Here is the Science bit.
According to NASA and other informed sources the rotation of the earth is gradually slowing down ...a bit...so that every so often it is necessary to make an adjustment to Co-Ordinated Universal Time otherwise known as atomic time.
The average day is expressed as being 86,400 seconds long. ( I will wait whilst you do the mathematics....24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds if you do not believe me).
However, it is thought that this has not actually been the case since about 1820.
The Mean Solar Day is slightly different at 86,400 and .002 seconds but that small differential does make a difference over a full year. The use of the Leap Second as the all important method of adjustment takes into account the various factors in play.
Since 1972 when the leap second was first introduced there have been 25 other occasions when it has been used with the last being in 2012.
The fact that the rotation of the earth is not entirely consistent is, to me, a bit of a worry although this is attributed to variations in the earth's inner core, changes in the atmosphere and oceans, groundwater and ice storage and the effect of the tides.
Personally, and this is to be taken in good faith as I have no scientific grounding for my theory, I believe that the earth is getting heavier and older and it is not therefore surprising that it is slowing down. I know that feeling myself.
Time is a precious thing and so we should take the prospect of an extra second at midnight tonight as a blessing.
How best to make use of this bonus second?
Some suggestions have been put forward such as falling in love, spotting a shooting star, sending that inflammatory and frankly risque e-mail, kissing someone you ought not to and sneaking a crafty, free and for gratis belch.
These are all well and good but a bit overly romantic and a little bit boring.
You may not have really thought much about the extra second but here are a few of my ideas.
Start that novel that you always intended to with that elusive first vowel or consonant.
Trade your share of the leap second on E-Bay.
Throw a party for guests between 11.59 and midnight plus 1.
Say the worst swear word you can summon up.
Offer up a prayer for the world.
Throw a dice.
Tap a Terry's chocolate orange.
Say Yes to anything.
Say No to anything.
Look at your wife with new eyes.
Place your hand on someone who is suffering.
Glance heavenwards.
Think of a face you have not seen for an age.
Roll a marble.
Cross out something on your bucket list that you have achieved.
Put an asterisk on your bucket list indicating what you intend to do next.
Lift a spider out of a sink.
Caress the petals of a blossoming flower.
Smell the outdoors air.
Knock the head off a dandelion.
Shout out something nice.
Turn a light switch on or off.
Switch Tv Channels to something you would not normally watch.
Place your forefinger in your belly button.
Look surprised.
Blow a raspberry.
Sniff the hair of a domestic pet
Think of nothing
or
think of everything.
Feel alive.
Lick your lips.
Eat the walnut from the top of a walnut whip.
Take a sip of tea.
Flick a bogey.
Play one musical note.
Tick a box on a form to volunteer for or donate something.
Turn off the alarm that was intended to wake you up in time to celebrate the extra second.
Awake refreshed tomorrow morning fully invigorated and ready for anything.
Tuesday 30 June 2015
Monday 29 June 2015
Scunthorpe. Bite Me!
The summer of 1975 changed my life and perceptions for ever.
Prior to that watershed I was just a daft 12 year old kid, fairly normal I think amongst my peer group although a bit shy and introverted.
I was into football even though I was not that good and followed the trends of the time in the collecting of football cards (sold with or without bubble gum),playing Top Trumps, watching black and white TV and playing outside at every opportunity.
I would like to spin a great yarn about the specific thing that impacted on my very existence in that summer 40 years ago.
Was it that I left home and travelled the length and breadth of the nation in railway boxcars and communed with hobo's?
Alternatively I may have joined up with best pals for an epic wilderness adventure in a coming of age type scenario.
What about running away to join the circus or being kidnapped by pirates, that sounds plausible.
Well, the truth be told it was the release of the blockbuster movie "Jaws" that did it for me.
It was in retrospect one of the greatest releases of all time but more significantly for me as a sub-teenager it was my first proper cinema experience of a real life action film.
I vividly remember going to see it at the single screen venue in Scunthorpe which was the nearest larger town to where we lived at that time in North Lincolnshire. My Father took me as it must have been rated for children if accompanied by an adult.
The release of a mega film in the summer months was unheard of as traditionally the run up to the Christmas Holidays was regarded as the best time to capture the market. It was a clever ploy given that the theme of the movie, a man eating shark, was set in a summer season in the fictional small eastern US coastal town of Amity.
For the rest of the school vacation with the images and sounds of shark induced death very much in my thoughts I dare not even dip my toe in the sea at Cleethorpes or wider afield on a family fortnight to the west coast of Scotland. As for a trip to the local indoor heated leisure pool, well, this was also pretty traumatic.
