For a group of late 40 somethings, walking was the ideal way to spend a Saturday and thus the Barnsley Gentleman's Walking Association or BGWA was born.
Determined Saturday stridings were undertaken up to distances of up to twenty miles. Public transport was used allowing us all to have a decent beer or two afterwards. Much rambling of a light hearted cerebral nature was also undertaken, leading to a build up of memories and, more importantly, development of ritual and mutterings of revolution.
You see the BGWA, like many other organisations, exists to serve its members. At the current time, we have a committee of up to twelve and a membership of one. So you can see he is a well served member, a fact that escapes him every year without fail, as the AGM approaches and he becomes excited at the prospect of elevation to a committee post. The only outcome of such a promotion would be the raising of the only member-in-application to become the new member. You can begin to see the nature of much of the rambling.
However this revolution is contained is study in management of possible unrest. A tactic employed recently and successfully is to adopt a kind of French attitude. Let the membership have their say, let them sound off, and when the member absents himself to the gents, rush through the re - election of officials, quite in order and thus the status quo is confirmed.
We began as a small group. The seeds probably sewn by the walks secretary and the member, which soon became a five and from then on, a number rising to its current level. At the outset, none of us hailed from Barnsley, although one was born just outside. Indeed, several have moved away altogether. Whether we were gentlemen is an issue for discussion and the walking too has dropped away for the last few years but the association, although perhaps now only an annual event for some, is still there.
Now, at the AGM, we make a toast to the King of Tonga, make a reading from Sid James' biography whilst wearing a tallit like shawl in which the book is kept, Del MacKee's belt must be worn by the member-in-application, reference is made to the sanity that finally prevailed at an event know as the Aberration of Bramwith and the treasurer makes a report.
In 2008, it was in rhyme. The Treasurer then counts up the found currency (all picked up coinage over the year) and declares if sufficient funds are available from this bounty to buy the Patron's Pint - a pint of the Patron's choosing which the Patron may share. As his choice this year was a pint of Abbeydale's Last Rites at 11%, he made a doubly wise choice. In , 2010, such it is as the recession bites, only £2.02 was collected. Clearly, people are hanging on to their money, or at least they are picking it up again when they don't.
Some traditions are lost on the way. The Banana Boy ( an honour given to the membership) seems not to produce the plastic banana which was once flourished each time a recognised boundary was crossed when either walking or on public transport. This was in remembrance of the imagined joyous celebrations that most certainly would have accompanied the arrival of the first banana in Bolton-on-Dearne.
Like all such organisations, jargon develops. For example, a full Minervois is the term still used to describe the breakfast some still believe is the ideal and only kick start to a day of BGWA activity at the Minerva cafe, although the eponymous cafe has long since disappeared. Or to have an Elsecar. To elsecar or an elsecration is to lose one's footing on slippery ground.
If there was to be any explanation of why this goes on, then it would occur to many an observer as just being plain silly which is exactly what it is. That the people involved are moving more and more to being retired professional people, who no doubt spent there working lives in meetings within organisations rich in procedures and rules, then this behaviour is pure escapism.
And after all, that's what the BGWA set out to provide.........
Monday, 24 November 2008
Friday, 14 November 2008
Pizza the action
Surely not another. Another doorstep pizza parlour posterette dropping in to announce another pizza place with all the attendant deals.
What fascinates me is their helpful nature in explaining the various ways they can top a dough base. Now pizza is an Italian word and pizzas are notably Italian. I learned the other day why the Italian language dominates the coffee world with words like cappuccino, espresso and mocha. Its to do with empire. Italy had a little slice of Africa, mixing it with the big boys in the empire business like Germany, Belgium, France and, of course, the UK. Italy just happened upon the coffee rich bits and indeed mocha comes from Mocha, the Red Sea port out of which the coffee flowed to Italy. Arabica, coffee shrub of Arabia is indigenous to Ethiopia. So no difficulty absorbing the Italian flair for coffee. But not pizza. As solidly Italian as the Trevi Fountain.
So it is natural to have real Italian to explain their toppings just as would happen in the country of origin. And this is were I return to the pizza leaflets. I just like seeing how far they go with the language, before they revert to English. When they do use Italian, they invariably add a translation, though I don't know why. If you are fan of pizza, you know what's what, but helpful the translations may well be. I wonder if is done to put across the feel that you are about to enjoy a continental delicacy, the Italian language serving up images of romantic Rome or sunny Naples even if your pizza comes from a converted newsagents in Barnsley or Huddersfield.
