A reflection at the end of another year

My Star Trek Annual of 1971 caused me to have many sleepless and worried nights. Amongst the comic strip depictions of the adventures of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty and a token dispensable crew-member was a short factual piece on how the death of our own sun would bring about a cataclysmic chain of events to end the very existence of planet Earth. I was, at the age of 8 understandably upset at the prospect of my life and ambitions being cruelly cut short. Unfortunately, I failed upon first reading of this inevitable fact to see the continuation of the story over the page and that my demise and that of the living world would not take place for many millenia. I draw on this memory on the first day of 2012. Another year after one that has hurtled past in a progression that seems to get more rapid as I get older. Of course there has been the association of this year with the Mayan prediction of the end of the world. Professor Brian Cox tweeted that anyone who stood by the Mayans amazing scientific works was, I quote, "a nobber". Thank you Brian for those words of wisdom. I look forward to your next TV series and a period of sincere honesty in science.By the way I always thought that your profanity began with a 'K', but then I only possess a lower science degree.  Of course he could already have secured his place on the Earth Ark scheduled to leave the planet on the 20th December 2012 and is putting up a smokescreen to maintain sales of his books, DVD's, back catalogued D:Ream CD's to clear much needed space in his garage and small dessert apples.

On reflection there have been many dates in my life and experience which have been flagged up as a matter of anxiety and stress but which have passed by with no great drama. Amongst these have been and will be the following;

In 1976 I reached my thirteenth birthday. I was very superstitious at that age and was convinced that the year would be my last. My nightly prayers would feature the early formulation of a pact with God to let me live until I was, specifically 77 years old. Why that age I know not. What I promised to give or do to uphold my side of the bargain I cannot remember now. As far as I know the agreement is still valid. My proposal for a 12 month cooling-off period was evidently rejected.

Between 1975 and 1977 I was alerted to the prospect that in 1999 the explosive force of the ignition of nuclear and other waste on the moon would cause the earth satellite to leave its orbit and embark, with it's colonised residents on fantastical adventures in space and amongst alien worlds. That date at an unimaginable 22 to 24 years in the future did eventually come and go without incident. I was quite relieved and still find myself humming or whistling to myself that joyous, celebratory and frankly, very reassuring 1982 hit song by Prince encouraging us to party like it actually was 1999. If I had really taken on his message I would have saved myself some 17 years of unnecessary anguish.

1984 was always going to be a difficult year for me. I was an avid reader of the works of George Orwell and to my mind the world events leading up to that year all foretold the emergence of a Big Brother society or, realistically under the governance of Margaret Thatcher, a Big Old Grumpy Bag society. On a personal level it was also my 21st birthday year. It was bad enough leaving my teenage years as the thought dawned on me that I was expected to be a grown up. On my actual birthday I was on my sandwich year from Trent Poly and away from home. I reluctantly celebrated with a whole Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie sat on my bed in my digs.

Two dates of great potential magnitude came and went during 1997. The 12th of January was the foretold date from 1961 of the inauguration of the HAL 9000 computer. Late August of the same year saw the coming into consciousness of Skynet and the emergence of what would, from 1984, become the Terminator. I am glad that these critical dates did not materialise as it would have been quite a disruptive year albeit a rather interesting one.

The approach to the Millenium was a great opportunity for mischievous and downright malicious predictions of mayhem and madness. On the flip-side it also made a lot of people in the IT industry a tremendous amount of money. The Bug was all pervading in popular culture, governmental circulars and very much in the perception of anyone who owned or worked with a computer. The opportunities to sell any sort of reassurance or complex gadgetry were scandalous although at midnight on the last day of the 20th Century I do remember carefully keeping one eye on the display on the VCR with the other watching with amused horror as a drunken reveller tried to urinate up the trunk of the Plane tree outside our house simultaneously trying to keep his footing on the snow covered pavement and his other hand on a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. Not the best circumstances for that chap to be remembered for had the bug bitten at that time.

Next milestone of a date was 2003. My 40th birthday year. It was alright.

What to look forward to next? Well, if I am at the laptop just after the Winter Solstice later this year I will be sure to congratulate Prof Cox on his strength of character in resisting going along with the hype and potential for cultist suicide and hysteria surrounding what the Mayans may or may not have thought would happen, assuming that they were not of course spaced out from a staple diet of beans and chocolate.

At this moment in real time I look forward to a period of a realisation of the need for peace and environental responsibility for all or at least to get us to 2015 when, on the basis of the predictions of Robert Zemeckis and others, we will all have a hoverboard of our own and we can really get back to the future.

Noodle Doodle Do

The recent demise of the train robber Ronnie Biggs brought to mind the transition that often occurs from arch villain/blaggard/right nasty piece of work to just "a bit of a loveable rogue".

I am in sympathy with those individuals and families directly and indirectly affected by the aforementioned rail heist and other heinous crimes. The passage of time may have permitted them to arrive at a place of forgiveness in order to achieve some form of closure even if it is still not reasonable in any universe to expect  acceptance of the perpetrators as modern day Robin Hood characters.

There have always been heroes and villains and the moral position between them can often be vague and ill defined. Take Nelson Mandela. In the eyes of his comrade campaigners against the injustice to humanity that was Apartheid he was a freedom fighter. To the white supremacists holding desperately onto any recognisable sovereign power he was a terrorist. Many dictators have, before falling to moral corruption and their own God Complexes, been held as saviours of their nations.

On a not dissimilar theme the Pot Noodle was voted, in 2004, the most hated of all branded foods.

It took some time to attain that position of vilification from the consumer nation of ours. The origins of the quick snack were in the days of post war shortages and austerity in Japan and its first incarnations fulfilled a desperate requirement for a simple filler for empty stomachs.

The introduction of the more recognisable rebranded versions of Pot Noodle to the wider world and in particular the UK came in the mid to late 1970's. It was a logical addition to a freeze-dried line-up of cuppa soups and Vesta meals which represented the pinnacle of the industry in dehydrated foodstuffs.

I recall my first exposure to a Pot Noodle as a teenager.

Peer pressure was at play to try this new fangled lifestyle and aspirational product.

I was afraid to be caught sneaking back home before family tea-time with dry powder on my face or the unmistakable odour of chicken flavouring on my breath. In my year at school we all partook to one degree or another. Some became addicted to the infusion, the huge infusion of salt, preservatives and MSG and a little bit stupid on the highly charged sauce sachets.

I swear that I never inhaled. It was banned from packed lunches and had to be locked away if found in duffle or kits bags on the bus on the way to a Scout Camp.

It was the height of sophistication to treat the opposite sex to a beef and tomato Pot Noodle.

Unfortunately, the product was soon to fall from the high standing in which it had been launched through misinformation of its composition and not a little ridicule in popular humour. Doubt was cast on the nutritional benefits of the compact meal and rumours were rife as to what actually formed the ingredients. There were the usual, highly hilarious but ultimately upsetting jibes of "Not Poodle" and so on.

The product was however good enough in commercial performance to entice the massive Unilever Corporation to purchase the rights and intellectual property of Pot Noodle from Golden Wonder in 1995. A factory in Wales churned out 155 million of them a year as an endorsement of their popularity, albeit very much clandestine, underground and closeted.

The undercurrent of hatred never really waned through the 1990's and beyond. It was not helped by controversial marketing campaigns playing on the venomous attitudes of a noisy minority hell bent on driving Pot Noodle out of existence. It was as if they were personally offended by a dehydrated mix of noodles. "Slag of all snacks" was a strapline in the succession of negative reinforcement from slick marketing and advertising companies.

The accusers persisted in their criticism of Pot Noodle as low quality when in fact it was a cloaked attack on the main perceived consumer market of the lazy and the poor.

Pot Noodles have never been marketed openly to the Middle Classes although the newest Piri Piri Chicken may appeal to those spying it on the shelves in the petrol station shop or large bulk sale supermarkets. It may even become a matter of inverted snobbery like matt black and de-chromed motor vehicles.

Pot Noodle has been the perfect excuse for an "us and them " situation.

Wars, throughout history have started on similar pretences.

I have today attempted a personal crusade to act as an intermediary between the Noodlers and the Abstainers. My position has been strengthened by the recessionary conditions afflicting our nation which have inevitably led to an increase in Pot Noodle consumption out of necessity for a good proportion of the population to meet minimum nutritional needs.

I have, for my lunch today, consumed a Piri Piri and after a brief lie down and recuperation from the overall experience am ready and fully prepared to rally forth my troops for a long and bitter campaign towards the full and unconditional acceptance of the Pot Noodle as a National Pleasure.

