ungrumpy

Mind twirling

2010-08-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Perpetual motion has intrigued the minds of many over many years. Something for nothing is what it amounts to thermodynamically. I mention it only as background to two observations from science and apparent real world behaviour.

Cats, they say, always land feet down whenever they fall from a height. I do remember seeing slow motion film of this truism, in which a cat twisted and flicked its body into the position for landing. Some of may know where this is going. The other apparent truism is that a slice of toast, especially, one with jam or marmalade, will always land, when dropped, preservative side down.

Now, what holds my amusement and sets my mind a twirl is what someone said would happen if a slice of such toast was strapped to the back of the cat, jam side up, and the combination dropped from a height. There would simply be no landing. There would be a continuous gravitational struggle between the two items. It would be perpetual motion. I just like to consider this image, which I cannot do without smile.

A recent observation when driving home from Edinburgh has caused a similar mind twirl. A now regular feature of motorways has been the construction of huge electronic notice boards, each known as a matrix. Their laudable purpose is to warn motorists of problems ahead: delays, diversions, lane closures and accidents. Often the information is a little tardy in being up to date, but when the roads are clear and not busy there is a desire to keep the motorists informed and advised.

Thus these expensive road safety feature turns into an electronic nanny, giving vital advice that you had never, ever considered. Most are too tedious to consider; you may have your own favourites for stating the obvious, which is what they tend to do too often.

The phrase that one of these huge, electronic Chinese cookies broadcast which amused me was 'AVOID DISTRACTIONS'. Apart from the obvious - gosh, avoid distractions, how have I got through 40 years of driving without that nugget.

This message to me was the verbal equivalent of the cat with breakfast strapped to its back. The advice is sound, no argument. My mind kept saying that a distraction only becomes such when it succeeds in fulfilling its definition, that is, it distracts you. If it doesn't do this, then it is not a distraction. Thus the notice was futile, concise - yes, but of no use whatsoever.

I will contend that most of these dead time messages are groanworthy, nannyish and a complete waste of resources. The advice 'Avoid Distractions' was, for me a mental distraction, a source of amusement which filled my mind for the next few miles.

If that is their game, why don't they replace their platitudes with a quiz or puzzle for which you could collect clues for from later matrices as you drive down the quieter zones of the motorway.

Or, when motorways are quiet, turn the things off.

A load of bull

2010-08-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

Red Bull have made a breakthrough.

I refer not to their sponsorship in motor car racing, nor to their commitment to air races, but to their everyday customers. Red Bull energy drinks are a product that I have used, and continue to use, despite its awful colour and even worse taste, to maintain an artificial alertness when driving.

An espresso coffee, with its concentrated caffeine shot, works as well, but it is not easy to carry an espresso coffee in your car until the point you need it. This is where I find a can of Red Bull scores. It has sheer portability, even within the confines of a car.

The almost daily queuing at a supermarket checkout brings the eye into contact with all sorts of peripheral products that are their for the grabbing hands of children, bored adults and chocolate and chewing gum addicts. Among this display of goodies I have noticed Red Bull Shots, presumably what is in the cans, but in a concentrated shot. It would seem their next step would be have hypo Red Bull, conveniently ready to inject; a kind of hypo for hyper - their slogan is already written. But that is not for now.

What amuses me is the display literature. It is always very useful to have advice and suggestions on the use of various items. I am very familiar with the phrase 'serving suggestion' which is often found on various food products. They are extremely helpful. I had never before imagined serving, say, fish with peas and perhaps a few chips and, shock of shocks, on a plate. These serving suggestions have saved me from having to put food directly on the table, or arranging the food along side accompanying items, rather than in just one big heap. Yes, they can be most useful. So I found this example of Red Bull's product support a peculiar thing.

The immediate advantage to me about their shots is their small size. But where do you keep them? They are quite tiny when next to the cans. But what to do with them? Where can you put them? Red Bull have all the answers. If you need answers. But being a sort of chemical soup - check their website for the pseudo medical enhancement of their stuff - Red Bull offer not suggestions for storage but advice as if they have some scientific background. It is not an expensive sugary pink drink with a legal stimulant, but a quasi medical aid to stress and fatiguing experiences. Advice is quite different to a suggestion, I feel. With a suggestion, you might have some idea your self about what to do with something. With advice, it would seem to me that you are scratching you head, having no idea about what to do and you turn to another authority for help.

And thus we come to Red Bull's advice about where they are to be kept. Step back and read in amazement. Discount your own suggestions and past experience and read carefully the following. Here is Red Bull's advice for keeping their Red Bull Shot:

In your sports bag
In your drawer at work
In your glove box
and, are you ready for the next nugget of advice. OK, to many women this might not be as obvious as it may be to many men,
In your pocket.

Remember, this is advice thought up to help you if you really cannot think what to do with the handy sized Red Bull shot. It was probably brainstormed at a planning meeting.

Well, that's it. No more under your hat, down your sock or tied to string around your neck. Life is now perfect.

2010-07-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

I am a bit concerned about the French government who have passed some decision to ban the naqib.

People who cover their faces are significantly, in western culture, a suspicious lot. Cowboys intent on crime, highwaymen, recent IRA terrorists in public, stocking faced criminals all have an identity to hide as they carry out their often evil ways. Perhaps that explains the insecurity of the French which has made them go down that rue.

Clearly, Muslim women are the new baddies. They must have something to hide as Muslims are the perceived heart of all that is evil in the west. Who knows where the next one will be?

Dress codes are important to many sectors of western life. You must comply to belong, from school uniform to the law courts, from the civil service to McDonalds, there is an identifiable dress that holds them together and/or makes them identifiable as to their purpose, whether legal or illegal.

Our clothing badges us all. For corporate good or evil.

But the French have come down against a small minority of women, whose hidden face makes them, the French, uneasy. I can understand their feelings on the subject, but not against the same minority.

There are many people who dress in a certain way who make me uneasy, irrationally – yes, and I would like a ban on those public appearances of dress styles which I find ugly, unnecessary and inconsiderate; three things that I feel that the naqib is certainly not guilty.

Namely:

· Fat men over 40 who wear sleeveless vests, so that their flabby, unfirm, untanned flesh is exposed. They should only be allowed in shops in controlled hours. There presence puts me off shopping for anything edible, especially meat.

· Shaven headed men who are purely a remnant of an age when the shaven head was ‘fashionable’. Or who are facing baldness with artificial baldness on the scale of if you can’t beat it then join it. I know that some men hang on to the hair style of their youth. There are some 70 year old teddy boys out there, but old men with shaved heads look scary. My perception, I know, but enough for them to be banned. They are potentially violent – as in the Mitchell brothers.

· Anyone clearly unfit and overweight who wears sporty gear. I recognise that it is possible to turn out fully dressed for about £10, including shoes, but only in stuff from JJB sports. People should dress according to their true lifestyle. Fit clothes should only be sold to people who can run upstairs to the first floor of the shop. They create a false impression of the state of the nation and themselves. They are not to be trusted.

And those 'trousers' that end half way up the calf. Just bloody stupid in my view.

I know this small list hits the poor and tasteless section of the public and I hate myself for doing this. We perhaps all have lists of what people should and should wear. The French clearly do. Their view might be become ours. I hope not.

The road to liberty is not won with legislation. We have liberty, and the historians will say that it was hard won. I agree this sounds as so much of a platitude, but we are free to dress, as long as we dress, more or less how we like as a result. No Maoist general uniform here thank you, as long as you discount the Talibanesque 17th century of the Puritan Commonwealth. Something however dictates a dress code, however.You can see the effect of Hello magazine on the most ordinary masses of people. The baseball cap has become almost universal across all ages and sexes. I cannot fathom why. And I do really enjoy weraing hats as well. We are not a nation of pure individuals in dress at least.

But it is how that dictation occurs that is of concern. A legal enforcement is frightening if you are on the end of it. I would really hate to have to give up wearing a hat in public if wearing that hat was illegal.

So we should be aware though. If one large group can dictate the dress of another smaller group, or even everyone, then who is to know if your own minority yet happy way of life will not be threatened by another majority who want to determine your appearance? Treasure your flip flops.

However, the dress code police will never be created. Who will say if their uniforms are acceptable?

You wouldn't believe it

2010-05-10T08:07:00.001-07:00

An Icelandic volcano has recently created all sorts of problems for air travellers. A period of no flying caused people to be stranded in various parts of the world or delayed in this country.
Of course for those involved it has been a problem and a source of annoyance. But, it has to be said, it also gave some of those travelling to exercise some initiative to get to a destination by other means.

Of course, travel delays are a nuisance to all involved, both travellers and transporters. I am reading about the Grand Tour at the moment. A book, by Jeremy Black, who has researched diaries, journals and accounts of some of those taking part in what may be seen as the first British cases of tourism. This was towards the end of 17th and through the 18th century, a time, for some at least, of immense wealth. Immense wealth and quite lengthy periods of free time to indulge in opening up their worlds to the delights of Europe.

Generally, it tended to be the younger bloods, but whoever did it, I was amused to read that they too were subject to travel delays by natural forces too. Not volcanoes though. Simply the wind, or rather more simply the wind blowing too strongly or simply blowing in the wrong direction.

Consider one unfortunate case. In 1699, one adventurer was hoping to leave Harwich to sail to Holland. He was delayed for two weeks, due to wind blowing the wrong way. On a fourth attempt to sail, they made it, but, on three previous attempts, they had to turn back each time. In those three attempts they were at sea for a total of 72 hours. The first time for 12 hours, the second time for 36 hours and the third time 24 hours. On each occasion, they simply rode at anchor off the coast waiting for the wind to change. And he was of course sea sick - in more than one way. The journey from Dover to Calais should have taken about 6 hours in favourable conditions.

Others, who had sailed for Calais ended up in Dieppe. But worse was one who returning from Holland ended up on the coast of Norway. Amusing stuff from a distance of nearly three hundred years, but it had to be endured nonetheless.

It's like the pay off in the classic 4 Yorkshiremen sketch. "You try telling the young people of today and they won't believe you"

Hare today and here tomorrow...

2010-02-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

The brown hare is as tough as they come. Mad? Ascribedly and anthropomorphically, yes, but they are stunning creatures. Not for them, even in our harshest weather, a nest or burrow. Not for them the fattening up for the coming cold and not for them a winter sleep in the cushioning depths of a winter shelter. They simply look in the face of whatever nature brings and tough it out.

Two have spent the last 48 hours down in a form, as their settling places are called, surrounded by the latest couple of inches of snow. We see them regularly in this place and watch them, like fond parents watching their children outside, secretly and not wanting to disturb their world. Surrounded by snow they are effortless to notice, as they crouch or sit still in silence. Towards the end of the afternoon, as darkness takes the colour form the field, they often can be seen grooming themselves.

They must be real hardy types. I mean, its cold out there with temperatures dipping by more than just a few degrees overnight. No wonder the males go mad in Spring. When put to it, they can really motor. Low to the ground they take off in an instant and hit top sprinting speed in two strides. A magnificent sight. Still or streaking, I really admire these creature and have done so for a long time.

Classed as game, they can be hunted. But unlike other game, they have no part of the year with protection and thus are not only fair game but all year round game. Tough and built to withstand all nature can heave their way, their make up did not take account of that most dangerous of mammals, man.

Numbers have dropped dramatically, not directly or massively by any climate irregularities, but by the vagaries in the farming landscape. Like many bird species, hares are susceptible to changes in farming methods and farming madness. Intense cropping and use of chemicals are cited whenever a specie's population declines. This decline is a trend that is reversing due to pressure from conservation groups and farmers being encouraged to be more caring. And rightly so.

This is a noble creature.

Their behaviour is symbolic of stoicism, stubbornness, and calmness in the face of adversity, some of the celebrated characteristics of the English race and thus, the hare should be our symbol.

You have to laugh...

2010-01-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

When I was a child, we had winter. Snow fell. It was occasionally deep. As a child, it as fun. As a grown up, I imagine it was like today. Getting about would be difficult and potentially dangerous, only with very fewer cars.

Occasionally, it interfered with sporting events and pools panelist experts had to predict results of matches postponed. I had to scrape off the ice, like many, from the inside of my bedroom window to see out in a morning and, unless someone ie an adult, had got up and lit a fire, you stayed cold.

What thankfully we did not have was TV news. We lived knowing it was cold, knowing that milk may not be delivered - if the delivery failed, you had to walk to the dairy!-and knowing that it was fun for children and hard work for the grown ups. But today? TV journalists leap around like children who have never seen snow and continually tell you how cold it is. They turn up in areas where you wouldn't dream of being - even in benign weather!

We all have TV tales of winter, of snow, of problems doing what we do daily. And we all get on with. Sadly, there are tragedies, as there are all year round, but these TV people are the biggest joke.

It is as if only they are about, only they can experience the weather in all its glory and horror. I find it hootingly amusing to be told that it is absolutely freezing by some TV journalist who appears as high as the temperature is low. They move about the district, like some broadcasting chess game, and, at the same time, warn you how dangerous it may be to travel.
And they are so extra caring that they tell you to take care and, unbelievably, tell you to wrap up well.

After a time, fresh snow loses its initial beauty and turns to mush, trodden down and dirtied by people just getting on with it. Similarly, the TV news follows a similar path. The TV news has now become slushy, and become a tedious and an unnecessary lingering hindrance to normal life.

The only way to deal with this bleak winter spell in broadcasting is to turn it off. But I find its tedious nature and predictability fascinating. I want to devise a TV winter Bingo game, where players score for words broadcast.

But I won't. Spring will be here soon

Who will buy?

2010-01-01T10:52:00.000-08:00

Let's face facts. We have three sofas. They're all leather covered and all are comfortable. In fact the one we've had for ten years is just coming into maturity as a piece of furniture. It is generous,warm to sit on and will last, accidents apart, for a life time. In addition, its design is quite classical and thus timeless, being of the design that came out of the 1920s/1930s - the kind of sofa I imagine being on the Queen Mary, or in smart hotels of that time. And the colour.... Its toffee coloured with simple cream piping.

As furniture goes, a good three piece should last a while and that is my belief that I may not need to buy another - ever. It may be passed down to another generation, which used to happen I think.
So I am amused by all the current advertising on television and indeed in the magazines for sofas and for sofas at remarkably inexpensive and easily managed prices.

They are clearly targetting youngish people, people who might find it a bit of an effort to stump up the cash for such items, or those who, as fickle fashion followers, may wish to re-define their lifestyle quite frequently with a new look in furniture. Whatever the route, the furniture ads are in your face when you tune in to TV.

Once upon a seasonal TV sales pitch, it was holidays. Companies strove for your two week attention at resorts around the UK and later abroad, especially the holiday camps. The very organ of information of TV stuff, the Radio Times was thickened by the extra pages carrying the benefits of a week in Clacton or Dunoon. These pages were stapled annoyingly between Christmas day's and Boxing day's schedules. Ripping them out resulted in the total disintegration of the magazine.

Later came the part works magazines which gave subscribers the opportunity to buy, over 48 months, bits and bobs needed to build the Santa Maria or a James Bond car. Each magazine came with the next part and in two years, after a layout of about £400 you had a model to be proud of. Or could be, if they all turned up.

But now the big push is sofas. So having three already, they are neither tempting or exciting. I'll simply stretch out and enjoy the ones I have already.

The rolling of the year

2009-12-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

I rather like the winter solstice. Although I will not admit to suffering from a Seasonally Affected Disorder, my mood does seem to lift as the 21st December is approached and I find the day needs to be spent in a celebratory mood. It is our wedding anniversary, so the celebration is naturally forthcoming and doubly great. But that aside, it still feels a great day.

The summer solstice passes me by, but the knowledge, in winter, when the day passes on which the sun is the lowest in the sky and on which it is the furthest away from west when it will set and that, from the solstice, we are gaining more sight of the sun (clouds permitting) is fine for me.

Of course, the Church knew what they were doing to tag their Christmas to a time already popular with pagan celebration. Just as the Romans were happy to embrace the culture they invaded, the whole winter festival stuff is a huge public relations exercise and, over the years, the various factions have felt at the heart or squeezed out of centre stage.