I was not alone in my phobia as many who also saw the film could remember the lines in the script spoken by Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) about most attacks by sharks being in comparatively shallow water and quite close to the shore. It was irrational in the extreme but still a strong emotional influence nevertheless.
The whole idea of "Jaws" was that of Steven Spielberg based on a novel by Peter Benchley published in 1974 but even whilst the filming was underway using the natural beauty of Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, Massachusets the script was still being worked on by Carl Gottlieb and Spielberg.
This was not a typical Hollywood method but the main collaborators found the experience productive and ultimately successful. Writing was just keeping ahead of the on-location filming pushing the crew and cast to the limit but out of it came some very classic lines which not only captured the very tone of the killer great white shark but became infinitely quotable and memorable.
Best of all is "we're gonna need a bigger boat" which was improvised by Scheider's character and has been applicable as a comic throwaway in many life and death situations subsequently.
The shark itself was, for the pre-CGi cinematic era, a mechanical wonder of a size and complexity not attempted before. The original schedule was for 55 days of filming but the production had to be continuously extended because of constant breakdowns by the quirky machine.
As for the soundtrack, it was a central part of the horror, suspense and action and yet was reputed to have been composed by John Williams in one sitting at Spielberg's house. The recording session involved the use of 12 bass violins in unison which caused the two theme notes to resonate to the very core of my 12 year old bone marrow as I sat and cowered in my cinema seat.
The world to me, post 1975, would never be the same again.
Prior to that watershed I was just a daft 12 year old kid, fairly normal I think amongst my peer group although a bit shy and introverted.
I was into football even though I was not that good and followed the trends of the time in the collecting of football cards (sold with or without bubble gum),playing Top Trumps, watching black and white TV and playing outside at every opportunity.
I would like to spin a great yarn about the specific thing that impacted on my very existence in that summer 40 years ago.
Was it that I left home and travelled the length and breadth of the nation in railway boxcars and communed with hobo's?
Alternatively I may have joined up with best pals for an epic wilderness adventure in a coming of age type scenario.
What about running away to join the circus or being kidnapped by pirates, that sounds plausible.
Well, the truth be told it was the release of the blockbuster movie "Jaws" that did it for me.
It was in retrospect one of the greatest releases of all time but more significantly for me as a sub-teenager it was my first proper cinema experience of a real life action film.
I vividly remember going to see it at the single screen venue in Scunthorpe which was the nearest larger town to where we lived at that time in North Lincolnshire. My Father took me as it must have been rated for children if accompanied by an adult.
The release of a mega film in the summer months was unheard of as traditionally the run up to the Christmas Holidays was regarded as the best time to capture the market. It was a clever ploy given that the theme of the movie, a man eating shark, was set in a summer season in the fictional small eastern US coastal town of Amity.
For the rest of the school vacation with the images and sounds of shark induced death very much in my thoughts I dare not even dip my toe in the sea at Cleethorpes or wider afield on a family fortnight to the west coast of Scotland. As for a trip to the local indoor heated leisure pool, well, this was also pretty traumatic.
I was not alone in my phobia as many who also saw the film could remember the lines in the script spoken by Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) about most attacks by sharks being in comparatively shallow water and quite close to the shore. It was irrational in the extreme but still a strong emotional influence nevertheless.
The whole idea of "Jaws" was that of Steven Spielberg based on a novel by Peter Benchley published in 1974 but even whilst the filming was underway using the natural beauty of Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, Massachusets the script was still being worked on by Carl Gottlieb and Spielberg.
This was not a typical Hollywood method but the main collaborators found the experience productive and ultimately successful. Writing was just keeping ahead of the on-location filming pushing the crew and cast to the limit but out of it came some very classic lines which not only captured the very tone of the killer great white shark but became infinitely quotable and memorable.
Best of all is "we're gonna need a bigger boat" which was improvised by Scheider's character and has been applicable as a comic throwaway in many life and death situations subsequently.
The shark itself was, for the pre-CGi cinematic era, a mechanical wonder of a size and complexity not attempted before. The original schedule was for 55 days of filming but the production had to be continuously extended because of constant breakdowns by the quirky machine.
As for the soundtrack, it was a central part of the horror, suspense and action and yet was reputed to have been composed by John Williams in one sitting at Spielberg's house. The recording session involved the use of 12 bass violins in unison which caused the two theme notes to resonate to the very core of my 12 year old bone marrow as I sat and cowered in my cinema seat.