My life according to Google

Not sure if it's a promotional thing or a genuine gift but those nice peoples at Google sent me, just today, a short compilation in video form, of a selection of photographs that I have taken during 2013.
I am unsure of their criteria for the choice. There seems to be no rational basis such as one per each of the last 12 months or a defined pattern or theme. Trouble is, I use the camera phone for just about everything from family photos to pictures for my daily workload to Instagram postings or just snap shots of interesting signs, vehicles, buildings and street-scenes.

I just hope that Google have not profiled and stereotyped my life and livelihood on judgemental grounds. I await targeted marketing in the coming weeks, months and 2014.

See what you think......

War Memorial metal sculpture at Lissett, East Yorkshire
Eating a burger with wife and son at Waddington International Air Show
Mountain view in the English Lake District
Lakeside view in the English mountain district
An angry looking, recently shorn sheep in a meadow
Clouds over a forest in Cumbria
A stagnant pond at Hutton Cranswick
A painting on wood of Telemachus bought in Kefalonia
1900's black and white photograph of bathers at Bridlington
The glazed, ribbed roof of York Railway Station
Someone's corrugated iron shed and septic tank cover
A bungalow, 1960's, plain.
View over Scarborough towards the Castle from Oliver's Mount Monument
A streetscene in East Hull, terraced housing
Lovely picture of my wife and mum-in-law
Miscellaneous streetscene in North Yorkshire
A box stuffed into an eaves area of an attic room and a onesie draped on a bedhead
Back view of a bungalow with upvc storm porch
A pair of garages behind a newly built house
Solar panels on a roof
Old semi detached house
Slightly newer, but still old, detached house
Cars piled up in a heap in a scrapyard
Twilight view of the River Hull and Tidal Barrier
A roof, Sandtoft red tiling
A large American car in metallic green parked on the roadside
Another bungalow, without upvc storm porch.

Really livin' it large in 2013...................

Bridge

I would like to own a Toll Bridge (See 'Wishful thinking at Christmas'- December 24th Blog) .

A fanciful and vague notion you may think.

An actual opportunity to get involved with the day to day running of a bridge may be rare enough but to have a chance to buy and own one outright may be virtually impossible. This is because of

1) the strategic importance of crossing points nationally,
2) where old Toll bridges have been by-passed by modern structures and road networks and are no longer viable for income generation ,
3) the perceptions of potentially prohibitive costs of repair and maintenance costs, and
4) the inevitable insurances and liabilities.

I would hazard a guess that, in the UK, there exists only a single figures number of bridges that could even be marketed for sale.

A recent high profile example was the 1779 built and 1797 rebuilt Whitney on Wye Toll Bridge in Herefordshire which a couple bought, funded by the sale of their own house for £400,000 in January 2012.

The initial motivation for the acquisition appears to have been an instant emotional connection with a romantic setting, a beautiful piece of 18th Century civil engineering of Grade II Listed status, a 2 bed toll-keepers cottage and a landed area, including riverbank, of 1.1 acres. The bridge has had comparatively few owners in its history and one family managed to hold onto it for 180 years. The sellers, a company, had spent around £300,000 on restoration and overhaul of the single carriageway crossing point following their takeover in 2002 which will have been of major reassurance to the buyers. There is little threat from competition in that the nearest other crossing points are 4 and 6 miles up and downstream respectively.

What brought the case to the attention of the media was the financial return from the ownership of a Toll Bridge.

The unique circumstances of Whitney on Wye gave it the profile of perhaps one of  the best investments of all time.

An Act of Parliament in 1774 established a framework to encourage Private Investment in the road and transport infrastructure of England. The Prime incentive, sweet and sugar coated was a complete exemption from taxation to any individual or consortium who funded a project which would benefit a local, regional and national economy. Any and all taxation was included.  A wise strategy for a Government of the time but now very much a massive loophole for the current administration some 233 years later.

The Wye bridge crossing is used on average by around 200 vehicles a day, mostly local traffic movements but in a tourist area and with a wide and fluctuating seasonal volume. The tariffs were at the time of acquisition 10p per bike, 20p for a motorbike and 80p for cars and light good vehicles. In the summer months the income levels were reported at £2000 per day.  The gross income is reputed to be around £100,000 per year and with the concessions from 1774 still in place, the only outlay is for maintenance and man-power.

The investment returns speak for themselves putting many Buy to Let propositions and schemes which seem too good to be true- (because they are) into the category of a reckless gamble.

Having to continuously leave the cottage to collect tolls could constitute a down-side for the business of owning a bridge unless sit-ups,  meeting people and accounting are three particular life-skills to be enjoyed. The previous owners did bring the operational side into the 21st century with an automatic coin operated barrier leaving more opportunity for the subsequent incumbents to enjoy the notion and location of their small, idyllic and cash-cow empire.

Boxing Day 2013

I had very mixed feelings about yesterday, Boxing Day 2013.

Typically for this country it was a bright, mild and breezy start. Very nice if you could sit in the sun in a sheltered spot. A bit bracing out in the open. There were a few cars passing by the house, on the way to the sales.

Children's bikes have, it appears, taken a bit of a downturn in popularity this year as I have not seen any youngsters wobbling by on the road or pavement being chaperoned by an anxious red faced parent. No doubt superseded by mobile phones and tablet computers.

I had a lazy first few hours. A bit of a tidy up, unload and load the dishwasher, hand-wash the larger pots, hack some more bits off the carcass of the turkey, open the pickles and spend some time with my wife and children amongst the new gifts from Christmas Day.

It seemed like an ordinary Boxing Day but it was in fact extraordinary because it was already the third to come round since father died.

We, as a family, have been through the same heart wrenching feelings before. My father in law, George was greatly missed at our Christmas table in 1995 and since then the Season has always invoked much emotion.

Boxing Day has always been the opportunity for a big get-together in the family. It has passed the time test and is now a tradition which assumes precedence over all other things. This can be both good and bad as being 'one side of the family centric' there are spouses who inevitably seem to miss out on establishing their own tradition. The dynamics of the family will change though as the children, all now young adults, will begin to do their own thing.

We all converge on the family home from as far away as America and all parts of the UK at this time. There was a full attendance of 18 on Boxing Day so very much a full house. This takes some organisation by Mother and helpers but there is always a warm and rowdy welcome, a fire in the grate, food and drink in abundance and the ever present ingredient of the unconditional love of family.

The house was nicely trimmed up with paper chains, this year featuring oversized lanterns, holly and a real tree. The seating of 18 does take some doing and the old suite, loaded well beyond capacity, is frequently re-aligned as one or more unfortunates disappear between the cushions. It was noted that the room appeared to have shrunk, again as a consequence of the tendency of children to sprout and grow with alarming regularity.

At the epicentre of the gathering has always been Father. Usually in the kitchen when we arrive, hosting drinks and helping mother with the preparation of the food he would burst onto the scene in ginger wig and tam-o-shanter greeting the new arrivals with a mischeivous smile and laugh. We always remarked that, having been an only child, the size of the gathering must have been both joyful and a shock to father but strictly on a 99% to 1% ratio respectively.

He was always the last into the room of expectant faces in readiness for the distribution of the family gifts accompanied by the cheekily irreverent high pitched hoots of "Doornald" from the assembled masses. He took up pride of place equidistant from tree and hearth seamlessly combining the operations of Santa and fire stoker.

The youngest children  took on the role of little helpers passing over the wrapped gifts to father. The drama of the present giving was brilliant. Father's spectacles were up and down from their forehead position as he feigned squinting and illiteracy to the amusement and frustration of his audience. As everyone's pile of gifts grew we would encourage Father to open his own which remained untouched. These were reluctantly accepted and usually pushed down the side of his seat cushion to be opened later.

What can you buy for the man who asked for nothing and yet had everything that he ever wanted there in the room?

The toys and gadgets requiring batteries or mechanical attention were magically activated through fathers attentions, the kitchen table taking on the appearance of Santa's workshop.

At the coming together of heavily laden tables for the meal I was privileged to sit at his side as he headed up the grown up's and his natural shyness and reticence to talk was forgotten in the presence of his closest family.

The Boxing Day meal always gave a further insight into the life and times of a quiet and reserved man of great intelligence, knowledge and wisdom.

Yesterday was certainly one of mixed feelings. We all felt a bit lost when the time came to distribute gifts from the large mound under the tree and adopted as different a method as possible so as to preserve our fond memories of father's inimitable style.

A few quivering voices and teary faces were prompted by a beautiful photograph of the man sat briefly resting against a standing stone circle. It will certainly go well with the shelving gallery of family pictures which have a prominent place in the living room. It was as though he was present amongst us as we had always taken for granted and I think he will have approved.

Christmas Carrots

In the run-up to Christmas and even for the best prepared and organised amongst us there will always be somewhat of a nagging feeling that something important has been omitted.