Marguerita is the one many kick off with. Written large, it is followed by a smaller print explanation in English of what constitutes the topping. So far so good. Next are funghi (mushroom), pollo (chicken) and proscuitto (ham). But what happens next is some drift back to English , but they still add the translation. So when ham and mushroom are the topping, it is written large in English, with it repeated, although in a smaller font, still in English. Now this amuses me (get out more?). At which point does each pizza place change? Hence the excitement of each new leaflet( get out more..yes). The sustaining of the Italian might be an indicator of the ethnicity of the cooking, but who is kidded by any such nonsense?
Today's leaflet was the winner. Chico's Pizza. Yes, there is the Margherita(cheese and tomato), but the rest is in bold black block letters HAM followed by the smaller lower case explanation .....yes slices of ham. MUSHROOM? yes, mushroom. So no doubts there then. So no attempt to be ethnic - straight into the full English. Whatever level of Italian is used, because we have adopted the pizza wholeheartedly in to our fast food fare, the toppings soon become un-Italian with meatfeast, chicken tikka, BBQ chicken and Chicago Bear featuring.
Soon it will be all ours. No hint at the Italian, except of course for the word pizza. Another delightful integration of something foreign into our mongrel flavours. I love too the perfect accompaniment for any of the pizzas to make a meal complete. What could be better to go with a large disk of baked dough with the topping of your choice? Well, another one, but with garlic upon it.
"What would you like with your sandwich?"
"A slice of bread butter would make the meal ideal!"
What fascinates me is their helpful nature in explaining the various ways they can top a dough base. Now pizza is an Italian word and pizzas are notably Italian. I learned the other day why the Italian language dominates the coffee world with words like cappuccino, espresso and mocha. Its to do with empire. Italy had a little slice of Africa, mixing it with the big boys in the empire business like Germany, Belgium, France and, of course, the UK. Italy just happened upon the coffee rich bits and indeed mocha comes from Mocha, the Red Sea port out of which the coffee flowed to Italy. Arabica, coffee shrub of Arabia is indigenous to Ethiopia. So no difficulty absorbing the Italian flair for coffee. But not pizza. As solidly Italian as the Trevi Fountain.
So it is natural to have real Italian to explain their toppings just as would happen in the country of origin. And this is were I return to the pizza leaflets. I just like seeing how far they go with the language, before they revert to English. When they do use Italian, they invariably add a translation, though I don't know why. If you are fan of pizza, you know what's what, but helpful the translations may well be. I wonder if is done to put across the feel that you are about to enjoy a continental delicacy, the Italian language serving up images of romantic Rome or sunny Naples even if your pizza comes from a converted newsagents in Barnsley or Huddersfield.
Marguerita is the one many kick off with. Written large, it is followed by a smaller print explanation in English of what constitutes the topping. So far so good. Next are funghi (mushroom), pollo (chicken) and proscuitto (ham). But what happens next is some drift back to English , but they still add the translation. So when ham and mushroom are the topping, it is written large in English, with it repeated, although in a smaller font, still in English. Now this amuses me (get out more?). At which point does each pizza place change? Hence the excitement of each new leaflet( get out more..yes). The sustaining of the Italian might be an indicator of the ethnicity of the cooking, but who is kidded by any such nonsense?
Today's leaflet was the winner. Chico's Pizza. Yes, there is the Margherita(cheese and tomato), but the rest is in bold black block letters HAM followed by the smaller lower case explanation .....yes slices of ham. MUSHROOM? yes, mushroom. So no doubts there then. So no attempt to be ethnic - straight into the full English. Whatever level of Italian is used, because we have adopted the pizza wholeheartedly in to our fast food fare, the toppings soon become un-Italian with meatfeast, chicken tikka, BBQ chicken and Chicago Bear featuring.
Soon it will be all ours. No hint at the Italian, except of course for the word pizza. Another delightful integration of something foreign into our mongrel flavours. I love too the perfect accompaniment for any of the pizzas to make a meal complete. What could be better to go with a large disk of baked dough with the topping of your choice? Well, another one, but with garlic upon it.