I was amused to watch, on early morning TV, a friendly, Dara O'Brien look-a-like bishop brought in to give balance after a Richard Dawkins based celebration to which God and Jesus were not invited. This celebration of Christmas was claimed to be for those of agnostic belief.
At one point, the interviewer asked that the celebration had hi -jacked Christmas. The bishop emphasised that the celebratory clue was in the word Christmas, forgetting completely the church's hi-jacking of those wonderful, Bacchanalian festivals of fire, light with folk being delighted (alcohol may have been involved) at the fact we could start another year.

And so, the year turns. There is a song from a musical written by John Kelly and comes along in making Scrooge realise the error of his grasping days. It is called The Rolling of the Year. I rather like its sentiment.

I thought I'd wait until Christmas...

2009-11-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

'Yep, it's that time of year again – and the Christmas adverts are already on the telly," remarks a man at the start of this year's B&Q Christmas advert.

I am grateful to Charlie Brooker, of the Guardian, for sampling the above from the incoming tide of TV adverts that are now assuaging the watchers of all those prime time, audience voting, tabloid headlining programmes that fill the schedules. They are all there in their places, piling up like presents under a tree. I blinked and then "Celebrity.." sneaks in. At least, this programme has the minimal dignity to call itself by its truncated and gossipy title. I cannot see the BBC billing "Strictly" to follow suit. But I am now Brookering. Charlie Brooker does all the ranting I could want to and would do. That is not the purpose of why I write these etherteric words.

I am to have a traditional Christmas. I have decided. I shall not be swayed from the path that I have followed for a few years now. And, I believe, will millions of others. I used to have the Asda Christmas. Cheap and cheerful with a good basic covering of all the necessaries and a few treats as well. I cannot imagine a Tesco Christmas. All a little in deference to the great traditions set by the masters of the festive time. Can one compare with M&S? "Deck the hall with Marks and Spencer.." as the traditional rhyme goes. A Sainsbury Christmas is good, especially as it made a contribution to the flora of the season and another verse to the "Holly and the Ivy".... "The Cranberry bears a berry, to brighten any pie..."

As friend said, Christmas does not begin until the Coca Cola TV advert is shown. And I look forward to toasting the Queen with a cold glass of sugary fizz. Part of the tradition, I'm afraid.

I do try to avoid all manner of mass advertising, mass journalism and mass marketing. I like to think I buy what I like and when. I realise to avoid the marketing dreams of companies is not really achievable. Once you part with money, you are in the consumer game and I do part with money occasionally.

I like to think that millions have a similar idea. That millions do what they have always done and not drift from what they feel is right for them is what I hope. If they buy their turkey from Tesco, their stuffing from Sainsbury, their mince pies from Morrisons and all the rest from Aldi, then good for them. Go with the flow of your choice. And let's laugh at the hopefully, failing competition of the big Christmas dream makers.

Have a good Christmas and laugh at their expense.

Spaghetti, are you sure?

2009-09-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

The other day, my father, who is almost 86 years of age, asked me an out of the blue question. His mind is still alert and can express opinions, remember if he's seen an episode of Poirot - his favourite TV detective , and laugh at a joke, so the question had to be taken seriously. It was not the rambling of a failing brain.

The question was not easy to answer. In fact, I couldn't answer it clearly or precisely. It wasn't whether God exists, or is there an afterlife but simply what does spaghetti taste like. He'd seen it being eaten by people on TV and was quite curious about the stuff. He had gathered it was soft, as he reassured me that spaghetti was the stuff seen hanging from a fork prior to being twirled around and placed in to the mouth.

He'd not even had the tinned variety and this was not the spaghetti he was referring to. It was the real thing which had been boiled until edible. I explained some of the ways it was eaten - mixed with other ingredients or a meat or cheese sauce. I described my favourite and, perhaps, the simplest method of preparing it- ie spaghetti with garlic and olive oil. Boil the spaghetti until soft. Take good olive oil, heat gently and add four or five crushed cloves of garlic. Fry gently and do not burn the garlic, and then mix with the drained, softened spaghetti. Place on a warmed bowl and add shavings of good parmesan and there you have it. Its just good, tasty, fast food. I think he would like to try spaghetti.

What amuses me about the enquiry is that my dad ate a most limited diet built around fried eggs and bacon, pork pies and tomatoes. He ate fish, fried of course. and loved a traditional Sunday roast. Except traditional meant that the vegetables, which at one time he grew himself, had to be boiled to a virtual puree, and to whatever he was eating was added salt and ground white pepper and, to add a dash of flavour to carrots, some Worcester sauce.

His unique contribution to the world's dishes was sticks of celery eaten with Hula Hoops placed along the length of the stalk. He couldn't get over the texture and the right saltiness this creation gave him.

His single culinary art developed a delightful way of frying an egg, which involved my dad stooping at the hob with the frying pan handle lodged around his belt buckle and him bending at the knee so that the lard, never, ever oil, would form a deep pool at the edge of the pan. Into this, he would break an egg, knowing instinctively the right level of sizzle as the egg sunk into the deep fat. This gymnastic approach ensured that the egg white remained compact and did not spread into a layer across the pan and also there was sufficient oil to baste the yolk, the final flourish, before lifting it out and onto a plate. He never cooked more than one egg at a time, so breakfast took time to cook, after he had ascertained how many eggs each person needed.

And now spaghetti. What shall I do? Well, the answer is easy. I must make some for him. I wonder if fried egg and bacon spaghetti can be done. Carbonara without the cream. I'll have a go. All I need is a hot food carrier..........

Fringe shows 2009

2009-09-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

A quick run through the shows of 2009 which we saw. The only order they appear in are the order in which we saw them. A great full paced opener and a dramatic clever ender with some delightful whimsical performances in between.

Morecambe.

A strong, one man show which told the life of Eric Morecambe up to and including his death. A show that was joyous and which captured the life of a man who took seriously the art of making people around him laugh. Its always good to start the Fringe visit with a lift and this was it.

Hugh Hughes.....360

I am a fan of Shon Dale-Jones who as Hugh Hughes uses whimsy and and charm to tell tales of imagination and of an apparent biographical nature. His story telling is very endearing and in this, his latest, has moved almost towards a stand up routine.

Mickey Flanagan

The east end boy moves to middle class lifestyle, but you can take the boy out of the East End but.... I like his quiet honesty and his warm tone. His routine about dealing with neighbours - meeting them, avoiding them and peeping at them was delightful.

Stefan Golaszeski is s widower

A strong one man play set in the future about a man looking back on his life and death of his wife. It sounds grim, but as the teller of the tail, he was not a truly likable man, so his pain felt almost like a comep-uppance to him. The play was sprinkled with clever references to how life changes and yet remains the same. Men still followed football, but its Yeovil Town who in 50 years time are the new Manchester United.

Marcus Brigstocke - God Collar

I like this man and after his show, I still do. He hits his targets hard and is not afraid to cause a gasp in and a bit of shock to his audience. Religion is a ripe area and no one area was safe, not even the atheists, so he was fair.

The Origin of Species...

The longest title in the programme. This is not the best rule of thumb by which to plan a programme, but this was delightful. Clever comedy songs and a great one man performance as Darwin and his family, friends and sponsors were brought to life in the shape of he performer.

The Doubtful Guest

Based on a story by Edward Gorey, this was absolute magic and has lived with me for over week now. Shon Dale-Jones wrote and directed it. It had the man's touch alright.
The actors played a family whose lives had been overturned by a strange poltergeist like visitor. The family had decided to present their experiences in a theatre and so they did as best the family could - awkwardly, embarrassingly and using theatrical devices that they thought were appropriate. And that what was so funny. Oh and the music was hauntingly fitting.

Sarah Millican

Bright and sharp, Sarah swings from a weak vulnerable woman to a side that shocks and pulls no punches. She builds her act cleverly, targetting men and women equally. Extremely funny to extremely painful, there were moments where I felt uncomfortable - but that is when Ms Millican might have said in her beautiful Geordie lilt, "Well, you deal with it, I have no problem."

Barbarshoper II

Fast paced musical fun that told the story of a Spanish bullfighter who inherits a barbers in an East Anglian coastal town but not without the attention of the resident hairdresser whose trichological empire building are now thwarted. Sheer energy and great amusement and all in four part harmony.

Sociable Plover

Yes, it is a bird and this attention holding short drama was a great finale before the train home.
A plot that settled in to one groove before the play's built-up stereotypes were dramatically overturned in a most surprising manner.

Those were the shows and there will be more, I hope, next year.

Edinburgh once more

2009-09-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

Just returned from our fourth jaunt to the Fringe festival in Edinburgh. This time not a full week. We spent a few days from Thursday until Sunday.

The Fringe is a learning curve unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Our first jaunt merely taught us the geography of the venues, many of which are close to each other as in the Pleasance's dozens of performance areas and the Assembly but, which, to the untrained, can be quite spread out.

The word performance area is chosen carefully, because as some can be called theatres, with stage, raked seating and with room for hundreds, many are quite tiny, little larger than a Maersk container which are seen on the trailers of lorries up nd down the motorways.

Having mastered the geography allows us some planning which minimises the distance each day to get around. There is no requirement to see lots of shows, but it seems right to pack some in in the time you are there. This year we pre-booked nine shows which included some stand up, some drama and a small amount of music. Whilst there, we added two more, one on the recommendation of a friend who was with us and without whom the whole Fringe experience might never have entered our lives and without whose planning would add stress of finding accommodation and of getting there.

We still make mistakes. With just over 2000 shows being presented at 369 venues, picking winners is a difficult task. We went on Thursday and came back on Sunday and had booked to see just ten shows, which, as can be seen, is a small ripple in a big pond.

But of the shows, we were disappointed really only once. And its a mistake we have made before.
Comedians, who seem quick and entertaining when on television, all too often descend, and, in my, it's a descent, into crude and frankly tedious areas. I avoid people when they sound off on basic comments and easy targets and subjects, usually in pubs. And thus it was with one act we saw.

The rest however were, in the main, theatrical experiences. A good narrative, a piece of whimsy or musical nonsense. Shows which would not be found anywhere else but at the Fringe.

So, all in all, a good few days, supported by eating at some splendid and affordable places, notably the Steak and Mussel bar in the Grassmarket.

Have I learnt anything for next time? Yes. Having mastered the geography, I need to plan the timings better. Group shows for each day closer together in time - an afternoon one day and evening together - and look for the producers who pleased us before.

I am rubbing my hands already.

A mild electronic shock

2009-06-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

Don't you just love the electronic world we live in? I do not want to get in too deeply. It can get very complicated, very quickly. I do want and wish to embrace as much as my ageing and limited intelligence will allow, dependent upon cost and personal need, naturally

Strong parameters I know, but nonetheless the scope of satellite navigation, PCs for music and photography, mobile phones and digital scanners and cameras leave me breathless at their ease and flexibility.

I give a simple and recent example of their wonder. A group of us were taking a walk in the countryside around Oundle in Northamptonshire - a county perhaps overlooked and described by a woman in the Tourist Information as the Cotswolds without being twee. We were mapless and the sky was cloudless, but after about thirty to forty minutes, we collectively decided that there should be a turning soon as we had been trekking for sometime away from the car park without any evidence about how to get back without tediously retracing our steps.

Had this been autumn the hedges would be thick with blackberries, but the one we were pleased to see on this beautiful summer evening was an electronic Blackberry. A GPS app soon located the device and us on an aerial photograph using the Google Earth app - apparently the word application is too tedious for use now. It showed us next to field boundary and there it was! We were able to plot the continuation of the walk to a successful outcome. Trish did wonder what would happen if we waved. Would the Blackberry would be able to see us do so. That would be something. One day in a shop soon no doubt.

But where technology leads, there are some with a heavier tread. Maplins (hi -de-hi), who bill themselves as 'the electronic specialist' recently charged me twice for the same item . A modest sum was involved, twice, and one of them was mine! (Ho-de-ho.)

A phone call to settle the matter was all I needed. They error was due to a till malfunction or 'crash' which happened when I was buying the item, but 'the electronic specialists' were unable to give me refund in the store. I found this mildly ironic.

The phone call was even more so. I would need to submit a bank statement showing that I was charged twice. I had such a copy from the internet banking service I use. Paperless statements are a little that I contribute to the greening of the earth. Not good enough for Maplins. They need one issued by the bank. So the electronic specialists cannot accept a document I have downloaded from my bank having entered a secure site with three coded passwords. They see it better to have me walk to the bank, queue, ask for a statement and then post it to them marked FAO Sarah. What age are they living in?

I am aghast.

Cast a clout, now

2009-05-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

My goodness, the month of May be soon out and thus I may find my clouts to cast them.

As I sit, as wood smoke shifts by me, I must write a few words before the month be out. Summer seems to be here and the evenings once again treat us to what life can be like. People once again smile at each other.

Very simply, life is halcyon. Bird song, fountaining water in the pond, Trish hosing the borders and the cat staring at anything. As a squirrel scuttered across the lower roof of the garden room, a hedgehog struggled across the paving below. The cat was somewhat interested, but he finds such days something of a time when you don't really be need to be bothered.

I like it. But there is an edge which ekes in around the time the sun sinks. Another layer is called for to cover the cool calling from the west. The light dims and the sky azures and purples. I am pleased and it all costs nothing.

It is now 10pm.

These are the days.

A talent to amuse

2009-04-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

Now Britain has officially got talent. Or so we are led to believe due to the success of an engaging television programme which is well into its third series.

Once upon a time, variety was the thing. Up and down the country, theatres in virtually every town and city boasted a variety theatre where, weekly shows, outside of the summer and winter when summer seaside seasons and Christmas pantomimes took away the bigger names, gave opportunity for all that was variety and entertainment. Jugglers, magicians, dancers, comics singers, dog acts and animal impersonators filled bills up and down the country.

Artists hoped that there was some form of progression up the bill and up the range of theatres in which they could work. Like professional football today, the Premiership is the height to aspire to but there were dozens, if not hundreds of acts kicking around the provinces hoping to be spotted.

It is said that the whole thing died away because of television. People were not bothered to go out when the big names could be seen on TV. Acts on TV were seen by millions in one go, instead of a few hundred nightly. Some acts suffered because television demanded acts to come up with new material whereas touring the theatres allowed an act to keep the same format for year on year.

Now variety is back though the irony is that it happens on television. The breaks are there and the rewards are those elusive and ethereal rewards - fame and success.

I love the programme - well aspects of it. Its not as formulaic as some of the dancing competition shows for a start. There are the tedious shots of ecstatically waving hopefuls as well as those closer shots of acts going through their paces surrounded by what seems like hundreds doing exactly the same. I love the people whose talents are completely in inverse proportion to the belief in their ability. I wish had an iota of their certainty in being the next best thing. The bigger the belief and the smaller the talent makes me smile. But I also love the ones whose talent is beyond their appearance and audience expectation and who effortlessly and modestly do the stuff and knock you out.

There are short shots of those acts who we never see, but who are successfully and, naturally, jubilantly boisterous as a result. We see glimpses of other acts on stage. But there is something manipulative going on which tells you that we are being controlled in what we are allowed to see. How does such basic crap get to the front for us to enjoy the disappointment and gasp at their temerity that they thought the Queen would really think they were entertainment?

And I guess that is the shows success. OK, it throws up much the same kind of talents for the phone in vote - and ugly adult who can belt out a song with the best of them, a group of dancers who have worked, untrained and untutored, for years on the streets, a waif of a child with cute gaps in their dentition who can sing with power and accuracy, groups of made up and costumed groups from dance schools, and a few odd old style variety acts such as a juggler who defies gravity or an acrobat with sublime skill making it look easy.

But that's what I like. Anyone who makes it look easy, natural and as natural to us as we find simply walking or breathing, are the ones with real talent. And I like, too, the cash register smile of Simon Cowell. You don't need dials or score sheets with this programme. Simply watch his eyes and his smile. You know when he sees true talent. It's there in the wink.

The play was the thing.

2009-04-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

I have been to several theatres but walking into and down the Quarry Theatre of the West Yorkshire Playhouse is a really sublime experience tinged with anticipation and excitement.

Laid out below is the set. This time, as the play was When We Are Married, you looked down upon a wealthy living room of someone who has made it. From the entrance, the scale was like gazing upon the set designers model, but once your seat was reached the true intimate scale was revealed.

Being a classic Northern comedy and just to set the tone, brass band music was played as house music, as I gazed over the photographs of imaginary lives, the carpets, potted plants and furniture that stated quality and status.

Then comes that magic moment of blackout accompanied by an equally sudden hushing of the chatting audience. You know that the beginners are assembled somewhere behind the set waiting for the music and lighting cue to bring the performance to life. It is an intense moment of anticipation.

