NAAFI Break Meditation.

It’s a good idea Roy but…………………

2010-08-29T17:14:00.003+02:00

Just recently I have taken the time to enjoy a trip down memory lane by listening to some comedy programmes I used to enjoy on the wireless whilst growing up.

One of my earliest memories was listening to The Goon Show on the BBC Home Service on Sunday afternoons. The Goons ran from 1951 until 1960 though I did not really start listening until perhaps I was about 8 or 9 so that would have been about 1957 or 58, though even to me and my friends as early as that the Goons started the manic and archaic humour that was to carry us through life, and I doubt today, even some fifty years after the last original recording [though there have been repeats] there are many who have not at least have heard of The Goons.

The original composition was; Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine, though Bentine left in 1953. All had met whilst trying to break into show business after being demobbed from the forces after the end of the war. It has been said the The Goons had a considerable influence on later areas of British comedy such as Monty Python. The Goons however were not just a group of manic screeching comedians making silly noises but in fact the central core of the humour [all the scripts were written by Spike Milligan] were was based on ‘Subject Transference’ and it took a little while for the listener to understand the humour and then join in and understand the joke, there are some no doubt that ‘never got it’.

Subject Transference can come in a variety of ways. There is Time Transference; If you drop a bundle of 1918 calendars on troops in 1916 they will think the war is over and go home. Place Transference; if you understand for example that by opening and going through a door will take you from one room into another then why not if you open a door in the Himalayas it could take you to London. Transference of Utility; Milligan swapped items at random for example gorillas became cigarettes; ‘My these Gorillas are strong……………have one of my Monkeys they are milder’.

The Goons had an original run of nine years. Peter Sellers died in 1980, Michael Bentine died 1996, Harry Secombe died 2001 and Spike Milligan in 2002. Milligan was recorded as saying he was glad Secombe had died before him and he would not be able to sing at his [Milligan's] funeral, as it turned out Secombe did sing at Milligan’s funeral by way of a recording.

The Clitheroe Kid ran from 1957 until 1972 recording a total of 290 episodes on the wireless. The star of the programme was Jimmy Clithero who was a Northern comedian born 1921 but due to his diminutive stature was easily able to pass off as the 11 year schoolboy of the programme title. The make believe Clithero family of grandfather, mother and sister Susan lived at 33 Lilac Avenue. The basic weekly premise of the show was that Jimmy would get into some scrape or other often involving Alfie the hapless boyfriend of sister Susan and the ensuing efforts of Jimmy to get out his difficulties. By today's standards it seems perhaps rather mundane but the reader must understand that whilst I listened to this each Sunday afternoon I was also heading toward becoming an 11 year old school boy and I along with thousands of other roared with laughter. Jimmy Clithero died in 1973.

The Navy Lark was another radio sit-com about life on board a British Royal Navy Frigate the HMS Troutbridge. The programme ran from 1959 to 1975 with 244 episodes originally transmitted on the BBC Light programme and subsequently or BBC Radio 2. Programmes were self-contained, although there was continuity within the series, and there would sometimes be a reference to a previous episode. A normal episode consisted of Sub Lieutenant Phillips, scheming Chief Petty Officer Pertwee and bemused Lt. Murray trying to get out of trouble they created for themselves without being found out by their direct superior, Commander (later Captain) "Thunderguts" Povey. Scenes frequently featured a string of eccentric characters, often played by Ronnie Barker.

The programme featured musical breaks with a main harmonica theme by Tommy Reilly and several enduring catchphrases, most notably from Sub Lieutenant Phillips: 'Corrrrr'...........'Ooh, nasty....', 'Oh lumme!' and 'Left hand down a bit'. 'Ev'rybody down!' was a phrase of CPO Pertwee's, necessitated by a string of incomprehensible navigation orders by Phillips, and followed by a sound effect of the ship crashing. Also, whenever Pertwee had some menial job to be done, Able Seaman Johnson was always first in line to do it, inevitably against his will: 'You're rotten, you are!'. The telephone response from Naval Intelligence (Ronnie Barker), was always an extremely gormless and dimwitted delivery of 'Ello, Intelligence 'ere' or 'This is intelligence speakin'

Other recurring verbal features were the invented words 'humgrummits' and 'floggle-toggle' which served to cover all manner of unspecified objects ranging from foodstuffs to naval equipment. Dennis Price died in 1973, Jon Pertwee [who later played Doctor Who 1970-74] died 1996, Stephen Murray died 1983, Richard Caldicot died 1995, Ronnie Barker died 2005 and Michael Bates died 1978.

Moving from radio to television I guess the largest and certainly the longest running television sit-com must be The Last of the Summer Wine. First broadcast by the BBC in January 1973 and the last episode is due to be broadcast on 29 August 2010 ending after 31 series over 37 years and it is officially recognised as the single longest running television situation comedy.

Last of the Summer Wine focuses on a trio of older men and their youthful antics. The original trio consisted of Compo Simmonite [Bill Owen] Norman Clegg [Peter Sallis] and Cyril Blamire [Michael Bates] Blamire left in 1976, when Michael Bates fell ill shortly before filming of the third series [Bates died 1978] requiring Roy Clarke to hastily rewrite the series with a new third man. The third member of the trio would be recast four times over the next three decades: Foggy Dewhurst in 1976 [Brian Wilde],Seymour Utterthwaite in 1986 [Michael Aldridge],Foggy again in 1990,and Truly Truelove in 1997 [Frank Thornton].After Compo [Bill Owen] died in 2000, Compo's real son, [Tom Owen] played Tom Simmonite, filled the gap for the rest of that series,and Billy Hardcastle [Keith Clifford] joined the cast as the third lead character in 2001.

The trio became a quartet between 2003 and 2006 when Alvin Smedley [Brian Murphy] moved in next-door to Nora Batty [Kathy Staff],but returned to the usual threesome in 2006 when Billy Hardcastle left the show. The role of supporting character Entwistle [Burt Kwouk] steadily grew on the show until the beginning of the 30th series, when he and Alvin were recruited by Hobbo Hobdyke [Russ Abbot], a former milkman with ties to MI5 to form a new trio of volunteers who respond to any emergency.

The trio explore the world around them, experiencing a second childhood with no wives, jobs or responsibilities. They pass the time by speculating about their fellow townspeople and testing inventions.Regular subplots in the first decade of the show included: Sid [John Comer] and Ivy [Jane Freeman] bickering over the management of the café, Mr Wainwright and Mrs Partridge having a secret love affair that everyone knows about,Wally [Joe Gladwin] trying to get away from Nora's watchful eye,Foggy's exaggerated war stories,and Compo's schemes to win the affections of Nora Batty.

The number of subplots on the show grew as more cast members were added. Regular subplots since the 1980s have included: Howard [Robert Fyfe] and Marina [Jean Fergusson] trying to have an affair without Howard's wife finding out (a variation of the Wainwright-Partridge subplot of the 1970s), the older women meeting for tea and discussing their theories about men and life,Auntie Wainwright [Jean Alexander] trying to sell unwanted merchandise to unsuspecting customers,Smiler [Stephen Lewis] trying to find a woman, Barry [Mike Grady] trying to better himself (at the insistence of Glenda) [Sarah Thomas],and Tom trying to stay one step ahead of the repo man.

Peter Sallis who has played ex lino salesman Norman Clegg, and is the only surviving cast member from the original episode also gives his voice to Wallace from Wallace and Gromit is often referred to as ‘Norman Clegg as was’ when he encounters the man hungry Marina.

As I look back now with fondness and the occasional smile over some of the humour and comedy that has made me laugh over all these years from the Goons ‘He's fallen in the water!’ or ‘You dirty, rotten swine, you! You deaded me!’ or Sub Lt Phillips ‘I say….ding dong’ or Marina from Last of the Summer Wine coming upon the hapless trio and sideling up to Clegg and saying ‘Well Norman Clegg as was’ one thing they all have in common is that they are all gone and after tonight so will Last of the Summer Wine, it will end of the longest running British television sit-com.

Perhaps Roy Clarke, who has written every single one of those episodes over the 37 years, was glad that he did not take any notice of the BBC executive that he took the very first pilot episode draft to…………………… So let me get this straight Roy , this is about three retired old men passing their day and the mishaps that befall them, its a good idea Roy but do you think anyone will watch it……………………………….

Interesting times indeed.

2010-05-09T15:09:00.005+02:00

A long time ago I worked with a chap who was very fond of the saying 'Be careful what you wish for it may come true', he would use this at any opportunity and would apply the term to mean good and bad thereby allowing it to fit most situations. Thinking that I had long forgotten about this phrase it suddenly appeared in my head during the early hours of the morning of the 7th May whilst I was taking the occasional opportunity to keep up with the incoming general election results. Despite mentioning my doubt in the last Blog entry about the actual outcome being a hung parliament that is what has occurred.

I must genuinely offer my congratulations to David Cameron for now being the leader of the party with the most seats, though not enough to form a majority government. My commiserations to Nick Clegg who I think actually started to believe both the propaganda from the media and his own inflated ideas of suddenly how popular he had become. Sadly, for him anyway, he now has five MP's less than he had a few short days ago so it has not been a good time for him or his party and perhaps a salutary lesson of not to believe everything he hears or reads during the run up to an election. My commiserations also go to Gordon Brown; though the Labour party has fallen to second place behind the Tories he also does not have enough seats to form a majority government.

There has been much criticism of Brown mainly headed by the media who seems to have at times a selective memory when it suits them. One of the much flaunted complaints, for example, is that taking over from Tony Blair mid-term as leader of the Labour party made him an unelected Prime Minister. Strange then that the same media forget that John Major who took over from Margaret Thatcher mid-term in November 1990 as leader of the Conservative party and thus became Prime Minister in exactly the same situation. It was to be another two years until John Major called a general election in April 1992, but I do not recall the media ever hounding him as an unelected Prime Minister. Two-faced contempt is the basic method of operation for many newspapers: monotonous newsprint filled with selective reporting and audacious bias. the popular press is a hopelessly poisoned chalice in which our politicians seem resigned to exist in.

Of the 91 seats lost by the Labour party I know there will be genuine sadness at some of the good honest and hard working MP's becoming a casualty, however there are others who are now going who frankly will not be missed and little sympathy should be spared for them. Jacqui Smith falls perhaps partly due to the expenses scandal. The first ever woman to hold the post of Home Secretary she will not be missed. Charles Clarke, yet another ex Home Secretary has been shown the door from his Norwich South seat. The problem Clarke has is his attitude, during his final months in parliament he has been a vocal critic of Gordon Brown, now that may be his right to disagree or oppose anything his political leader says but it should not be aired like dirty laundry in public, it does him [Clarke] no good as he is marked as a moaning and bitter backbencher having lost his cabinet post, it does Gordon Brown no good as being seen to have members of his own party sniping at him in public and it does the party as a whole no good. If Clarke did not like his lot then he could leave at any time, another one not to be missed. Then there are those who have not awaited their fate at the hands of the public and have fallen on their sword. Hoon and Hewitt are two who readily spring to mind and in the overall plan of things they will not be missed either.

So where do we stand at the moment. Well neither of the two main parties have enough seats to form a government. I know there are many Labour supporters who would never vote Tory but who thought to punish Gordon Brown by voting Lib Dem the result being that the Labour vote fell. So few voters agreed with the Lib Dem manifesto and policy that they have lost five seats, maybe that shows how popular [or not] proportional representation may really be with the public and though David Cameron has indeed climbed a mountain and came home with a very creditable and worthwhile result he is still short of twenty seats and now needs to find other minority parties to join with to push him over the 326 seats required to form a government and mean time the country is now in a state of limbo.

The best option [at the time of writing] is for the Tories to agree a deal with Lib Dems but by doing so in some perverse way the country has lost it's democracy. We the electorate listen to the politicians then decide who we might support on the strength of who promises what. It is open, it is above board, we know what we are being told then we make an informed decision and we vote. However, now for example, with David Cameron and Nick Clegg talking to each other in an attempt to agree a deal; future policy is now being decided and agreed in private and in secret, we the voter do not now know what is being agreed, we are not being consulted. If Cameron and Clegg do agree some deal there will be some mutual policy shift between the two parties. There could be the situation where some people who voted Conservative feel cheated as they find perhaps some of the policies they voted on have been watered down or disappeared completely. Lib Dem supporters may think themselves lucky that after coming third and losing five seats are now in some position of power sharing and decision making. They will soon become disillusioned when they find that any promise that the Tories may give to gain the agreement of support very quickly disappears.

Perhaps as in 1974 when we last had a hung parliament and a coalition it will not be long for tempers to flare, promises to be broken and support to be withdrawn and then we will do this all over again.

What is to become of Gordon Brown and the Labour party? My personal view is to let the dust settle and wait for the coalition between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Then withdraw with good grace and dignity then Gordon Brown should resign as leader of the party and there should be a leadership election. Once a new leader is found then prepare for government again quickly because as with any pact that involves Tory promises it will not be long until they are broken twisted and distorted and the Lib Dems take their ball and go home. and we are off to the polls again.

As a chap I once worked for uses to say, be careful what you wish for...............................

Elections, Earthquakes, Education and Cleavage.

2010-05-02T22:38:00.006+02:00

Mrs F and I have been away, we have been to Germany to visit family for a short break but we are back now and looking forward to our next adventure in just under seven weeks time. Due notice has been placed on a well known social networking web site for extra staff to be recruited at Philp's Bakers in Hayle [purveyors of the finest Cornish Pasty], for the management of the Union Inn on Fore Street to order extra stocks of Rattler Cider for Mrs F and to the staff and management of The Badger Inn at Lelant that Mrs F and I will require our normal table near the window for the Carvery Lunch on Sundays. Yes dear reader it will soon be time once more for Mrs F and I to pack our chattels and proceed south to Cornwall. We are ready for Cornwall but as always we wonder if Cornwall is once again ready for us.

