Olney District Historical Society

Olney District Historical Society has been around since 1997, and is now key for events, talks and information about the history of Olney; from the time of the Civil war to the present day. The society was created in order to keep the history of the town alive for all generations, for those living in the town currently and for those who have since moved away. Their website contains a host of historical information, including photographs, as well as census data which allows you to search for family members and other people from the Olney area.  As well as people, users can search for maps, buildings and images, providing a rounded history of the town of Olney. Information also includes history about the arrival of the canal, the railway, and the M1 motorway, as well as a history of Bury field common and a variety of local industries.

Tomorrow evening the society are having their monthly meeting, a talk on the garden archaeology of Hampton Court and more, by archaeologist and gardener Joe Prentice. He will talk about the Hampton Court Palace garden, and cover Harrington Falls, Holdenby and Wrest Park. The meeting will be held in the main hall of the Olney centre at 7.30pm, and costs £1 for members and £2 for visitors.

timehop

If you're a bit of a techno-wizz on your smart phone you'll more than likely be aware of a new app sweeping across the screens. Taking a new twist on the social media revolution which we appear to be living in, this app takes us back in time, showing what we posted on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Foursquare on that day a year, 2 years, 3 years and so on, ago.

There's a few ways you can choose to look at this phenomenon, either...

1. We're living in the past too much... It feels a bit like the app has been created because someone out there knows that we all like browsing back through our photos and tweets and messages, and they want to arrange it better to date for us (cheers!)
2. It gives you a positive look back at how far you've come (hopefully!) over the years
3. Acts as a virtual time-capsule, especially good if you've got a bit of a bad memory
4. A way to daily enjoy memories of some of the important events which have taken place in your life (best if you don't over tweet, otherwise you may have to read your random ramblings about your washing machine or new running trainers, come on, we've all seen it!) 
5. and if you are one likely to over share on social media, then it can be a painful (and maybe helpful) reminder of how we spend too much time on social media...although saying that, timehop is a social media app in itself, so maybe there really is no escape!

What do you think? Is timehop a good or bad idea? I've just got it on my phone and I'm ashamed to say a little addicted... oh look I tweeted about being on a train 2 years ago... how exciting! (see what I mean?!)