And then you're away. Cleverly, this set had more dimension that expected and initially indicated. Behind a set wall of screens, which appear solid with light upon them and transparent with light behind them, the main characters were seen beyond the living room, across a corridor and in the illuminated dining room behind. All three couple enjoying themselves as they each celebrate jointly 25 years of marriage.

Of course, there is a story ahead. The sky, like the the light in the dining room, is darkening with distant pigeons are coming home to roost. As the light fades in the dining room, the light comes up in the living room. The play has begun, but all's well that ends well, but that's another play altogether.

A class act

2009-03-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

I happened to be in the same space as the Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire the other evening. I knew he was arriving and I knew he had arrived.

There were no fanfares, no red carpet, yet his bearing and clothes clearly defined his status. The dark blue double breasted blazer with light gray trouser, set off with white shirt and emblematic tie said the man was in casual dress. But he was elegant. He manifested status and, as he walked away in casual conversation with his hosts, his hands found their way behind him to clasp themselves suggestive of breeding and bearing.

Not bad for a man born and bred in Barnsley. And who still lives here. He is a simple Mr. Mr David Moody. He took the job after the resignation of Lord Scarborough. But he displayed the pose and poise of someone of the upper class. I want to know more of this fellow. He was a charming and diplomatic representative of the crown.

As they left the building, they had won a raffle prize. A large tin of Miniature Heroes was the gift they could have taken home to round off a splendid night of theatre where they had seen the best and very splendid LYTE (Lamproom Youth Theatre Ensemble).

But they gave the goodies to be shared amongst the company of children who had entertained them. I could feel the Fawltiesque capitulation in the presence of true class as when the gullible and guiless Basil Fawlty offers Lord Melbury an aperitif, on the house, and who then only asks for a dry sherry. "What else?" replies the overwhelmed host.

Pure class.

Top Fear

2009-03-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

How can things get so complicated just to make things easier?

As we now spend much time driving a reasonable distance, we thought it high time to update the wheels. The old faithful warhorse was beginning to get tired. Its last medical revealed some extra fumes in its exhaust which, although controlled for the purpsoses of passing out fit in the way a drug can hide a symptom in humans, we felt that the long term prognosis was one of increasing concern for the engine.

So, after much internet searching, we decided to kick some tyres. Car buying is not a confident field. I know little about the things and generally work on trust in a very large way. We had a budget beyond which we would not budge but we wanted some quality. We did not want new. Quite happy to appreciate someone else knocking off the massive depreciation cars achieve within 100 metres of the showroom.

Armed with this catalogue of desires we went ahead. Oh, we wanted Japanese. Trevor, our man who advises, was impressed with the words Toyota and Mazda, but added, there being no real British car manufacturer, a BMW to our shortlist to balance up a world view. As they make the Mini, the name of the great icon of Britain when Britain was post war great, it sounded almost like an British car.

We ended up with a Honda, but what we got was the ultimate, for me, in in-car specifications, none of which we expected to achieve ownership of as we strolled the car show grounds - well the large tarmac areas outside the show rooms where cars have their boots open and have balloons attached, to make the car buying process jolly and carefree - not quite the lightening of the atmosphere I experienced. I often wonder what they might do at balloon sales.

But to go back a way. My very first car was a ten year old 1964 Morris Minor Traveller. Compared to this latest purchase, the Morris had climate control. No, it had a heater and............ No, that was all. Its sole contribution beyond the basics to driver in-car convenience was that it had a heater. Even the screen washer was operated by a foot pump. I have had this new car a week and there are buttons I have not dared to touch and this from a man who is no technophobe. The instruction manual runs to 506 pages of A5 paper - and the navigation system has its own sub book of 100 pages. From a person who ignores instruction books a rule, its very hard to take an approach of total disregard for once. More fool you I hear the chorus.

It has taken me 30 minutes to pair the HFC system via bluetooth with my mobile phone. Hardly anyone rings me on it when I am at home, so why they should when in the car. Buts it's magic. I am wholeheartedly adopting the technical enthusiasm of Uncle Bryn from the television programme 'Gavin and Stacey'.

But, it is very comfortable, very quiet (at least until I fathom out the sound system) and very, very nice. Not quite the hyperbolic Clarkson review, but understatement is sometimes enough.
My next project is get the car to understand me. Occasionally, she - for it is a female voice- does not get my drift. I do not want to know that the air conditioning is off as I am asking for the CD to play track 4. Perhaps she does it deliberately because I have, on occasions, ignored her directions and she has had to re - calculate.

Oh my word! I am actually talking to my car. After all, humans always understand each other when they talk, don't they?

Snow business?.....I like snow business

2009-02-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, its an absolute nuisance. As a nation fond of discussing the weather, it fills everyone with conversation topping experiences but we cannot cope with the white stuff very well. It happens. Two or three days and people moan and count the economic cost. I am convinced that if a meteorite (or is it meteor?) destroyed most of the country, there's still be some economist stating how many days work the event cost the country.

I have, let me say at the outset, passed some scary journeys in it. I have had family arriving home 6 hours after leaving work some ten miles away, and friends travelling 14 hours from the next town, have had to abandon cars and have been unable to reclaim a vehicle for two days, have walked miles due to local transport failures. So when I say I love the stuff, I speak not purely from wonderful white Christmas experiences or through rose tinted snow goggles.

It is a rare and an increasingly rarer experience for all of us. But when it falls, I'm a kid again. I can't wait to get out in it. I'm saddened when the stuff turns to slush, become wary when it freezes and becomes lethally slippy, but as it arrives I am captivated by the changes in the world outside and spend much time looking through windows.

Going to bed as it falls and waking up to the brighter light on the ceiling, reflected off the surface of the snow through the gaps at the window, causes me to rush to the window to see what can be seen. And this morning was one of those mornings.

I was out and off, with the purpose of reaching the doctors surgery to order a prescription which could be done with all the ease of the Internet, but no. The snow was calling and falling. Mere electronic convenience was put aside. I know going to the doctors isn't exactly a recognised winter sport, nor is snowballing for that matter, but snowmen and snowballs, where they go to dance presumably, have taken a step down the list of snow activities for me. I can be happy now simply walking, looking and taking the odd photograph.

I know the weather conditions were a little alien today, but I did not realise that taking photographs of everyday objects covered with snow could create a sense of oddness for young people. "What are taking photos of then?" I was asked, with no sense of malice, by two mid to late teen youths. I was a little taken aback. It was so obvious to me. But when I pointed out that the snow had fallen, they passed on and simply added, "Its great isn't it?"

In the park, Trish built a snow rabbit. I photographed her and it. The sun came out briefly and the landscape was augmented by shadows of trees stretching across the flat white ground turning cream coloured in the mid afternoon sun. And then the local schools emptied their contents across the park.

Walking past groups who were sharing and showering snowballs with varying degrees of accuracy and parents dragging sledges loaded with shrieking toddlers, I realised that the thrill was slipping away. Children began to redistribute the overnight work of nature at quite a pace.
It will no longer the same.

Still, it had it moments.

PS Apart from people like me and children, the people who seem to enjoy this kind of weather even with greater relish, are TV journalists. When the rest of the country struggles to get anywhere, they turn up everywhere where the snow is deepest. Wonderful.

Dinner is served..............

2009-01-19T05:53:00.000-08:00

I stood just inside the entrance to Matalan watching the ebb of trainer shod, track suited people of all sizes and ages clutching their bags of items, purchases no doubt inspired by the appearance of some photograph of someone famous I don't know, in other words a celebrity, all no doubt wanting to be different but nevertheless all ending up the same and I felt depressed. Add to this, a group rummaging through a table top holding jewellery all at the tempting price of 98p.

Matalan, a vast shed, but a tiny efflorescence of the huge manufacturing plant of China, is not outside my shopping range, but this visit really got me down. Not good for one who seeks the lighter and urban soul raising experiences of daily life. But I was stuck. No where to go. Even Next, which strangely, was next door, offered no lightening of the shopping gloom. Retail therapy, if I admit was necessary, was not to be found. It was like an acupuncturist being unable to stick in the pin anywhere near the target.

And thus I was resolved. I needed a simple lift to the daily existence and it came about quite easily and without the need of therapy of any kind. Although, I guess though it is therapy, if the process is life enhancing.

As I had already found delight in that weekend feeling, it was but a short step to improving the daily lot. We would eat dinner at the table in the appropriate place.

For too long we had felt the urge to settle down to the News on TV with a plate balanced upon a tray on our knees, generally listening to to the cliched and stale presentation that both the national and local news present themselves. "...and over now to our correspondent who is outside......." One of the silliest cases for me was when, one mid-November, the news that Myra Hindley, branded the Moors Murderess, had died in prison. The correspondent, was sent, not to be outside the gaol, but to stand in the dark, at night, on the moors, to report live. Absolutely barmy. I know of one local news reporter asking her director where to go, as the expected heavy snow fall had not materialised at the location to which she was first assigned.

But no more. Having the technology to have TV and radio on tap when we wanted and not when the schedules demanded we watch, we became free.

Eating the main meal of the day became relaxing and, well, civilised. I was smiling at this simple act. So, no matter what everyday life on the daily round outside may descend to, I now have the pleasurable interlude of the early evening.

I could become a dinner therapist.

Lost Weekend

2009-01-10T03:27:00.000-08:00

I have just rediscovered the weekend. No, they have always been there. They do not actually get lost, but, from scanning the home page of Facebook, there will be many who may claim otherwise.

What I actually mean is that weekend feeling, the waking up on Saturday, not too early, and that marvellous glowing awareness that you don't have to get up. That alone has been the reward of a week's work that I have completed. In addition, foundations had been already laid to create this happiness. Early glances at the bedside clock in the twilight, not quite light hours, did not immediately cause the brain to mentally calculate exactly how much time remains before the alarm dings in. Oh, how different to the feeling twenty fours previously.

There is also a financial reward. I do have to mention it, naturally and once a good enough reason to take the work. That will arrive in due course showing as a welcome and significant figure in the bank account, but this morning was, well, ahead, with the money a few lengths behind. Backed up by a bright but very cold winter's morning, a winning double for which I could not have felt better.

Nagging very slightly, there is the very thin possibility that there will be a Sunday evening - work tomorrow call lying in wait just around the corner. Fingers crossed naturally. The smile of a Sunday free from Monday's call to toil is another bonus. A far cry from last Sunday evening when I received the request to teach, as a former colleague was laid low by one of the current members of the virus race. I ended up staying the week, and, apart from the need to go to bed at ridiculous hours, ie 9.30pm, and giving in to the demand for sleep in the late afternoon, it was a good week on the whole which has resulted with the reward of a Saturday morning lazy wake up.

I did have a good week with former colleagues and children who were good to work with, but, like everything that is pleasurable, over indulgence can spoil the appetite for more. I hope the telephone is quiet on Sunday. I hope the colleague I replaced is fighting fit and suffers no relapse.
I do not want to appear too greedy for another sublime Saturday morning.

Are you ready for IT?

2008-12-18T02:35:00.000-08:00

It was the first time I had heard it said this year. Waiting in the opticians, I heard an assistant ask a man if he was ready for it. Oh matron. What interpretation an empty word can carry. Spoken by Barbara Windsor to Kenneth Williams would create huge nostril flaring and a look of total indignation. But this was not a scene from Carry on Oculist. It is just over a week to Christmas - and the empty 'it' in the question is Christmas.

The empty word 'it' can assume some staggering proportion. Are you ready for it? But most people, when asked, may give a kind of thoughtful yes, and perhaps, with a reigned shrug, qualify the yes by saying "I have to get the veg and get a little something for Uncle Stewart but.... yes, I suppose so." Rather like if Eisenhower was asked if he was ready for it as D Day approached, he might have said, "Yes...I've got the troops lined up but not sure if Rommel' s turning up or not. Still, it'll have to do!"

Christmas arrives certainly not overnight. And for some the preparation is immense. Guided by advice from all quarters ranging from how to do it simply to complicated, how to do it extravagantly or cheaply, how to do it like a celebrity or a hassled mum (Iceland apparently) and how to do it in a modern way or be traditional. Or just go their own way, which is what I imagine most people do, because that's what their family did when they were little and they adopt, amend and argue over details and differences.

Strictly speaking, I suppose there are two being ready for its. Firstly, you might realise that you have to get going in the first place, a kind of mental readiness for it and secondly a physical completeness that points out quite clearly that you will do no more.

Now I have to be ready like everybody else, but what triggers the fact that I must are small and idiosyncratic moments and events which over the years have been a delight. Finishing work was one indicator but there had been two December events that stated, without a doubt that Christmas was here. The Varsity Rugby match between Cambridge and Oxford universities and the buying of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times. These were the triggers to get things going, this was the Rubicon to cross and say there's no getting away from it. Christmas is here. It was like when I was a child, and my regular comic, the Beano, was published with the title banner decorated with snow. That was the moment to begin to get excited.

To explain fully why these two things have this effect is, of course, very personal and of very little interest, but they do trigger a feeling of happiness and anticipation and, after all isn't that what winter festivals are about. In the festival compromise that is Christmas, it is appropriate to begin to look forward and turn the back on the past year. it can ll get a little too complicated and involved.

As someone once said, as she struggled through the door from the crowded shops and market, with carrier bags straining with sprouts and spuds some 30 years ago. "Well, that's it. If it's not in the house, then they'll have just have to do without." Now, she was ready for it.

It's not all hiking...

2008-11-24T08:53:00.000-08:00

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.........

Pizza the action

2008-11-14T07:29:00.000-08:00

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!"

Bookish thoughts

2008-11-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

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"

A world is a world of Centertainment

2008-10-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

It is totally ersatz. A created centre where you can have a good night out. Although the Sheffield tram provides good access, it is, like the out of town shopping malls, hyperstores and supermarkets, able to function because of the motor car.

Sheffield's Centretainment is just up the road from Meadowhall shopping centre and close to the multi function and manty seated Arena. It provides a feeding station for these and other out of town entertainment venues in the post industrial valley of steel.

What amuses me about them is their wonderful kitsch. You are able to dine in the style of a New York bar and grill, enjoy the feel of an Italian restaurant, both classical and modern. Mexican food and other cultures are available. It is a dining experience simulator, but affordable and decent enough for a meal with atmosphere. These bars and eateries are there to serve the multi screen cinema, provided you are not wishing to dine out on huge buckets of popcorn or tortilla chips, which need to be floated down the gullet on a stream of Coke. Not my cuppa at all, but the restaurants are pleasant enough with good service but, unfortunately, with the staff who have been trained to be overhelpful which can become irritating.

It's the way the restaurants makes them ask questions to nudge you to spend more money than you wanted to. Not their fault, I'm sure. But they are trained to serve people who must be incapable of realising if their food is not very good, or that they want another drink, or they could have had a starter. That's the way of everywhere I feel.

It's as if litigation culture has extended to areas where customers could sue if things could become a bad exeperience and not just because something went wrong. Or how people are released from a criminal charge, not because they didn't do it, but because there was a flaw in the process of getting them to court. I can imagine enraged customers refusing to pay because they were not offered the chance to have a drink before their meal or been failed to be asked if there anything else they would like. But I digress. It is quite fun to record which and how many banal questions you can be asked during the course of visiting places where you are expected to pay for what you get.

Don't become irritated by this, or felt partonised and made to feel like some dimwit who has never eaten out before and spent life indoors. Enjoy and acknowledge the questions and play up the dumb image. 'Starter? Are they available? What? Before the main course? It had never occurred.' No that woold be unfair and achieve little.

Simply smile and say no. After all you know what you want, don't you?

2 down, but not too often.

2008-09-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

"If youngsters are not taught how to spell, how will they ever enjoy the pleasure of doing a crossword puzzle?" writes R A Francis of Wimborne , Dorset in the Times of last week.

I have been to Dorset and it is a fine county, with a dramatic coast showing grand geological features like Chesil beach and Durdle Door. It has my favourite seaside town in Swanage. It has an air of mystery with modern military camps, ancient hill forts, and old place names with the word Magna attached to many places. The county gives off an air of old England and has strong literary associations with Thomas Hardy.

Wimbourne is a small market town dominated by the twin towers of the imposing Minster church, but offering a whole lot more. The Minster (mainly Norman and up to l5th century), includes the famous Quarterjack clock, 14th century astronomical clock, tablet recording King Ethelred's burial in 871 and a chained library. The houses are, to the main, thatched and of a style I call English rural desire, of the type featured in competitions to enable the winner to have slice of old England.