The tree is obvious by its physical form in a prominent position in the house. The presents also by their....presence. Cupboards will be unusually well stocked so as to be difficult to close up tightly. The turkey has been collected and the bag of giblets paraded in front of the squeamish children. Seasonal Greetings cards give a good prompt to make sure that we reciprocate. There are constantly reviewed lists of family, friends, acquaintances, the paper boy and milkman, dustbin operatives. The "must-have" is a mopping up list for last minute purchases before the shops close their doors on Christmas Eve.

Everyone has their defined responsibilities and a target to work to.

At some point you have to accept that you are well and truly prepared or if not, there is nothing that can be done about it.

It was therefore with grudging acceptance that I found out my gross and unforgiveable error of not buying any carrots for Christmas Day dinner.

It was not out of laziness or carelessness on my part.

One of my specific briefs had been to acquire all of the fruit, veg and nuts for the main part of the festive period. This I took on with enthusiasm and even researched local traders who could provide this service very much on a One-Stop Shop criteria. I personally wrote down the list which took up a whole side of an old envelope. It was a rational and structured approach stating specific quantities in both imperial and metric and for loose items assuming the feeding of five persons. If only I could retrieve the list from the fruiterers in my defence,  to reveal if carrots had not actually been written down, or simply to explain a supply chain problem at the shop. 

I was called to account for my action, or rather inaction by the whole family. I felt a bit like that small boy in English Civil War garb in the W.F Yeames painting but under the amended title of "Why did you not buy any carrots?".

I put up a spirited defence along the lines of ;

"it's not actually a proper vegetable", (based on my quick reference to the Wiki which indicated that although part of a longstanding plant pedigree, the carrot that we know today is a genetically engineered for the modern palate),
"the colour really clashes with the tone of the other foods", (given that the predominant tones are beige, green, red, brown and off-white),
"the shape is all wrong ", ( roundels really clash with the rough hewn roast potato, long thin parsnips, perfectly oval sprouts, elongated pigs in blankets and other informal forms on the plate") ,
"no one actually admits to liking them anyway", (just take a quick poll wherever you are),
 "they are so inconsistent in taste and cannot be relied upon", (some can be delightfully sweet and moist but most are fibrous and very woody in texture),
"we only have three decent saucepans to cope with four different vegetables" (that happens to be true)
and really pushing credibility
"they are a bit politically controversial and emotive, what with their strong association in their modern manifestation in the Netherlands in the 17th Century and that protestant symbolism", sourced from the authoritative work of 'Carrots and Religion in the Post Reformation Period'.

I tried that one after hearing about the Northern Ireland Commission discussions on the volatility of flags and marches and felt that the provocative carrot should be included as both inflammatory to the current situation and as a potential offensive weapon.

Persuasive I must have been because nothing more was said on the subject. I like to think that in my own small way I have started a revolution at the Christmas table for the closet haters and despisers of the carrot. There will be no hardship to the growers and distributors of that bright orange veggie from my actions and I have no regrets on that basis. The humble veg will endure but just at other times of the year. I have not been short sighted, I can see some light in the darkness, people can have their carrot cake and eat it.

London Calling

A disrespectful adaptation of the speech by King George VI on the outbreak of war, 3rd September 1939. The actual transcript can be found at;  http://www.royal.gov.uk/pdf/georgevi.pdf



In this unearthly hour, although perhaps the latest I have arisen this very year, I send to every one of my peeps in our house, both upstairs and in the living room, this message spoken in the same loud voice as though I was able to stand closer to you and talk to you on a one to one basis.

For yet another time in our lives, we are at Christmas.

Over and over again, we have tried to find an economical and ethical way out of the differences between internet and in-shop pricing and those who cannot deliver in time and say ' but it is in the van'.

We have been forced into a Poundshop for we are called by our Ally, to meet the challenge of a recession, which, if it were to persist, would allow the tiger economies to clean up quite nicely.

It is a principal fact of Christmas shopping, that, in the selfish pursuit of our wants and desires, we may disregard the special offers and guarantees of quality and stray from the promises and firm commitments of our shopping list to the detriment of others.

Such a principle, in naked truth, says that heavy discounting is right but if that were a worldwide pricing policy then the High Street shops and even the out of town retail centres would be in danger.

But far more than this, the shoppers of the world would be kept indoors awaiting their Fedex deliveries, and all hopes of picking up that mis-delivered parcel from the post offfice collection depot would be ended.

This is the ultimate issue that confuses us. For the sake of all goods we find cheaper on the world wide shopping web it is unthinkable now that we should refuse to redeem our Amazon gift vouchers.

It is to this High Street threat that I call to my peeps at our house as well as our relatives in other parts of East Yorkshire who should sign up to this cause on facebook or twitter.

We should all be calm and carry on at this time.

Times will be hard. There may be power and other shortages ahead and energy will have to be conserved but we can only do the right thing as we see it arise and we can also just pray to God. If we all shut doors, switch off lights and wear an extra jumper and are prepared to faithfully cut out tokens and vouchers from the papers then we shall make savings and prevail.

May he bless and keep us all

Don't forget the shoe horn.

It is one of those urban myths.

It is often quoted to instill fear into householders to dispose of their debris and rubbish in a proper manner.
In my personal experience I cannot say either way if it is true.

It is the alleged fact that we are, at any one time, within seven feet of a rat.

I would like to propose an alternative.

It is not necessarily one with any health implications.

On the basis of a little bit of seasonal research I would put forward the theory that we are never more than seven feet away from a novelty that originated in a Christmas Cracker.

This applies at any time of the year.

Have a look around in pockets, car ashtray or coin recess, the bottom drawer of the kitchen unit, a sideboard cupboard or in one of those old toffee tins that everyone has to keep loose change, spare keys and batteries.

The quality and type of item can vary significantly on a directly proportional basis to the cost of the box of crackers. I have seen adverts for offerings from Cartier and Rolex in cracker form or where romantic partners have secreted away an engagement ring or similar. Harrods sell a lot of £1000 boxes containing luxury leather goods, MP3 player, crystal ear rings and all manner of finery.

You cannot however better the standard crackers from the average supermarket.

In addition to the paper hat (tissue or holographic foil) and the often corny to the point of genius joke or saying is the novelty item.

I count on the Christmas period to replenish my supplies of miniature screwdrivers, tape measure, torches, allen key collection, key rings, measuring spoons and opaque but functional magnifying glass.

I am not that bothered about hairbrushes, comb sets, grips and ties and they can go into the unceremonious pile of discarded goods which always feature in the middle of the dinner table. These are picked over in the coming days together with sewing kit, balloons, pencil erasers, gonks and smurfs, rigid joke moustache, dice, miscellaneous figurines, Mister Men, water pistols and joke squirty flowers, watches, toy cars, brooches and other jewellery. I especially like the clip on ear-rings even if they are a bit dodgy and not at all ones that a pirate would be seen out in.

Games and puzzles are mainstay features. I like the small brightly coloured plastic mazes with tiny, weeny ball bearing and those stainless steel links and hoops to coax or more likely wrestle into separate parts.

A pack of playing cards can be almost guaranteed.

Noisy items usually include whistles from police to bird and swanny , harmonica, kazoo, football rattle and jews harp.

For the more artistic temperament regular cracker fillers include a set of lead pencils, retractable ball point pen, one of those multi coloured thick barrelled pens, small etch a sketch, slate and pen, wax crayons and felt tip pens, painting sets and a pack of plasticine for modelling.

Hong Kong and latterly China will have been in overdrive for much of the preceeding months in churning out plastic novelties and those on the production line may well believe the political teachings on the decadence and materialism of the western world just on the crap that fills up an old toilet roll tube, wrapped in sparkly paper and a bit of ribbon.

They must be completely mystified by the shoe horn.

"Mr Potter, You Old Fart", was what George meant to say.

It has happened. It was snowing hard in Bedford Falls. Mary Bailey had rallied round the good townsfolk and they came up with the required funds to make up the unfortunate deficit at the Savings and Loans. George Bailey looked at his small ginger hair daughter and thanked Clarence, his guardian angel to the sound of a bell tinkling on the tree.

I cried. I always cry.

The spirit and meaning of Christmas has at last arrived for me late in the evening before Christmas Eve. Only two more sleeps to go, as they say. It takes something special to break throught the stupifying and numbing influences on the mind and body that are an inevitable consequence of modern working life and of a commercial hijacking of the true meaning of the celebration of Christmas. Supermarket aisles stocked from October with selection boxes, tins of  biscuits, bombay mix, twiglets, chocolate reindeer, santa's and snowmen. Canned music from every angle.

The unseasonably warm autumn weather caused me to seek out a throw-away-all-in-one barbecue for a balmy weeekend afternoon. I could not get one but no problem at all to get 3 for the price of 2 festively packaged cheesy nibbles. I have not been coasting through the build up to the celebratory feast. I have been trying sincerely to instill myself with the spirit of Christmas.

