New Issue: Dr Feelgood 1971

Dr. Feelgood are an English pub rock band formed in 1971. Hailing from Canvey Island, Essex, they are best known for their original and distinctively British R&B sound that was centred on "Wilko" Johnson's choppy guitar style.

Dr. Feelgood 1971 (CP069)

Along with Johnson, the initial band line-up included singer Lee Brilleaux and the rhythm section of John B. Sparks, known as "Sparko", on bass guitar, and John Martin, known as "The Big Figure", on drums. Their most commercially productive years were the mid to late-1970s, with singles such as "She Does It Right", "Back in the Night", and "Milk and Alcohol".

This stamp has a print run of 140, and features a large mural by Liam Heatherson, painted on Canvey Island sea wall. It is the first stamp in a series featuring local and international musicians with links to Canvey Island and the surrounding area.

Dr. Feelgood stamp FDI Postcard (reverse)

A limited number of First Day Issue postcards have also been released.

CILP stamps are available from our agent, Alpha Thematics on Ebid UK.

Postmaster

New Issue: Hester's Mono-Rail 1902

CILP is pleased to announce the release on 18 November, 2024, of our latest stamp issue in our Local History series.

Property developer Frederick Hester established the first Mono-Rail in Essex, England, on Canvey Island in 1902. It was intended to transport prospective bungalow buyers, holiday makers and day trippers down from London, from the mainland railway station to the River Thames Estuary coast via his Winter Gardens and other business interests.

Hester's Mono-Rail 1902 (CP068)

However, lack of funds prevented electrification and expansion, and the service was brief, perhaps running for around two years. Our stamp features a period photograph of the horse-drawn Mono-Rail complete with visitors and local photogenic dog! This issue has a print run of 160 stamps.

CILP stamps are available from our agent, Alpha Thematics on Ebid UK.

Postmaster

Flags, Statistics and AI Theft!

 Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) development by big corporations the death-knell for copyright law and intellectual rights? If international legislators do not grasp this nettle soon, I fear we may have already lost the battle to keep ownership of anything we create.

On our website we have a useful and interesting application called ‘Flagcounter’ that shows the location of our visitors from the top twenty countries, by displaying their national flags in the right lower margin of our home page. But over the last few years, a worrying trend has developed.

The UK and USA have naturally been the top nations from which our visitors originated, with around 6% of our total visitors coming from these two English-speaking countries. In contrast, in less than two years, Singapore has sped up the visitor list and now accounts for 90% of our visitors! I doubt Singapore has that many cinderella local post devotees.

 After a little delving it appears the Singapore statistics represent internet robots, spiders, or crawlers, designed to “borrow” images for AI resources. In other words, stealing without credit to the image owner or creator.

Image Source: Pixabay

It seems Google Analytics (GA) filters out these visitors from Singapore, as they do not appear in website GA results. Of course, AI crawlers are not only restricted to Singapore, they are being used by all the major (and minor) AI developers targeting the world wide web.

The worst thing is they cannot be stopped from visiting my website even when they are specifically blocked in the site .htaccess file. Other website owners have reported similar futile attempts to protect their sites from these AI thieves. If I had not been using the application ‘Flagcounter’ I would not have noticed this digital burglary at all!

In order to counter this free unattributed use of CILP stamp images by AI bots, CILP is proposing to deface future stamp images with diagonal red lines, as is the custom of stamp issuing authorities worldwide. 

Am I bolting the door after the horse has bolted? Maybe, but a little victory makes me feel better!

 

Postmaster

New Issue: Avro Vulcan XL426

 Aviation Series No.3: Avro Vulcan XL426

CILP is pleased to announce the release of the third offering in our extremely popular Aviation Series, the delta wing Avro Vulcan. Our stamp features Avro Vulcan XL426, one of only three remaining taxiable Avro Vulcan strategic bombers.

Avro Vulcan XL425 (CP067)

Since 1993, it has been owned and maintained by the Vulcan Restoration Trust, based at Southend London Airport, England, approximately 15 miles from Canvey Island. This historic aircraft served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1962 to 1986. A total of 105 stamps have been produced.

CILP stamps are shipped worldwide from Alpha Thematics on Ebid UK.

Postmaster