The town's shops include many for antiques and curios as well as a modern centre. There is an antiques market on Friday, a flea market on Saturday and a huge combination of the two on Sunday. Its all very racy...what better place to be the home of a crossword enthusiast.

Racy enough for crosswords ? Nothing else beyond the antiques to amuse the correct spellers of Wimborne? A little unfair, but is not quite the real, modern urban Britain, where possible crossword solvers are obviously being lost and un-nurtured in the urban sprawl and what are we going to do about it?

The crossword has been around less than 100 years. It might be a passing fancy. All this is not to slight Wimborne or R A Francis. I agree with him in as far as crosswords are fun. I think he misses the point. Crosswords are fun because they play with the language which I like to do. Spelling is important to enter a correct solution to a clue, but a good use of a dictionary of word checker will help with this. People will discover crosswords and the fun they can provide. I don't think you can force the fun on to people. I wonder how far R A Francis has got on Mass Effect on his x box. What fun!

I am pleased to say that I have found crosswords at times delightful, but not all of them. Naturally, there are a whole range of these puzzles from the simple word for word substitution, often called 'quick' to those found in the broadsheet papers. These are anything but quick. Their creators take names such as Ximenes and Torquemada. It does not need any more clue to their difficulty when you realise these names are those of inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition. To me, they might as well be written in Albanian.

The pleasure for me is finding your style of setter, the setter who makes you smile and occasionally groan and who allows you sometimes to complete the entire puzzle. If it involves the help of someone else then that too can be pleasurable.

What is a good clue to me is this example. "It looks like the campanologist is late" (4,6). The solution is dead ringer. Now I think that is neat. It is clever word play. It made me smile when the answer flew to the front of my mind. It gave me pleasure to print the answer, in pencil, placing each letter, in upper case, in the white empty squares. "Fruit and nuts"? Seven letters. Yes. Bananas. Bring it on.

As Forrest Gump might say, unfortunately, clues, like a box of chocolates, come in a variety. Easy and soft to hard and chewy to the ones you want to spit out immediately. And, like chocolates, they are created by many manufacturers.

Its all a matter of finding who makes the best selection.

"Bar of soap" (3,6,6)? The Rover's Return. Lovely stuff.
(With acknowledgments to Rufus)

At the Fringe 2008

2008-09-06T03:04:00.001-07:00

If you enjoy a variety of entertainment, entertainment in a very broad sense, are prepared to cue for and sit in a variety of performing areas, some no more than a room in a student union, be prepared to walk a fair a bit and get a little wet then go to the Edinburgh Fringe. What make its more special for me is having a great group of friends who are prepared to to this as well.

It has been our third week in three years, so let us lay out the battle ground which you have to prepared to fight through to select your weeks pleasure. The 2008 Fringe programme featured a record breaking 2088 shows. It runs for three weeks from August 3rd until August 25th. It involves an estimated 18 792 performers from 46 countries presenting 31 320 performances in 247 venues dotted around the city. Quite staggering and for the past three years, we have tried to select a dozen or so shows to fill our week. It generally works well.

This is what Trish and I did this year. We constructed a fairly joint programme and left quite a few gaps to enjoy walks in and trips to the surrounding areas should the weather prove fine. I'll repeat that...should the weather prove fine. And thus we saw a few more shows than we originally planned.

Each day pans out to be at least a twelve hour day. There were daily free shows. Quite handy for getting a random preview of other performers some new and some iconic figures in the world of radio and television. This year featured the spectrum that was Jim Bowen and Clive James via Barry Cryer. These shows were by courtesy of BBC Scotland withe daily MaCaulay and Co and the Guardian podcast hosted by Miles Jupp. These two shows provided the early morning rendezvous for our group, which numbered fourteen and who were living in two apartments on either side of the city, before the daily diaspora following our planned shows for the day. There were joint meals, lunches and dinners and the occasional drink when plans opened up free windows.

I could run through each show but that would be tedious, so I will mention the highs and the lows. Starting at the base were the Tiger Lilies - Seven Deadly Sins. They are supposed to be in bad taste, but this was a tedious attempt to debauch the seven deadly sins. Better left to one's own imaginings really as the world is already full of evil people doing evil things on a range of scale from personal to global, all of which can be categorised under the seven deadly sins. This contribution to the theme was puerile.

But to the delights and highs. Footsbarn's A Midsummer Night's Dream was magical. Set in a big top atop of Calton Hill, you walked in to the sound of birdsong. Brilliant performances with enchanting music played out the familiar play to every bit of fun and silliness.

Barbershopera featured four performers who told the simple tale of barber shop rivalry and the attempt of the British team, who have lost their star tenor, to outsmart the seemingly powerful Swiss team. Up 'n' Under meets close harmony. Great ensemble work by the four singers.

Stefan Golaszewski speaks about the girl he loved was another gem. A one man piece of theatre about a young man's journey into that utterly unbelievable first love was superbly enacted by a most talented man. As an older person, it recalled the hope and knife edged moments between utter disappointment and supreme ecstasy of falling in love.

Count Arthur Strong - the man behind the smile presented my current hero of comedy in a surprise, or I should say sursprise, tribute to himself which he is planning to do. I find this shambling character a hoot because he combines so many British comedy characteristics. There are reminders of comedy actors and comedians from the word confusions of Mrs Malaprop mixed with silly syntax and senile mis-associatons to the muddling, mental confusions of Harry Worth, the false pomposity of Tony Hancock combined with applying social values of the 1950's against the social values of today.

Learn to Play the Ukulele in under One hour (How George Formby saved My life) is contender for the longest title but I doubt for one minute it is. The audience all sit with a loaned ukulele and learn whilst listening to the story hinted at in the bracket part of the title. As your chord knowledge builds up from on to four (via the famous three chord trick), practice is encouraged to underscore points of the story. A major chord (C maj) for brighter parts with a minor chord (A min) to add sadness and contrast. So, apart from learning some chords and some songs, we receive a bit of music theory too. After the show you has the opportunity to buy a ukulele, so Trish bought one for me.

The remaining shows were just bubbling under these warm and enjoyable experiences which, all in all, were perfect for the very wet week that Edinburgh was providing outdoors.

Port Sunlight delight

2008-08-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

I surveyed the remains of a convenient and reasonably cheap breakfast of the kind can be bought in supermarket restaurants, motorway service areas or department store coffee shops. The table was littered with empty paper packets that formerly contained salt, pepper, brown sauce and sugar. There were the empty plastic drums that held the UHT milk, each one holding just less than the milk I require for one cup of tea. There would be occasions when there would be a used tea bag, but at least this time we had an individual, stainless steel tea pot. The table was a heap of litter, all of which was unlikely to be recycled. It appalled me.

No wonder it is cheap. You do all the work apart from cooking of the food and putting the items on the plate. You are even required to clear you own table and place your debris in the appropriate place. People talk about quality of life, but for me with this kind of catering there is little of any life enhancing quality. It represented, I suppose, good value for money as something no doubt very similar was available in our Liverpool hotel, but for nearly three times the amount.

I do not wish to be too downbeat about it, because being in Port Sunlight the day before was a world away in many ways. We had arrived at lunchtime and decided to eat before wandering around Lord Leverhulme's grand soap opus. I sat as Trish queued, but at the moment of being served, a fire alarm sounded. No one moved. In fact there was a moment when all the people in the fairly busy restaurant stopped doing what they were doing before carrying on as before, confidently declaring that it was more than likely a false alarm. Eventually, we were asked to leave the restaurant and assemble on the car park by an assistant from the shop ajoining. We walked past many tables full of abandoned meals and cups of coffee and tea. Like listening to the William tell overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger, it was difficult to look at these tables without hearing the words Marie Celeste forming in the mind.

This event made up our minds to find elsewhere for refreshment. The Port Sunlight garden centre was clearly another debris style eatery which we left and went on the tea rooms close to the railway station. And it was here that we had a good old fashioned afternoon tea, ordered by talking to a waiter, who began by explaining apologetically that unfortunately that there was only one slice of Victoria sponge cake left. I looked towards it as it sat on its plate in the cake cabinet. As a slice, it was a very generous one. We were asked to select two kinds of sandwich to precede the cake and what kind of tea we would prefer. All ready, we were relaxed and anticipating a delight. There was no disappointment. Tea arrived in a pot pot, covered with a tea cosy. The presence of the tea strainer told us the tea was loose leaf - not the bagged version. The sandwiches and cakes turned up on a pot tiered cake stand, sandwiches on the lower plate with the cakes above. Butter, cream and jam were in a little open pot container. Sugar of course was in its own bowl, made of pot of course. The milk was fresh and jugged - this is not a contradiction.

The sandwiches were finger style, made of sliced bread with the crusts removed. In all we could share four varieties of freshly made sandwiches.

I know that this kind of service and preparation is still to be found in many places, but I suspect, until I research such places, at a price and certainly not in any abundance. But the quality this experience had added to the enjoyment of our visit to Port Sunlight has made me want to shun plastic packet, debris ridden self service forever.

Rumpies,stumpies and knobs

2008-08-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

Queen's promenade does impose itself on the sweeping bay. Rising 4 to 5 storeys high, the edge to edge hotels and boarding houses present a quite forbidding wall. They have names that give off status and class. The Savoy, the Empress, Claremont, Sefton and Ascot. They are splendidly iced cake edifices projecting from the promenade like a row of teeth. Part of the facade is called grandly the Empire Terrace.

There are no concessions to it being near the seaside. No arcades flash, fast food is restricted to one fish and chip shop and where one buys a bucket and spade on this extensive sweep of coast is not obvious. To say Douglas is behind the times is an insult to this insular gem. It does remind many of some aspects Britain of the 1950s, but it is the nicer aspects and they were probably wished for again if readers of the Daily Express and Daily Mail are to be believed.

The place is clean, free of graffiti and the drivers are courteous to a point they stop as you even consider crossing at a pedestrian crossing. Although there is a MacDonalds, I cannot tell you where, but there are several mainland high street chains such as M&S, Next and TK Maxx.
The island is not time locked but showing that it can change.

It is not without its grimmer side. Ramsay, the island's second largest town has much run down property but is about to have a spanking new swimming pool. It already has one, but there is to be another one. It is being built along side some very crumbly buildings, much in the style of Douglas' seafront, but very downmarket. Seeded shrubs and weeds have established themselves in the crannies and gaps in the crumbling walls. Above the door of a former hotel cum pub, someone has placed a temporary sign calling the decaying shell of a structure "Bleak House". Perhaps its about to go, to be replaced by a further sporting and recreational structure. The town's rugby club is further along; this leads to a skateboard park and BMX circuit. Youth is clearly catered for. Its all between the coast and the pride of Ramsay - Mooragh Park.

The park reminds me immediately of parks from my child hood. Everything is there and everything is clean and orderly. There is a large boating lake surrounded by neat lawns and planted borders. A novelty putting course, complete with windmills and castles is being played on by families. Eight or nine youths are playing tennis; a round robin affair with half of them on one side of the net with the opposition the other side. Each takes it in turn to keep the rally going.

Further on, there is is a jumpers for goal posts football game, which has been temporarily stopped for a ball in the boating lake moment. One boy, possibly the culprit of the errant kick which resulted in the ball bobbing in the water, is gingerly edging himself into the water. What was heard next sums up for me the tenor of the island. The onshore discussion, by his dry friends, centred around the need for something to throw and hook over the ball. One of them ran towards the lifebuoy station. As he drew the others attention to the possibility of using this life saving equipment, his friend politely reminded him against using it by saying, "You can't use that. Its not allowed." The lifebuoy was left alone. That there were lifebuoys available was enough for me, but clearly this was a moment of faith in the younger generation, at large in public.

Apart from Ramsay, which had its charms, there is Peel. A seaside place of bliss. A castle to explore, a great sandy beach, a busy harbour landing langosutine and squat lobster, a possibility of seeing whales and dolphins and the best ice cream on the island. Port Erin has much the same, but openings to the north and south of great coast walks. Castletown, the ancient capital....... I will go again.

The islanders appear proud of their heritage and independence. The population of just over 80,000 contains only about 50% Manx born citizens. But in the the Matcham gem of a theatre, they play the anthem at the end of the performance and the audience stand and the audience sing, though not lustily, their own national anthem. In my child hood, I recall the mad dash by my parents and many of the audience from the cinema at the opening note of our national anthem.

A few years ago I went to the Isle of Arran in the waters off the Firth of Clyde. It was my first holiday in Scotland, chosen due to its claim that it was advertised as Scotland in miniature. The Isle of Man is England in miniature. Rolling lake land fells, dramatic Cornish coasts, midshires rolling farmland, villages and seaside towns and harbours. But that is where the comparison stops. Inside my head. The independent Manx mind would not have it. They are part of the British Isles only. Separate to the United Kingdom and the Great Britain, they would not allow such a comparison to be made or used to promote itself. They are Manx.

Oh , yes. Rumpies and stumpies are Manx cats. Knobs are Manx humbug.

End game - Fin de Jeu Pyrenean

2008-08-03T08:37:00.001-07:00

A day by the sea at Collioure gave some of us the opportunity to have moules et frites , unless you were the carnivore who only considered a source of protein as viable if the animal had four legs and had hair. The town has moved on since 1905, when Henri Matisse arrived, painted pictures pulsating with light and colour this giving birth to Fauvism. It still is an artists town, a bit like St Ives here in the UK. There are streets given over to small studios and the around the harbour artists are offering their take on the landscape and culture. It is now very much keen on tourism.

Given over from a fishing port, mainly anchovies, to a port of call for tourists, it was busy, doubly so as it was market day. So much was the decision taken to harbour tourists and not fish that the fishing fleet was told to virtually pack up.

After lunch, we took our own route around this picturesque and popular place.
We were clearly on the homeward leg of the walking trip, but feeling we had achieved a worthwhile thing and would love to do more, perhaps next year. We assembled as arranged at the railway station to return for the last night at Hotel des Elmes.

Another dinner back at Banyuls sur Mer was not being looked forward too. The reservation about lack of volume of food, recorded in an earlier blog, was joined by another one because the previous evening meal was on an open air terrace, though with a canvas roofing. This delightful setting was spoiled by being us surrounded by smokers. Only when smokers eat, they tend to have a cigarette between courses. At least that's what I did when I was addicted. Smokers seem to have taken over the outdoor terraces, so much so that it is more pleasant, as a non smoker, to sit indoors, despite the weather being inductive to being outdoors.

We asked to sit indoors and, with the acceptance, all the formality of the previous night seemed to go. Why there was even an alternative for David. he had no more than began to give the slightest hint of disapproval to the fish, when the maitre eagerly offered him a meaty alternative.

And so the meal went well. Tomorrow afternoon we would set of for home

Beside the seaside beside the sea - Pyrenees 6

2008-07-17T07:43:00.000-07:00

At last there were no trees to fight you or hide the views of where you were going. True, there was some steep scrambling but the views were always going to be worth it, even though they only told us how far we had come and how nearer we were to the destination. Why, we even passed people with toddlers, walking up from a car park.

It was not so easy to find a soft spot for a picnic. Trees, whilst being awkward things along a trail with their roots ready to trip you, their branches ready to lash you, their fallen brethren causing you to bend under or climb over, do at least give shade from the sun. The problem was there were so few trees today. This was a short walk but the day was quite warm and Banyuls provided immediate refreshment, after a short visit to two station buildings. The first one was closed and used for alternative business, but along the line was a new structure had been built, but still in the SNCF style of rural stations.

Going via the railway station for information to travel the next day to Coulliours, we found the Hotel les Elmes, a proper seaside place, small and almost on the beach. That was enough for Ray and David who swam around the bay at least as far as the diving platform. Not me or Bob, though. Warm baths and a change of clothes were as refreshing as it needed to be. There was a reminder of how dangerous bathing can be. While the sea swimmers splashed and dived in the mellow and mild Mediterranean Sea unaware and unaffected by any undertow and cross currents, powerful forces were at work to make dangerous the safest of bathing experiences. Bob was gripped by a strong vacuum that held his back against the smooth porcelain of the bath in which he was relaxing. He could be there now but for some frantic wriggling.

Before dinner, a stroll over the hill to Banyuls itself. A busy seaside resort and the start of the GR10 which inspires the Iron Man to put forward a proposal to walk its entire length. Mmm.