There has been a lot to do around the house to prepare for the return of the full compliment of the family. Painting, decorating, tidying, ruthless de-junking, in and out of the garage, down to the Civic Amenity site where a lot of men dressed as Santa seem to work.

There are other triggers to activate the meaning of Christmas. I witnessed the lighting of the first candle on the Advent Crown at church but as yet I have not sung any Carols which is a bit disappointing. Apparently I am a bit of an Anglo Catholic and we adhere strictly to the Advent hymns until Christmas Eve. We will be going down the road from the new house to the Christmas morning service if the building survives the onslaught of revellers the night before. The church is slap bang in the middle of the party circuit and does get a bit of a hammering from the hammered. 

Our  tree, carefully selected on the basis of a good strong Nordic profile is starting to exude the natural pine smell when prompted.. Boxes and bags of decorations and trimmings were brought down from the loft. The fridge and freezer cleared and cleaned. It is surprising how much room a turkey in a carrier bag takes up,.

The children, well young adults, are now all present and renewing their family ties and bonds that have been stretched by distance and life pressures. It is great to hear them talking, laughing and sharing their individual experiences for which we are all better off. We are just about prepared.

Above all we are thankful for the position we are in at a time of much austerity and recession on our doorstep. It is a time for family, friendship and taking stock of what we have of true value and worth in our lives.

Beside the Seaslide, Beside the Sea

There is a bit of a ribald song that I taught to my children at an early age.

For those of you already condemning me as a liberal and weak parent I can assure you that it was not "on the good ship Venus", or "Four and Twenty Virgins" or others of that rugby club style but quite a witty ditty that very rarely had to get past the first three repetitions before we all fell about laughing.

It went along the lines of "stop the car I want a wee-wee".

In fact it really started as an attempt to bring the attention of the children to things outside the car of educational interest in order to broaden and further their interest and comprehension of things in what is, after all, a very big and complicated world.

The beauty and wisdom of the sing-song tune was its infinite flexibility.

Replace "a wee-wee" with "a look at a building of interesting architecture", "..........an unusually shaped tree" or " a.........geographical feature" and you have
a) caught their attention
b) provoked a curiosity in their young sponge-like absorbency brains
and c) introduced an opportunity to show off and extend knowledge and intelligence to a willing albeit captive audience.

In my own childhood a car journey was an exciting event, a chance to travel perhaps as far as the next County or to another town whereas today most equivalent to my age then have already been abroad and on a regular basis so as to be, well frankly, a little bit weary and bored by the whole thing.

I however looked forward to that short drive from Suffolk to Bedfordshire to visit grandparents or the longer haul down to Cornwall and Somerset to see Uncles, Aunts and Cousins.

Of course, I had to be thoroughly travel sick first before being able to technically enjoy the drive. There were various medicinal remedies available including a vile syrupy mixture which must have been designed to make you throw up rather than effect a cure. The other method, handed down the ages was to sit on a sheet of newspaper. I was a bit suspicious about the authenticity of this supposedly ancient remedy on the basis that newspapers were only commonly available in modern times. I could imagine Egyptian travellers sitting on papyrus and later cultures using parchment or silk. Neither pharmacy nor journalism ever really worked with me and I usually just chucked up anything that I had digested within the first 20 miles of the road trip. "Stop the car I want to b.............." too late.

When comfortable and no longer nauseous I was able to gaze out at the wonders of the countryside and towns through which we travelled. As my education progressed I was able to recognise and name geological and topographical features with great enthusiasm. This constant source of information was at first tolerated by the rest of the car-imprisoned family but only for so long and their previously sympathetic and kind natures were often, I realise now, stretched to breaking point and beyond.

I have not however mellowed with age in terms of my interest in all things of the built and natural environments. Regular readers will know this from my frequent recounting of tales and stories centred around particular buildings or land that I have come across first hand or where something has caught my imagination or interest. In more recent months I have written on the subject of the tidal surge erosion of Spurn Point, described a cottage of largely original format and condition and discussed  the cost of building a house.

I was working recently in Scarborough on the North Yorkshire Coast and drove past the end of a street called Holbeck Hill.

Somewhere, deep down in my psyche lurked a fact associated with the address. It took a bit of mental processing of both good and useless data to tease out the reason for my feeling of deja-vu. In true form my mind adopted the sing song method of rationalisation to the tune of stop the bus I want......and then.....fog lifting, lights on, click, clunk, whirr.

The Holbeck Hall Hotel.

Bingo, well no. it was much too high class an establishment for that sort of seaside entertainment but it did have the attention of the nation for a week or so in June 1993.

The Hotel had an unrivalled location overlooking Scarborough South Bay, the Spa, seafront, harbour and across to the Castle on the promontory. The 70 metres of ground in front of the hotel were laid out as landscaped gardens above the cliff line. The ambience of the place was reflected in the room rates, amongst the highest in the resort.

A guest, looking out on a fine June 4th morning, noticed that only 15 metres of the garden remained as a feature with the bulk of the land mass having disappeared and the rest beginning to slump and fall away.

There had been strange goings-on over the preceeding six weeks with cracks appearing in the footpaths along the cliff top. These had been repaired but as a precaution the Council closed the access points above and below the cliff line. Heavy rainfall in May and early June onto the glacial clay has caused a point of saturation. It was too much for the natural composition to cope with culminating in a huge rotational landslide of the one million tonnes of material.

Likened to a slow motion lava flow the mass spilled out over the cliffs and into the sea forming a large semi circular platform. The Hotel structure was powerless to resist the forces of nature and gradually began to tear apart. News crews from the UK and a wider world interest documented the destruction of the Hotel in a very voyeuristic way. Updated bulletins over the next few days showed real-time images of the development of cracks and fissures in walls and between elements of the building. There were sights of curtains billowing out of gaping holes and furnishings falling out of what had been windows, doors and full walls.

The four star hotel became part of the equally auspiciously rated tourist beach.

Twenty years on the memory of the event has tended to fade. The former position of the Holbeck Hall Hotel has been stabilised and landscaped and it is hard to comprehend that there was ever a prominent building in that idyllic spot. A large saucer shaped undulation and the bulge of the coastal path catches the eye as being something unusual. The curious by nature may pull up and park at the nearby Viewpoint and read the information board about what happened.

There have been more recent cases of landslide and soil creep along the East Coast, notably on the steep valley sides above the Esk River in Whitby including a section of the graveyard below the church which was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Angel Delight

It's a wonderful film and yet, as with most works of genius it was not recognised in its own time. Perhaps its sentiment in 1946 was too nice for a world emerging from war and austerity. It has at it's root laudable themes of brooding unhappiness , selfless service to the community, heartless business and contemplation of suicide and not that many pitch battles, bombing missions, beach assaults and no notable explosions which were otherwise popular movie features of the period.  It represented a return of humanity and values that had been sacrificed or as the lead character, George Bailey, played by James Stewart remarks 'all is fair in love and war'. I am of course referring to the Frank Capra movie of It's a Wonderful Life.

It's a regular event in our family to watch the DVD in the run-up to Christmas. It does rank and climbs the poll every year as the best Christmas film of all time although my son still contends that Die Hard (1) would be hard to be pushed off top spot. Recently , a re-digitised and colour version was released but to really appreciate the heart warming emotions it has to be seen in original black and white. The movie does impact in all its glory on a small domestic TV screen, especially when cocooned in a duvet on the sofa and surrounded by loved ones. In the privacy of my own home I will be a bit misty eyed by about 30 minutes into the running time and completely useless and blubbering for the duration. I issue a spoiler alert at this stage but you must, if not familiar with the film, just watch it, wrapped up, with family or close friends and keep some tissues up your sleeves.

It's a rare privilege therefore, some 67 years after the release of the film, to get an opportunity to see it on the big screen in a cinema. It is something altogether different to contemplate being seen crying in a public auditorium. In my favour the screening was in a City some distance away from my home and so there was a low to acceptable risk of bumping into a friend or acquaintance. I had mentioned to colleagues and just passers by in the street, in the preceeding weeks, that this was on the cards but was very careful not to divulge the location, day, date and time. I was astounded by the number of blank expressions from those with no knowledge of the film although the enthusiastic reminiscences from the majority did outweigh those poor unfortunate and unfulfilled souls.

It's a smallish cinema, one of the very few still surviving in a traditional city centre. The nearest multiplex would be around 10 miles away in the nearest retail park which will have helped it to persist. Forget your deep and plushly upholstered back massaging, centrally heated and wired for sound luxury seating and just get comfortable if you can in a blue cloth wrapped bucket. Not much chance of being seduced into a sleep for the duration which is all good. I have often paid £12.50 to Odeon , Vue and Cineworld Cinemas ostensibly for a film but actually for a fitfull drift in and out of consciousness in that luxuriant heavy eyed feeling. Most blockbuster films are a mystery to me in terms of the main plot as I am only awake for the very beginning and the final chaotic few frames, usually involving silhouetted figures and a sunset.