"What would you like with your sandwich?"
"A slice of bread butter would make the meal ideal!"
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Bookish thoughts
I like books. Especially new books. The feel, weight and smell of the things all contribute to the general feeling of desire to own. My favourite shop in the local shopping mall is Waterstones. It's where I'll agree to be met above all other places - albeit there is little choice, it being a shopping mall! My problem comes down to reading the things. I am not a good reader. Sitting down with a good book sounds wonderful. A comfortable chair with an ambient light, whether natural or artificial, and sitting lost in a text appears as a cosy fantasy, but one in which I feel I do not or cannot indulge myself.
"Free therapy"* I heard someone say recently and writing this is a kind of therapy for me. I want to be able to indulge the dream of enjoying a good book. What constitutes a good book is academic and wholly subjective and not my concern. I can find plenty of books. I know what I like to read. I have indeed read many enjoyable and consuming books. More than often, however, I cannot draw myself into the process for any reasonably sustained time. I have plenty of acquaintances, who I can call on as practisers of the art, most of them very close to me, who have no problem in losing themselves in the printed word, but I must find out what blocks me.
"Tell me about your childhood" quotes a line from a Bonzo Dog Band song, so I will. To say books were a rarity in my family is like saying there is bacon in a fridge of a Jewish household. I did have books. Guided by a sense of supporting me in my future education and possibly more by the sweet tongued encyclopedia salesman, my parents bought me large bound set of encyclopedias, well seven plus an index volume, which were my only and earliest memory of books that were specifically mine or antibody's for that matter. What is strange is that these tomes, which contained all the world's knowledge of the world and it place in the universe which the editors deemed necessary for children, were bought for little four year old me.
I could read though. Newspapers and comics were available and I do remember being fascinated by newspaper coverage of events of the world as it was revealed as far back as in 1952. Well, the pictures anyway and in January 1954, I spent many an hour at my grand mothers house poring over two quite enormous books about The Great War which were full of sepia photographs of uniformed men and shattered cities, while my mothered entered hospital to await my brothers birth.
I was fortunate to be the beneficiary at about 4 or 5 years old of two retired spinster ladies who lived near my grandmother's house. They bought me books. Well, they were teachers. The two titles I recall where 'Black Beauty' and 'Treasure Island'. I can remember trying to read both, making some progress and then giving up. Oh, these were the real item though, not the Ladybird abridged versions. Perhaps the books were not considered important or treasured by me, thought to be something to look at but not to be absorbed in.
I can honestly say that by the age of twelve, I had read, cover to cover, just two books. A Secret Seven book and a slim volume called The Shetland Bus. Two books! Plus all the captions to all the photographs in my seven volumes of knowledge.
But it was the text that got in the way. Apart from the captions to the many pictures in the War books and my encyclopedias, the text remained mostly uninterpreted. I only read the rhyming couplets that accompanied each illustration in the Rupert books and left the narrative text for others. (What on earth was it for anyway?). Simple comics were no more than illustrations with speech bubbles. I shuddered when faced with comics like the Hotspur. More text than I could want. And I guess that then is the problem. Textual impatience. I want the text to reveal more quickly, so I find myself reading intently and then skimming and then skipping through texts and emerging after a page or two dissatisfied and uninformed. And then I plough through it again. Or don't.
This is not the case with all the books I have picked up. I have been glued and read tenaciously many a book, both fiction and non fiction, but what causes the distraction and lack of adherence to the text is a factor of the time and place. I have realised that there must be nothing to tempt me away or divert me from the process. I must equate reading as much as a diversionary activity, as I find most other things when I am trying to read.
To be fair, those I know and have known to be the readers that can only be described as avid, seem to consider reading to be an activity against which nothing will act as a diversion. They can neglect, deny, postpone and even cancel many other things in their lives for the sake of the book. I am 100% inclined then other way. There, then, is my problem in a nutshell. And to solve it? I must prioritise and give a better rating to reading then staring out of the window, thinking about nothing in particular, leaving the kitchen untidy longer, watching TV, and attempting a crossword. Oh, and just begin enjoying the book beyond the superficial and acquisitive values that attach to books at the moment. After all, I can appreciate the way words can go together.