Once more the food was an issue with a wine list pricey as well. The style was quite formal, with the dishes presented by the waiter announcing the name as it was served to table. There was not enough food, delicious and tasty as it was. The problem was ameliorated by the interjection of a cheese course, at our request and for which we had to pay extra, but it completed a very pleasant meal. The main course was fish, and not meat, so both Dave and Bob were a little disappointed. And we had another night to survive.

The following day we visit Coulliours with a prospect of moules et frites.

Pyrenees 5 - Ceret

2008-07-17T04:39:00.000-07:00

Leaving Amelie les Bains on a hot Sunday morning was made better by having a good breakfast in the buffet style.

However, we were soon wandering around, cursing the trees while trying to find the correct path. Familiar territory in unfamiliar territory. The promise of a village with a bar which was approximately half way and at which we would arrive around lunchtime was a clear fillip to our progress. The guide notes warned of dogs on the outskirts of the village, but each of us has a weapon to deal with most canine nuisances. We were primed for the worst. It didn’t happen. I mean both expectations. The dogs were big and noisy but well fenced. The bar was shut.

Madame, who appeared at an upstairs window, was not to be moved to open up for us.

To say we were downhearted would be absolutely on the mark. A picnic was taken in the shade and the Sunday papers were available. There was a little further track-searching in quite an open area. Tractors and caterpillar tracked vehicles had been re-arranging things, but the markers and the road were found and Ceret beckoned on a hot afternoon.

The bar of choice was spread out under big plane trees and the rugby on the wide screen was being enjoyed by the locals. Toulouse were winning their semi final much to everyone’s joy. It called for two grandes bieres. Bob had discovered un Monaco which is like a French equivalent to a lager and lime, with a lemonade top. It’s quite sweet and very pink to look at. The pink comes from some grenadine syrup, which will no doubt ensures its sweetness along with the added 7-up.

The hotel immediately upset the more carnivorous members as it was to be eaten away from the hotel at an Italian restaurant, which was in a busyish square. So we turned up with our voucher and we were fed quite well. There was wine of course.

Another rest day, except for the homme de fer. He was off after breakfast .

Now Dave had cracked the secrets of the technical tee- shirt there was no holding him. The shirt came with an instruction leaflet which he had lost or left. It could be worn cool side in side on hot days outside or alternatively warm side inside on cool days outside. We finally discovered that the labels were of different colours depending which way around it went.
With apologies to Longfellow, this summed up his quandary:

He had brought the shirt of Paramo.

On the walk he chose to wear it,

Wore it with the smooth side inside,

Wore it with the rough side outside.

He, to get the cool side inside,

Put the rough side warm side outside.

He, to get the cold side outside,

Put the warm side rough side inside.

That's why he put the smooth side inside,

Why he put the rough side outside,

Why, he’d turned it inside outside.

Dave eventually joined us for lunch in the place below where further technology was explained and tried.

Ceret has a history of being associated with artists. In particular Pablo Picasso, who lived there for a part of his life. The walls of the hotel were covered with prints and posters which reflected the artistic influences in the town. The museum had an exhibition of Hungarian fauvist paintings as well as featuring several of the ceramics of Picasso. Each of us in turn made our way around the cultural gem of Ceret. Art and modern art are challenges and I know little about it to feel safe when confronted by some of it. I suppose feeling insecure and challenged is a fair response to some of it. A common reaction that I am happy with is that I can find some art amusing. I enjoyed the use of colour and close examination of the surfces of the paintings showed greens and blues used in painting faces which on distance created blends in the eye. I enjoyed the simplicity and use of colour which being colour blind is some what ironic.

The next day would see us taken by taxi to begin the final stage and the walk to Banyuls sur Mer.

A fete awaits you - a diversion

2008-07-17T02:39:00.001-07:00

“The whole of France will be playing music tonight,”

So said a staff member to a group of English guests at the hotel.

It was true. Since 1982, on the day of the summer solstice, the Fête de la Musique has been taking place every year in France. It simply means that anyone that can play music is invited to do so, for free, any place they wish. Musicians will perform everywhere: cafes, street corners, public buildings and more. Generally they are invited to play in open space. In other words, on this day you might hear on street corners highly acclaimed musicians who usually perform at the opera. The event's original motto was "sharing, diversity and creativity". Well, so much for intentions.

Although I didn’t see any opera stars unless they were underplaying themselves, there was some sharing, diversity and creativity. Stages were erected in almost every square we encountered but it was on the 21^st June that we came across the music.

In Amelie les Bains where we were staying, it was at first a bit of a disappointment. Two bars had singers but only with club style multitrack accompaniments - a kind of karaoke. Both bars were close to each other and so it was possible at a point equidistant between both bars to hear the worst of both worlds.

But then just as it could not get worse, it got better. Outside the third bar was a live band comprising three saxophones, two trumpets, a trombone, a lady and a drummer. It was the drummer which caught my fascination. His kit was set upon a unique home built trolley, the five wheels of which came from a child’s pushchair (two), a porter’s trolley (two) and a child’s bicycle (one). Once he had arrived at the next pitch, he chocked the child’s bike wheel with a block of wood. He removed a folding bar stool from the left hand side of the kit and placed it behind the drum kit. He extracted his sticks from a basket at the right hand side and he was ready. The exact role of the lady, dressed in gold, as opposed to the red and black of the musicians, was not clear. She contributed some percussion support for the drummer whether he was in need of it or not.

They played a rare mixture from what sounded like local folk tunes and they finished their first set with Randy Newman’s “You Can Keep Your Hat On”. A young man in the small crowd gave an impromptu and energetic strip, with his shorts ending up above him on the bar's sun awning. Not wearing a hat, however, he kept his pants on.

The band moved on. Their progress was now being barred by a dozen or so older people who clearly wanted none of the pop stuff they had just heard. The band was stopped and they old gang of band hi jackers wanted cha cha. A quick chat amongst the band while the drummer set out his kit, a brief consultation of their A6 note books, and the band were off. The dancers shimmied and shuffled, the watchers tapped and swayed to the music.

After this initial opening and being aware of the dancing intent of the crowd, the band continued. The dance this time was for individuals. It reminded me a little of the Lambeth walk. It was led by a dapper man with black shiny shoes and neat clothes. His seemingly weightless feet slipped and stepped while his arms and dainty hands with fingers pointing kept the upper body balanced. Others joined him but they ensured he kept the centre of the stage. The others were of lesser degrees of elegance and style. Next to him was a large man dressed in shorts and a sky blue vest. He wore chunky sandals. He was the sartorial opposite of Monsieur Dapper. Needless to say the sartorial spectrum was not as wide as the terpsichorean one.

But he was en fete. He had captured the moment.

The band remained in their spot and played on. It was a treat to be a witness to such exuberance which was as good humoured as it was entertaining. I returned to the hotel.

Ahh.. Amelie les Bains Pyrenees 4

2008-07-15T03:08:00.001-07:00

Losing our way is one thing, a collective but tedious addition to the adventure, but losing each other is another challenge entirely. We had left Prats de Mollo by four by four and taken to the end of a rough road which marked the start of the trail to Amelie les Bains.

It was hot.

It was when we came to ridge that the effects of heat got to us. Dave had the idea to walk along the ridge but no one was eager to go with him. The iron man was not to be swayed by the majority and so he set off as we took then lower path. Now there are some things that should have been discussed before we parted company. We should have of course checked that we had our phones, that there was a signal and that our phones were switched on. It was only later discovered that, when we tried to ring Dave, his phone was in his luggage in the taxi going to Amelie les Bains and of course switched off. The only certainty we had was extremely vague. We would simply meet were the paths would meet.

Naturally this was not as easy as we assumed. We three, in what could be called the main party, began to become more sure that things were not as simple as we thought when we set off. That feeling that we were not on the right path and that the path would not cross the path that Dave was on was becoming a fact rather than just a feeling. We decided to climb up to meet the ridge where Dave should be or should have been or should be on his way too. Such was our certainty.

Instead of a gentle stroll along a contour we were now scrambling across them and they were very close together. When we reached the top, clearly indicated by a marker we could see nor hear any sign of Dave. That’s when we realised the important and significant impact a mobile phone could have in these situations. But it only remained a mental realisation. We shouted his name. He shouted back that he had heard us. In the Canary Islands they have a whistling communication system in the mountains. Silbadors as they are called - the word comes from Spanish verb silbar, meaning to whistle - use four "vowels" and four "consonants" that can be strung together to form more than 4,000 words. We managed only to shout 'Dave'.

We finally spotted him below us and further on. And in time we became one party again. This was very reassuring and also vital as Dave was carrying the tomatoes and cheese for lunch, so we were really relieved to be with him once more.

Our trail craft was something to be pitied. We missed the letter D made out of twigs. The concept was absolutely sound, but rather like a remaindered book, it failed to reach an audience. We did pick up the empty handy tissues pack left by Dave but which we dismissed as merely litter.

And so on to Amelie les Bains, a spa town full of old, recovering people in varying states of decrepitude who were there for the treatment. The arrival of four more went unnoticed, except our initial treatment worked immediately.

The hotel was large and quite busy with a coach party from England. Dinner was perfectly rewarding and met with all round approval. It was a buffet. Now there are two approaches to eating at a buffet a word which signifies that there is plenty of food. One approach is to graze. Start with a bit of salad, go on to a bowl of soup, have a fish course, followed by a bit of meat and vegetables, move on to a pieces of cheese and round it off with a mix of desserts. Alternatively, you can load your plate with everything and just stuff yourself. Some of us opted for the former approach and one of went for the latter; such was Bob’s haste that his carrots turned out to be sausages.

After the welcome blow out, we walked into the main street to enjoy the Fete de la Musique

of which I have written already.

A bit of a Prat fall Pyrenees 3

2008-07-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

We do look exhausted.

We had just reached a height reference and position marker after another period of being slightly off course.

No goldcrest this time, but one stream crossing a tractor trail seems like any other. And the remains of farm buildings are not supposed to be of the type to flummox the Time Team. We do not run to geophysical magnometers, although Dave is probably now searching the publications for one with a hydrating system. But more of the technical stuff later.

The weather was glorious. As we travelled east, the daily growing of afternoon cloud was being outpaced, and the sun burned down. We had plenty of water. We needed it too. In the afternoon, we spotted a number of large birds circling above. Ray named them as buzzards despite other less informed references to eagles or vultures. He counted twenty nine circling at one point. The heat was taking its toll, but we were not buzzard fare yet.

Prats de Mollo la Preste was our first French village and it was a place of great charm. For one thing, it was busy. There were squares and bars of the type we had hungered for and people going about what is normal for an afternoon in Prats de Mollo la Preste. We settled for the bar and drank our post walk beers, the welcome only being moderated by the thought of how expensive they were. Our hotel was tucked inside the town walls, and had its own square.
We were here for two days with an option to take a local walk, an idea which was evaporating as the beer went down.

The hotel was poor. Our room for two nights was not even square. Well, it was an old building but there was a serious health and safety issue with the wall that separated the bedroom from the ensuite facilities. I do not think a wall papered glass partition from floor to ceiling would be passed by many planning authorities, certainly in England. To make the probability of falling through the glass easier, you had to climb past the shower cubicle base to reach the hand basin and the toilet and of course climb back to get out. The addition of water to the floor and the task became more of a thrill.

There was plenty more to entertain us all; the castle with its amazing optional tunnelled entrance; the street market the morning after we arrived; a church of some history; public laundry facilities and a link with the Spanish Civil War with the town hosting a large refugee camp in 1939 of Spanish refugees where now stands an enclave of retired people homes.

However much it had to offer us as a diversion, the food at the hotel was not up to the demands of four hungry men. The general suspicion was that the proprietor was fleecing the organisers by offering us a scant menu which was much less than the fifteen Euro expectations. Athough meat in the form of a chicken leg was eaten, there was no real bulk, no sustenance and the carnivores were on the prowl. The food crisis, or lack of food crisis was resolved the following day by taking a long and memorable lunch in sublime surroundings. We were fed by man whose love was the process of preparing and serving us lunch. Even the Coleman Hawkins was part of the feel.

The stay ended with a pre Fete de la Musique event when local students and their teachers encouraged music to emerge with a range of ability from a spread of instruments. My clumsy spilling of a pastis was my noisy addition to proceedings, a pastis, however, that was quickly replaced and at no extra charge.

The sun will come out to Mollo Pyrenees 2

2008-07-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

In the style of all films that have animals as the star, the gold crest was trying to tell us something. The tiny beautiful creature was quite unafraid of three gawping ramblers as it sang away to us, not trying at all to escape. What it was saying we all too soon realised when Ray had a look at the map. We were off the trail. Not lost, but simply off course.

The route is marked along its course. This bit was following the GR10, so the marking was a miniature flag of Poland, a white strip above a red one. The only problem is that they are sometimes on trees and sometimes on rocks. Occasionally they not very obvious and they are at irregular distances and of course it dawns on us from time to time that we have not seen one for quite a distance. This is unsettling news because it means going back to the last one and correcting our error. This is what the gold crest was trying to tell us.

We were making our way from Setcases to Mollo, another Spanish hill village. The weather was bright although it clouded over as they day and we progressed and our picnic lunch was held at 5200 feet, as calculated by Dave’s altimeter. But the climbing was behind us now, with Setcases, our start point, at a height of 4166 feet. It seemed much more of a climb at the time. But it was downhill from now, a fact I celebrated with two falls in rapid succession. Soon it was the Chupa Chup moment. Above Mollo we sat sucked our Chupa Chups trying to buy time, before we were sucked into the whirlwind lifestyle we would find in the streets of Mollo.

We needn’t have bothered.

Mollo was shut. There was a bar, but not the pavement type we could relax into. We entered the hotel which was favourable. We enjoyed four Estrella. We strolled the streets. It looked, if the appearance of the huge beams of wood that had arrived on the trailer of a lorry, as if Mollo was next in line for the Setcases makeover in wood and Ronseal. We soon ran out of diversions in trying to fill the time between what was then until 8.30, the time for ‘soper’. Buying the picnic would take up sometime.

As in Setcases, the shops were to a casual observer closed, but the general grocer’s opened, as we must have gazed so forlornly through the darkened window. Perhaps that was the trick.

My Spanish was challenged to order café and hot chocolate. It tuned up, so I considered it a success. When ‘soper’ did arrive it had a mixed reception. The red wine was chilled. This was only rectified by the third bottle. The carnivore received a sad sausage accompanied by white beans. His humour was not lifted when the sad sausage was rearranged to look like a smiley sausage.

Breakfast made up for the limited success of the night before. Omelettes, which solely by their location must have been Spanish omelettes, tomato bread, fruit, cold meats and yoghurt were a good start. Some fresh bread that must rank as the driest in Europe was bought on the morning as we set off for Prats de Mollo La Preste which is in France. How you tell the fresh bread from the stale must be a skill in itself. I have never looked forward to French bread with so much zeal.

Setcases Pyrenees 1

2008-07-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

After two and half hours of travelling in a taxi from Perpignan, we arrived in Setcases which is actually in Spain. I have never spoken Spanish in earnest let alone in Spain, but the task is made easier by simply knowing three key pieces of Spanish vocabulary. The words for beer, for four and for please. The rest just followed.

Setcases was empty, not deserted but far from neglected though. The buildings were all in good restored condition and bristling with new timber. If Ronseal had had the job of wood preservation then Setcases shouted rather than said what it says on the tin. A small channelled stream flowed down through the tidy village but that was the only thing moving. There were no cafes or open shops or people.

The hotel, of which we were the only residents, was comfortable. As we walked in we were greeted by the fact we were not in a comfortable language zone. But there were people. Three people met us. An old man sat at a table while his wife, one supposes, was cutting up huge mushrooms into bite sized chunks. The mushroom was a bolet, a speciality of the area. Indeed, at the end of summer, Setcases holds a festival for the bolets. Either there is little else to do but have a mushroom festival or they are very special mushrooms indeed. We probably saw and ate later what was on the table. A young coloured girl of an engaging laugh was indicated by the older woman to show us to the rooms. Later she served us beers and later still served us our meal. The meal was welcome and quite filling. There was a hot, clear, salty soup with macaroni which was followed by a salad of tomatoes with olives. And there was meat which kept the most carnivorous of our company happy. It satisfied the prediction made by Bob when he spotted the sharp knives set out on the table. And there was wine, local and young but, oh, there was wine. And the cheerful Columbian who found us always a cause of laughter.