It's an exciting moment when the lights dim and the big screen lights up into action. The quality of the film was fantastic although I may have been secretly disappointed that there were no bromide-brown blobs, dancing string-like blemishes or curses from the projection room over scorched and melting celluloid. I was immediately transported back in time as though at a small town Premiere of It's a Wonderful Life. The lack of legroom to a baby boomer like myself would not have constituted a problem to a post war audience in the UK, what with emaciation from many years of rationing, staple food deficiences and premature curvature of the legs from rickets.

It's a revelation to see the drama unfold on the big screen. Although I have seen the movie at least annually for the last decade or so the super sized images added a completely fresh dimension and it was as though I was seeing it for the first time. In close-up and at 4m full on,  the facial expressions of James Stewart are even more magnificent and as for the lead actress, Donna Reed, well she's got a very good complexion and skin tone which is not always apparent on my Sony TV at home. There was a warning on the advertising poster of mild violence for the more sensitive in the audience. In the context of the film and it's era it was acceptable, or so it was portrayed, to slap around shop staff, throw stones at houses, verbally abuse primary school teachers, drink drive and make mad and violent love- you know the sort, fully clothed, no actual physical contact and with both feet on the ground to get past the Film Censors.

It's a therapeutic sound to hear a large group of people laugh and weep at alternate moments but generally in unison. I had just about got acclimatised to the seat when the film finished. Where had the time gone? As the audience reluctantly got up to go and in rather harsh lighting it was normal service resumed in human interaction or the lack of it. We all, me included, kept our heads down for fear of showing a weakness in our tear streamed faces. The waste bin at the exit was nearly full of damp Kleenex when I reached it and coaxed out the soggy contents of my left sleeve. A few small family groups lingered and reassured each other in quite a public display of fondness which was both nice and a bit cringy in equal proportions.

It's a funny thing but on the pavement outside, in the minus one degree of a mid December night in a Yorkshire City it felt a bit like the Bedford Falls of the film. It was not so long ago that there had been, like in the film, a run on the bank. There will be many that we know personally who feel trapped in their current lives when in their carefree youth they had magnificent plans to travel and undertake adventures. We all will have felt a degree of despair, anxiety and depression at some time. It is ultimately important , however to remind ourselves that we all contribute in some way to the lives of those around us whether through supporting our families and friends or just through a kind word or deed to a complete stranger.

It's in our power to make it a really wonderful life. Get busy.

Wash Cycle

 

This is the sorry sight of Spurn Point, the easternmost point of Yorkshire, after the tidal surge of 5.12.13.

 

The photo, looking south towards the old lighthouse and lifeboat station shows the large section washed away of the dunes and temporary road surface.

 

This land feature does shift every 70 years or so from the constant process of alternate erosion and depositing of sand and debris as it is swept down the east coast of England.

 

The RNLI lifeboat station which is the only permanently manned facility in the UK now has to be staffed and supplied by boat from the North Lincolnshire coast which is just beyond the horizon of the photo.

 

Those living on the precarious sand spit were moved off during the year.

 

                                                      On a better day...........................

 

 

 

And in its full former glory......................................

 

 

On the Mend

Make and mend defeats me.

I am the first wave of that generation of baby-boomers of the 1960's who coincided with the great consumer experiment.

This consisted of plentiful goods at relatively cheap prices but by definition of low quality that would not last.

I had a bit of an education in practical skills but no more than being able to fashion a crude box out of jointed wood, weave a small wicker basket or bake a barely edible rock cake.

Consequently I was being brought up as an ideal consumer. I would only be fit to purchase, quickly wear out and then have to replace everyday goods, utensils and appliances with no thought, hope or comprehension of undertaking that which previous generations had to do in the art of repair.

This was surprising in view of my genetic inheritance of having a clever and intuitive Father when it came to tinkering and mending and an equally enterprising and improvisational Mother where making and fashioning things were concerned. To a certain extent they were themselves the offspring of a more austere period.

By austere I do not mean a puritanical black and white existence but one of prudence, living within your means, putting aside funds for a rainy day and just plain saving up and economising on other things to be able to afford what was really needed.

My parents showed me a photograph, I recall, of their assembled wedding gifts in all of their brand new sheen and show. Remarkably to me but not to them was that most of the items are still, today, in the house and many remaining in everyday use and in as good a condition as when first unwrapped after all of those years. It was not a case of buying the best but the fact that furniture, dinner services, cutlery, ornaments, glassware and furnishings of that time were taken for granted as being of top quality, master crafted and durable.

The things were also repairable and could be maintained easily to prolong their usefulness and appearance. This was also the case for larger products such as the early TV's, radio sets, other electrical appliances and the new and affordable motor car.

My Father was never more happy than carrying out repairs to his cars and I was privileged to be asked to pass up skilfully crafted tools from the grease and oil saturated canvas saddle bag in which they were kept, immediately to hand and ready for use. Mother was and remains swift and deft with the sewing machine making up curtains, clothing and all manner of soft furnishings to adorn the home and us children.

I was brought up in a house of make and mend.

As every household must have, there was always at least one kitchen drawer crammed full of screwdrivers, electrical fuses, insulating tape, washers, assorted nuts, bolts and screws, one jubilee clip, the rubber seals from Kilner jars, sticking plasters and a key for letting the trapped air out of new fangled radiators.

The back wall of the garage was arranged with every type of tool for any job. The sewing box was a visual delight of buttons, spare fasteners and zippers, balls of wool and brightly coloured cotton on wooden reels.

What killed off the spirit and desire of the art of repair was the mass production of shoddy goods and our willingness to simply dispose of them when inoperable or damaged even if potentially salvageable with a little application, thought and patience.

I am ashamed and embarrassed by the contents of the plastic container that is loosely referred to as my tool box. My Grandfather's well cared for woodworking tools were passed from down previous generations. Although in regular use by him they were looked after and cherished in order to continue a livelihood, passion and pastime. I had thought about taking them on but left them in a safer environment upon the shocking realisation that I did not have an inkling how to use them properly.

My so called tool box is a loose array of oddments of socket sets (never used for purpose), miscellaneous but totally useless sized allen keys, bent and distorted chisels (from inappropriate applications), various drill bits also wonky from mis-use and solid bristled paint brushes, used once and not cleaned. The pinnacle of my making and mending extends to perhaps changing a plug, fitting a bulb, stopping up holes with expandable foam and botching the fitting, fixing and securing of something to everything else.

The manufacturers on a global scale are reputed to make more from servicing and spare parts than the actual production process but have made it so technical and awkward that any servicing and fitting of spare parts has to be done by themselves or their acolytes. If you have ever tried to arrange for the collection and taking away for repair of anything you will appreciate that it is just as easy to throw the thing away and purchase brand new.

Modern consumer goods are rapidly obsolete, redundant or just superseded by the next best and must have appliance or gadget.

I unfortunately am an unwilling participant in this because of my lack of confidence and skill in the art of repair.

I am not alone as can be illustrated by the rapid disappearance from our High Streets and Back Streets of repair shops trading in everything from replacing a sole or heel on shoes to rewinding copper wire around electric motors. Small radio shops, TV repairmen, car repair workshops and jobbing tailors have been driven out of business by the consumer society.

Some survive and I have been heartened to hear of and recently see a short documentary type film entitled "The Art of Repair" featuring small businesses in traditional sectors which are clinging on against the onslaught of a throw-away culture.

See what you think of it. I challenge you to still have dry eyes or ice cold indifference afterwards.

http://theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/video/the-art-of-repair-old-objects-new-life-video

Pyro-Maniacs on the high altar

We were a little bit mad on that day.

We were intoxicated by the great outdoors, humbled and phased by the big sky above our heads and the soft sandy soils beneath our bare soled feet.

The odour of wood smoke had permeated deep into our nostrils causing some befuddling of the mind which only added to that feeling of euphoria and immortality.

The dampness of our clothes, or what was left of them, served to cool our overheated bodies causing a haze of steam to take on the effect of our own individual halo's.

We had completed the construction of our altar only an hour before.

It had taken most of the day to source the raw materials from the forest that surrounded us.

It is surprising that, even in a dense woodland with the natural processes of decay , it was difficult foraging for the long regular boughs that were essential for the framework and structural form of the raised platform. Our exposed lower limbs were ragged and scratched from the coarse undergrowth of briars and brambles, hands red raw and blistered from handling the sticky sap bark in extracting dead wood from the dense matted forest floor.

