thought to share them with you.

Right at the start of the track was an un-named recreation garden on Burton Road. It contained some yew trees (at the right) which sometimes is a sign of a former religious establishment in England. A neighbour said that there used to be a “big house, with stables” at the rear, but had no other information.

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We are fast approaching the Equinox (Lord Google tells me that it will be on Monday, 20 March at 10:28 UTC this year). Here is a splendid photo taken a week early of some St Ann’s municipal grass with Spring flowers, taken from St Ann’s Well Road looking North-Eastwards on Monday 13 March (and yes, England really is as green as that in Spring):–

St Ann’s used to be known as Clay Field before it’s 1845 enclosure & development in the 1860s, 70s & 80s¹. Under the road pictured above is a culvert carrying spring-water from the St Ann’s Well. That well was a medieval place of pilgrimage for Kings & others, but was destroyed in 1889 when the Nottingham Suburban Railway (NSR) was built. A photo from last year, showing the remains of the bridge pillar that killed the Well (together with some of the story of the NSR) is at the bottom of my 3rd Diary post.

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This is the Grade II listed statue & memorial placed above the grave for Bendigo In St Mary’s Rest Garden, Nottingham:–

“In life always brave, fighting like a lion…
In death like a lamb, tranquil in Zion”

Nottingham loves lions ([1] [2] [3] [4] [5]) and they so loved William ‘Bendigo’ Thompson that his funeral in 1880 had a procession a mile long with thousands in attendance. He was buried in St Mary’s Cemetery (now called the Rest Garden) and, a hundred years later, all gravestones except his were transferred to the back wall. Unfortunately his monument was carved in soft stone, and acid air from thousands of coal fires has not been kind to it across the last century.

This was said to be (the site has gone) the only photo of Bendigo (sourced from picturethepast.org.uk):–

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Radburn Design Housing is houses arranged so that each house (often terraces of houses) present their backs to everyone else, whilst the fronts of each house face each other. It is named after a Radburn, New Jersey estate built in 1929 and has become a byword for bad practice (an Australian architect said of his own housing estate designed on Radburn principles:– “Everything that could go wrong in a society went wrong … It became the centre of drugs, it became the centre of violence and, eventually, the police refused to go into it”). It seems that Nottingham got there first in c1860, but also in 1970 with the St Ann’s redevelopments.

Nottingham was one of the last places in England to enclose Common Land (Laxton village still has “Open Fields”) and, until the 1845 Enclosure Act (not fully enacted until the 1880s), the fields to north & south of the old city were open fields & Common Land, meaning that the main part of the population was restricted within the town walls. At this time the population was soaring. The practical combination of those two factors was foul living conditions & mass death, largely from water-borne diseases such as cholera (see St. Mary’s Rest Garden) (a poignant tombstone from that former churchyard, commemorating the deaths of Henry Davis (died June 21, 1846 aged 8) and sister Elizabeth Davis (died December 9, 1851 aged 16) is below). It therefore seems reasonable to call the expansion of the town-folk out into 1,068 acres (432 ha) of the Clay Field (the former name for St Ann’s) an “explosion”.

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It has been a year (or thereabouts) since I obtained a Vodaphone SmartFirst6 to replace my dearly-beloved Motorola L7 when it finally died after ~15 years due to the central bevel suddenly detaching. That caused me to come across OSM & OSMTracker & hence the last 12 months updating the map.

The Vodaphone SmartFirst6 was only £20 GBP together with a PAYG SIM. It was a good intro for an Android newbie who doesn’t play games, although a little slow & with a limited camera. Although the SIM was locked to Vodaphone, the phone allowed a £25 GBP 64GB microSD card to be fitted (which could be mounted via USB connection to Linux/Windows) plus allowed .apk files to be transferred to the SD-Card & then installed into the phone. So, it would have been £100 GBP a couple of years ago and really, at £20, who can complain?

F-Droid supplied OSMTracker 0.6.11 FoC (2015-08-21 & still the latest ready-compiled version) (see the wiki for compile instructions on the latest update). I make use of the GPS breadcrumbs (basic tracker feature), voice-notes & photos, and that is it.

The SmartFirst6 runs Android 4.4.2 (custom Kit-Kat) and I was worried about the lack of security updates in addition to a lousy camera. The SmartPrime7 runs Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) and should be good for now (it was released last December 2016) (£65 GBP + £10 GBP for PAYG credit). Here are a couple of issues I’ve managed to overcome:–

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At the end of my most recent mapping session in Gedling, Nottingham I mapped Albert Street & Victoria Street. It was only right at the very end that I got the point (Victoria & Albert: geddit?). It is immediately obvious from the state of it’s road that Victoria Street is unadopted (a private road), but I was surprised to discover that the end of Albert Street is also unadopted. My goodness, but it is confusing…

This photo shows not just the state of Victoria Street (it is the road in the foreground) but also the locked-gate that lorry drivers keep trying to use to cut through from Westdale Lane East (at the end of the service road) to Main Road (well behind the camera) (I’ve done my damnedest to make sure that that does not happen with OSM):–

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I appear to be obsessed with broken-down garages. Here is one of the best examples so far, next to Priory Road,Gedling (otherwise, a very smart road):-

Update 7 July 2022

Mapillary has changed it’s download URLs & therefore all links within my diaries that used a Mapillary download URL in the old format are broken (the Mapilliary map URLs, which show a photo within the context of an OSM map, have also changed and are redirected via a HTTP/1.1 302 Found, but the download URL hostname no longer exists and gives a “No address associated with hostname” DNS error). I’m slowly going through to update them. The new URLs are terrifyingly long, but show OK on my screen (and I hope also on yours).