We are now in the midst of election fever [well alright maybe not fever] with the General Election on the 6th May, so by the next Blog entry we will have a new Government. My political leanings are perhaps well known to regular readers of the Blog but I am beginning to wonder, certainly from what I have seen and read over the last couple of weeks or so, that the three main contenders are all much the same in their vague promises. We are told, and rightly so, that hard times are ahead whoever gains power. A vast hole in the countries finances courtesy of the world recession and the way some financial institutions and banks went about their business has to be covered, indeed the country needs to be placed back on a firm footing, but how it should be done and how and where and perhaps more importantly how deep some of these cuts should be is the question and so far the answers are not forthcoming in any detail.

The Labour party seem to favour a slow and steady as she goes approach, certainly with cuts in public finances but spread over a medium term so as not to hurt everybody at the same time which may reduce public confidence. The Conservatives I understand are more for an immediate slash and burn policy, cut everything now from top to bottom and perhaps return to a Thatcherism view of it is a price worth paying to get the country back onto a more even financial footing, if you survive to come out the other end intact well done and if you don't well................

The Liberal Democrats have a secret weapon in the form of Vince Cable their treasury spokesperson. Mr Cable has the ability to put forward his case in a pleasant and measured approach. During a recent televised debate between Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable it was Cable it seemed who emerged the unofficial winner. The public appear to like both him and what he had to say that would become the proposed fiscal policy if his party won the election, but therein lies the rub, his party winning the election. One of the Liberal Democrats stated aims is in the long term to build a more liberal society however I suspect there are far too many people in this country who think society has become far too liberal already under successive Labour and Tory Governments. An often used comment about the Lib Dem's is that in fact they can say whatever they like or they think the public might wish to hear for there is a very slim chance indeed of them ever gaining power so it is all a little academic. The last true Liberal Government in this country being from 1905 to 1915 though they did take part in a coalition government from 1915 to 1922 since when there has not been a sniff of power from them.

There is much talk about there being a hung parliament with no overall working majority from either of the two main front runners and then it seems if that is the case that Nick Clegg the leader of the Lib Dems might become a King Maker. A hung parliament is fairly uncommon the last one in this country was in 1974 prior to that it was 1929, so really for all the media rhetoric I do not think that will be the final outcome when all the votes are counted. For the benefit of any new readers from Chad a Hung Parliament is a relatively new phrase to our common usage of English coming into popular use around the mid seventies and is a term to describe a minority government or even a government with a such a slim majority that relies upon other political parties by agreement to get legislation passed.

I am amused by recent comments from the world media following a senior Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi who is quoted by the Iranian press as suggesting that woman who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes. Women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, increasing [consequently] earthquakes. This sparked an outcry among many women who refuse to believe flaunting their breasts is triggering a worldwide disaster.

If the media is to believed some 200,000 women across the world, but it seems mainly in the USA, held numerous protests and one led by Jennifer McCrieght staged a 24 hour protest named Boobquake and encouraged other women to flaunt their breasts and cleavage to prove the Iranian clerics wrong. This protest carried banners proclaiming 'Cleavage for Science' which I think is fair enough but as always some protesters carried opposing banners stating 'God Hates Boobs' I am not sure what authority they may have to make that claim but I prefer Cleavage for Science, in fact I just prefer cleavage.

In the wake of this entire episode are the numerous pictures appearing of amply endowed ladies wearing very small tops with logos such as.............I Survived the Boobquake...........and.........Did the Earth Move for You. For a brief moment I had the notion of suggesting to Mrs F that she might also like to show support for her 'Sisters' in showing her ample cleavage to prove the clerics wrong. However I came to my senses in time and considered that any ensuing hospital treatment I might undergo as a direct result of this proposal may well conflict with the forthcoming trip to Cornwall so I dismissed the idea immediately.

However as always there is a postscript. Whilst Ms McCreight and her 200,000 like minded supporters were baring almost all in the name of science; on Monday morning 26th April approximately 300km off Southern Taiwan was an earthquake that measured 6.5 on the Richter scale. Ms McCreight later claimed this had nothing at all to do with her or any of her supporters in the Boobquake protest............................however somewhere in Iran I am sure I could almost hear a group of clerics sniggering to themselves.

I read today in one of the more reliable broadsheets that some families around the country are now contemplating the proposition of selling their homes or their second homes in some cases and downsizing. Is this the final consequence of a dying Labour government I wonder, is it because the recession has finally come to us all and even the most modest abode has in some cases become financially untenable; reading on however I breathe a sigh of relief to find that why this has come about, so the article informs me, is due to the increase in tuition fees at many private and public schools. This autumn for example both Eton and Winchester will increase their fees to £30,000 per year per pupil, and many other private and public schools will increase their fees proportionally.

The article reports for example that the Corporate Affairs Director for the Rugby Football Union has just put his five bedroom house on the market for £895,000 in an effort to downsize and use the balance to part fund his three children through the local private prep school at a rate of £4,065, that's £12,195 for all three per year. A 71 year old grandmother has just sold her family home in Chiswick West London for a reported £1.6m to ensure her four grandsons receive a full private education. There are other examples quoted of families selling their second homes in the South of France and the Caribbean to recoup equity to fund their children's private education.

Of course parents and grandparents may decided how and where their offspring should be educated, that is their right and one of the pleasures of living in a free and democratic society, it is their money and I assume they came by it in a fair and honest manner and so they may dispose of it how they wish. However I cannot help but feel that some of these people by bemoaning the fact that due to the increase in private education fees they are now faced with these measures are occasionally a little out of touch with the rest of us in the real world.

Perhaps I am being a little naive and perhaps this has always been the case ever since young Coley first arrived at Brookfield but I wonder what dear old Chips would make of it all..............................

Comings and Goings

2010-03-16T10:39:00.003+01:00

Well I start this edition of the Blog with the news that the seemingly interminable wait that I endure each year between the ending of the NFL season with the Super Bowl and the start of the Baseball spring training leading to the beginning of the regular Baseball season on the 5th April is over. This period is not totally devoid of sport but it is not sport that interests me, I am sure there are a great many Hockey and Basketball fans out there and much power to your elbow I say but it not just for me.

Even the occasional reader of the Blog will be aware, if not you are now, that with Baseball I have for a great many years supported and followed the fortunes of the Cleveland Indians, in recent times a team of mixed fortunes, who last year played the 162 regular season games and lost 97 of them and sharing the bottom position in the Central Division of the American League with Kansas City who also played 162 games and lost 97. However the Indians have seen greatness during their 109 year history. They have played in the World Series three times, they won in 1920 and 1948 but lost to the Giants in 1954, in more recent times they were first in the Central Division for five consecutive years 1995 - 1999 winning the Division Series beating the Red Sox in 1995, the Yankees in 97 and the Red Sox [again] in 98 but losing to the Orioles in 96 and the Red Sox in 99; they were first in the Division again in 2001 but lost to the Mariners but first again in 2007 and won beating the Yankees.

So far during this years Spring Training they have won every game they have played and are unequalled by any other team in either the American or national League; however it will soon be the 5th April and I shall take my place on the Lazy Boy settee and settle back with a cold beer tune the television to ESPN America and await those famous words..................Play Ball. Let's hope that this year the Indians can return to the glory day.

I would be unfair to myself if at some point I did not mention the death on the 3rd March of Michael Foot at the grand age of 96. I am by inclination a Socialist [with a capitol S] and I tend politically to try, when I am able, to stand just left of centre and occasionally I do like the term radical when I lean intermittently leftwards.

I am today a socialist for three main reasons, first and perhaps most importantly I was raised in a socialist household though in hindsight I doubt very much if either of my late parents would have, if asked, classed themselves socialists, though both life long Labour voters, if questioned where they stood politically I think they may have said 'somewhere in the centre' but they both passionately believed in in a fair and just society with equal opportunities for all.

Secondly and though it seems strange now but in my early teens I became aware of a radical left wing socialist Labour politician called Aneurin Bevan. It was Nye Bevan who as Minister for health between 1945 and 1951 had the vision and foresight to play a vital role in the creation and introduction of the National Health Service, often amongst harsh opposition from both the Conservative Party and the British Medical Association. The new free for everyone Health Service becoming a reality, not just for those with the ability to pay, on the 5th July 1948. His passion, his values and his examples inspired a succeeding generation of followers, the Bevanites; that included Barbara Castle, Harold Wilson and Niel Kinnock to name a few. Nye Bevan had a vision for a better and more equal society for all.

Thirdly was Michael Foot. It was Michael Foot above all who inspired me to take a much greater interest in politics in general and socialism in particular though I have never been as brave as he [or even Nye Bevan] to lean that far to the left. There is much I disagreed with, Foots almost fervent staunch conviction in Nuclear Disarmament's for example, where often on television news reports of the day he could be seen near the head of some protest march or other; a dishevelled looking individual wearing his trademark beige duffle coat and with his flowing unkempt hair, but he was a man conviction, belief and strong socialism and that is what I liked about him. In his own words he first joined the Labour Party in 1937 in Liverpool because of the poverty he saw, the unemployment and the endless infamies committed on the inhabitants of the backstreets of that city. With my own father being born in Liverpool in 1915 his family would have suffered the unemployment and extreme hardships of the time and I find a correlation there.

First elected to Parliament for Plymouth in 1945 he sat on the back benches for nine turbulent years becoming always the radical voice to be reckoned with. During those years on the back benches he practised and honed his oratory skills, he warned Attlee's Government to beware of retreating from the purity of the socialist gospel and demanded greater help for the working people. Foot lost his seat in 1955 but when Nye Bevan died of cancer in 1960 it was Foot that was selected as Bevan's successor and he stood for an won the Ebbw Vale seat which he then held for 32 years until his retirement from politics in 1992.

Time has shown us that there are those who are natural speakers, and certainly it is a skill that all in public office must learn and master but there there are a few to whom it comes as a natural ability and who can speak with such deep belief, passion and conviction. Winston Churchill certainly was one, oddly enough Neil Kinnock is another and Michael Foot is another, and in my opinion he was truly spell binding to listen to.

Eventually Michael Foot, perhaps really against his own better judgement, became leader of the Labour Party after James Callaghan resigned during the Labour Conference in 1980. In the run up to the 1983 General Election with Margaret Thatcher still riding on a wave of success after the Falklands War the year before, Michael Foot laid out the Labour Party Manifesto for the forthcoming election and that speech has now passed into Labour Party folklore as 'The Longest Suicide Note in History', it was the end for Foot and the beginning of the end for his brand of leftist radical labour, the party vote fell to its lowest since 1935.

However times change and Neil Kinnock, a Bevanite himself, John Smith then Tony Blair brought the Labour Party out of the wilderness and back into office by making its core values more centre ground, even right of centre at times and more moderate, well that and the complete internal collapse and total mistrust of the Conservative Party by the general public, but it was not the politics or beliefs of Michael Foot, it was 'New Labour' and Michael Foot was 'Old Labour' radical and left of centre, he belonged to a different age and a different time. Michael Foot has long been a political hero of mine, a genuine man with a passion and dedication in his beliefs not often seen today, one of the old guard of left wing radical politics.

Google have in the last day or so announced that the Street View on Google maps has now been released for Britain with about 98% completion rate, it did not take long for the Moaning Minnie's, the Loonies and the NIMBY's to throw their collective hands in the air in horror and shout loudly at anyone who will listen, no doubt eager to gain some support, about invasion of privacy, permissions not given, it being a 'Burglars Charter' and all sorts of other nonsense. For the benefit of any new reader from Chad a NIMBY is a mnemonic for Not In My Back Yard to indicate someone or a group of people who think anything will be a great idea so long as it is not built or does not happen near them.

One of the less significant daily newspapers even published a story about how one of their reporters had found on the Google Street View an image of a child that was half dressed [no doubt after spending countless hours hunched over his or her computer zooming in on every image of a child they could find to do so] and now claims this will become the favoured tool of paedophiles who will use the Street View to locate children and then rush off to do whatever it is that paedophiles do with children. Does this newspaper seriously expect us to believe that they think a paedophile will spend hours searching Google Street View in search of a victim and then rush off to the given geographical location and expect the child to still be there; it surely goes without saying that the Street View is not a live image but a pre-recorded image now published on the web. I might expect some of these images to be up to six months or more old, what a ridiculous and scare mongering article the newspaper has printed, but knowing the newspaper it is about par for the course for them and it's reporting style but even more sadly reflects the readership of this newspaper that it is believed without question and I am sure mobs of vigilantes are forming as I type.

For those who have claimed it is an invasion of their privacy and that their permission had not been sought for these images to be collected I might remind them then that when next they are on holiday or out for the day and they plan to take some photographs to ensure they go and ask everyone else on the beach or in the town or city or wherever they may be to obtain their permission as no doubt they might be included on the photograph as well. What a ludicrous notion. I expect we all have photographs at home or on our computers to remind us of happy holidays or day visits and in the background are perhaps hundreds of other people, if at the beach for example, do we go and ask every persons consent who may be caught innocently on the photograph.

Do some of these people really believe that because the street or road that they live on is now included in Goggle Street View that suddenly there will be a great influx of crime on their property or in their area, what do they base that on? I can purchase an A to Z guide of any city or town in this country, open it at any page, stick a pin into any given area and go to that point and stand outside any house or other buildings take some photographs and walk around the area, this is no more or no less than can be done with Google Street View or than can have been done with any A to Z Guide for the last twenty or so years. How does that in some way in peoples mind become an opportunity for an increase in crime.

It is all such a silly notion from a lot of loonies, but I am getting flipping angry again.