The excitement of finding a perfectly straight end of wood was quickly deflated as it was followed out of its resting place by a mulch of rotten and insect infested debris.

There were half a dozen of us out in the rides and plantation with the task of securing enough timber for the job. I could gauge the success or not of our endeavours by cries of joy or moans of frustration. Between the noisy overtures I could make out a dragging and raking sound as the victors in our party returned to the camp pulling behind them their spoils.

Eventually a reasonable stack began to grow in the clearing.

The altar was built up side by side with the rustic poles , criss-crossing on an alternate basis on the footprint and gradually reaching to waist height. The top layer was completely filled in with whatever we had left over from our earlier expedition and  formed a plateau for the next stage of the build.

A folding shovel, donated by someone's Desert Rat grandfather, cut effortlessly into the light turf surface of the sandy clearing. A series of regular squares were then teased out and levered up so that eager hands could reach underneath to tug away any fibrous roots. The soil was moist and cooling. A few of the cut sods broke apart when lifted and had to be carefully re-planted so that in the weeks after our departure there would be no physical signs of our stay.

The firmer turf squares made it the few yards across to the altar without mishap and were arranged lengthwise and three deep on the outer edge leaving a slit trench opening through the middle.

Convention and wisdom handed down to us in the good book by which we led our woodland lives dictated that the trench was orientated east to west. This would align it perfectly for the prevailing winds, or any that managed to penetrate into the sheltered glade.

Everything so far in our fabrication had been raw and organic but the final touch could only be man made. One of our party was guardian of the metal grate and had brought it along wrapped up in an old badge covered blanket. Its unveiling led to whoops of anticipation and in great ceremony it was carried aloft and placed on the altar.

We were ready to begin.

A pile of dry grass and small twigs was formed into a small cone under the grate. A match flared into activity but was quickly extinguished by a sudden upsurge in the breeze. Three matches later, shielded in the palms of many hands, the kindling puffed out white smoke and caught alight.

Progressively larger bits of wood were added to the fledgling pyre until a right roaring conflagration was in progress. Sparks and glowing embers erupted into the by now darkening sky rivalling an Icelandic volcano. The larger incendiaries were closely watched for their landing place and stamped on to prevent any wildfires developing.

It was whilst waiting for the flames to settle down that some of our group began the crazy dance around the altar. Snake belts were tightened around foreheads, neckerchiefs were fashioned into headgear and grubby ash covered fingers in wiping away the sweat of effort made streaky war paint markings on cheeks and noses. Those without such items just wore their piped seamed hats back to front.

All in all it was quite a typical Scout Camp and after our burgers, almost incinerated to carbon, had been devoured along with soot blackened beans and two loaves of bread between us, we all remarked that this particular altar fire was perhaps the best ever for our Patrol.

Rubbish this one.

Sexhow 2

It was one of those "hang on a minute", double take type moments.

I was on my way to a meeting and already running behind schedule which prevented me from satisfying my curiosity.

This will have involved finding a safe place to turn off the min road, park up and then walk back along the rough grass verge to the place where the wooden directional road sign stood. I made a promise to myself to do what was necessary on the return leg of my journey later on in the day. The memory of what I had seen did cause me to chuckle a bit in between the otherwise intense and serious purpose of the day's conference in the nearest large town.

The name on the finger-like pointed sign was evidently for a small village, perhaps not even that, a hamlet or just a cluster of farm workers cottages.

I had never come across the name before and to my encyclopaedic knowledge of funny or rude sounding place names this was a completely new one. SEXHOW.

It was now firmly number one on my list. Wetwang had at last been relegated from a position it had held for decades.

My fascination for ribald and lewd signposts really started with the The Book of Liff, a slim black covered publication by Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide fame and John Lloyd, himself not too shabby a writer and comedy guru which came out in 1983.

I was twenty at the time and in full time education as a student so anything vaguely funny and anarchic appealed. The book was described at its launch as "a dictionary of things that there aren't any words for yet" which immediately excited my interest.

Rather than inventing new words, Adams and Lloyd picked a number of existing place-names and assigned interesting meanings to them that can be regarded as on the verge of social existence and are ready to become recognisable entities.

My home town of Hull took on the descriptive form of "the smell of a damp weekend holiday cottage" and the village of Huby, near York  "A half-erection large enough to be a publicly embarrassing bulge in the trousers, but not large enough to be of any use to anybody"

Other examples are Shoeburyness "The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat that is still warm from somebody else's bottom" and   Plymouth  "To relate an amusing story to someone without remembering that it was they who told it to you in the first place".

It was a real source of entertainment on long bus or train rides to and from college and frequent outbursts of laughter from its pages made sure that I always had a seat to myself.

Douglas Adams attributes the book to the same idea used by the English humourist Paul Jennings in an article Ware, Wye, Watford, published in the late 1950s.

The diversity of origin and heritage of the UK makes for some quite unique place names in their own right, over and above the interpretation in that little black pocket book. I would recommend anyone with a sense of fun and mischief to search it out for themselves or as a gift for other like minded idiots.

Sexhow is just too blatant to require any embellishment although its distance from the main road, as depicted in a single number on the sign did summon up images of one of those manuals found high up on many domestic bookcases, under the bed or in the bottom of the wardrobe, Sexhow 2.

My meeting dragged on well into the winter afternoon and by the time I was back on the road and  trying to locate the road sign in semi darkness I had missed the opportunity to take that all important photograph for dissemination to my public audience.

It was a matter of doing a little bit of research about the place. I expected a few statistics like; Population 10 now but double by tomorrow or just recorded as 69, you know the usual jokes. In fact whatever lay two miles down that lane was a complete and utter surprise as the following story testifies to;

The Worm Of Sexhow

---

The Worm of Sexhow, according to ‘Yorkshire Legends and Traditions’ by Rev Thomas Parkinson (1888):

’Sexhow is a small hamlet or township in the parish of Rudby, some four miles from the town of Stokesley, in Cleveland.

Upon a round knoll at this place a most pestilent dragon, or worm, took up its abode; whence it came, or what was its origin, no one knew. So voracious was its appetite that it took the milk of nine cows daily to satisfy its cravings; but we have not heard that it required any other kind of food.

When not sufficiently fed, the hissing noise it made alarmed all the country round about; and, worse than that, its breath was so strong as to be absolutely poisonous, and those who breathed it died. This state of things was unbearable, and the country was becoming rapidly depopulated. At length the monster's day of doom dawned. A knight, clad in complete armour, passed that way, whose name or country no one knew, and, after a hard fight, he slew the monster, and left it dead upon the hill, and then passed on his way. He came, he fought, he won; and then he went away. The inhabitants of the hamlet of Sexhow took the skin of the monster-worm and suspended it in the church, over the pew belonging to the hamlet of Sexhow, where it long remained a trophy of the knight's victory, and of their own deliverance from the terrible monster.'

It has been suggested that the skin may have been destroyed by Oliver Cromwell's troops following or during the English Civil War.

I had learned my lesson not to take place names for granted or on a literal basis. Next time, Bell End, Worcestershire, Brown Willy, Cornwall, Shitlingthorpe, Yorkshire and the combined efforts of Fanny Hill, Fanny Burn, Twathats and The Cock of Arran all in Scotland.

Asda Price

It has just been announced that ASDA will be the sponsors of the Tour Makers, a body of 10,000 volunteers to support all aspects of the Tour de France when it commences in Yorkshire in July 2014. I have put my name down and await the call up although the fact that I only have a Tesco Club Card may count against my application. I am keen to either help or spectate or both but given the well known reticence of true Yorkshire folk ( I am from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire) I expect that not every one amongst its population will be welcoming the riders and entourage with open arms.........

To; The Letters Page
      Yorkshire Post Newspaper
      Leeds

From: Arnie Heginbotham
          Blubberhouses
          West Yorkshire

Sir,

If you and your readership think that the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire, God's own Country, in 2014 is the greatest thing to happen since the discovery of coal under them there hills then I beg to differ.

Men on push bikes, in my experience, are an indication of a deep malaise in a nation either riding to and from poorly paid manual labour or looking for somewhere to lock up their cycles before jumping off a parapet to top thereselves out of not being able to withstand poverty and hardship any more.
For one, I would not like to see my home county associated with such negativity.

I will be the first to offer my congratulations to the likes of Bradley Wiggins (sounds like a Yorkshire name) for his sterling efforts and export drive through biking but frankly, it is not a proper job is it? It is more of a serious pastime or hobby. I hope that he is, in the out of season times, able to find gainful employment to tide him and his family over.

My objections to the hosting, by Yorkshire, of the Tour de France are manifold.