As best as I can work out, the first photo that I took of All Hallows Church, Gedling was on September 19, 2016 from near the top of Chatsworth Avenue looking north north east:–

September 21 2016 saw me receive the chilling news about The Chancel Tax.

Throughout the rest of September & October I kept my head down & mapped to the West then North. By 23 November it was Arnold Lane outside Scot Grave Farm heading south-east and suddenly we caught a distant view of the church again:-

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Last December I wrote about Phoenix Farm, Gedling, a farm with a direct connection to JRR Tolkien & his most famous book Lord of the Rings. There are a dozen pubs, churches, streets, etc. in Gedling named after this farm + an electoral ward; naturally, the farm itself was knocked down in 1954, and the residential estate named after it was built on it’s ashes.

As best as I can tell, this set of garages were built on the site of the farm buildings:-

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Most of the places that I’ve mapped across the last 10 months have been ~1930s with the occasional Victorian terraces (1880s). The topic today arose from looking at the deeds of a 1906 house but, as the first words of the first line below makes clear, has far more ancient origins:–

• In 13th Century England the following two, apparently contradictory, statements are both true:–

1. Most people were born, lived & died within the same 5 mile (8km) radius.
2. England was covered with a network of streets & roads each many hundreds of miles long; further, these streets & roads were continually thronged with people travelling long distances upon them.

“Streets” here refers mostly to the well-known Roman Roads. During research for this Diary entry I was surprised to discover that Ware was positioned upon Ermine Street, a Roman Road that stretches from London to York & crosses the Humber close to my birth town of Hull. For reference, here is a map of Roman Roads:–

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tl;dr: use the following from a console:

$ sudo apt install -t jessie-backports openjdk-8-jre-headless ca-certificates-java

JOSM needs Java-8. Open-Java-8 is available via Jessie Backports, but the current update (8u121-b13-1~bpo8+1) needs updated CA-Certificates which were not previously available from Backports (see Debian bug#851667). Unfortunately, Synaptic will not spot the updated certificates in Backports since it keeps holding back openjdk-8-jre, etc.. Thus, the need to use the console line as at top.

Unfortunately, I’d worked my way through the very-useful AskUbuntu question on:

“E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages”

…and had therefore removed all Oracle + OpenJDK Java8 (which meant that all JOSM was also gone & all my Java alternatives reverted to Java7). However, it also meant that I had a different error message on attempted reinstall of Java-8:

$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre openjdk-8-jre-headless ca-certificates-java
  ...
  The following packages have unmet dependencies:
   openjdk-8-jre-headless : Breaks: ca-certificates-java (< 20160321~) but 20140324 is to be installed
  E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

That allowed me to find a Unix Stack Exchange Q which solved the issue. Now I need to reinstall JOSM & make Java-8 the system default (sigh)…

Carlton & Nottingham love their Lions ([1] [2] [3] [4]) but I’m now mapping Gedling, and here is one of the latest photos of Gedling Church ([1] [2]), taken from near the top of Queen’s Avenue, to prove it:–

Queen’s Avenue is in the heart of Phoenix Farm Ward, and very close to the location of Phoenix Farm. The farm was demolished in 1954, just as the Estate named after it was being built (councillors, planners & builders love demolishing the old and building new estates) (one clue to the age of these houses is that they all have coal-holes).

The houses that I’m currently mapping all seem to have Royalty — and the then Royal Family in particular — as an (unannounced) theme:–

• King’s Avenue
• Queen’s Avenue
• Princess Close
• Mountbatten Grove
• Margaret Crescent
• Elizabeth Grove
• Philip Grove
• Charles Close

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It took a few days before the penny dropped for me with this house-name from Imperial Avenue, Gedling:

For the benefit of those whose only connection with English is Received Pronunciation (“RP”):

Those speaking RP will always pronounce the ‘H’ in “his” or “her’s”. There are many regional dialects within England that would never pronounce the ‘H’ (mine own dialect was Yorkshire, although now diluted by spending 30+ years in Nottingham). It is most typical within colloquial English to hear the ‘H’ dropped in such words.

PS
What a classic street-name for the 1920/30s!

You may be interested to observe the anal retention (twice over) in this view of St.Mary’s Avenue, Gedling.