We were curious why Setcases was so neat and clean and yet so empty of people. Even the bread shop was closed on the morning we left. But there was activity of a distinctly commercial and possibly tourist nature. A small square above the through road was setting up for the day. Tables and chairs were being set by staff who also were of Columbian stock. Behind the tables were a shop and a bar where at a price we obtained our lunchtime picnic. It was distinctly laid out for tourists and not the local village needs. It reminded me of the gift shops tacked on the end of National Trust properties or food craft centres encountered in Scotland. Quality wrappings, tins and boxes were on shelf display containing the best of local produce. We bought a range of suitable foods. There was bread, cheese at a price, bread and water. We also bought Cupa Chups. And so we left the square, descended past the hotel, crossed the road and began the climb out of Setcases and headed off towards Mollo.

Proof that Setcases can be busier than we witnessed

A fete awaits you

2008-06-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

“The whole of France will be playing music tonight,”

So said a staff member to a group of English guests at the hotel.

But he was en fete. He had captured the moment.

The band remained in their spot and played on. It was a treat to be a witness to such exuberance which was as good humoured as it was entertaining. I returned to the hotel.

Summer's here

2008-06-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

It only takes a flash of sunshine in the summer months from April onwards for many to peel away the layers. Sockless, shorted, tee shirted or vested, the streets are flocked by many who equate sunshine with warmth and high temperatures.

They must be cold but no one is admitting it. Britain is not a warm country. We buy in to t the marketing dream sold to us that outdoor living is the British way. Do not be fooled.

Occasionally yes, the temperatures rise and can stay high. But it is not something you can predict with great precision or for how long it will last. The only certainty with a good spell of summer weather is that it will end. And end dramatically.

We are persuaded from all corners that summer is here. Garden centres fill their floors with outdoor furniture and barbecues. Supermarkets extol the benefits of outdoor living with cool clothes, cool wines and crisp salads. And we buy it in. We have it all at hand for the perfect summer - except for the perfect summer.

How are we hood winked? The shrinking world enables us all to experience the great outdoors of summer. Sitting out until late in the evening dressed coolly and loosely is what people in pleasant climates do. We all want so much to do it here, we are conned by the first rays of sun and blue skies, even thought the temperature barely nudges the low twenties.

The summer season (November to March) in Sydney has temperatures regularly hitting the mid-90s Fahrenheit (35°C). November and March are favoured by visitors wanting sunshine without the searing heat. Even on winter days there is warmth, with temperatures regularly in the 70-80 degree Fahrenheit range (21-27°C). That is good for a British summer. I can recall an Australian telling me that Poms arriving in the Australian winter to settle, dressed in shorts and tee shirts, to the amusement of the locals. In Europe too, temperatures in July and August range from 86ºF (30ºC) during the day to 72ºF (22ºC) at night in the Greek resorts, with other Mediterranean resorts being close behind.

A glance at our holiday history reveals a more reverent attitude to the summer season. Holidaying was done in Britain for the vast majority. Only the wealthy jetted off - not they did jet anywhere- to the exotic South of France and other balmy Mediterranean resorts to enjoy guaranteed warmth. Even then they retained a dress dignity when not disporting on the beach.

Back home the huddled masses remained huddle masses, crowding the beaches around our temperate isle. People are photographed on beaches in suits and overcoats. Why? Because it was generally cold, and sitting around for a whole day, you need to wrap up. A man might slip off his jacket occasionally to face the weather in shirt and waistcoat. He might even remove the tie and roll up the trouser legs to reveal bare feet.

Women similarly peeled the odd layer, stockings, cardigan to feel the benefit of the fresh air. Oh, there were those who braved the waters in skimpier wear, but the weather must have been decidedly warmer. (Today young people enter the sea all year round but for most of that year they wear a wet suit - a true acknowledgement that it gets cold here.)

Perhaps we are the ultimate optimists. Here in Britain, we now have little opportunity to show the defiance that is one of the characteristics that many say made Britain great. By showing that we can still do summer in the meagre share we get of that season, we are displaying the in - your - face character that many attribute to the people of this island.

Personally, I'd sooner wrap up

The spot of things

2008-04-26T00:06:00.000-07:00

I can hardly be called an anorak yet. A slang term, an anorak is a person, typically a man, who has unfathomable interest in arcane, detailed information regarded as boring by the rest of the population, and who feels compelled to talk at length about this information to anyone within earshot.

I must admit becoming close now that I have made this definition, obtained from Wikipedia. I do, to use an overused cliché, tick some of the boxes. I don’t think at this stage I qualify for the full Berghaus.

Why this particular garment is selected must be to do with what was identifiable with people who stood outdoors for long times looking for things. Trainspotters are the group which spring to mind. So much so that wearing an anorak anywhere can immediately identify you as a trainspotter.

But that aside. Why I qualify as part of the anorak gang is that I have taken to spotting Eddie Stobart lorries. When I say “I “, I mean “we”, because it’s Trish, my wife who really started it. Eddie Stobart is really clever. He has a large and always growing (93 added since January this year!) fleet of trucks and trailers which are painted in a distinctive green livery and each one has – and here is the clincher – a woman’s name. Well most of them.

And that is the thing that we collect. The names are written in a little notebook with the date and checked with the Stobart list. No spotter would be without one. The list is to Stobart spotters what an Ian Allen book was to trainspotters.

The spotting takes place when travelling on the motorways and roads as we pass our journey. It’s not too demanding or distracting during a journey. In fact during a three and a half hour journey, the best we’ve done is about ten lorries. We see more, but recording ten is about the limit for us. And that it’s were the difficulty lies. You see, taking that we travel in one direction at about 70mph and the lorries approach at about 50mph that gives a closing speed of 120mph. I calculated that gives a 1.5 second window in which to identify the name written on or above the radiator grill of the truck. Several factors affect how successful we are.

The length of the name. Sometimes as much as three.
The unusual nature of the name. Mairey and Maisey look alike at 120mph when viewed from opposite inside lanes of a motorway
The distance the lorry is from you. If you are in the overtaking lane, you are two lanes nearer.
The manufacturer of the truck. Scanias tend to have their girl’s name written smaller and on one off the bars of the radiator grill. Volvos and Mercedes trucks have more space above the grill.

You are now beginning to see how the anorak slips on so easily! The game is a team effort, as confirmation of a spot is needed, confirming by reference to the spotters guide to settle the odd letter dispute. Where one of the other names was not identified, but only the first, then only the full name will be recorded as a spot if there is only one lorry with that first name inn the book.

I am getting giddy now. I can feel the constrictions of the anorak as I write. You can record in your Anorak Spotters Guide that you have found another one.

Plumber's post script

2008-04-17T03:13:00.000-07:00

He came. After explaining he was late dealing with an emergency involving his sons windscreen wiper in Penistone, I was clearly dealing with a multi-talented and therefore trustworthy artisan.

The plumber stroke heating engineer was absolutely brilliant. No tut-tutting, lower lip curling, sudden intaking of breath so stereotypically associated with tradesmen was evident. He bustled, flashed the PTFE tape, sorted the radiator, once-overed the boiler and stated how its condition was good. He inflated the pressure thing (not too technical I hope) at the back of the boiler. There was a slight leak on the lower tap of bathroom radiator which he fixed and on which I would have to keep an eye.

The system was up and running and he left and I was only £56 down. The snow has melted and the sun now shines.

A cold snap

2008-04-17T00:57:00.000-07:00

My central heating is not working. In case I might forget this slight diversion from modern comfortable living, Mother Nature, in all her climate changing turmoil, amidst all the talk of global warming and Britain becoming developing a Mediterranean climate, has decided to cause snow to fall overnight.

Plumbing is no where near my strong point of household maintenance. Apart from cutting wood reasonably accurately and joining the same with a lower level of skill, plumbing is a horror show. The only plumbing job I can do well and with some knowledge and confidence is bleeding the radiators.

I mention this because having discovered the water pressure falling frequently in the boiler, air in the system may be contributing. Bleeding the radiators, or rads as we plumbers call them, may solve or eliminate the cause of the problem.

My strategy was this. I will ring the heating engineer. I found his number but felt that one of his initial questions after I had described the boiler behaviour would be about my having bled the radiators. One more check would do no harm. The radiator key was at hand which was an immediate bonus. I single handed must have kept radiator key manufacture going for years. Radiator keys are like elephants when they die – they go away, never to be seen again. But not at this moment.

Off I went turning and tightening, armed with a towel to catch the spurt of water. You can now buy a key with a small plastic reservoir to catch the spray, but that is for amateurs who know not what they do. Besides it is over twice the price, but the saving I made now pales to the slightest economic significance.

It was the in bathroom where it happened.

The bleed tap is easily reached and I turned it to open. Water gushed out but not from the bleed valve, but from the main fitting. My reaction was to tighten it quickly, but the washer which kept the thing water tight seemed to be now protruding from the where the fitting meets the radiator and water was still escaping. And escaping quickly. My mind did not fill with images of submariners fighting pressure leaks after being depth charged but of how to reduce the flow of money that was bound to be increasing. There was certainly some damage limitation being attempted. Like a paramedic on the scene of a dangerously haemorraging patient, I grabbed towels to apply pressure and soak up the flow.

Eventually, the spurt became a trickle, the trickle became a drip and then it stopped.

All I had to do now was isolate the flow to the radiator and I will be able to run the system until the heating engineer comes. I still had to call him, but not now from the position of competent householder but from that of meddling incompetent. I then discover that I am not able to isolate the radiator so we are without hot water for heating or washing. And, I remind you, it has snowed.

The man on the phone after some sympathetic words that ten years is pretty good service from a make he had never heard of. His boiler was 8 years old, of known manufacture and no doubt extremely well fitted by his own expert hands and he felt was becoming due for replacement. He was like a vet telling a loving pet owner that the best thing was to put poor Rover down. We laughed and blamed the builder of my house for cutting corners. We shared a moment of male bonding against modern builders. The bonding ended when I explained pathetically the damage to the offending radiator.

He added encouragingly that someone would be here “first thing” in the morning. I got up to a cold house at 7.45am. It is now 8.45am.

I admit to knowing very little about plumbing. There is a new addition to my plumbing glossary. I am also not sure what is meant by “first thing”. At least the snow is melting.

A plucky performance

2008-04-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to say that I had one of those sublime times at the Theatre Royal in Wakefield. I received tickets as a birthday gift to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. The performance was thoroughly satisfying. Great humour, great performances and a wonderfully shared atmosphere will live with me for a long time.

I have been a fan of their sound for a year or two. I saw them on TV sing and play their take on Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. The image of a group of evening dressed English people singing this grunge rock classic quite delighted me. I have always been won over by music that makes me laugh or smile and here I was again.

They carry an air of English calm. It all seems to be just something to do. They walk on stage and talk as if they are interrupting our night out. But they are fun. Their act can be summed up for me in their introduction to and thier explanation of the range of sizes of the various ukuleles. They simply say which will burn longer if placed upon a fire, but this deprecation is a humorous front to superb musicianship with the humble ukulele.

John Chesson is accredited with saying that a lover of music is someone who can listen to the "William Tell Overture" without thinking of the Lone Ranger. If the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain were to play the William Tell Overture, they would erase, by their individual sound and humour any memory of the Lone Ranger and possibly that of Rossini and William Tell because one of their supreme skills is to disguise a tune or subvert its genre so that you feel I am listening to something new, or at least taken delightfully by surprise.

Looking back over this, I can recall Spike Jones and his City Slickers, Victor Borge, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band, Alex Harvey, Flanders and Swann, Neil Innes (as an individual performer), Randy Newman, John Otway who all have at times done something with music that makes me smile or laugh out loud. The list is not complete. There will be others that I have come across and temporarily forgotten. Tom Lehrer. See, there are many. I just like it. Victoria Wood. These performers take humour in all its broad sense and apply it to music. Sometimes just as music. From the slapstick of Spike Jones to the ironies of Randy Newman. From the parodies of Tom Lehrer to the clever social observations of Flanders and Swann. I just think it’s great.

I don’t want to analyse why I find it funny. The author E B White once said that "Humour can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." And that’s what I feel.

I simply celebrate the joy it has provided. I have dipped widely into this pool of fun and not all of it makes be fall over with laughter. I’m pleased its there.

I recall laughing at Benny Hill’s songs in the 1950s, long before he became more salacious and Yakkety Sax ended his shows. The line “while naughty Samuel Pepys” made chuckle at this delightfully simple pun. Well I was only nine. More recently, the dark and subversive lyrics of Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen have swayed me, sometimes with their outrageous lyrics.

I know all about icebergs. And clearly this is yet another iceberg that hides a whole lot more talent to laugh at. There will be performers who will fail in their endeavour to make me laugh or smile, humour being such a subjective area of experience. Oscar Wilde, of course, said many things. He most certainly had things to say about music.

“Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory,” said Mr Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. I think he should have added laughter too.

........ the food of love

2008-03-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

Peter Bunn hit Harold Mockett. More of these later.

I occasionally put the radio to Classic fm. It’s generally chocolate box music. That’s not to put it down, just merely to put it in its place. Like a chocolate box, the contents are varied but with a limited set of ingredients, you know what you will get. Often soft and sweet, occasionally harder to chew and you will sometimes have some choices you would prefer someone else to enjoy.

But boxes of chocolates are only one confection from a whole array.

I like to imagine the world of music as a supermarket, with the music of Classic fm filling a small but accessible shelf in the confectionary aisle. And also like chocolate, it’s not healthy to have too much. The confectionary aisle is full of familiar soothing sweet and satisfying confections of other genres. And do not restrict choice to the confectionary aisle. There is a wide wide choice of music from all times and places, with new varieties every day. I like to think I end up with a varied trolley full, having visited many aisles to make sure I have made sure of everything that is on offer.

There are some aisles that I never wish to go down and some I will visit more often. But what determined my shopping habits? It’s quite easy for me to answer.

Once when the rooms downstairs were being redecorated, I had the hi-fi assembled in my bedroom. It was a temporary arrangement but at weekends I would be able to lie there in bed and listen to Radio 3, which, again, was a temporary fixation.

I remember Richard, my younger son who was 5 or 6 at the time, would snuggle into bed and I would amaze him by guessing the composer or the period of composition of some but certainly not all the music being played

He was more fascinated how I knew, with modest success, so many composers and could fix the music in time. It was simple. I had listened to my teacher. I had a limited knowledge of many things at ten years of age. My last primary school teacher introduced a reluctant but able reader to humorous writing, but it was a year later that my music education took off.

Two things happened at that time. I discovered, by tuning the radiogram, that there was a station called American Forces Network. And I went to secondary school.

The former brought the exciting and very alien sounding Big Bill Broonzy into the living room. The second brought Joe Brooke into my life. Both events opened up a window into my experience of what is music.

Joe Brooke was the teacher of music at my secondary school, Sir William Turner’s School, and he created the line at the top of the page and added a further list something along the lines of buying shoes on a shopping list.

In addition to these weird phrases, he played extracts of music and showed this eager pupil the instruments of the orchestra. What bound all this together was he clearly linked the signature music of Purcell, Bach, Handel, Hayden, Mozart, (Peter Bunn hit Harold Mockett), Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Liszt (buying shoes on a shopping list ) with the sequential development of the European orchestra as musical and instrumental changes took place. A marvellous education which has served me well.

He followed up this magic with the development of black music, jazz and swing in the USA. Thus a final piece was placed in the jig saw. I now saw how Big Bill Broonzy’s music, which had drifted almost accidentally into my parents’ living room, was part too of the global western music picture.

I am quite happy to shop around under the one roof for my music, but I know there are some very specialist shops which I can indulge my tastes to a higher level. I do not know if I will get around to going to one.

Whoop it up

2008-03-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

There is a programme available on television called Extreme Makeover Home Edition. It’s fantastic. The ingredients are quite simple but the execution is of the grandest style.

Each week, so it would appear – it’s easy to forget that the programmes are edited to a weekly format, they take a family who have applied and been selected to undergo a transformation in their domestic arrangements, hence the title.

The programme selects those families that have a great AW factor. A tragic death in the family from a disease or unfortunate accident or act of violence works well as well as other wholly sympathetic domestic reasons. The chosen family are then whisked away while teams of every available skill necessary to build a super home that is literally jaw-dropping in terms of scale, or amount of bad taste or kitsch, are called on to re-home the family. But not until the previous hovel, shack or shanty is blown to pieces in a splendidly Hollywood action movie style.