Good news on the Gnome front. I can report the the Gnome arrived safely some days ago and since then I have taken it to work for the day and taken some photographs, Mrs F and I also took it to the North Yorkshire Moors National Park visiting Sutton Bank, Helmsley and the Lion Inn at Blakey Ridge for lunch. I have added the pictures and a small written report to the Gnome World Travel Web Site and he has now departed for his next destination in Dunfermline Scotland prior to crossing the Atlantic to the new world and the colonies.

It makes me so flipping angry.

2010-02-20T15:03:00.014+01:00

I find I get more annoyed as the weeks and months pass and perhaps there might be some correlation between the angrier I get and the older I get, but I really do get annoyed at times and no doubt the blood pressure jumps upward as a result.

I often get reprimanded by Mrs F during the times I spend shouting loudly and waving my arms about wildly at some news or current affairs item on the television or something I read in the press. I vent my anger with shouts of lock them up, bring back the birch, who wrote this rubbish a two year old, bring back debtors prison or my current favourite; deport them to Chad, though why I should expect Chad to accept the waifs, drop outs and general dross of the society I do not know. My fury cover a wide spectrum it is not just to law breakers that I vent my anger, but also seemingly nondescript other groups or individuals who unwittingly fall foul of my sensibility.

Here are a couple of recent examples of the sort of thing that makes me angry.

A recent newspaper item claimed that a third of students canvassed for a national poll, and here I should explain that we are talking about university students in the age range 19 - 23, are unable to name the leader of the Labour Party whilst 34% of those canvassed could not name the leader of the Conservative Party and just under 50% did not know that Nick Clegg is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. The article then continues to put a journalistic twist on the story that the leaders of the three main parties and by default the political parties themselves are much of a sameness, or are so nondescript that can the students of today be blamed for not knowing some of these basic facts. However my interpretation of it is that there are university students studying for degrees or higher, and are by default within the top 25% academic group within their age range, should damn well feel ashamed for not knowing who the leader of the Labour Party [who is of course also the Prime Minister] is by name or in fact the names of the leaders of the other two main political parties in this country and it leaves me stunned.

Let us consider these are the students who in a couple of years from now will graduate and then be looking for the first step on the ladder for high level employment with high level incomes to match. Some will remain in academia for life and return later to teach a new generation. It makes me wonder sometimes who we are educating and is it all worth it. Perhaps many of these should now be weeded out of university and sent post haste to the job centre to find employment more suited to their level as it is clear to me at least that some of these student are wasting their time and tax payers money at university.

About two years ago, maybe a little longer, British Gas wrote too many of their domestic customers and informed them that the price of domestic gas was likely to rise over the coming years and offered to lock in customers who chose a fixed monthly payment over a fixed term [three years I think] regardless if the price of gas or in fact of British Gas prices rose. Those who chose to would only pay the agreed fixed monthly price regardless of any price increase over the agreed period. I had such a letter but after looking at the terms and conditions and taking into account how much I already paid as a monthly payment I decided not to take advantage of this offer and should prices rise then I would just have to weather the storm so to speak. Undoubtedly however there were those who no doubt like me also read the small print [perhaps many did not] weighed up the pros and cons and decided to take advantage of this offer and lock themselves into an inflationary prove fixed term contract in an attempt to offset any price rise to to either inflation or production costs.

A few weeks ago British Gas announced [against all the odds] that they were going to reduce prices for many domestic users by on average up to about 7%. Now for me and other customers who did not lock themselves into the fixed price agreement this was indeed both surprising and welcome news. However it was not long after the announcement on the morning news when the moaning and complaining started from those who had elected to take advantage of the fixed price contract and now saw themselves not benefiting from any potential price reduction. It seemed to me watching the news that every few minutes some more e mails, texts or phone calls to the television studio were read out from disgruntled customers wanting to know if they would get the reduction in price as well. I heard myself shouting at the television that had British Gas announced a 7% price increase would these same people be bombarding the news studio with e mail and phone calls wanting to ditch their fixed price contract and pay the extra increase..............of course not, so what made them think that they should be allowed to ditch the fixed price agreement and receive the price reduction. They had the choice like everyone did and they chose a course of action if as it transpires that was the wrong choice, though luck and stop moaning and take some responsibility for your own actions.

I know when Christmas is really over when I start to read stories about individuals who are in debt due to overspending during the festive period. A very recent example has been a young couple in their thirties [well they are young to me] with two children. These two sad specimens plus their children were produced on a morning television programme and, I assume, hoping for some sympathy from the viewing public re told the sad tale of how they are now £58,000 in debt, this being accompanied from time to time by one or other of the children crying. It seems that in October this couple received a letter from a bank offering them a fantastic credit card at fantastically extra low rate of interest should they wish to sign up. The couple did and received the new card and started to spend. A few days later they received another letter from another bank asking would they like to have a credit card with an interest rate so low it is a wonder why the bank required repaying at all, the couple agreed and continued spending, why not they informed the viewing public Christmas was coming and they had children.

Whilst out shopping with their new credits cards they were offered a store card from a well known high street department store [for the benefit of any new readers from Chad it was Marks and Spencer] and so took that with no doubt a special low rate of interest..............the story goes and on like this and the couple saw no harm in spending all this money, not their money of course this being credit to be repaid with interest. The point to this and what made me apoplectic with rage was that the couple saw none of this as their fault. Now they were £58,000 in debt they had come to the television studio to complain about the Government who they saw as the culprit; in essence they were now £58,000 in debt due to the fault of the Government.

The argument runs that the Government allows banks and other financial institutions to offer individuals these credit cards so by default it is the fault of the Government that they were £58,000 in debt and what was the Government going to do about it. It was it seems nothing whatsoever to do with them taking on these various cards, signing a contract and then going on a spending spree . When asked by the interviewer that did it not occur to either of them that they were only really using money in advance of repaying it with interest, it was not really their money they were only in essence borrowing it, the couple looked at each other rather blankly then looked at the interviewer and shrugged and repeated that it was not their fault, that they should not be held to account and the Prime Minister should be the one who accepts responsibility, the child continued to cry. I was about to throw something at the television when Mrs F entered the room and stopped me.

A local news item caught my attention. A motorist had been stopped by police for speeding, he was just prior to being stopped [and after being followed by a marked police car] driving at 58 mph in 40 mph speed limit and that at the time he was also using his hand held mobile phone, a note to our reader from Chad, it is against the law in Great Britain to drive whilst using a hand held device such as a phone. After being stopped and interviewed it transpires this motorist already has 6 penalty points on his driving licence showing that he had been stopped at least once before if not twice for other motoring offences. After being cautioned and then informed that he will be reported for offences relating to the Road Traffic Act this person then begins to complain about the strong armed actions of the police, how the police would better spend their time catching criminal and law breakers rather than waste their time harassing good and honest motorists like himself and that politicians should do something about this waste of police time and resource.

I would say to this individual that the police are catching criminals and law breakers, they caught you. You are a criminal and law breaker and deserve to receive a spell in prison just as much as a burglar for example. You were exceeding the prescribed speed limit, so you were breaking the law; you were also at the time driving whilst using your hand held telephone, again you were breaking the law. You already have 6 penalty points on your licence which shows you have also broken the law before, so you are in effect a habitual criminal. yes the police are doing their job; they are catching criminals like you.

The attitude of it is always the fault of someone else makes me so angry..........................

It's turned out nice again.

2010-02-07T17:52:00.003+01:00

I know dear reader that this is as much as a surprise for you as it is for me to be adding another Blog entry, but the truth is there has been a miracle of almost biblical proportions because you see I have been cured from the dreaded and almost fatal SOB that had struck me down. I am fit and well again, at least as fit and well as anyone my age have the right to expect. I attribute this healing of my body mind and perhaps soul to maintaining a healthy regime, well that is my excuse at least.

Mrs F however has got flu. My god you should hear her continually moaning about how ill she is. She never stops moaning about the many and varied symptoms she claims to be suffering from, the sore throat, the aching limbs, the occasional bouts of shivering, on and on and on, I have told her to pull herself together and stop complaining it is only flu. I hate people who do nothing but grumble when they get some simple and relatively harmless ailment like flu. The humorous twist to this perhaps is that Mrs F is within an at risk group medically speaking and about four weeks ago or so she received two injections at the local surgery, one for flu and one for swine flu...............that works then.

So today is the Super Bowl and the New Orleans Saints will battle it out against the Indianapolis Colts for the title of Super Bowl XLIV Winners at the Sun Life Stadium in Florida. The game is due to start at 5pm Eastern Time [US] and will be shown live around the world. We here in the UK will get it starting at about 10.30pm and it will continue until about 4am. I will be watching it on the BBC having already taken the precaution of taking the day off work tomorrow. I have also prepared for the event in other ways; the fridge is stocked with Budweiser, I have a couple of packets of Doritos chips and a jar of Hot Salsa Dip and to get me through the forty minute half time show, this year a performance given by The Who, I have some Hot Dogs and Rolls, I think that should see me through it all okay.

I do not really have any fixation to either team but there is a requirement to support one or the other. The Colts are statistically the better team with a season score of 14:2 against the Saints 13:3 and as I write this the Colts are the more favoured team to win. I have seen the New Orleans Saints play live in London in 2008 when they played the San Diego Chargers and so for that reason and that alone I shall support the Saints.

Whilst still on the subject of the NFL the news is now out that at the fourth International Series Game to play at Wembley on Sunday 31st October this year will be between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos, it will be classed as a home game for the 49ers. So dear reader you will you will understand how excited I am about this as you will recall that the Denver Broncos are my team. My ticket has already been purchased and confirmed and the hotel has also already been booked paid for and confirmed, so I shall get to see the Broncos play in person at last.

A couple of other snippets of news to catch up on. Mrs F and I decided late last year that our settees just about reached the end of their useful life. These two two seater settees had in fact given long and valuable service and had seen the wear and tear and rough and tumble of two children growing up and two dogs running around and jumping on and off them or that might be two dogs growing up and two children........................no perhaps not. Last November we then decided that we had enough spare resources to invest in new furniture and so the upshot was that we ordered at great expense two Lazy Boy settees, perhaps for the benefit of any new readers from Chad I should explain that these settees both recline and tilt from the upright to an almost horizontal position. The good news is that these eventually arrived three days ago and so I look forward to reclining in comfort tonight whilst watching the Super Bowl.

Mrs F and I visited Whitby the other day, there is I know a regular reader and good friend of the Blog who will now smile and nod knowingly whilst remembering that Whitby is twinned with Anchorage in Alaska. I have to share the good news that Whitby now has a Pie and Mash shop, aptly named 'Humble Pie and Mash'; on discovering this enterprise Mrs F and I could not resist taking our lunch there. I had Sausage and Black Pudding Pie with my mash peas and gravy and Mrs F had a Steak Pie. In line with all good Pie and Mash shops the meals are all at a fixed price and at the time of writing the price in Whitby is £4.99 with a mug of tea at an additional £1.00.

To close this edition of the Blog a couple of things that made me smile over the last day or so. Regular readers of the Blog will remember that during my spare time I am working on my family tree, see post for 29th August 2008 of the Blog. I have recently received a copy of a death certificate for a relative; sometimes it is worthwhile obtaining copies of these certificates to confirm some details of the individual in question. One of the mandatory items of information recorded on a British Death Certificate is the name of the person reporting the death, the name of the informant. On this certificate it amused me to see the name of the informant was Alice Dodgson Clay. I do not know who Mrs, Miss or even Ms Clay is but her name made me smile, I wonder how many other readers will make the connection and smile as well.

I have recently watched a quiz programme on the television. One of the contestants was a rather nice looking blond, in her early twenties I would imagine. The host of the programme asked the young lady why she had wanted to appear as a contestant. The young lady crossed her long legs thought for a moment and replied that as she had the outward appearance of what today is sometimes rudely described as a 'Blond Bimbo' and she was not like that at all, in fact the lady informed the audience that she was very intelligent and wanted to dispel the idea that sometimes she is automatically and wrongly placed into the 'Blond Bimbo' category and she wanted to prove to all her friends how clever and intelligent she really was. This was followed by a polite round of applause from the audience.

Question 1. Can you tell me in which continent Angola can be found. [a] Africa [b] South America [c] Asia].
Answer. I have never heard of Angola............errrrrrrrrr Asia I think.

Question 2. Can you tell me what the term Epilating refers to. [a] Hair Removal [b] Wrinkle Removal [c] Fat Removal.
Answer. Epilating...........errrrrrrrrr is that a real word ? errrrrrr I dont know.........oh hang on, epilating yes I know it is fat removal my friend was epilated last year and she lost loads of weight.

Oh well never mind, brave effort.

For those keen to follow the World Tour of the Gnome I have to report it has yet to arrive with me.

Postscript: Super Bowl Results: New Orleans Saints 31 Indianapolis Colts 17

This and That.................Mostly That.

2010-01-13T23:40:00.008+01:00

I am dying, alright I know each and everyone of us is dying, from the very moment of childbirth the ageing and therefore the dying process begins, but I mean really dying. I have recently been struck down with a very rare condition that is a combination of things, there is no official title for this medical condition that to me is both terminal and debilitating, which then only goes to prove to you all how rare it is.

I am calling it 'Swineavian Oral Bronchopneumonia' or SOB for short. Why I should be the only one in the world to have been struck down by this mystery illness I do not know however I can tell you from my death bed that it is not pleasant at all. I should add whilst I am still able [and with fading strength] to use the keyboard unaided that SOB is not Man Flu as the Lady of the House refers to my illness, and how would she know what Man Flu is, even if I had Man Flu. No this is far more serious and will be the end of me yet.......................Man Flu indeed, she just does not understand how ill I really am, how despite being racked with pain how I maintain a stiff upper lip, never complaining and maintain a cheery smile for her sake is beyond me. I am dying I tell you.