1. The first is in the spelling of the street, as in the signpost at left foreground. Notice the full-stop after the “ST” & the apostrophe within “Mary’s”. The street to the south runs parallel to St.Mary’s & is called “St.Michael’s” (same stop & apostrophe). Excellent. I’m with Lynne Truss on this.
2. The second is the weather being anal retentive, due to the presence of an inversion layer.

Chris Fawkes, the weather forecaster on PM, BBC Radio 4 (56:16), spoke of a weather balloon launched today at Nottingham (where I live) which measured the base of the inversion at only 100m from the ground. This inversion is pretty much country-wide and is responsible for some foul air, particularly in the cities.

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1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

I’m having stunning problems being able to debug terracer from within Eclipse and, after much investment of my time & attention, I am greatly concerned that it may prove impossible. I’ve asked for help in my bugreport & have received zilch. There has been small responses here (many thanks) but those have not helped either. One possible option is to use a different IDE. So, here is yet another attempt to prevent others from having to go through as much pain as me just to get the NetBeans IDE installed (help from NetBeans here + youtube here):

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Goodness, but the folks in Gedling love their stick-men ([1] [2] [3] [4] [5]). The lady of the house told me that her grand-dad had made this one (unfortunately I had to use extreme digital zoom to get a decent view of it sat above the lintel of the front-door):

1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

Sure enough, after working my way up Besecar Avenue I reached Phoenix Avenue and Boom! as I tried to create a new semi-detached house on the corner of Besecar & Phoenix terracer throws an exception. I did not mind that, but Eclipse carried on as if nothing had happened. Now, that is truly mean!

In my earlier Diary (7) Eclipse was accurately debugging on JOSM exceptions thrown by JOSM core. How do I launch JOSM from Eclipse so that Eclipse will react to exceptions thrown by JOSM plugins?

Gaah!

1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

This is so annoying. I’ve got JOSM up and running in Debug mode from Eclipse (see the previous entries 1 ⇒ 7, but only if you have a great deal of time & patience). As per usual I’ve loaded Bing aerial imagery. You can tell that that is also in Debug mode as it has a vast listing printed over the top of the map down the left-hand edge, showing Cache stats, current zoom, etc., etc.. I wish I knew how to get rid of those, because it is very distracting.

My last survey began at Cantley Avenue (8 days ago!) so that is where I started adding houses in JOSM. A couple of nips ‘n’ tucks for the street, a bit of street furniture + some garages + surface-parking at the top of the street. That used terracer, but not in any way that should cause an exception. Next would be a semi-detached house, and that should definitely cause an exception if I put a tick in “create an associatedStreet relation”. So, I saved everything added up to this point.

‘B’ to switch on Building Tools + draw over the top of the house & select it, then ‘Shift-T’ to bring up the terracer dialog. Enter all the values & then do the thing that I haven’t dared to do for 6 months:– put the tick in to create the street relation + press ‘OK’ (then dive under the desk to avoid the shrapnel).

GODDAMMIT! It creates the semi-detached house + relation without a whisper of complaint. Oh really, that is simply too much. The first was 1+3 so next I do 5+7. Still no exception, but it does forget to add the street-name now into the house (it adds the add:street key/value into the house if associatedStreet for that street is empty, but not if there is any value in it). That’s a bug, so I start to feel a little better.

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1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

tl;dr: It seems that you simply need to be pig-headed & ignore all errors, clean the Build & restart & do it again (below is what I had to go through to discover this).

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1. There May be Troubles Ahead
2. Errors whilst Compiling using Ant
3. Creating Eclipse Project
4. Eclipse Debugging Routines
5. wORD cASE bLINDNESS
6. Importing the Project Bugs
7. Have you Tried Restarting Your Program, Sir?
8. Show Your Bugs, Damn You!
9. Be Careful What You Wish For
10. Installing NetBeans

Under Compiling using Eclipse the Developers’ Guide says: > Use Eclipse and the provided .project and .classpath file. Just import project using the JOSM core folder as root directory.

Those are brave words, but more than a touch useless for noobs like me (how do I do that?) (and exactly why do I need to compile anything anyway, since a full build is provided? I come here to debug a plugin, not compile it).

The nightmare of Black Friday 13 & Saturday suggest that I do need to import the provided project. So, here is how to do that (and, unfortunately, import the project’s bugs at the same time):

1. File ▸ Import
2. (expand General) select Existing Projects into Workspace
   (press Next>)
3. (click Browse... on Select root directory)

4. select josm dir + press OK
    
   A ghost-in-the-machine now appears within the Projects box. The entire thing is grey rather than black (including the checkbox) and cannot be selected. After the initial checkbox, the text reads: josm (~/workspace/josm) (the dir in brackets is identical to the workspace dir that has been selected) (this result previously stopped me going any further). Under the dialog title (Import Projects) it says:
   > Some projects cannot be imported because they already exist in the workspace

5. (click Browse... on Select root directory)
6. select core dir + press OK
    
   The text in the Projects box now reads JOSM (~/workspace/josm/core) and is both pre-selected & selectable.  
7. Press Finish

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