I have today bought three new books. A biography of Thomas Cromwell is the weightiest. I could have read fifty pages by now if I hadn't decided to do this. The therapy will begin soon, but I now have my mind on the book and on making the evening meal. Normally, the making of the meal will win, but I am going to read the first chapter and make the meal afterwards.
The therapy is working.
*Free therapy? The reply to this was "I thought it was half past four"
"Free therapy"* I heard someone say recently and writing this is a kind of therapy for me. I want to be able to indulge the dream of enjoying a good book. What constitutes a good book is academic and wholly subjective and not my concern. I can find plenty of books. I know what I like to read. I have indeed read many enjoyable and consuming books. More than often, however, I cannot draw myself into the process for any reasonably sustained time. I have plenty of acquaintances, who I can call on as practisers of the art, most of them very close to me, who have no problem in losing themselves in the printed word, but I must find out what blocks me.
"Tell me about your childhood" quotes a line from a Bonzo Dog Band song, so I will. To say books were a rarity in my family is like saying there is bacon in a fridge of a Jewish household. I did have books. Guided by a sense of supporting me in my future education and possibly more by the sweet tongued encyclopedia salesman, my parents bought me large bound set of encyclopedias, well seven plus an index volume, which were my only and earliest memory of books that were specifically mine or antibody's for that matter. What is strange is that these tomes, which contained all the world's knowledge of the world and it place in the universe which the editors deemed necessary for children, were bought for little four year old me.
I could read though. Newspapers and comics were available and I do remember being fascinated by newspaper coverage of events of the world as it was revealed as far back as in 1952. Well, the pictures anyway and in January 1954, I spent many an hour at my grand mothers house poring over two quite enormous books about The Great War which were full of sepia photographs of uniformed men and shattered cities, while my mothered entered hospital to await my brothers birth.
I was fortunate to be the beneficiary at about 4 or 5 years old of two retired spinster ladies who lived near my grandmother's house. They bought me books. Well, they were teachers. The two titles I recall where 'Black Beauty' and 'Treasure Island'. I can remember trying to read both, making some progress and then giving up. Oh, these were the real item though, not the Ladybird abridged versions. Perhaps the books were not considered important or treasured by me, thought to be something to look at but not to be absorbed in.
I can honestly say that by the age of twelve, I had read, cover to cover, just two books. A Secret Seven book and a slim volume called The Shetland Bus. Two books! Plus all the captions to all the photographs in my seven volumes of knowledge.
But it was the text that got in the way. Apart from the captions to the many pictures in the War books and my encyclopedias, the text remained mostly uninterpreted. I only read the rhyming couplets that accompanied each illustration in the Rupert books and left the narrative text for others. (What on earth was it for anyway?). Simple comics were no more than illustrations with speech bubbles. I shuddered when faced with comics like the Hotspur. More text than I could want. And I guess that then is the problem. Textual impatience. I want the text to reveal more quickly, so I find myself reading intently and then skimming and then skipping through texts and emerging after a page or two dissatisfied and uninformed. And then I plough through it again. Or don't.
This is not the case with all the books I have picked up. I have been glued and read tenaciously many a book, both fiction and non fiction, but what causes the distraction and lack of adherence to the text is a factor of the time and place. I have realised that there must be nothing to tempt me away or divert me from the process. I must equate reading as much as a diversionary activity, as I find most other things when I am trying to read.
To be fair, those I know and have known to be the readers that can only be described as avid, seem to consider reading to be an activity against which nothing will act as a diversion. They can neglect, deny, postpone and even cancel many other things in their lives for the sake of the book. I am 100% inclined then other way. There, then, is my problem in a nutshell. And to solve it? I must prioritise and give a better rating to reading then staring out of the window, thinking about nothing in particular, leaving the kitchen untidy longer, watching TV, and attempting a crossword. Oh, and just begin enjoying the book beyond the superficial and acquisitive values that attach to books at the moment. After all, I can appreciate the way words can go together.
I have today bought three new books. A biography of Thomas Cromwell is the weightiest. I could have read fifty pages by now if I hadn't decided to do this. The therapy will begin soon, but I now have my mind on the book and on making the evening meal. Normally, the making of the meal will win, but I am going to read the first chapter and make the meal afterwards.
The therapy is working.
*Free therapy? The reply to this was "I thought it was half past four"
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