The winter weather is upon us, in fact it has been upon some of us more than others. Here in the Northern outreaches of the Empire we have battled on stoically as we usually do. The local authority has in the main repaid our trust in them by doing their best to ensure where possible the Queens Highway remains passable. Certainly with due care and attention I have been able, as have my work colleagues, to drive to work and back again without any mishaps. No abandoning cars for us at the sight of three snowflakes and an Easterly wind exceeding 2 miles per hour as we see reported in the media that has, it seems, become the vogue in some of the more Southern sunnier climes, no we are Northerners.

The three schools local to where I live have not closed; they have all remained open to offer the benefit of a fine British education to those who attend. I have however noticed a slight decrease in vehicles driving these students to their place of study. It seems strange that owners of some large and expensive four wheel drive vehicles do not wish to drive them in the present bad weather conditions in case they have an accident; for me this perhaps avoids the justification of owning such a vehicle in the first place.

Because of this many students have taken to walking and that is how it should be. I remember walking to school in the snow [or any other weather condition] when I was a child, it did me no harm and it will do the students of today no harm either. In fact I think they enjoy it, rather than being caged within a motor car from door to door they have walked in pairs or in groups, there has been chatter and laughter and the odd snowball fight, they have fresh air in their lungs and a glow to their cheeks. It is that I have not yet spotted anyone wearing a grey knitted balaclava similar to the one I was made to wear during the winters of the fifties, to keeps my ears warm, either this may be a change in fashion or today's students are a hardier bunch then we might give them credit for.

The regular readers of the Blog will recall that as one of my many hobbies and interests I am a virtual flight simulator pilot, for those who may have overlooked this or perhaps a new reader from Chad I refer you to the Blog entry of 10th September 2008. One of the flight groups I belong to; Sweets Shells Flying Service, a Happy Band of Hippy Sky Truckers [or The Biggest Boobs in Aviation] has started a variation to the Gnome on holiday routine.

You will all know I am sure of the trick where some wag [often students] will borrow [steal] a Gnome from someones garden then take it on holiday with them or on a tour to various parts of the world and sending back postcards or photos to the rightful owners showing the Gnome at various exotic locations only for the Gnome to eventually be returned home some weeks or months or even years later.

Well we at SSFS have just started this, I hasten to add that as honest and upstanding members of the community we have purchased our own Gnome to travel around the world and not 'Borrowed' one, well I have been told we have bought one anyway. Volunteers from the flight simulator community have offered to host the Gnome on its travels with each member receiving the Gnome by post they will then keep him [or it might be a her] for a few days and take the Gnome around their local area and take some photos of the Gnome near local landmarks to post on the web site, they will then send the Gnome by post onto the next recipient.

The Gnome has already started the journey from Sweden and it should travel down into mainland Europe across to England [that is me] up to Scotland across to mainland America up through Canada onto Alaska across to Australia then onto South Africa then back into mainland Europe before getting home again to Sweden. Perhaps I should add the Gnome is only a small plastic one and not a heavy weight concrete garden version, just in case anyone thought us completely mad.

A Google Earth map is being kept of its progress around the globe as well as photos on the web site and perhaps in the next Blog entry I might be able to provide a link for readers to look at.

Here though is a link, hopefully, to the [unofficial] Travelling Gnome Map, each pin represents a stop on the route.

Gnome Map here

The Three R's

2009-12-14T22:39:00.027+01:00

Recently my attention was drawn to an article in a national newspaper, well if you must know it was The Daily Telegraph, about standards within the education system. The general thrust of the item as I understand it is that the author [Charles Moore] takes as his view that for all the time and money put in the education system is fundamentally flawed and as a sub text he adds, children have never worked so hard and learnt so little.

After a short but I think meandering introduction, to include the obligatory dig at the Labour Party and therefore by default the Government, Mr Moore reaches what I think is the nub of the piece where he poses the question, does the average pupil today end up knowing more or knowing things more deeply than say his or her counterpart of fifty years ago. Could the average pupil of today do long division or speak a foreign language or explain the Great Reform Bill or locate Puthukkudiyiruppu on a map of the world or operate the laws of thermo-dynamics better than his or her equivalent of half a century ago. Perhaps not, modern educationalists and defenders of the present system might argue, but modern pupils know more about saving the planet, safe sex, challenging racism and things not even thought of in the 1950's and 60's such as the Internet, they learn more that is relevant is the defence.

Now that got me thinking, for I was a pupil during the 50's and 60's. In particular it made me think about the 11 plus examination taken by all children during those days and contrary to the title taken when the children were around ten and a half years old.

By way of explanation to my overseas readers [and I am ever hopeful a follower of the Blog from Chad] I should explain that there was a system in place within the British education system up until the early 70's, though parts of the country did vary, that had a formal educational examination called the 11 plus taken by children at primary school, the results of which would determine, depending upon the result, their further education by selection to the type of school the child should attend after primary school. The choices being either a Grammar School a Technical School or a Secondary Modern School, the understanding of the day being that different skills required different schooling.

I took the 11 plus exam in 1959 when I was a little over ten years old and as I have mentioned elsewhere on the Blog I failed as I remember did many of my friends. The end result being that at the start of the autumn term of that year I and many of the other failures all now aged eleven arrived at the gates of the local secondary modern school, this decision being based on that having failed we were not destined for a grammar school education but having failed so spectacularly we were not deemed bright enough even to gain a place at the local technical school. We were in the lower half of the failure group and our lot for the next four years was to be at the secondary modern school until leaving at the age of 15 and being forced then to make our way in the world at large.

Now I would not like you to think that my perhaps disparaging comment about secondary modern schools meant they were bad, perhaps sadly some were but happily the one I attended, which I have since found out has been demolished many years ago and its grounds now taken up by what is called executive housing, was a good and happy place for me at least. My school offered all the traditional academic subjects; Maths, English, History, Geography and Science as well as some very helpful practical based subjects, Woodwork, Metalwork, Technical Drawing and Gardening. It would be untrue though even 45 years after leaving for me to say that my four year stay within its portals improved my standard of education greatly but it was a happy school and on the whole I enjoyed my time there.

However my somewhat faded memory of the 11 plus exam intrigues me and the question posed by Mr Moore about a comparison with the pupils of today and their counterparts of the 50's and 60's. I have with the aid of the Internet discovered that the 11 plus exam was split into five subject sections each having ten questions so making the exam fifty questions in total. The subjects being; Arithmetic, General English, Comprehension, General Intelligence / Knowledge and Essays and Compositions. It should be remembered that the 11 plus was not some form of multi choice exam it asked questions or set problems to which the child would have to work out an answer or write an answer. We are perhaps familiar with sights of examination centres today we might see on a news item for example and we see pupils sat at their desk armed with calculators and dictionaries. Pupils of the 11 plus had neither of these items all they had was an answer booklet, pencil, rubber, pen and a bottle of ink.

So let me set the scene; you are a ten year old child you are sat in the school assembly hall now turned over for the morning as an examination centre. On the desk in front of you is a blank booklet for you to write your answers in, the 11 plus question paper, a pencil, a rubber a ruler and a fountain pen and bottle of ink. Have a go at these five genuine examples.

Question 1.
A train leaves London at 11.30 am and arrives at Bristol at 1.30 pm, after stopping from 12.10 pm till 12.20 pm at Reading which is 36 miles from London. It traveled both parts of the journey at the same rate. Find the distance from London to Bristol.

Question 2.
Subtract two thirds of eight hundred and thirty four from 23 times 185.

Question 3.
A machine makes tin boxes at the rate of 78 in 5 minutes. How long will it take to make 3,900 or them. Answer in hours and minutes.

Question 4.
Seven piles of bricks are placed side by side so that their tops form steps 1 brick high. If the lowest pile contains 9 bricks, how many bricks are being used altogether.

Question 5.
A contractor agrees to complete a house in 250 days and to do this he engages 60 men. After 200 hundred days no work is done for 10 days. How many extra men must the contractor engage to finish the house in time.

So I am drawn back to the question from Mr Moore and I think in all fairness that I might have to say I am undecided on the answer. I am sure that there will be some of today's ten year old who would be able to pass an 11 plus of that type and standard just as there would be those who would fail. On balance however I think that proportionally there would be a much higher percentage of today's pupils would fail it than those ten year old back in the 50's and 60's if only for the reason that I believe the pupils of today rely more on technical and electronic assistance from computers and calculators and so on.

So no doubt they can still do long division but I for example still do it manually with pen and paper, pupils today would press a few buttons on their calculator. I know where Putukkudiyiruppu is having learnt it during a geography lesson at that now defunct secondary modern school, pupils today would search Google.

I do not agree with Mr Moore when he says that children [today] have never worked so hard and learnt so little. All they have to do is remember which buttons to press and how to switch on a computer and educationally speaking the world is at their finger tips, that is not hard work and they can learn so much should they wish.

..................................and in case dear reader you were wondering Puthukkudiyiruppu is on the North East coast of Sri Lanka and as for the answers to the five questions above, don't ask me I failed the 11 plus remember...........................................

That cant be art..............can it ?

2009-09-27T01:44:00.007+02:00

I don't know about you but I generally tend to find that when somebody makes a negative statement then many times [but not always] the opposite is true. "I don't care one way or the other about.................................." someone may confide to you in a hushed tone but I suspect really they do. So when I say to you that I am no artist and I know nothing about art then believe me it is true. The skill of drawing a straight line with the aid of a ruler is one that has eluded me my whole life, but I do know what I like when looking at art, my eyes can fall upon a picture, irrespective of medium, and I can look at it and nod to myself and think yes I like that.

During our recent holiday to Cornwall the small, perfectly formed and rightly famous resort of St Ives was in the process of celebrating its annual festival. St Ives is rightly proud of its artistic heritage, there is the world famous St Ives School of Art for example, St Ives hosts a satellite of the Tate Modern and St Ives celebrates many of its past famed residents, Barbra Hepworth and Ben Nicholson are two who immediately spring to mind. So it was as part of these annual celebrations that the Lady of the House and I took the opportunity to visit some of the many artists studios in and around St Ives that are not normally open or accessible to the public.

I don't know what I was exactly expecting to see when I actually ventured into any of these working studios but perhaps I had in the back of my mind that it may be art. Now I better set out my stall here and now and make it clear that I in general am a traditionalist. Show me a seascape and the sky will be at the top, the sea will generally occupy some of the middle ground and the beach or cliffs or both will in most examples be found around the bottom or sides, perhaps to highlight an individual flair the artist may include a vessel of some sort, a sailing yacht being a favourite. As a final flourish perhaps a couple of birds in the distance, now that is my type of picture, I can see what it represents, it is easy on the eyes but perhaps most importantly of all I can understand what it is and what the artist is showing us.

As we entered the first of many studios that warm morning two weeks ago we entered an alien world, well to us anyway. The room measured perhaps twenty feet by twenty feet and the whole of one wall was taken up by a huge ceiling to floor window that illuminated the whole studio, the place was empty and on both side walls was an array of canvas. The Lady of the House and I stood side by side and looked at one of the canvases hanging before us, it measured I guess perhaps two by two foot. It was white except in the top right hand corner was a hollow red circle, we looked at each other and I saw her eyes raise very slightly. Just then a small side door opened and a tall figure, the artist, entered. He was what I can only describe as a caricature of an artist. He wore a blue smock which was liberally covered in smears of every colour and hue of paint I have ever seen and some I have never seen. His hair was long and unkempt, he had a short beard and clamped between his fingers was a cigarette that he smoked from time to time.

He smiled and welcomed us to his studio and mentioned he had seen us admiring he latest work, he was going to call it White Circle with Red Outer, the Lady of the House sniggered but very cleverly I thought immediately made it look as if she had sneezed. This work he went on was for sale today for only 450 pounds, I looked at the white canvas with the small red circle top right and then looked again at the artist, I was going to ask what it all meant but the Lady of the House had pre-empted that and nudged me so I just smiled at the artist and then turned again to study the finer points of White Circle with Red Outer. Fortunately some other people entered the studio so we thanked him for his time and made a hasty retreat.

The next studio we entered was not that different from the one we had just left. As we got inside we saw a huge figure of a man standing looking out of the large window. Suddenly and with no warning at all he spun around and in a large booming voice and with an expansive wave of both arms he declared Brown on Board. Pardon I said trying to follow the wave of his arms; Brown on Board he boomed again and with a small nod of his head toward both sides of the studio our eyes followed to see on each wall three boards each perhaps a foot square and each covered in brown gloss paint, nothing else just brown gloss paint. His collection then of six identical bits of what I take to be MDF each painted in a couple of coats of brown gloss was Brown on Board.

If by now dear reader you think we had seen the worst of it I can only, if somewhat sadly, contradict you. The first two studios it seemed were to be the highlight of our visit, it rapidly got worse I am afraid. One canvas we saw looked to me as if some four year old child had been given several trays of coloured paint and a pair of wellingtons and told to stand in one colour and then walk over the canvas then repeat the exercise with each other colour in turn, this was titled, we were informed, A Walk with Colour.

That day we visited twelve studios and it was horrendous, but then I suppose you have to ask yourself what is art. We have all seen, I expect, examples of art being shown to us television for the Turner prize, for example. The names spring to mind, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin. Martin Creed et al. Is that art ? a pile of bricks, an unmade bed a film of a room with the lights going on and off; perhaps it is art just as much as Brown on Board or White Circle with Red Outer, perhaps I don't understand it or perhaps it is just pretentious elitist rubbish.

I said we visited twelve studios and they were all horrendous, well that is not quite true. The last studio we ventured into was shared by two middle aged ladies each sharing half the studio. One of the ladies drew full size nude figures in charcoal on thick white parchment paper and they were fantastic, the other lady painted with watercolours and she painted landscapes and seascapes from around the Cornish coast.