In the first instance I fear it is a subversive way for this Tory Administration to replace the pound with the Euro. I have already seen, at first hand, this dual pricing policy in my local Aldi supermarket and find it confusing and insulting. I do not think that the entourage for such a large scale event would even bother to go to the bureau de change to obtain British currency and a flood of funny money into the Yorkshire economy could be destabilising. I particularly fear for the likes of Betty's Tea Rooms, Harry Ramsdens and our other great export, Aunt Bessies batter puddings.

The tarnishing of cycle sport through drugs is another concern of mine and I hope that measures will be taken to remove all Lucozade products from sale for the duration of the race on our doorstep so as not to corrupt our youth.

The impact of the Tour de France on traffic will, in my opinion be nothing more than disastrous. The gridlock will make that experienced in the opening weekend of Meadowhall Shopping Centre and Ikea (Leeds) seem like a minor inconvenience. Me and Mrs Heginbotham regularly drive out to the rolling countryside with a flask of Yorkshire Tea and your respected Yorkshire Post and park up randomly on a verge to sit in perfect silence for a good few hours when we can. I fully anticipate to lose this aspect of my fundamental human rights as a starter for the duration.

I am also concerned about immigration controls in that I understand that the majority of the cyclists are from those countries in Europe in a state of austerity and a few from the former Eastern Bloc countries. What provision will be made to prevent those intent on seeking political asylum from doing so?.It has happened before in sports events. The last thing we need as a nation is foreigners coming over here and milking our benefits system. It is not as though a cyclist is a reserved occupation anyway.

On a positive note, perhaps the only one I can see in the whole debacle, is the revealing to the world of the beautiful Yorkshire scenery through the media. I have not yet seen the finer details of a route for the pedal pushers but I would hope it would take in the nicer residential areas of Leeds, avoid Bradford altogether, perhaps go up on the high moors and then out to the east coast. Scarborough is very photogenic although the organisers may wish to clear the South Bay beach of undesirables who make up a good proportion of bathers in the peak July weeks. I mainly refer to my compatriots form the industrial areas of South Yorkshire who flock to the resort in the factory shut down period and go a bit mental showing too much pale flesh and tattoo ink for my tastes.

Personally, as for the Silver Jubilee in 1977 , successive Royal Weddings and recently the Queens Diamond celebrations and the Olympics I shall feel reluctantly obliged to vacate the country. I will reteat to my second home in the Dordogne where all of my neighbours are English and we will have none of this French nonsense to deal with,

Respectfully yours,

Foiled Again Big Bird

Just placed the order for a fresh turkey for Christmas dinner.

It is the only time that I speak to the local butcher and over the last 20 years the aggregated conversation time of about 10 minutes has formed the basis of an acquaintance that I value.

It is a strange relationship based on one transaction a year.

I do pass his shop on the pedestrianised walkway in  the town centre quite regularly but apart from collecting the pre-ordered bird on Chritsmas Eve, itself another family tradition, I am ashamed to say that I do not step over the threshold for anything else.

We may wave if he is leaning into the display in the deep bay window to rearrange the chops, steaks or joints or he does a mock salute with two fingers to the brow of his jauntily worn, white trilby. It may be an attempt however just to hide the obvious streaks of blood and guts so as not to scare the passers-by.

You would think that a turkey would be the first and easiest item on the seasonal shopping list but in our house the actual decision to stick with the usual fare is a matter of great indecision and soul searching. Turkey, nice enough but a bit dry, don't you think?

We always have a bit of a discussion on whether to forget normal conventions and branch out with another main meat for the celebration dinner. My mother in law is a great cook and hostess and in the past when invited to Christmas at her house we have feasted with duck and goose and all of the trimmings plus more. The different wildlife has been a welcome change and they do have their merits, mainly not being too dry.

This year, in a new house and some 5 miles away from the perennial placing of an order we have an opportunity to set up a new tradition.

What got me thinking about a change in style and practice was overhearing the waiter at a local Indian Restaurant and Takeaway on the phone going through the set menu dinners available on Christmas Day. It had not really crossed my mind that 1) the restaurant would be open on 25th December 2) there was on that day a demand for an Indian meal.

The alternatives to a turkey are actually quite diverse.

I have of course just concentrated on real food so far but for those of a vegetarian and other unfortunate preferences there is a bit of choice. Nut Roast. That's it.

In more recent years and where not exposed as an investment scam there has been significant marketing and education expenditure in world foods.

It will have been a difficult task to persuade British consumers to entertain let alone taste test anything other than home produced meat for the seasonal table. Our local Farmer's Market has had some success promoting Ostrich as a burger in a bun with onions and a cheese slice but breeders and distributors are pushing bigger bits of the fast moving game bird. A 2kg fan shaped fillet, probably a bit like a good old turkey crown, is enough to feed 8 persons and will cook fast giving more scope to have a snooze before the Queen's Speech at 3pm.

Fish is widely eaten at the religious Feast, particularly in parts of Southern Italy and forms a centrepiece of the Christmas Eve celebrations with 7 types of fish representing the Holy Sacraments. Eels and squid are popular.

Once strictly reserved for Royalty and Nobility it is possible to acquire a haunch or saddle of deer without having your hands chopped off, eyes poked out or being transported into exile. Most supermarkets stock smaller cuts of venison or if you live in a rural area or even on the edge of a town one of the animals may offer itself up for sacrifice in the glare of your headlights. The trade-off for a juicy venison joint will however be  major motor car repairs or personal injury which seems a bit of a disincentive to me.

The Brits like to play it safe at Christmas and the mystery around the production of dinner does appear to strike fear and anxiety into many because of the pivotal expectations on its success.

It is not surprising that roast beef ,Yorkshire puds and lots of veg remain in the top five choices. It is a case of sticking with what you know best for some.

Salt Marsh Lamb is a current trend as an alternative to turkey being reared on coastal grazing lands resulting in a distinctive flavour and healthy nutrients.

My father was regularly presented with lead shot perforated pheasants by his farmer customers at Christmas and there was competition amongst us children to accumulate the highest number of pellets on the edge of the dinner plate.

The freezers and chillers in local Delicatessens can be a great source of different meats for the festive table. I have tried Wild Boar and found it to be moist and tasty and my son has recently upgraded his opinion of Buffalo to "preferable" to Burger King which is a major endorsement from his generation.

I do however draw a line in the gravy granules over the offerings of kangaroo (although I have had it in steak form), camel, goat, crocodile, wildebeest and python.

The alternatives to turkey are therefore quite overwhelming and very persuasive on the basis of the leaner and healthier meats although we would probably still gorge on an equivalent quantity to the usual bird.

All of the angst and indecision is just too much additional stress at this time of year and so I will be making that one-off telephone call to the butcher and renewing our relationship in the matter of a few choice words.

Treemendous

(Reproduction of a bit of writing first done in November 2011)

It has done very well to survive.

I am thrilled to report that I will go down the garden in the next couple of days to check on the health, welfare and beauty of the only Christmas Tree that I have managed to keep alive for more than  the festive period.

This will be the third year that the tree will stand on the shallow balcony at the front of the house.

Unprecedented. I have however had many concerns over the period from when we first purchased the small Fir for £29.99 from the local garden centre.

The purchase and display of a real and live Christmas Tree is not itself an issue. What does tend to throw my whole budget out on the approach to Christmas is the extortionate price charged for a tree. It is a captive market.

Any deemed failure on the acquisition of a decent tree is a failure in manhood, fatherhood and husbandry.

We do have an indoor real tree and my son has developed an expert eye to pick out a perfectly formed and symmetrical example of the exact height and girth for its traditional position in the lounge bay.

The smaller balcony tree is another issue but just as vitally important.

In the past we went for just a straightforward un-rooted one. This just about lasted until the Twelfth Day before being cast down onto the front path to be set aside for shredding and stripping.

My wife was both shocked and amused at my collection of many years worth of skeletal and almost petrified former balcony trees which emerged from under the mass of the compost heap and from behind the garage during a recent blitz to tidy up the back garden.

Perhaps I had formed an emotional attachment and kept the remnants out of shame for their eventual undignified fate.

The small tree bought in 2009 was as they say 'rooted and booted.'. It was wrapped in a string bag which was ceremoniously cut away as soon as the tree and root ball were packed tight and watered in the old fire bucket up on the balcony. Being considerate for the diminuitive stature of the tree it was stood on a low table. From the street the tree now appeared to be a towering 5 feet tall. The balcony rail concealed the support structure very nicely. Remarkably, and without any additional watering the tree looked good and healthy throughout the period.

The micro-climate on the balcony will, on reflection, have been ideal. Sheltered from direct cold and frost, dry but airy. The boughs and needles were still beautifully green and supple. I whisked the tree down to the bottom of the garden and purely as a biological and horticultural experiment re-planted it in the soil.