What all this activity brings about is a general feeling of massive sympathy, concern, care and ultimately tear jerking, hugging and back slapping congratulations from all to all concerned.

In the UK we have makeover programmes too. But there the similarity ends. A most recent one in the UK is Ground Force, where a team of professional gardeners and a builder transform a shabby patch of garden into a kind of themed space. In terms of a makeover, it’s as if they had simply rearranged the items on a coffee table when compared to the changes in Extreme Makeover. It serves to state the differences between the way we are as British and the way the Americans are as Americans.

The way the makeover is celebrated could not be any more different.

In the UK, the new garden is celebrated with champagne naturally, but with the family being grateful and selfless while being watched by a few neighbours who helped keep the secret and may have made scones for the celebrity design team during the transformation.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition does it slightly differently. The family arrive in a stretch limo and are hidden from the new home by a bus, whilst behind what appears to be the inhabitants of a small town are whooping it and thoroughly enjoying the anticipation. And when Ty Pennington invokes the crowd to shout his catch phrase requesting the bus driver to move his vehicle, then all hell breaks. The cameras catch faces with quivering lips, eyes that are filling and overflowing with tears and all the human reaction to story milked for every ounce of emotion.

This is no place for polite applause. There are whoops and cries of joy beyond measure.

There is a legend of restraint in Britain that for centuries is marked by not showing too much emotion if any at all. It is our way. My reaction to the American way is to see it as vulgar, insincere, over-the-top schmaltz – a typical Hollywood movie finale.

But that is changing. In the UK the growing generation is adopting the American way and it is sincere. We can on occasion whoop and cry with the best. We now see ourselves perhaps see it a safe thing to do without attracting ridicule and laughter.

The Americans naturally do celebrate and be thankful. There greatest day of the year is Thmksgiving day after all. I think the root is being a mongrel nation. People went there in very recent history to escape many forms of restriction and fear– financial, religious and political as examples. Or they were taken without any choice. Once there, they lived or fell by their own efforts, so success was something to celebrate. Not only was it there to celebrate, but it also served to show that anyone could have that success too. Extreme Makeover sums up the American way, because that’s what their early citizens had to do – undergo an extreme makeover of their individual and family lives. Here in Britain it’s been more a case of accept and adapt people with their cultures and ideas.

But the whooping and hugging and open emotion is seeping into British life, and perhaps it is no bad thing.

2008-03-13T02:10:00.000-07:00

Sat late at night, I noticed the tulips

Warm with colour, lit as if by candlelight.

Further packaging

2008-03-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

After reading Mark Price, managing director of the Waitrose supermarket chain, my vow to refuse plastic bags from as many shops as they are offered now seems Lilliputian step in the march to the green planet. But I will not be deterred. Eating Zimbabwean tilapia and buying Spanish roses will not yet make me feel I am making a difference. (Guardian article 10/3/2008). He states it is better to buy Spanish grown roses rather than English grown after you balance the footprint of the air miles from Spain with that of the heat and light needed in this country.

There are many, many factors when shopping that can impact upon the world and its dwindling resources and greenness. Packaging, air miles, refrigeration, supermarkets dominance and its effect on small business and their ability to sustain or destroy farmers and growers both at local and global level are players in the game of green shopping.

Consumers who wish to make a difference are faced with some difficult choices and the necessary information is not always available or very clear. If buying Kenyan food, for example, I recognise some jet aircraft has flown several thousand miles and the carbon footprint can be measured. But in buying the food I am sustaining families in employment and bringing money into an environment that may help to build schools and create health promotion schemes. How can I make a green decision amid this balance of loss and gain?

Unless someone comes with a definitive ethical purchasing index to apply to buying which converts factors for carbon footprint, farming sustainability, environmental and social impact, I will continue to run around in a green fug.

However the plastic bag challenge will remain. I feel it is a clear contribution to the world. The other day I collected some spectacle from a branch of Specsavers. I was asked if I was to wear them immediately. I said no and as I hadn’t a case with me they placed within a new one. Now for the killer question. I was asked if I wanted them in a bag. I almost screamed why. The logical extension is that I will need a bag whenever and wherever I carry them. I declined politely. Another anecdotal observation amused me in Asda. At the check out, a mother and daughter were bagging their shopping of which the last item was a large packet of bread buns.

Not only where they in a plastic bag, but they had a handle already as part of their packaging and yes, they were placed inside a plastic carrier bag without thought. My inward smile of disbelief was immeasurable.

Boy, you have to carry that weight

2008-02-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

I’ll wade in many others about this. My one new year resolution towards a greener planet. To no longer accept plastic bags from supermarkets.

A few years ago I had a holiday in Morroco. Those of you who have done similarly may know where this is leading. I was delighted to hear that a colleague of mine had been to that same country to experience the souks, mosques, colour and exotica that comes from visiting another culture in another country and in another continent.

I asked her what was her impression was of that place. Her immediate response was not one that would grace the travelogues. It was the amount of black plastic bags that were everywhere. I had no hesitation but to agree that black plastic bags were everywhere. No, they were not everywhere, but collected in hundreds on the prickles of the prickly pear bushes that are one of the few plants to colour and decorate the basic sandy tones of the countryside. There are a lot of these bushes.

What this experience did was to highlight the problem these handy containers can create if left to blow wildly over the countryside. That that they were uniformly black certainly heightened the mess they created.

Back home I am amused and amazed by the slavish use of these bags in our shops and supermarkets. They are snapped off the hanger at the checkouts, filed with few items and placed in the trolley as the hand reaches out to grab the next bag for filling. Or offered by sales staff to carry a single item. On average we use five new bags a week. Collectively we use around eight billion bags every year. Cutting out just one in five of these would save almost 40,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases a year – equivalent to taking over 12,500 cars off the road for a year.

I am not about preaching. Figures such as this are amazing and are bandied about to a whistle of astonishment perhaps but nothing much changes. As long as the shops provide us with free bags to take, the majority will continue to take them. Watch at the checkouts at the slavish indulgence of people for using these bags. It’s all too easy for us all. I have seen people place large milk containers singly in to a plastic bag and then lift the bag into the trolley. Have they not noticed the milk container has a handle that is not just for lifting milk in and out of the fridge? Steady now. It’s easy to preach. Do you want it in a bag? No, I think I can manage the newspaper in my hand.

I do have a watch dog. Allow me to introduce WRAP, the Waste & Resources Action Programme has welcomed the announcement by Tesco that the supermarket will be rewarding customers who reuse their carrier bags. I don’t think that that is enough. It’s hardly a life changing policy. Or we could go Modbury’s way. Modbury in Devon became the first town in Europe to ban plastic bags from its shops. After two weeks, an extraordinary transformation then took place in the south Devon community. Carrying a plastic bag has become antisocial behaviour. This is more like it.

Near to Perpignan in France last year, I was pleased to see no plastic bags being available at a local supermarket, one of a chain, and all the shoppers had their own bags. Being on a walking holiday, we had rucksacks. People weren’t distressed at using their own bags. Admittedly, the pace of life is less in that part of the world, as it is, I guess, in Modley, but change did happen. Or perhaps the Irish route is necessary. Ireland's 15p "plastax" on carrier bags, introduced in 2002, has led to a 90% reduction in use.

It is a small crusade I know that I am carrying out by not taking the plastic, but I look forward to the challenge of phase two. Refusing the bags of chain stores is the next one. How to avoid looking like a shop lifter leaving with goods purchased but not placed in the plastic identity bag but in my own reusable bag could give rise to some interesting encounters. Many shops are OK with this, but the ones targeted by shop lifters could and possibly rightly so be worried by losing the plastic bag.

I simply want the weight of the world lightened by cutting down on plastic. Oh yes how much food is bought wrapped and coated with the stuff? Another day.

An infinite fashion

2008-02-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

A mathematician once said to me that there must be a finite number of tunes that could be composed, given an octave of 12 notes, with occasional additional sharps and flats, and the range of note lengths. He is possibly correct but in centuries of western music, the finite limit is still not reached. They still keep coming up with more tunes. Occasionally a tune is borrowed, in whole or in part, but there are always more and more new melodies which sound different.

I mention this only that as variety is often quoted to be the spice of life it is a good thing there is a range of music that keeps appearing to entertain each new generation.

I am amused to death by the fact that there are too an infinite way in which trainers can be designed; tracksuit trousers can be created carrying a range of hues and applied stripes to the extent that mostly everyone can appear different from each other. Have a look around at the dress of most people under thirty as they scurry about their daily business in my home town. To the untrained eye, they all look the same. But they are not. Each of them is making their own statement of individuality.

Herds of zebra, for an example from the animal world, are made up of distinctly differently striped individuals. To the untrained observer, they are all the same. Thank goodness the fashion for trainers and tracksuits helps many of us maintain our unique distinctions.

It is however nothing new. Glimpses of photos from the past show this mass conformity where individuality is marked by slight variations in colour and pattern. The conformity does not obviously apply to all society at once. Just as spots make leopards and stripes make zebras, then the type of apparel makes your social standing.

A theory I hold is that the higher the social standing the longer the clothing trend is maintained. Prince Charles would look at home with the upper class fashion of seventy years ago, both in formal and informal appearances. The lower classes change so much that some who do not keep up will be so last year too soon.

This is true too a point. I feel there comes a time in your fashion were something strange occurs and there are observable patterns of behaviour. As individuals age, they do one of three things. They dress the same as they have always done - Prince Charles again as an example of his class - once in tweeds and Barbours then always in tweeds and Barbours. Or they keep changing with the flow of fashion and end up looking like they are i.e. old people still trying to look young. Or thirdly, at some age they stop changing and dress the rest of their lives the same way like some strange time stop when some internal voice says “wear what you wear from now on”. You can still spot the septagarian teddy boy, or sexagarian hippy.

As there very few zebras and leopards where I live, I will delight then in spotting the fauna of fashion in the everyday places.

A matter of taste

2008-01-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

As a beginning, to say that I am anti smoking would be somewhat hypocritical. In my life I have smoked on and off for the best part of 32 years, which is over half a lifetime.

It is ten years since that great and final giving up, with the exception of the odd pipe and cigarette smoked on stage I have stopped. I welcome the ban and Im glad to not have smoke smelling clothes should I enter a public house or have that throat tightening gasp as air filled with active and passive smoke enters the lungs.

Smoking for me was an experience. I had frequent periods of brand alliance but in my smoking career, I have used pipes, both clay and wooden and a range of cigars. I have inhaled snuff. Squeezing a button with thumb and forefinger to make a much greater pinch ability, the fine brown and aromatic powder, was placed on the back of the hand and snorted up a nostril. This was usually followed by bouts of sneezing and floods of tears to the eyes. The powder too ended up down you shirt. Smoking tobacco was quite the easier way to get the nicotine fix.

Smoking was always an experimental activity. The first furtive Woodbines, borrowed from a friend, were smoked because that’s what your parents did. Admittedly not down a back alley away from prying eyes, but simply because it was what grown ups did. And that was all manner of grown ups and of course the cowboy heroes in films.

How long can impressionable young people fail to succumb?

It didn’t catch on for me rally until as a student when Player’s number 6 were consumed in the five week panic revision in May and June and then it stopped. Well, it didn’t after the third year. I left university with a degree and a social habit and then began a romance with the weed.

I flirted with brands, charmed by their names and appearance. The packaging seduced me and I took delight to flaunt the colours and names in public. There was such a huge range of cigarettes just waiting to be sampled. It was not a love affair just a very big infatuation. Filtered or plain, it did not matter.

There was the clean and fresh packet of Churchman’s number 1, contrasting with the almost all white Olivier. I was charmed by the flip top bright red du Maurier box and the romance of Piccadilly with its city chic feel. The transatlantic soft pack of Peter Stuyvesant, a pack you tapped to cause the cigarettes to emerge. There were others too, but occasionally I used the popular brands that were sponsors of big events – Embassy and John Player Specials, as black a packet as Olivier was white. And naturally the gold pack of Benson and Hedges.

I found cigarettes that were not the familiar white cylinder. The black and gold of Sobranie, the pinks and the elliptical Passing Cloud and the heavy scented Gauloise all went through my hands.

It was a thrill to enter the tobacconist and choose something by the name and packaging that looked exotic and intriguing. It was always a disappointment to accept a common brand. They lacked the challenge and difference. Except for Park Drive. Park Drive seemed to enjoy great popularity around Sheffield where I can to work in the 1970s. They were small and distinctive in flavour but they offered a good variety to the taste of smoke.

The affair of the cigarette ended in my early thirties. There was a brief pipe smoking distraction where tobaccos, both tinned and pouched, were bought on the merits of their name and labelling and later on the same with cigars which went from the tiny Tom Thumbs, smaller than a cigarette, to the King Edward Imperials and true Havana smokes from Upmann and Romeo and Juliet.

But what it comes down to is variety. I like to think that in my own way I am not prepared to make do with the ordinary and everyday brand leader. I am not satisfied with Fosters lager or John Smith’s bitter, smooth or cask. If smoking showed me anything, it was there was a whole range of product out there which extended beyond tobacco. I am not a great connoisseur and I do not just know what I like but I have tried to push the boat out a little way from the shore. It works in the beer and whisky I drink and to a lesser degree with wine. With food as well for eating too has had its experimentation, but the prices begin to increase when restaurants are involved.

It is a shame that blandness and lack of taste adventure seem to suit so many people. Let them be happy with their mass product. Curiosity has helped me in my own perhaps limited way become adventurous in the things I taste.

Logistic solutions

2008-01-22T01:41:00.000-08:00

The daily existence for most of us is quite humdrum, but within all the daily routine there are opportunities for light relief, research and moments to ponder. Not all of us claim to be at the cutting edge of science to appreciate a new discovery or theorise about how things came to be. Artistically we are not the great creationists of music, art or literature but there is plenty to do in the humblest walk of life to work at a level that suits any of us.

Look a round and take notice of the many notices that litter surfaces. Not for the Lynne Truss punctuation police but simply for the delight and wonder that a few brief words can create.

Let us begin with slogans and company taglines. They both probably evolve from mission statements which used to have a purpose. Their purpose was to force management to make hard decisions about what the company stood for. They are probably well thought out in focus groups surrounded by Perrier water and in a conference venue. After the process of ownership and concord, the generators generally go back to what they were usually doing before.

But the messages are in abundance, not only at the head of correspondence but they are written on shop fronts, entrances to organisations and on their vehicles so this makes for a mobile activity when driving along the nations roads.

Oh, the power vested in so few words. Here are some of the most powerful and effective taglines ever propagated:

Powering People- How? Simply plug them into the mains or create a battery holder about their bodies.

To make people happy Disneyworld. Count the smiles next time you might visit.

To preserve and improve human life Wallmart. Much formaldehyde to sell?

We try harder Avis

Think different Apple Now I like this. Although it should be an adverb, differently, I think really encourages taking a different slant on things. Very Apple.

Just do it Nike Obviously the result of a long meeting

The art of performance Jaguar Oh alright

Reach out and touch someone AT&T and risk a slap on the face at least

Fly the friendly skies United Airlines while the USAAF make them unfriendly

Don't leave home without it American Express which is always true whatever it is (your keys, the shopping list……)

The ultimate driving machine BMW Well that’s just showing off. And BMW drivers are a modest bunch

The choice of a new generation Pepsi as they had no choice in actually being here in the first place.

The happiest place on earth Disneyland but count the smiles of the visitors

We love to see you smile McDonalds but don’t copy the staff

Welcome to Scotland and some might say you are!

Which does not really bring me to another observation that is quite fun. Where did logistics come from? And why did it almost become universal?

The magazine Private Eye has for months collected readers’ submissions for another word which, by now, is so ubiquitous that the Eye’s column seems superfluous. The word, gracing many a wall and van panel, is solutions. No time to muse over it. It is everywhere. If something is manufactured or a service is provided then it will deemed a solution.

Logistics is another prominently place word. What happened to haulage or transportation? Well haulage is a slug of a word. Say the word and you can se the ox cart groaning and the tune of Byddlo form Pictures at an Exhibition droning in the background. It’s just not zippy enough. Transportation belongs with the greasy spoon café and lorries. Logistics zings as smart as the livery and uniform of the fleet artics. An altogether pacier word.