So it was here in the last studio that I stood silently and studied the picture before me. The sky was at the top the sea was covering most of the middle ground and along the bottom and toward one side were golden sands rising to high craggy cliffs. In the far distance just below the horizon I spotted a small sailing ship and in the top left hand corner were three birds flying along in formation, I liked it.

Yes I am a traditionalist but I know nothing about art and that's the truth.

Back to normal..........or what passes for normal here.

2009-09-23T02:40:00.005+02:00

I have now safely returned from my holiday in Cornwall, well I say safely but that might be no thanks to the half wit who at Junction 18a on the M5 Motorway Northbound [Northwest of Bristol] was in the left hand lane to leave the M5 to join the M49 heading for the M4 as I drew level with him, both of us doing around 80mph [sorry officer I mean 70mph]. He decided he was in the wrong lane or perhaps that the M49 held no interest for him and without any warning or indication he swerved off the M49 slip road and rejoined the M5 right in front of me. Mrs F screamed and I sounded the car horn and flashed my lights as I at 80mph [sorry 70mph] took avoiding action to the right into the middle lane, which thankfully at that very moment was devoid of any other traffic. As I increased speed a little to overtake, but of course not at any time exceeding the prescribed speed limit, Mrs F lowered her window and shouted some friendly words of advice at the other driver that I am afraid modesty forbids me from repeating here.

I was saddened to read about the death of Mary Travers, though she had been suffering from Leukemia for some years, news of her death on the 16th of September still made me briefly stop and take stock. Perhaps for the benefit of some of the younger readers of this Blog I should explain that Mary Travers was one third of the folk group Peter Paul and Mary. Now there are those of you who may know that my musical tastes may be varied with a slight bias toward American Bluegrass and Blues and I play, just for fun and in my own fashion, the five string banjo, so folk singing I agree is not my main musical passion.

However it is not directly for the folk singing that I remember Mary Travers or Peter Yarrow and Noel 'Paul' Stookey but for what happened on August 28th August 1963 and the small but significant part Pater Paul and Mary played during the March on Washington at which Martin Luther King Jr delivered his [now] famous 'I Have a Dream' speech. The song 'If I had a Hammer' which they sung during this rally became the anthem for racial equality just as much as Bob Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind' also sung during the rally did.

Mary Travers was an outstandingly beautiful woman as anyone can see if they take the time to surf the web for pictures of her during those times with her blond almost white hair bobbing about her face as she moved and sang; even now up until her death she still retained an air of beauty and dignity. Sadly another link with my youth has now disappeared forever.

Regular readers will remember in last month's entry of the Blog I mentioned briefly about the impending start of the NFL season and that the Denver Broncos had then played and lost two of their pre season friendly games and I thought perhaps that the oncoming season did not bode well. An update is that they also lost their third game but won the fourth, despair began to creep in I feared for the season ahead and wondered even after all these years perhaps I might select another team to support. Imagine then my delight and no doubt the delight of Bronco fans worldwide to discover that they have won both their opening games of the new season. Perhaps this may be a return to the glory days of the Broncos when they won the Super Bowl two years running, 1997 against the Green Bay Packers 31-24 and 1998 against Atlanta Falcons 34-19; but then again it might be the kiss of death for them with me now having declared in a celebratory manner their early success, we will have to wait and see.

Many readers I am sure will also remember in last month's Blog my brief mention of the Bus Pass rightfully earned at the young age of 60. Much enjoyment was had in using the pass whilst on holiday and I might add that I became somewhat complacent about its use. I would casually board the bus approach the driver and innocently wave my pass in his general direction whilst mumbling to him my intended destination prior to taking my seat. Once as an act of rebellious defiance, and just because I could, on one journey I stayed on the bus a further stop prior to alighting and walking back to my intended destination.

Mrs F being a child bride does yet qualify for a bus pass, and so we had to pay for her transportation. At one point whilst enjoying a liquid lunch at the Union Inn I suggested to her that she may wish to consider walking back to our apartment [a distance of some three miles] I had calculated the money saved from her bus fare would afford my another pint of beer and I would return later by bus, for free of course.

There followed a short sharp abusive tirade the like from Mrs F that I have only ever heard once since and that to a half wit motorist on the motorway when returning home a week later.

An Annual Review or Is That a Year Gone Already

2009-08-26T23:41:00.004+02:00

Well it all appears to be going nicely, I am unsure if there was anything to be concerned about.

For those of my regular readers I can only say thank you for staying with it and I only hope that perhaps you have enjoyed something over the past year, one blog entry that made you smile, nod in agreement or furious with anger at least. Yes friends and I hope I don't sound too much like the late Hughie Green and I mean that most sincerely, it has been one year now since I first typed a faltering few sentences to introduce my blog onto an unsuspecting world. Not only is the blog a year older but I am also a year older and now the legal and lawful owner of a Bus Pass, it is mine and I obtained it fair and square though I have not yet used it in anger I will do so within the next week during my annual holiday in Cornwall, yes it has also been a year since my last visit there as well.

So now a year older my expectations start to diminish, now being a bona fide bus pass holder it seems according to my small biography [on the left hand side] that I am still an official Grumpy Old Man but now I am only happily heading steadily toward my retirement and eventual demise, so you see dear reader it is true that the older you become the less you have to look forward to.

I had hoped that the Cleveland Indians baseball team might during the present season instil a little heart-warming confidence in my continued support of their efforts by working their way to a higher position in the league than they did last year. Alas no, I have to report they have as of today played 126 games this season, so far they have only managed to win 56 of those games and they stand or perhaps slump might be a better description, second from the bottom of the Central American League.

The start of the NFL season is almost upon us and despite any failing that the Indians have had this year I was sure the Denver Broncos would at least come out fighting and show that my support of them was not misplaced. The season warm up is for each team to play four friendly games, these are non scoring games and are only considered to be pre-season shake down games. the Broncos have so far played two of their four and have lost both games, oh well perhaps a repeat of last year's performance with them is on the cards as well.

One item I have overlooked to mention in any blog report is that of my new computer. After manfully battling on with my old model that was the wrong side of seven years old it was suggested that I bite the bullet and purchase a new and more up to date affair. It is not that I am a computer virgin so to speak but the inner workings are somewhat of more than a mystery to me. I spent much time scouring the Internet, much time reading various and many computer magazines and even more time interrogating unsuspecting members of my employer IT Department.

I decided in the end and after much good advice from the aforementioned IT Department to order via the Internet so that I could [and did] specify my own build requirements, thus only getting the system I required for my needs and wants rather than buying a system off the shelf so to speak and having some components that I might never use and not having some components I would have liked and that I may have had to pay extra for to be installed.

Needless to say [but then I am bound to] the system is great, it fulfills all my needs and requirements for what I use or intend to use a computer for. It was certainly not cheap but then as my Grandfather was often heard to say, you only get what you pay for.

So here we are readers of this blog, the end of the first year and the start of another. I hope you continue to visit and read my blog and that perhaps you take a few minutes to leave a comment.

So here is to the coming year and I wonder what that will bring.

Postscript:

It seems I may have been somewhat a little hasty in my comments about that wonderful baseball team the Cleveland Indians. During the time it took me to type this entry the Cleveland Indians beat Kansas City 4 - 2.

Dogs Chickens and a Horse called Harry

2009-07-30T23:59:00.004+02:00

I understand now it is mainly my fault, oh alright then, I know now that it is definitely all my fault, but then hindsight always has been a wondrous phenomenon and the curse of the ill advised.

When the telephone rang all those months ago it seemed at the time pleasant enough that my daughter had spared some time from her busy hectic and occasionally chaotic schedule to telephone and have a chat, perhaps I thought to enquire how her ageing parents were. We are going on holiday came the sudden announcement from the disembodied voice, very nice dear was my reply, anywhere nice? We wondered if you might have the dog whilst we are away enquired the distant voice.

We were used to taking in the dog, an ageing Jack Russell terrier, who though in real terms is perhaps thirteen years old, in his mind however he still thinks himself to be a lot younger, which often has the dramatic effect of turning him into a howling and snarling apparition at any moment and attempting to take on all comers from the postman to the Rhodesian Ridgeback that lives further down the road.

Maybe I should have been slightly more attentive or apprehensive when the voice then suggested it might make a nice change if instead of bringing the devil dog to us that we might like to come and stay in her house for the duration......................duration I queried, the faint tinkling of alarm bells at last causing my brain to work a little faster than it had been doing...................well we are going away for two weeks she said and there will be the chickens to feed as well...............at this point I tended to give up and passed the telephone to my wife with the parting words that she may like to speak to her mother. I then surrendered the telephone and went back to what ever it was I had been happily and blissfully doing before the telephone had rung five minutes earlier.

Occasionally in the background I could hear the odd snatch of conversation, the odd word and in general terms what seemed to me to be my wife agreeing with much enthusiasm about all manner of things, I think I closed my eyes briefly as I perceived my moderately happy sedate and ordered existence to very soon take a very sharp downward spiral. I heard the click as the receiver was replaced. Well that will be nice the lady of the house said as she entered the room retaking her seat in the armchair and picking up her glasses, there was a brief silence, what will I asked, what's that dear she mumbled without looking up from her book, it was in that instant that I knew my fate had been sealed, what will be nice I asked in a slightly stern voice, oh us going to stay in York and look after the animals while they are away on holiday, wont that be nice she said again.

Suddenly and in the space of no more than thirty minutes we had somehow agreed to uproot ourselves and move fifty miles away for two weeks to look after a house, some dog's chickens and Harry the horse, this seemed slightly more responsibility than just looking after a Jack Russell terrier. There was also the point about work, not yet at the age of retirement I still have to attend some gainful employment to earn a monthly wage and I wondered if it had occurred only to me that I would now have to commute fifty miles each way to work and back, though fortunately being a shift worker I would be able with some very careful planning and the kind agreement of some of my colleagues be able to shuffle a few shifts around and take a few shifts off allowing my friends to gain some well deserved overtime payments. However I would still have to attend work at some point during the two weeks period thus making me drive for fifty miles, work a twelve hour shift then drive back again for fifty miles, perhaps not an option I would recommend to everyone.

So many months later and here we are. We are now only two days away from the return home of what I assume to be a suntanned daughter and her husband and between my wife and I we have managed to maintain the house, keep the howling banshee dog fed watered exercised and out of any fights; well apart from the other day when the postman knocked on the door to deliver a package too large to post into the letterbox. It surprises me still how fast some of these postmen can run even whilst still carrying a bag full of mail, had it been me I would have jettisoned the post bag in an attempt to give me a slight advantage but all credit to the training system of Her Majesties Royal Mail and the diligence of today's postal workers that he kept it with him all the way.........................but even at thirteen years old my money was always on the dog.

The chickens have also survived, those who alive when we arrived are so far still alive, they too have been fed and watered daily given fresh straw for their nest boxes when required and we have collected their eggs. Which brings us to Harry. I attend the stables twice daily armed with carrots. He gets brushed and groomed and his stable is mucked out [this being an equestrian term I have learned] he is watered and turned out and I make the daily decision as to which rug to put on him and whether to leave him out overnight grazing in the field with the other horses or to bring him in to the warmth comfort and dryness of his stable and supplying a hay net and seperate water buckets.

However I am not sure Harry has fully understood the time effort and care I take on his behalf.

He has so far run around the field when I wanted to catch him, has stood and stared at me moodily from the opposite side of the muddy field, he has kicked me and even at one point bitten me. I have told him in no uncertain terms that there is a howling banshee devil dog at home that might make good use of a horse soon to be converted into dog food and glue should he continue in this way and I think now we have come to an understanding, I will bring him carrots and he will continue to do whatever he likes, well at least it is a partnership in progress.

So here I am almost at the end of the two weeks feeling as if I now need a holiday. It has not been that bad my wife keeps telling me and as always she is right, it has not, but soon I will be back to my quiet sedate and ordered life.................ah bliss..................but now I must go as I can hear the devil dog howling at the door and I need to go to the stables but first I have to collect the eggs from the chickens........................but as I know I only have myself to blame.

Much Goings On

2009-07-04T16:11:00.004+02:00

Well the last week seems to have been dominated by the death of Michael Jackson, no matter which television channel or wireless station you tune to it is not long before Michael Jackson is mentioned, how he died, how he did not die, who was there and who was not there, how Neverland is to be turned into a theme park of some kind and then how it is not going to be turned into a theme park of any kind.

The world has been bombarded by general media hysteria about the life and times of Wacko Jacko. Much has been reported about what will happen to his children, did he or did he not leave a will, is there some conspiracy going on within the family to grab what they can, was he addicted to some drug or other and questions are again being raised about the aborted legal case of if he was some sort of pedophile or not. It just seems to go on and on and it is becoming mind numbingly boring.

I did not like Micheal Jackson as a person [not that I met him of course], I did not like him or any of his siblings when many years ago they performed as The Jackson Five and I certainly did not like any of his music as he progressed into adulthood. However I can understand that tastes in music are wide ranging and I can see that there were and still are tens of thousands if not millions of people around the world who did like his music. For them I suppose I am sorry for their collective loss.

I do know and understand how they may be feeling at this time, I know how I felt, for example, when the world lost the King of Skiffle Lonnie Donnigan and even early Buddy Holly, and god forbid the national wailing and breast beating when the sad day dawns [which we all hope is yet many years in the future] that Bert Weedon is taken from us, that sad event alone will no doubt introduce days if not weeks of national mourning and a worldwide outpouring of great sadness.