Out of sight I did forget about it for some weeks. On a rare visit to the far reaches of the garden I noticed fresh bright green accelerated growths. It was thriving. I moved it a couple of times in the first 12 months after it looked a bit sun scorched or swamped by the native vegetation. The soil in the garden is a heavy clay not really of the free draining and light characteristics that the genetics of the tree are geared up for.

The tree took up residency back on the balcony for Christmas 2010. From November to well into January the average daily temperature did not get much above minus 2 to 4 degrees. Exposed trees and the garden hedge suffered very badly from the sheer weight of snow and ice and the upper parts became blackened in the foliage equivalent of frost bite.

Many of the plants out in the open perished. The small tree will have witnessed all this from the recess of the balcony but remained snug and healthy. I replanted it again. The mild spring weather was  good for recuperation but in the summer months  it looked to be wilting. The buddleia tree behind which I had planted the fir had swamped and stifled it more than I had anticipated. It was touch and go for a while but the patient responded to emergency watering and some kind words of inspiration.

So, it is now the tail end of November 2011. The anticipated return of the tree to contribute to the celebration of Christmas is very satisfying and poignant. We as a family have been through some difficult times in the three years since we adopted the tree but it has been a constant ,whether bedecked in lights, tinsel and atopped with a star or just blending in , with ultimate camouflage , at the bottom of the garden.

Our house is currently up for sale but when we move on I will find the discarded fire bucket and the tree will accompany us to wherever we next put down our own roots.

(nb. we did eventually move house. The tree we left behind)

Tipping Point for Christmas Pop

I have to report that all of the best Christmas pop songs have already been written.

It is no use arguing about it.

An attempt to write a fresh and innovative song about or for the Festive Season is as futile as trying to invent a new swimming stroke.

The songwriters checklist for a Christmas Pop song is over subscribed from fully scored for orchestra renditions of traditional carols to garage and trashy versions of family favourites.

Types of Christmas are well covered from white (1), happy (2)and merry(3) to wonderful (4), perfect (5) and lonely (6).

Caricatures and beloved figures feature regularly including Santa Baby (7), Frosty (8), Angels (9), A Spaceman (10), Father Christmas (11) and a Little Drummer Boy(12).

It is a time for fantasy, imagination and well wishing to Everybody (13), New Yorkers (14), Sleighriders (15), fast moving cavalry (16), those driving home (17), for childbirth (18), walking in the air (19) and those just keeping quiet after dark(20).

It can be a time for selfish expression or philanthropy.

After all, not everyone may be aware that it is Christmas (21), they may have been at war until quite recently (22) or shamelessly wanting everything at this time of year (23).

There are many who may feel they may not have many Christmasses left (24) or just an opportunity for excess (24)

We must not forget the possibility of bad weather with it being cold (26) and winter outside (27) but there are those who can't get enough of snow (28).

Just a break from routine or a trip home can be all that is wanted for Christmas (29). It may be the first time to make an approach to neighbours with a hearty greeting(30) an invitation to do things around the Christmas Tree (31), or to have a sing-a-long (32).

It is meant to be a prayerful (33) and family time and for those in relationships. It is a time for loving (34) and some fancy latin phrases (35) that sound nice.

Such is the spirit engendered by the festive season that it is just a shame that it cannot be like it everyday (36).

Thank goodness.
.



1- Bing Crosby. 2 John and Yoko 3. Slade and Vanessa Williams  4. Paul McCartney  5. S Club 7 and Dina Carroll. 6 Mud. 7 Kylie and others. 8. Jackson Five. 9.Robbie Williams . 10. Chris de Burgh. 11. The Beach Boys and Greg Lake. 12. Bing and Bowie. 13. Slade. 14. The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl (not Ronan and her from Clannad). 15.Spice Girls and Robbie. 16. Jona Lewie. 17. Chris Rea. 18. Johnny Mathis. 19. Aled Jones 20. Sinead O'Connor. 21. Band Aid. 22. Lennon and Ono. 23. Samantha Mumba. 24. Wham. 25. Cliff Richard. 26. Tom Jones and Cerys Matthew. 27. The Magnets and Love Unlimited Orchestra. 28. Dean Martin. 29.State of the Heart 30. Slade again. 31. Brenda Lee. 32. Nat King Cole. 33. Bloody Cliff again. 34. Frankie goes to Hollywood. 35. Mike Oldfield. 36. Wizzard.

Source; Now! The Christmas Album. (Other and much better compilations are available)

Sincere apologies for any personal favourites or blatant contenders missed out. Correspondence to Now!

The lighter side of Christmas

First thing on the list to prepare for Christmas is to take the children to see Santa's grave.

It doesn't go down that well but I expect that there is a genuine sympathy in their tear streaked cheeks for his untimely death so close to what would be the busiest part of his year.

I am not a complete ogre in this regard. I do not of course know where the grave is actually located but merely point vaguely out of the car window at an ominous clump of trees just off the ring road of our town. I imply that it was a terrible and unnecessary accident involving the contravention by the Elves in charge of reindeer transport of a number of fundamental safety rules and good practice. Santa did not stand a chance. Heigh-ho. Life goes on.

Funnily enough that ritual starts my own enthusiasm for the Festive Season. It is my trigger for all things merry and bright at what is otherwise a pretty dismal time of the year what with limited natural daylight hours, cold and harsh weather and the prospect of shelling out a few quid on gifts and gaieties.

I have previously reported the first trimmed up house for this year way back in the early part of November.

This was an exception as most other households have been quite restrained in their decorative and lighting up efforts until at least December the 1st.

The Municipal displays have been officially switched on by some celebrity or dignitary although Local Authority budgetary constraints have, this year, restricted the extravagance to 60 Watt electric light bulb dressed with red and silver tinsel in the main city square.

The shops operated by the large Nationals which dominate the surviving parts of the High Street remain non descript in their efforts.

In my childhood the same streetscape in which local and sole traders operated was a riot of coloured lights and displays. This was down to the community spirit of the local Chamber of Commerce and a commitment by the shop keepers to contribute funds and resources to putting on a great show. This was as much to promote the wares of the shops as a thank you to the townspeople for their custom and patronage over the year.

The conglomerates, chains and franchises have no seasonal budget with any festive spirit of any merit. Any bonhomie is largely down to the staff in their sporting of reindeer antlers, elvish hats, flashing brooches and strands of tinsel about their persons. This they do out of the kindness of their own hearts and sparse personal finances even if it is frowned upon or actually prohibited by distant management.

I recall a story about a parcel delivery depot whose hardworking staff were given a Christmas bonus in the form of a handful, each, of assorted Cadbury's chocolates from a battered tin, itself probably salvaged from an aborted consignment of packages. It may as well have been a kick in the teeth for all of the loyalty and appreciation it conveyed to the workforce.

Those in the retail sector are particularly hard done by. I have just heard that following damage by tidal surge, within three weeks before Christmas, to the retail park premises of a large Care for Mother organisation (who will remain nameless) the staff of around 30 have had their contracts terminated and are out of work with no supplementary pay until the superstore is restored to operational use.

It is the Mother of all decisions. They just do not care after all.

The main driver of Christmas Spirit falls to the private individuals who bedeck their homes with ambitious, and not so, exhibitions of cheer and enthusiasm. I find that the shock expressed by my children of learning of the death of Santa can be alleviated somewhat by a drive around the neighbourhood to see the best and worst of the light and inflatable or neon outlined figure shows.

Neighbours compete ruthlessly in excesses of one-upmanship. Dads and Uncles court injury in ascending ladders, mounting roofs or leaning out of windows to affix the long trails of ice -blue, ice-white or multi-coloured twinklers to bargeboards, soffits and fascias. It can be quite an effort on the basis that some remain in position all year or just hang down forlornly if becoming detached or damaged.

A few philanthropic homeowners invite charitable donations to a gatepost mounted bucket for distribution to a local charity for those passing by and enjoying their efforts. This only really works in a cul de sac where the guilt and shame of voyeurs attempting a three point turn in the hammerhead can produce results in the chink, chink of hard cash in the collection receptacle.

This year has been a bit slower than normal to get going in terms of domestic decorations.

Factors such as recession, high energy costs and bad weather including typhoon and tsunami have been major hindrances.

Sat in my car amongst sobbing, distraught children I have noticed that there has been a definite increase in the practice of the draping of net lights in the trees, shrubs and bushes of front gardens. This is generally confined to the posher areas who have a front garden. This has produced some tasteful natural profiles in upper boughs of mature trees or a dense splurge of colour in smaller concentrations of leylandii or laurel.

If however the net is cast with low levels of care and attention to shape and form there can be some shockingly distracting flashing images and strange configurations. When squinted at through the windscreen these can resemble a large naked female form climbing out of a bath tub, or at least they do to me. It is still the same no matter how many times you drive past slowly and gawp.