Whatever can these two be replaced by? In a past time solutions and logistics had chiefly chemical and military connotations respectively but they now have become universal. Who would have backed it? One company or group must have adopted the word and it has spread. There must be companies who backed the wrong word, costing thousands in resprays.

As with another mass adoption which started out as the promotional gifts of farm suppliers to farmers in the USA , the baseball cap has spread like a pandemic to be the hat all for millions. How long will it last? What will replace it? Please.

The phenomenon is spooky.

Complain... I'll write a letter

2008-01-21T16:39:00.000-08:00

December 29^th 2007

Dear Sir,

After completing the process to register my POA to administer my mother’s accounts in November 2007, accounts, I then proceeded to apply to bank online. On receipt of a letter signed by Alistair Thomas of Customer Services, I was told that I would have to register the POA document by visiting my local branch, which is in Barnsley. An appointment was made with Joy Bradshaw for November 28^th.

Shortly afterwards I received a letter dated 29^th November from Mark Banks, Head of Online, thanking me for completing the first stage of registration for POA and issued me with an unique username. I was told, by the letter, that a temporary password would be received by me within the next few days.

By the 11^th of December, I had not received the temporary password. A phone call to 08456 02 00 00, gave me an apology and told me that another temporary password would be issued.

After about 6 days, nothing had been received. On phoning the department, I was told that the process could take up to seven working days. I argued that this was certainly more than a “few days” and that the letter should have been clearer on that point. The temporary password has not yet been sent to me.

However, the password has been sent to my mother. Both the initial and subsequent passwords were sent to her, the first on November 29^th and the second on December 12^th, in letters signed by Mark Banks.

The address used was the former home of my parents, which has been empty for the past 12 months, I discovered the letters on a visit to meet with a contractor to carry out some work in the property. I was quite amazed.

The current address of my mother is quite clearly stated on the application forms I initially completed when having to register POA with her bank accounts. I discovered that the online department have two addresses for the accounts and they cannot explain why the information I received, and was told I would receive, was sent to different addresses.

Now it gets stranger. I asked if I could change the address so that the former home of my mother could be removed. This was made possible by transferring me to discuss security details so that I could change the address by telephone, so that mine alone would be used. After going through the security application to set up the facility, I was transferred to telephone banking. On identifying myself, by the secure process I had just set up, I asked to remove the erroneous address and have just mine as the contact point. I’d like you imagine what I was told. Yes. My home address is the one to which the account belongs.

I was assured that a note would be sent to the relevant department to prevent my mother's old address being used again. I am now online and I think I have achieved my aim, but not without some frustration, some misinformation and a bit of fortune.

I have not the time to go into details about how I received a further application form to open the whole process of registering the POA, after the main, initial POA registration had taken place, prior to this episode. I am simply left with the impression that vital information regarding a bank account and changes to it, do not seem to be moved around satisfactorily.

I would like you explain why information promised to me did not come to me, why a few days as quoted in letters means seven working days when explained by an online staff member, why members of the online staff couldn’t tell me they had sent twice a temporary password, albeit to the wrong address and why they had not got my address which was asked for by your telephone staff to confirm who I was.

I look forward to hearing from you. Etc, etc

And I did hear from them. There was an acknowledgement saying they would respond to my requests and investigate my complaint and in which they said they would include with their letter their leaflet on how they dealt with complaints. I was delighted to point out with a sense of irony that the promised enclosure was absent.

Now I do like a drink...

2008-01-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

I may be an alcoholic. I don’t sit in the park or queue at the supermarket for my daily fix of strong cider or cheap wine, but I may be an alcoholic.

When drug addicts are asked why they take drugs and get hooked to the horror of non drug takers, their answer is that they like the effects. The cream cake syndrome. We all accept that cream cakes are not the healthiest of foods, but they are available and tempting in the main, and many people who know better will eat them.

I am like that with drink. I like the effect it has on me. I do not drink to the point of unconsciousness and don’t lose social control, but I am a slave to the cosy, relaxed feeling that alcohol provides. I find it hard to resist. I do acknowledge that too much or too often alcohol can create a problem and that my long term health could well be suffering, but the short term fix, for that is what it is, is not to be denied.

Occasionally, I do have a morning after and then I am full of resolve to have a day off, but by about ten in the evening, the morning resolution has faded and I want a drink. I don’t stop with one. There has to be another and occasionally a third. I do not stint on the measure either. I know this by the frequency I need to restock the bottle. And that leads to another confirmation of the opening statement. I am sometimes a sly buyer, pretending a reason to buy to cover the real reason that I just need to drink.

I once gave up drinking alcohol for the period of Lent. This was after very public declaration in a school assembly and several subsequent reminders to friends and colleagues. Stating your desire to avoid alcohol in a pub with friends was an excellent reinforcer. I cam unstuck though. It was quite by accident and through a little ignorance. Most on alcoholic drinks due tend to be sweet or fruity or both. What I craved was a bitter flavour, the flavour I enjoyed with beer. I did not know at this point that Angostura’s bitters contained alcohol, though by the time two splashes into diluted to a half pint of soda, it would almost be a homeopathic concentration. But that was the drink I discovered that met my taste and I could happily sip.

I saw the irony. It was revealed by Steve the Landlord, who, I rather think, enjoyed my modest humiliation. It was a bitter sweet moment. In fact, although shattered my Lenten promise, it did create a pleasant drink.

But to my current crisis. I can happily give up the wine and the beer, but it is just that whisky moment at the day’s end that I cannot conquer. It worries me and I need to address it. Which is why I have written this - as a form of self therapy. I hope I can make it work. Perhaps I should rediscover my Angostura’s moments.

After all, I do not want to abstain totally.

Way of the word

2008-01-20T12:43:00.000-08:00

I like words. I enjoy the way they, by certain uses and arrangements, convey a whole range of communication. I have enjoyed the fun to be had in word play and take a pride that I am derided and groaned at for my almost habitual tendency to create puns, malapropisms, spoonerisms and other playful devices.

I can remember at an early age wanting to know more of them and can recall learning a few and using them to expand my vocabulary. A very simple early word was acme, always the brand name on any item purchased by Wiley Coyote in his relentless pursuit of the Road Runner. I assumed innocently it was a short catchy word used by the cartoonist, but I was delighted that it was a Greek word for the highest. Nothing but the best for Wiley.

I now knew that words came from somewhere and so began a lifelong if not thorough fascination with meanings and origins. But the process of word creation is still alive. Words are still being created by the same processes that created the current stock. Naturally in the process of creation and development, there are casualties. Words do fall by the wayside, no longer to be on the tip of the tongues.

I hear a certain grumpiness from some quarters that the English language is in decline. The vocabulary warriors are keen to point out when they feel a word has been misused or that the way we speak is deteriorating and is no way like it used to be. But it surely has always been the case. The English language has been bashed and battered, altered and augmented from all manner of invasions and creations. I would not have the wonderful if limited vocabulary that I do have had it not been for the innovation, invention and influence of others both near and far. New technologies are bringing about changes to the way and manner in which we speak. Not only are words changing, but the way that we actually make utterance alters too. Declining regional accents are making way for a more universal ergot.

Apart from being discarded, words change their meanings. A case of adapt and survive. Although the words are only passive in the process. St Paul's Cathedral was once described as being "….awful, artificial and amusing." Sir Christopher Wren might have felt justly insulted, unless the meanings of those words are seen within a contempory meaning at the time of their utterance. The speaker was actually meaning was declaring, to Wren’s obvious smiles of self satisfaction, that the building was "awesome, clever and thought-provoking."

Today, to describe something as awful would bring about a degree of approbation, such is the current meaning. Clever people, perhaps of a criminal bent, may use artifice towards their ends. Queen Victoria may well have been disappointed that the subject she considered herself not amused by was simply a dull and shallow one with no intention of making her rock with laughter. (This supposed quotation was attributed to Queen Victoria by Caroline Holland in Notebooks of a Spinster Lady, 1919. Holland attests that Victoria made the remark in 1900, but supplies no details of the circumstances but by that time she may well have had not a lot to laugh at.)

Words do change over time to start meaning something else. These are two current examples I have noticed in television news

Both of these two examples are to do with achieving success. The first is result which is being used in the sporting sense by commentators and participants to mean a win.

“We are hoping for a result tomorrow,” is the oft quoted line. Only the context and the speaker may vary. What they of course mean is a win. There will always be a result unless the match is abandoned. This is the way that words go. There was little word, namely win or won ( after a result has been obtained of course) which thought it had a place for ever, but for how long?

In a similar way I feel the word justice is going the same way.

“All we want is justice”. I have the feeling that what is actually wanted is a win.

Poor old win. Attacked in two contexts. Will it survive the onslaught? Or will its usage be done for or simply expanded in the thesaurus.

There will be others. After all words are used in their millions by millions everyday, in speech and writing. Survival is a tough business and there are bound to be more casualties. Some will sink without trace, some will change and adapt and new ones will vocabularise daily. Just as watchable as all those nature progrtammes with their daily battles of life and death. Simply listen to hear the struggle of words and be happy in the thought that no blood is spilt and no real hurt is done.

Shelfish observations

2008-01-20T12:29:00.000-08:00

I have always found an ambivalent fascination with supermarkets. They exist in great number. They offer easy parking and easy shopping and, for some the main thing - cheap shopping. I do not want to enter a debate about prices, quality and convenience and the variety of what is actually on offer. (They don’t always stock the same range or varieties. Apart from their own brands, you’d think they would. Supermarket shopping is always a gamble.) But that is but one fascination. They also offer opportunities fun and creativity.

Eddie Izzard commented that a supermarket creates the chance to play at shopping. Simply collect the trolley and you are free to fill at your own desire and time. At the end, you simply walk away, abandon your trolley and leave the shop. A kind of shop lifting, but you don’t actually break any law beyond the act of nuisance. You are, according to Izzard, simply rearranging the goods. Except you are not. For someone has to sort out your vandalism, at the supermarket’s expense. For frozen food, I feel it is an act of the worst vandalism to leave frozen products away from the freezer.

But a visit to a supermarket will show that this style of consumer subversionist behaviour has not caught on in the way Izzard imagines. In fact we do not dare to subvert the supermarket style of buying. We are slaves to the system. We accept and often follow the routine of trolley filling without question or challenge. But I like to feel there is something of a challenge going on.

Perhaps out there, there is a band of supermarket freedom fighters who, in there own small way of protest, are making a point. Or someone who is wanting to challenge your imagination. You must have seen the evidence.

But the evidnece would not be obvious to the routine, programmed shopper. We all know that as we walk along through the countryside, there are those who are oblivious of seeing any wildlife happening around them. So it is with the supermarket shopper, who fails to notice the small but definite changes to the ordered arrangement of goods for sale. We do perhaps notice the empty shelf, like a gap in a row of teeth, but these are subtle changes and can challenge the mind to think if there was a reason beyond supermarket revenge, it is a challenge to decide what process, both mental and physical, led to the placing of a rogue item.

Let me present some evidence by way of examples of these rogue items. You will notice, if you look up from your list and programmed route, the placing of a jar of mouthwash on the shelves for cat food, or a packet of cup a soups placed on the shelves for teabags. You must have seen them.

Now some could be easily explained, especially when the rogue item is more or less the addition to a trolley by a child and its discovery, perhaps somewhat annoyingly, by the parent. But there are those rogue items that do not obviously fall into that category.

Take this one. It was seen only today at a branch of one of the big five supermarkets. No supermarket is denied this minor phenomenon. Perhaps the nature of the rogue item may vary, but that would call for a more detailed programme of observations. A plastic bottle of Fairy liquid washing up liquid had been placed on a shelf displaying electric coffee making equipment. Quite a good example of an inexpensive every day item alongside a luxury kitchen addition.

I now always ask how this came about. Is it minor supermarket vandalism of the type that Eddie Izzard hints at? If not, then what kind of trolley inventory took place for the shopper to remove the washing up liquid? Or is it some strategy adopted by the stores to draw your attention to a new line or certain product? Or are they randomly placed items to stir the mind to think about items you may have overlooked to place on your list?

I much prefer to think that a massive mind change came about in the brain of the shopper on a surreal foundation.

“No, I don’t want any washing up liquid. I want a cappuccino maker.”

Next time you wander the aisles, keep you eyes open for these treats, these shelf anomalies and ponder on their creation. What hours of fun along the bleak canyons of commerce.

And it is not restricted to supermarkets either.

Eat well

2008-01-20T12:11:00.000-08:00

There is currently a huge debate about the quality of life of chickens and the availability of cheap food. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver have thrown their arguments into the ring. I have not watched either’s programme but I believe that we should be aware of what happens to the animals that we eat. I know that in order to be eaten an animal has to die. It is not rocket science. A fact of life is death.

I have never killed an animal for food. I did run over a squirrel quite by accident which upset us both, mainly because the death was totally unnecessary and, according to my wife Trish, totally avoidable.

Much earlier, Tom, my then father-in-law, used to shoot regularly at the farm owned by his cousin Jim. The twelve bore gun was packed in the boot of the car and we would drive of to the farm near Settle.

He and Jim, booted up and carrying broken guns under their arms with flat caps on their heads, would head up the hill behind the farmhouse. I would walk with them to act as beater if needed as directed by Jim. Essentially, Jim did the beating for he knew his land and where the hares would tend to hang out. Tom would be stationed at the tree, and, on this occasion, had me standing near but not too near so as not to impede the shooting if it should happen.

There was a shout from Jim from somewhere to our left. He’d sprung a hare from its form and it was now sprinting down the field. Tom flashed the gun to his shoulder, took quick aim and fired. The hare, struck by the pellets in full stride, simply began tumbling head over heels and then stopped abruptly. One cartridge, one dead hare. The hare was carried to the house after a further beating came to nought.

My children, then aged four and six, bloodied their hands helping their grandad skin and joint the hare, making it ready for the pot. It was delicious. There were no qualms or displeasure that we were eating a once living creature. If you like to eat meat, then you have to kill, be witness to the kill or have a distant acknowledgement of the kill.

The sterilised packaging of the supermarket meat further distances the eater from the killing. In my past, meat was bought from a butcher, who displayed in his shop carcasses both whole and part and birds still with heads and feet and whole rabbit complete with ears and feet still in fur. There was no doubt that what you were buying was once living. Now the supermarket chicken has most of its identity cut or tucked away and is solely a pale lump on a plastic tray.

What Hugh and Jamie are doing is partly to remind us of the origin of the meat we eat. And like the hare, meat should come from an animal that should have had a life that was free and natural.

Space is obviously limited and to provide the demand for meat there has to some way that maximises the space available. The product may cost more if more care is to be lavished on our meat providers, but there is the always the vegetarian option. I suppose the only way to ensure an animal has a good life is to stop eating them. Never mind the baby cuddly fluffs called animals that give reason for many to become vegetarian. Vegetarianism and veganism I applaud. I doubt the “Ooh, aren’t they lovely, I couldn’t eat them” argument. If we insist then we must accept meat protein production is land demanding and greenhouse gas producing. That is the good enough reason to become vegetarian. Or let’s simply eat less meat and then only eat that meat whose processing has considered the living creature has had some quality in its life, however short.

Free range is phrase that too is free ranging. Once on a walk, my friend pointed out some long low sheds on a field below where we were walking. He asked us to describe what we could see in the field. Having answered his request he then asked if we could see any hens. There was not one. My friend explained that the hens that lived in the huts laid eggs that were sold labelled as free range. He had never seen a hen at all making free range of its environment. Apparently, free range simply means access to the open land via a small opening in one of the shed walls. That the hens remain within is there choice but they do not fit with what I would call free range. It's a bit like hearing from someone who had had a holiday in Turkey (no animal link intended) but had only experienced that country from within the bounds of the all inclusive hotel complex. There are humans who are quite happy to accept a battery package when on holiday.

Once I looked after a few hens for a friend. The hens were kept in a run in the garden about 30 feet long by 4 feet. A small hut at one end of the run sheltered them but they were free to range. I have seen organic hens making use of free space. They looked happy and fit. They were not quite fully organic, but the pecking and swallowing of a thick creamy coloured slug by one of the hens almost put me off eggs forever. I have always enjoyed eggs and these, my payment for being guardian, were delicious.

Overheard. “I don’t think I could eat anything that was covered in fur.” To which I offered, “So no Kiwi fruit and peaches then.”