I am sorry for the fans that he is gone but for goodness sake enough is enough with the media frenzy. Perhaps to put it in context we should remember also this week of the passing of that American actress Farrah Fawcett an actress who won much acclaim for her many film and television appearances. We should not forget as well our own Yorkshire born National Treasure, Molly Sugden, who also sadly passed away this week, both events overshadowed unfairly I think by the Micheal Jackson media circus and frenzy.

We are a fickle lot when the subject turns to the weather. We it seems are collectively never happy. Last year I distinctly remember the seemingly never ending rain which lead to much flooding and in turn much damage to lives and property, all the Governments fault of course, when the media took what I thought to be great delight in reporting the many misfortunes of others. This year however the story has has been much different and certainly in the last couple of weeks we now find ourselves in the grip of a heatwave and temperature records are being broken, this of course all being the fault of the Government, and we moan now how hot we all are and we are being advised daily to seek medical advice if we feel too hot or are unable to sleep at night due to the excessive heat. Come on you lot make up your minds and stop moaning.

We have been away for a short break to Northumberland it was certainly very pleasant and the aforementioned weather was very nice. The hotel we stayed at was of very good quality and the service given by the many staff could not be better. I was slightly concerned at first that a Full English Breakfast for five days running would no doubt take its toll on my Charles Atlas like body but I need not have worried, a walk along the beach straight after breakfast each day was a delight and a good way to aid digestion and help maintain my rugged manly figure. Trips were made to Lindisfarne or Holy Island as it is more well known as, Berwick on Tweed, Alnwick and the Castle Gardens and Bamburgh and Seahouses, all places we have visited before but well worth visiting again. The food, beer, scenery and weather were outstanding and made for a very enjoyable few days away.

Mr Griffin, a Press Conference and a Mob.

2009-06-09T23:37:00.008+02:00

I read today about how Nick Griffin the leader of The British National Party was forced to abandon a news and press conference being held outside Parliament on College Green as protesters disrupted the event and at one point, as Mr Griffin was being led away, he was attacked by one of the protesters throwing an egg at him.

Now I do not think it matters if you like or dislike Mr Griffin as a person, it does not matter if you like or dislike the policies he puts forward and supports and it does not matter if you support or not The British National Party, for Mr Griffin to be forced to abandon a press conference in this way by a group of protesters is fundamentally wrong if not possibly even unlawful.

The British National Party is a recognised political party within the British political system. The BNP puts forward candidates to stand as councillors in local elections as it puts forward candidates to stand as prospective Members of Parliament and it also puts forward candidates to stand as prospective Members of the European Parliament. The BNP does all these things legally and lawfully, there may be some faction of the population who do not like it but it is legal and lawful.

In the recent elections to elect members to 'represent us' within the European Parliament The British National Party won two seats, Nick Griffin himself was elected for the North West region and Andrew Brons for Yorkshire and Humber regions. Both Mr Griffin and Mr Brons were elected under the laid down procedures, they won their seats as a direct result of a democratic, free, legal and lawful election. Enough people within these two regions freely and voluntarily attended their nominated Polling Station, they were allowed to vote by legally being on the electoral roll and they freely choose from all the options open to them on the voting paper to place a cross against the BNP candidate.

Both Griffin and Brons were Democratically and Lawfully elected to serve as Members of the European Parliament.

Now of course there is also a case to say that in this country individuals and groups are 'generally' allowed to make public protest providing of course that any public protest is carried out within the terms of the law, it is lawful and it is peaceful. Peaceful of course does not have to mean silent and any protesters may be within reason as vocal as they wish, providing being vocal does not contravene the Terrorism Act, generally peaceful protest is understood to be non violent.

The group that attended and forcibly disrupted the press conference being given by Nick Griffin today have called themselves Unite Against Fascism and if many of the newspaper reports are anything to go by this group are supported by many MP's from the mainstream parties including the Tory leader David Cameron. Of course it is the right of Unite Against Fascism to attend and 'peaceful' protest against Mr Griffin as an individual, as leader of the BNP, the BNP as a political party or in fact anything else they wish to protest about. What they can not do is to physically assault Mr Griffin or anyone else which is what they did do. A tourist it is reported was innocently caught up in the melee, suffered injury and had to be treated in an ambulance.

Mr Weyman Bennett who is the national secretary of Unite Against Fascism is reported as saying " The majority of the people did not vote for the BNP, they did not vote at all". Well Mr Bennett the very sad news for you is that in fact sufficient people did in fact vote for the BNP in both the North West and Yorkshire and Humber regions to return two BNP candidates as MEPs and if you like it or not that was done democratically and legally. I might hope that the innocent tourist caught up in this is able to obtain the address of Mr Bennett so he or she may consider taking legal action to sue him for any injury received.

If anyone acted unlawfully today it was Unite Against Fascism.

Mr Bennett is in my opinion a fool. He and his unruly mob of protesters had the opportunity today to make their points in front of the nations press, they had the opportunity to ask Mr Griffin some very searching and difficult questions that may have allowed them as a group to score some political points against Mr Griffin and the BNP. They had the element of surprise on their side but what did we the watching public see ? an unruly mob of yobs pushing shouting and throwing eggs.

In the eyes of the media Mr Bennett, and perhaps with some of the public, I would say Mr Griffin and the BNP hold the morale high ground over this and they know you are coming next time so you have even lost the element of surprise.

I would also ask Mr Bennett, do you think that the actions of your group will stop the BNP giving news or press conferences, no, of course not, all that will happen now is that they will give their news and press conferences to the media behind closed doors and the media will publish and report the results so you have gained nothing at all. Even the Prime Minister gives his daily and weekly press conference behind closed doors before an invited group of media, so you may even have given Mr Griffin and his party some credibility, however small.

Yes Mr Bennett in my opinion your are indeed a fool.

Sixty Five Years On.

2009-06-07T17:44:00.005+02:00

I don't suppose that I could have let this week pass without some comment, however small, about the 65th Anniversary of the D Day Landings in Normandy on the 6th June 1944. Much has already been told over the years about the events of that day from both sides of the conflict, books have been written, films made and stories told.

Despite the undoubted and equal heroism of both the attackers and the defenders and the gains and losses of that and the following days weeks and months there is another side to those events that seem, for whatever reason, get omitted.

Amid the flag waving cheering laughing happy crowds of French civilians that we usually see in the newsreels or we are told about that eventually greeted the so called liberators it would appear that not all was as we are led to believe. Far from being universally welcomed many troops that eventually made it off the beaches and moved inland over the following days moving from village to village and town to town, were met with open hostility. The reason for this is that many of the towns and villages in Normandy in general and in the vicinity of the landings in particular had been very heavily bombed and in some cases literally obliterated.

During the 6th June alone it is estimated that about 3,000 French civilians were killed as a result of the beach assaults or airborne landings either perhaps by the many sea and air bombardments prior to the landings or by sheltering in buildings within the immediate areas along the beaches or just by stray and accidental gunfire and explosives. In the period from mid June to about early September is also estimated that something like another 20,000 French civilians were killed, again for no other real reason than simply just being in the way. Toward the end of the Normandy campaign when the Germans were trapped in what has come to be known as the 'Falaise Pocket' so heavy was the allies shelling that barely a building was left standing.

It is not that this destruction and loss of life is not known about rather it just seems to be swept aside when the story of D Day is re-told.

A recently published book on the subject of the liberation, The Bitter Road to Freedom by W Hitchcock, cites a memory by [ex] Corporal L Roker who served with the Highland Light Infantry, Roker remembers, "It was rather a shock to find we were not welcomed ecstatically as liberators by the local people as we had been told we should be............they saw us as the bringers of death and destruction" and Ivor Astley of the 43rd Wessex Division remembers the locals being sullen and silent........."If we expected to be welcomed we certainly failed to find it".

There are villages in Normandy that until very recently have deliberately shunned and refused to go along with any celebrations associated with the 6th June because the memories were difficult. But in general, France has by and large gone along with the accepted version of the landings and their aftermath, that of a joyful liberation for which the country is eternally grateful.

For many from all sides of the conflict this year will be the last time they return to visit the beaches the towns and villages and of course the cemeteries to say hello again to friends lost so long ago. Many of those who survive and who were there on that day in history are now well into their eighties and time is against them. They will go home and hang up their smart blazers they will put away their medals and they will sit and reflect about the time sixty five years ago when they were part of the largest amphibious landings in military history.

Titanic to Concorde

2009-06-01T23:36:00.008+02:00

I read the other day about the death at the age of 97 of Elizabeth Gladys Millvina Dean. Millvina as she preferred to be known was the last living survivor from the sinking of the RMS Titanic which occurred during the night of 14 /15th April 1912.

The Dean family, consisting of parents Bertram and Georgette and elder brother Bertram had boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton and were en route for what they thought of as a 'Better Life' in Wichita Kansas where Bertram Dean had family and he had planned to open a tobacco shop.

Millvina was only eight or nine weeks old at the time of the sinking and as she explained many times in interviews that she was too small to be fitted into a life jacket and so was placed in a sack and lowered over the side of the ship into a waiting life boat with her mother and brother. Her father remained on board and he did not survive, if his body was one of those later recovered then it was never identified. Though Georgette Dean's first plans after rescue were to continue to America to fulfill her husbands dream the family returned to England in May 1912.

Despite the ordeal of the sinking the Dean family went on to live a long and happy life. Georgette died in 1975 aged 96 and Bertram died on the 14th April 1992 80 years to the day of the sinking aged 81.

I remember my [paternal] Grandmother often talking about the RMS Titanic whenever she could gain an audience of one or more. She was born on the 4th December 1886 and was 26 years old and married at the time of the sinking. She and my Grandfather, [a Norwegian] merchant seaman, Conrad Theodore Olsen, lived in Liverpool the home port of RMS Titanic.

The story according to Grandma was that Grandfather had just paid off from a ship in Glasgow and returned home Liverpool. After a day or so at home a friend of Grandfather called at the house at 6 Horatio Street to ask if he wanted to sign up for a trip to America, the local White Star Line agency office in Liverpool was trying to make up a shortage of merchant seaman for a ship laying at Southampton. Grandfather declined the offer apparently because he wished to stay a little longer at home before looking for the next job which he hoped might be out of Liverpool. His friend and some others took the job and according to Grandma the ship was the RMS Titanic, so it appears according to Grandma's tale, that the wish of Grandfather to stay a little longer at home saved him from going down with the Titanic.

Now if this story, which was recounted on what seems alomst like a weekly basis, is true or not I don't know. I never knew my Grandfather he died or otherwise went missing long before my father, who like Grandfather was a merchant seaman and also named Conrad Theodore, met and married my mother. In fact Grandfather is a slight mystery because at some point Grandma changed the family name from Olsen back to her maiden name.

I remember in 1969, sitting with Grandma, who was then aged 83, and watching on television Neil Armstrong stepping with one small step for man onto the surface of the moon. I asked Grandma what she thought of it all, there was a slight pause and she replied that she was 17 years old when 'those two Americans' [the Wright brothers] managed to fly their heavier than air machine and now here she was watching television, that had not even been invented in the accepted form we know it, until she was 39 years old, watching man land on the moon.

She had now seen the full history of aviation in her lifetime, from the Wright brothers in 1903 to Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969. In fact by the time of her death in the early part of 1979 aged 93 Concorde had been flying commercial daily flights at faster than the speed of sound for three years.

Millvina it occurs to me also had been old enough to see the whole vista of aviation unfolding on the world, though powered flight had advanced by the time she was born in 1912 she certainly lived to see space travel and beyond Concorde flying faster than the speed of sound. They are now a lost generation, Millvina and my Grandma, they saw and experienced so much in one lifetime much more than any of us alive today will ever hope to experience but the one thing they both have in common is the RMS Titanic.

But I don't have an Anorak

2009-05-27T17:22:00.021+02:00

Having spent time recently updating my train and railway database information from various notebooks and occasionally the odd scrap of paper onto my laptop computer, in a moment of nostalgia I started to look back over the years at all the data I had accumulated and wondered if I could remember why or even when it was that I became a train spotter or as others may sometimes define it, an Anorak.

Sitting down with a cup of coffee I looked back at the very first set of locomotive numbers I had collected, I also dragged down a couple of volumes of photo albums from my study, well alright then the spare bedroom, and looking between the combined information I came to the conclusion that I must have started sometime around the early part of 1957, when I would have been about seven and a half or eight years old. It is easier though, even all these years later, to recall how I became a collector of train numbers and general railway memorabilia.

I grew up in Kent, a part of the country that was served by that division of the Southern Railway that ran from London down to the South East with the London Terminus being Waterloo and Charing Cross, or to be more geographically correct they are the other way around, and at the other end to such places as Ashford, Chatham Hastings and Folkstone, part of the line in fact now covered by High Speed One for the London - Channel Tunnel and Paris or Brussels. The playground of the school I attended during those pre eleven plus and more importantly pre Beeching days, backed onto a part of the railway line that formed sections of the goods yard for Tonbridge Station, the only barrier between our playground and us infants and the goods yard being a single chain link fence about three feet high.

It did not take long for some of us boys to realise that if we stood at the fence during playtime and waved at the drivers and firemen on the engines, as they moved into or out of the goods yard, as often as not they would wave back and some would even sound the whistle as in clouds of dirty black steam they shunted past us. So it was only a very short progression from this to some of us starting to note the engine numbers and later the engine types down in pages torn from the back of our school exercise books.

I am not sure exactly when how or even by whom it was decided to organise a more formal group, it may have been Phil Walker, who later went on to work for British Railway as a station porter at Tonbridge, but a group was formed and we called ourselves I now recall, somewhat grandly, The Tonbridge Spotters. So it was that some 52 years ago now I first officially changed from a boy who occasionally waved at passing trains to become a fully fledged member of The Tonbridge Spotters, a group of like minded schoolboys, and more importantly friends, when we all failed the eleven plus exams and collectively left primary school and headed off to the local secondary modern, were to stay together until 1964 when we all left school aged 15 and went to make our own way in the world.

We as a group seemed to vary in membership numbers over the years, some would leave the group and some would join as we all ventured unsteadily through the onset of puberty, discovering the opposite sex and being teenagers during the swinging sixties. The one common bond and interest being trains. The Tonbridge Spotters outings were confined mainly to weekends, school holidays or vary occasionally those long warm summer evenings, but outings we did have and perhaps by today's standards they may not have been very adventurous they were enjoyable.

The outings were often planned during school dinner times in a corner of the bike shed or if raining in the school library and with what we thought to be military precision. They varied from sometimes nothing more simple than all meeting up at Tonbridge station, buying a platform ticket, or sometimes not buying a platform ticket, and spending the day sat at the end of a platform pencil and notebook in hand. Occasionally though the outings saw us range further afield, sometimes we would ride our bikes to some distant station and very occasionally, when our pocket money would allow, we would travel to London to spend a day around some of the engine sheds like Nine Elms, sadly now long gone and the area is a housing estate.

One abiding memory I have to this day of those adventures was the snacks or lunch packs our mothers would prepare for us. Without fail and to a boy they would consist of a couple of sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper the fillings would invariably be either cheese, spam, paste or egg. Also included would be, if lucky, a bag of crisps, Smiths with the small blue bag of salt, in those far off days crisps did not come in flavours just plain, if crisps were not included then perhaps a hard boiled egg would be added, this would be accompanied by a thermos flask of tea to wash it all down, the whole epicurean delight being carried in a duffle bag over the shoulder, I wonder now if they still make duffle bags.

Even as comparatively young as we were we always adopted the practice of opening all our sandwich boxes and laying them before us and by sharing we told ourselves that it helped maintain a varied diet. From time to time mishaps occurred, occasionally and without thinking one of us would drop our bag to the ground and then hear a slight clinking sound as the glass inner liner of the thermos flask shattered and the unfortunate individual watched as slowly the brown hot liquid seeped out of the bag to form a puddle on the ground, normally this was greeted by a roar of laughter from the rest of us but we would always end up sharing so the worst thing that would happen was that the individual would have to go home and face his mum and own up that he had broken yet another thermos flask. When this happened to me, as it did from time to time, I was always given the lecture about carelessness, and asked in a very stern voice did I know how much these things cost and just to teach me a lesson my pocket money would be diverted the very next week to offset the cost of a replacement. It never was and by the next weeks outing of The Tonbridge Spotters I would always have a new flask for carrying my tea.

Of all of the locomotive types or Class as they are correctly known that populated the Southern Railway during those days we members of The Tonbridge Spotters were impressed that we had our own locomotive class. The Southern Railway V [Schools] Class which was loosely based upon combination of both the Nelson and King Artur Class it was to be the last purpose built heavy express steam locomotive to be designed with a wheel arrangement of 4-4-0. The Schools were designed for no other reason than to run on the Southern Railway where the tunnels were narrow and the turntables at the engine sheds particularly between Tonbridge and Hastings were small, the Schools, I remember we had decided, were our locomotive.

A total of forty of these engines were built between 1930 and 35 and though formerly titled as V Class 4-4-0 they gained their name of Schools Class due to all being named after Public Schools. The Class started to be withdrawn from 1963 and by 1964 they had all gone from public mainline use. Of the forty built only three now remain in private ownership and in preservation, 30925 Cheltenham is owned by the National Railway Collection, 30928 is currently located as a static display at Sheffield Park and the last 30926 Repton is the only Schools Class at present still running and carrying fare paying passengers, this on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

I live now in the North East, however I am I suppose still a member of The Tonbridge Spotters, I do not ever recall us being formally disbanded we just left school and went our own way, perhaps who knows I may be the sole remaining member of The Tonbridge Spotters. I see now by referring to my various notes and records that though I have seen 30926 Repton many times the first recorded spotting by me was at Ashford on 26 August 1957 and the last time I saw her was 1 July 2008 when I travelled as a passenger on her from Grosmont to Pickering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway whilst on a day visit, an interval of 51 years.

Tempus Fugit

2009-05-27T13:32:00.004+02:00

Tempus Fugit………it certainly has.

I could say that I have been very busy, of course I have, I could say that there has been more important things that kept me away from the Blog, of course there has been, and I could say I have been lazy which is more likely to be the truth, so lazy it is.

So much has happened since the last entry, Christmas for example has been and gone.

The world has gone into a financial free fall that started off in America with the collapse of the sub prime property market which then had the inevitable knock on effect through the financial world. Institutions started clamouring to try and get their loans back from each other, this led to the share price around the world collapsing and ultimately leading to massive job losses, which then again forced even greater falls in shares which then saw the collapse of some financial institutions. We have gained a piece of new terminology; Credit Crunch.

We have been to Germany to visit family. We travelled Commodore Class on the ferry from the Tyne to the Dutch port of Ijmuiden and very enjoyable it was, a few perks being in the line for first on and first off with the car, an enlarged cabin with a double bed rather than the bunks found in the standard cabin, and best of all a complimentary mini bar not found at all in the standard cabin, yes Commodore Class for us again.

The news over the last few weeks has been about that many of our Members of Parliament have been found out with their collective hand in the in the taxpayers till. If this should come as a surprise to some or not I am unsure, not perhaps that these people have been found out but rather that the public has now discovered that it has been going on for so long and certainly extends back long before this present Government.

Holidays

2008-10-15T23:48:00.002+02:00

I have not been lazy rather I have been away on holiday.

I think I have become the sort of person, when it comes to a holiday that is, that some years ago I might have accused others as being unimaginative. Throughout the year I do attempt to vary the locations to which I travel for the several holidays that I am now lucky enough to enjoy, and I have for the last five years visited Cornwall for at least one of those holidays. Not just to Cornwall as a county but to the same apartment in the same small seaside town and how very enjoyable it all is.

I must confess that I came to Cornwall late in life and I only discovered both the town and the apartments I stay at by accident; it was whilst talking to a work colleague that first made me start to think about Cornwall as a holiday destination. He had spent many of his holidays in Cornwall during the previous years and I had begun to think that if Cornwall had been a good enough destination for my colleague over that period of time then it may also be good enough for me. I reasoned that whilst I still enjoyed the prospect of travelling abroad I was beginning to question why I was often paying more to the aircraft companies for the fare just to travel to my chosen overseas destination than I was paying for the holiday itself when I got there.

Additionally I was also becoming weary of queuing at airports in either the early hours of the morning or what seemed to be the middle of the night just to fill aircraft seats that suited the airline company but often not me.

Cornwall is an enjoyable place to holiday, it is the simplicity of it all that somehow appeals to me, and it reminds me a little of the many seaside holidays to which I was taken on whilst a child by my parents. Several of them may be listed as the classic British seaside holiday resorts such as Blackpool, Skegness, Rhyl, Ayr and Brighton to name but a few, and mostly spent at a Butlins Holiday Camp.

These holidays were always fun, the sun always shone, though in truth it may not have done. The beaches were always covered in clean golden sand, though in the case of Skegness and Brighton certainly that could not have been the case as the beaches in these two resorts have pebbles on the them. The sea always seemed to be a clear azure blue, but in most cases that would not have been the case either, the North Sea for example is a muddy brown colour, but these are at least my memories whilst a boy on his childhood seaside holidays growing up in the mid fifties.

However, I do really enjoy Cornwall, the light is brighter and because of this, many famous artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson made it their home. Many of the resorts on what is referred to as the North Coast, though to say this is strictly incorrect as the coastlines on the Cornish peninsular are geographically West or East, are internationally famous for surfing. The sea really is an azure blue and the sand on the beaches really is golden in colour. The attitude and general lifestyle of those lucky enough to live there and to those like me lucky enough to holiday there is so relaxed and so calming.

Computor Flight Simulator

2008-09-10T14:29:00.003+02:00

I am an Flight Simulator Pilot with over two thousand hours of flight time on the Microsoft series of Flight Simulator over the last nineteen years or so, though I don’t bother to count hours any more. After a hard day at my real job or when I have a spare half hour or so I load up the programme, slip on the headset lower the lights and get ready for some relaxation, but I am getting slightly ahead of myself, let me take you back to how it all started.

My uncle flew Gliders into Arnhem as part of Operation Market Garden on the night of 17th September 1944. He had been a Sergeant in the Royal Engineers when a year earlier in 1943 he saw a notice asking for volunteers to train as Glider Pilots in the newly formed Glider Pilot Regiment, he volunteered, passed the course and transferred to the new Regiment, and so it was that on a cloudy Sunday night the 17th September he crashed landed [all Gliders by default crash land] his Horsa MK 1 Glider carrying troops of the British Parachute Regiment into a dark field in Holland. He was later one of the lucky ones who acted as a guide to get the troops out to the Rhine where they were brought back across the river over a period of two nights by small boats.

After the war ended he remained in the Army and when the Glider Pilot Regiment was disbanded and the new Army Air Corps was formed he transferred and at first flew Chipmunk and Auster then later Beaver fixed wing and then converting to Helicopters, Scout and the Sioux. He retired from military service in 1970 his last active post being Officer Commanding Flying Wing at the Army Air Corps Centre at Middle Wallop. It was as a direct result of listening to him telling me lots of stories whilst I was growing up that introduced my interest in flying and later when like him I chose the Army as a career I too learnt to fly.

My first Flight Simulator was version 4 of the Microsoft series released in 1989. This consisting of a split screen on your monitor the top half attempting to provide a representation of the view/scenery and the bottom half the cockpit instrumentation. Of course by what we now think of as acceptable it was more than a little basic, but back then when it was all new and running on 8 Bit computers it was nothing short of revolutionary. Many happy hours were spent flying around a very blank and bare landscape trying to apply very basic navigation, the scenery only coming back to life again when nearing a major airport. I stayed true with FS4 until the release of MSFS 95 in 1996.

MSFS 95 had much better graphics [well I thought so anyway] and it was a much more slicker product, for the first time, well for me anyway, the pilot could chose between about 6 aircraft types and again the sim pilot now was able, in theory anyway, able to plan a flight from A to B and fly it, agreed the scenery at times was basic and the sim pilot was required to still have a fairly good imagination, but it was at the time a great product that was until the mould was broken by a company called Eidos Looking Glass Technologies.

In 1997 I was reading a computer magazine and noticed an article about a new type of flight simulator called Flight Unlimited II, this was in fact the second one in the series by this developer, but for some reason the first one had passed me by. However the article gave a web link where the reader could download a demo of the new simulator, which I did and I was absolutely blown away. The graphics were out of this world, the sim had a choice of aircraft type, it had a dynamic weather system, and it featured AI aircraft and an active and working ATC system, goodbye MS 95 hello FU II. I had to wait a couple of weeks before the whole game had been released in the UK but I rushed off to the shop and bought a copy. As I sat at home installing the game onto my computer I just hoped that my 8Mb of Ram was enough to cope with the huge jump in technology that was about to hit it, however I need not of worried, the 8 Mb ran it with no problems at all, I have to laugh now writing this, I have aircraft installed on my system now that are more than 8 Mb.

FU II also did something else for me. One day I was reading a flight sim web site when I saw a mention for a VA for FU II, I did not know what a VA was so I read on. It seems that a chap called Fred Brubaker had formed a fictional flying company based on the FU II simulator based at Half Moon Bay [KHAF]. He was inviting anyone to join and promised to provide virtual general cargo and pax runs in return for virtual pay, the company was called Bay Area Charter. When we think today of all the many VAs there are to cover every taste in the FS world Fred was years ahead of his time. He developed Bay Area Charter into a working company he invented stories to intertwine in between the flying, he had a web page with a pilot roster, everyone got paid at the end of the month, and he devised a flight brokerage where you could buy your own aircraft from the company, thereby allowing a bit more profit on earnings than hire a company aircraft from Fred where he took a cut. Some pilots would be invited by Fred to earn a little more by flying some ‘special jobs’. It was not long before Bay Area Charter had a following of about 30 pilots and I am sure many of us really thought that we were real pilots and that Bay Area Charter really did exist, that is how professional Fred was. Sadly however the end had to come, the bubble burst when Fred announced without any warning that he was closing up shop and he did just that, he shut the web site down within 24 hours and that was that.

Well not quite, three pilots from BAC me, Richard and a lady called Shawn decided BAC should not just die, but there was not a lot we could do about it, or was there. After a furious flurry of e mails between the three of us Shawn just said ‘Why don’t we set up our own VA still based on FU II but moving on a little from BAC’, why not indeed agreed Richard and I, so we did. The new company was called Pier Glass Aviation and moved its FBO from Half Moon Bay to San Jose International. We got all the other BAC pilots to move with us, Richard who worked in IT put a web page together, I wrote a set of assignments and put the roster and wages page together and Shawn wrote the background story that Fred had been dealing with the Mafia and forgetting to inform the IRS about some [or most] of BAC earnings and so had been arrested one dark night. In an attempt to salvage their property the BAC pilots turned up at Half Moon Bay before the Police and FBI could get there, they collected anything of any use or value and flew whatever aircraft they could out of Half Moon Bay into San Jose and painted all the aircraft markings out.

So it was that PGA took to the virtual skies.

PGA answered to nobody, they paid no bills no taxes, and they stole from everyone except themselves and lived by the motto ‘If your paying we are flying’. There was no such thing as bad weather or unserviceable aircraft, you flew or answered to ‘The Boss’, if you flew [which was wise to do so when told] you got paid and a monthly share of the goods which was mostly booze stolen from some cargo run or other.

It soon became clear to us at PGA that FU II was far to limiting in terms of area and so after a discussion we agreed to change to MSFS 98 and 2000 that had been released in 1997 and 1999, by changing back to MSFS the whole world opened up to PGA and for some years the VA flourished, like all VAs some members left and some new members joined. It came to the point however that we could not write enough assignments and so changed to a random number generator similar to the type of thing that is used on ‘War Gaming’ to provide an assignment and the level of pay. Sadly however this proved to be the start of the end for PGA. It was not a popular choice and pilots found it hard to invent funny stories about their flights when the assignment had been selected for them on the basis of a number generator. Over the next year or so pilots drifted away until PGA consisted of about three or four regulars, and mostly it has ground itself into the ground. PGA still lives on, the web site is still there, I have a look from time to time by all is silent there now.

So here I was just about to change from MSFS 2000 to MSFS 2002 but I soon grew bored with flying on my own again however good 2002 and its third party following was, I for one needed a direction, I needed a VA. Like most things I was browsing a few web pages when I found Solent Airlines, a UK Southampton based [though later moving to Southend] VA flying a mixture of Prop and Jet short to medium flight pax and freight. Solent was a formal airline, no pay, no stealing lying or cheating, the pilot bid for a flight flew it and had their hours recorded. It sounds dull after BAC and PGA but it wasn’t, for some reason the formal structure was fun and it had a great and lively forum and everyone got on together. Solent went from strength to strength, we all flew when we could and all being UK based we all met in the evenings on the forum and had a chat with each other, it really was good. Like most thing in the FS world the day came when Bob and Julie who ran Solent decided to close it down, their two daughters then becoming teenagers needed a little more Mum and Dad time and so sadly Solent Airlines closed just as I changed from MSFS 2002 to 2004 my current simulator.

Here I was back to flying on my own, it was okay for while but while I was enjoying 2004 but it soon became clear to me that however good MSFS is and despite the advance from Version 4 to 2004 I need some friends. I was one evening looking for a good helicopter and was browsing the Hovercontrol web site when I started to read the forums a post caught my eye about some VA that paid you [the pilot] money, dear me I thought we were doing that way back in BAC not very original is it I thought but for some reason I read on, it intrigued me, maybe it might interest me I thought, I made a note of the web address and moved on to another post.. It was some hours later when I thought about seeing what this Sweet Shell was about so I cut and paste the web address and sat there as the page loaded.

I looked around as much as I could, I read some of the posts that were open to me without becoming a member, what a set of oddballs I thought, hey these guys are off the wall, half of them are obsessed with naked woman the other half……………well I dare not think what the other half were like……………. I sat back in my chair and laughed, this is the biggest set of pirates I had met since PGA days I must have some of this, these guys really know how to enjoy themselves.

I signed up and put my first post on the forum and waited, then I got some replies hey I was welcomed into the fold, these guys were normal, that was blow, still who cares the point is everyone is part of the fun, everyone is equal, we are all part of a family and that family is Sweet Shells the biggest group of Hippy Sky Truckers around and we are proud of it. We like our flying, we like our woman naked and we like our booze.

So here I am almost 60 years old mixing on equal terms with guys half my age [or less] with something we all enjoy and have in common Flight Simulation.

Catching Up

2008-09-06T14:45:00.006+02:00

Well time again allows me to add yet another piece of literary ramblings to my slowly evolving Blog.

Heather has been and gone and the four of us [to include our spouses of course] had a very enjoyable evening together. Heather bought some family photos for us all to look at and even after all these years and when you have reached the age that you begin to think there is not much family history that is unknown, I was very surprised to be presented with a photo of my grandmother, taken to our best collective guess we think sometime around the early or mid twenties, of her and some others [who sadly we are unable to identify] as being a passenger on the Queen Mary. A lot of talking about various relations, cousins, mothers, aunts and grand parents and it seems now that every sentence or part of the conversation began............... "Do you remember.................or.........When you went in the door the room on the right"............

This was followed by a meal at the Hamilton Russell Inn where Heather and her husband Les were very impressed by the home made steak and kidney pudding, mash and accompanied by what is known these days in the restaurant trade as seasonal vegetables. I was able to give Heather a copy of John [Jack] Lyons’ [her grandfather] Army service papers showing details of his service from being a member of the 3rd Suffolk Battalion Militia in 1900 to enlisting as a regular in 1902 into the Army Service Corps and his eventual discharge late in 1919. It contains some very interesting reading and some very valuable information and Heather has now discovered for the first time, thirty seven years after his death at the ripe old age of eighty six, that he had tattoos, and who said genealogy was not interesting.

I collected the new car on Monday 1st September to coincide with the issue of the new registration number. We had started to look around for a new car about three months ago. After much time spent on the internet looking at various models we had by early August whittled the choice down to two main contenders and we then proceeded to arrange a test drive of each.

Our requirements in any car are primarily that of reasonable fuel consumption, not I should hasten to add because I have some overwhelming urge to save the planet, rather that I am careful where money is concerned and I have always demanded good value for my money in all things and do not see why I should own a car that would not deliver at least mid thirties to low forties miles per gallon. After a test drive in each it bought us to a stalemate, we liked both vehicles and each met many of our requirements, though each had their own good and bad points, on balance each was a car we were happy to own, it all now came down to costs.

The first dealer offered a fair price for trade in of our old car and then did very little else to persuade us to purchase a new car from him, to be fair there was after a lot of haggling a small reduction in the list price but hardly what in hindsight I might call a deal breaker. We visited the second dealership the same afternoon and were very impressed to find that almost immediately we were offered a price reduction off the list price, this added to about the same offer for trade in made this car a good deal. I was just about to agree to the deal and shake hands when I must have sounded a little hesitant and the dealer then added a further reduction off the list price. We signed and agreed the deal straight away before the dealer changed his mind, we agreed the colour and delivery date and that was that.

I have had the car now for five days and I have say I like it, there are some very quirky items that I am still coming to terms with like auto rain sensing wipers and auto lights, that come on when the ambient light gets low and turn off when it brightens up, but I think it is fun.

Genealogy, it is only history.

2008-08-29T13:10:00.001+02:00

I am undertaking research into my family tree. This is not a new venture rather something I and my daughter have been steadily and methodically plodding away at for a couple of years now. I think I remember reading somewhere that the research of genealogy is the single largest interest group on the internet.

I have often been questioned why are we doing this to which my stock and often glib answer is why not, but the real reason I think is that it is a combination of two parts, firstly to find out who our family ancestors were, where they lived what employments did they have and secondly to record whilst recent events are still fresh in our minds who we are, where we live and what we did, for generations of our family yet to come. It is perhaps no more that an exercise in research and historical record gathering and recording events up to date for future generations.

We have during our spasmodic research so far been able to trace our maternal / maternal and the maternal / paternal line back to the mid 1700’s. In addition there have been interesting diversions and offshoots with my son in law whose family is traced back to the mid 1700’s and my daughter in law who so far has recorded her family back to the mid 1800’s. Yes it is certainly true to say that what started as ‘our family tree’ has happily extended side branches and is now forming a truly extended and in the case of my daughter in law who extends into Eastern Europe, a truly international tree.

It is human nature I expect for anyone engaged in this type of project to hope to find a direct link to a noble or regal family line, if not a close second would be to find some notorious criminal or murderer, I have to report so far we have found neither. However that is not to say that we have found nothing of interest that raised an eyebrow. There is, for example, on my maternal / paternal side, Thomas James Edwards [born 14 March 1815 died 29 January 1875] who married twice, firstly Elizabeth Banks [born 1815] of whom little is known and secondly Fanny Jefferies [born 1835 died 1898]. Thomas was by trade and profession what was called a Modeller and Plasterer; he designed, made and crafted ornate plaster ceiling and wall mouldings. Of the various obituaries to him the Southampton Times dated 6 February 1875 mentions that his talent and the purity of his taste and the excellence of all his ornamentations was much in demand. He was called to produce his work at Buckingham Palace, Osborne House, the summer residence of Queen Victoria, and some other principle residences particularly those of Lord Portman, Earl Rivers and the Earl of Portsmouth.

This genealogical adventure has also made it possible for us to reacquaint ourselves with distant relations, not the sort that you had forgotten about or those you did not know even existed but the type that you send a Christmas card to each year with the vague promise that ‘we should meet up again soon’. Next week my second cousin Heather, her Grandmother and my Grandmother are sisters, my Mother and her Mother were cousins and we share a common Great Grand Father Arthur J French, is coming to visit. We will catch up on old times we have planned a meal we will compare photograph albums and we will try and remember the last time we met more than fifty years ago.

Another Birthday

2008-08-27T18:53:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was my birthday; I am now officially one year older and have taken yet another faltering step toward my bus pass, retirement, pension and ultimately death.

I am never sure if we should feel any different when it is our birthday, should by being a year older than you were yesterday, or in my case the day before, make us feel older, and if so how exactly do we do that ? Feeling older surely is a gradual process and not at all the same as getting older. The fact that I am no longer able to run as fast as I once could when I was a teenager, for example, is perhaps a mote point when I now find it difficult to run at all and perhaps now see no good reason to do so, why run my mind questions, there is no sense in it. But does this mean that this now enforced inability to run with any sense of purpose is a case of getting older or feeling older, perhaps it may be both.

When I stand now in front of the mirror I see staring wistfully back at me a slightly overweight slightly haggard looking man well past his prime with a slightly bulging stomach and hair growing out of his nose and ears. What I feel inside when I stare into that mirror is that I am transported back more than forty five years to a fifteen year old schoolboy with more than a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, a thirst for adventure and a hunger for life. A boy who grew up in what now seems to be those black and white days of the fifties and sixties, a boy who witnessed before him the change of an established society, a boy who became part of that change and embraced it wholeheartedly. There is a proclamation that states, that if you remember the sixties then you were not there, well I do remember the sixties and I was most definitely there and what fun it was.

Is it always the case that many look back and tell everyone who might stay long enough to listen about how good it was back in the old days, do they really mean that, was it really so good back then, when ever then was of course. I find myself doing that, I often now sound like my father when I now tell my grown up children about how it was much better when I was a teenager than it is today for teenagers, I see my children rolling their eyes heavenwards just as I did so all those years ago. Of course it was not better then; modern society and modern technology make life today so much easier and so much more comfortable and much more exciting. But then I also remember that it is my generation [generally speaking] those like me who grew up in the fifties and sixties that have invented, devised adapted, updated and brought this modern technology we have today to the masses and think they have done so not out of necessity but out of learning.

I am of the group in my generation that grew up pre decimalisation, pre calculators, and computers, pre colour television and pre space travel but also of that group who were the first to miss National Service, my group of my generation grew up on the cusp of social reform and I am glad of that. The writer Alan Bennett mentions about his own growing up in Leeds during the forties and fifties [though he did not miss National Service] that his education was free, though perhaps not free but owing as it had been paid for by that generation before him that did not have it and they had in kind paid for it. Like Alan Bennett my education was free and I am glad of it though sadly and as I know to my own cost much of it is not free today.

Our children and grandchildren today do have things [though not as much as we think] that are free, it is their right, though free to them today but paid for by us yesterday.

And so here I am another year older, another birthday come and gone, and so statistically and legally I am one year older however I am inside still that fifteen year old kid I always think I am and when I close my eyes for a moment in my mind it is still 1964.

Baseball and the Cleveland Indians

2008-08-26T05:24:00.004+02:00

Yet another win for the Cleveland Indians though as seems to be their habit of late they had to take the slightly difficult route to success.

Playing away to the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park Detroit the Tigers took the early lead with one run in the first innings. Cleveland replied with two runs one each in the 2nd and 3rd to take the lead 2-1. Detroit then scored again with one run in the 5th and again in the 7th at the Indians scored one in the 8th, the score was tied at 3-3.

Into overtime and the 9th innings produced no runs for either team. The Indians take the batting for the start of the 10th and after a pitching change by the Tigers from Fernando Rodney to Casey Fossum; Grady Sizemore comes into bat and is caught at short stop by Edgar Renteria. The Tigers change pitcher again and Gary Glover replaces Casey Fossum. Cleveland’s second bat for the 10th is Franklin Gutierrez who then promptly hits a home run to make the score 4-3. It then takes on an air of excitement to see if the Indians can improve and score again or if not hold off the Tigers.

Of the remaining Indian bats, Ben Francisco is caught at centre field by Curtis Granderson, Jhonny Peralta takes a single on a line drive to left field and then Shin-Soo Choo gets it all wrong again by grounding out and allowing second base to throw to first base and its three out. Luckily for Cleveland and thanks to some accurate fielding Detroit is unable to score and the final score is Cleveland Indians 4 Detroit Tigers 3, another close match and an exciting finish.

This win over Detroit now give the Cleveland Indians their 8th straight win in a row however due to their very poor overall performance during most of this season they still remain in fourth place behind Detroit and above Kansas City in the American League Central Division.

However a report on this game cannot pass without mention of the hero of the team Grady Sizemore. Grady hit two home runs during the game and in doing so became only the fourteenth man in the American League history to put together a 30-30 season, that is to say 30 Home Runs and 30 Stolen Bases in a season, the last to do it was Alfonso Soriano in 2005 playing for the Texas Rangers. In fact Sizemore hit his second home run during the 3rd innings to give him a total of 31 home runs and he had before starting the game already scored on 34 stolen bases. Grady is only the second Cleveland Indians player to reach this milestone the first being Joe Carter in 1987.

It seems a good idea

2008-08-25T17:11:00.002+02:00

Most people that I am aquatinted with now appear to publish their thoughts, ideas or just the routine day to day ramblings of their lives in a Web Blog.

I had often wondered what they see in the need to bare their souls, if indeed they do, to the public gaze and perhaps comment.

So it is with some slight trepidation that I now step forward to experience life on the Web, what should I talk about? what should I discuss? who knows perhaps just life as I see it.

It just seemed like a good idea to me at the time.