The world to me, post 1975, would never be the same again.
Sunday 28 June 2015
A Very Privet Function
I have fallen in and out of love with each and every one of my motor vehicles.
I am not a collector or enthusiast and whilst I do know about and appreciate the big wide world of cars I can in no way be described as a petrol head.
As a small child I took a very early interest in types and models of transport. Apparently I could, at the age of 7, identify most of the cars to be seen on local roads but in retrospect, given that in the 1960's there were little or no european or japanese marques about, this must have been an easy process. Perhaps I just learned to repeat "Morris", "Austin", "Vauxhall", "Rover", "Jaguar" and "Ford" in some random order and this would fall about right on any particular road journey.
My own car use involved sharing a 1966 Mini with my sisters before I entered the workplace and thereafter was fortunate to have a ready succession of brand new or nearly new company cars. These ranged from a sedate Vanden Plas Mini Metro which had belonged to the wife of my employer at the time to hot hatch early XR2's and XR3's and progressing through to sensible Volvo Estates, a brief affair with a 200 BHP version in garnet red (it was categorically not pink in hue!!), a madcap couple of years with a Skoda VRS in what I called male menopausal metallic blue and then, at the age of 50, reversion to type and opting for my first Volkswagen Passat Estate.
A desire for speed, tyre squeals and posing does eventually take a back seat being replaced by a fascination for fuel economy, quality of in car digital radio and load carrying capability.
Of course the box on wheel that characterises the larger Volvo Station Wagons has superb flexibility to take all manner of goods and chattels. I did in my time greatly exceed the advisory kerbside weight by packing into that cavernous load bay various flat pack boxes from furniture stores, bulky electrical appliances, timber decking planks and all leaving tiny spaces to accommodate my three children, thankfully young and small at the time and two dogs.
On one nightime return drive from Ikea, fully laden to bursting point, I could only manage a top speed of 50mph on the M62 Motorway. Any faster and over any slight irregularity in the carriageway would certainly cause the Volvo to ground and produce a trail of sparks. Flaunting quite a few traffic laws and exhibiting an absence of any common sense I eventually made it home but after that the car did feel a bit odd as though the chassis were irrevocably bent out of shape from such abuse.
At one stage of loading up at the store it was touch and go whether my son, aged 8, would have to be left behind as his namesake "Billy" bookcase was occupying his seat. On the upside I did record an amazing 59 miles to the gallon on that axle dragging return drive, a figure never again acheived in that vehicle.
My late Father was a great fan of VW cars and in order owned and maintained a camper van, Squareback, 412LE, Mark 1 and 2 Scirocco's and my Mother still runs a Polo. It was an inevitable genetic fact that I would have a Volkswagen and this destiny was fulfilled a couple of years ago with a Passat Estate followed by my current latest model.
Parked next to a Volvo V70 there is a noticeable difference in not only physical size but also gross volume to a Passat.
In the early period of VW ownership I did have reservations over load capacity but my newest vehicle, just yesterday, proved its durability and pedigree as a cargo carrier.
I was helping my Mother in Law to remove a 5 foot high pile of vegetation which was the result of the grubbing up of a large privet hedge from her back yard. The heap was piled up against the rear wall of the house and was starting to give off a distinctive odour of summer decay, a bit like a field full of silage.
The debris comprised large cut sections macheted at the base and then laid flat and overlaid with smaller offcuts and loose leaves.
Tugging at the protruding woody staff-like growths brought out the larger 2 metre or so lengths and I laid these flat in readiness for taking through the covered passage walkway to the street. I had helped to plant the privet some 20 or so years ago and it had certainly thrived in the south facing aspect against the boundary fence. The strong stems were too thick to try to cut into smaller sections and would have to be fed through the the open tailgate after folding down the rear seats. It would be a much bigger job than I had initially thought.
Severed end first was easiest but after only a few insertions the heads of foliage quickly filled up the open bay giving the appearance that the car was already full. It was a case of feeding through further stems one by one like threading a needle. There seemed to be no actual limit on how much could be squeezed in using this method. Surprisingly the back yard pile began to diminish quite raidly.
My Mother in Law plied me with tea and sandwiches in between her own display of immense strength for an 85 year old in extracting more of the burgeoning compost heap and making a secondary pile for me to work on.
The Passat ate up the vegetation with ease and style plus large green hessian bags of the smaller offcuts which could be packed into any void areas behind the driver and front passenger seats.
After three very full car loads taken to the Civic Amenity Facility plus a total of 12 filled garden bags me and Maureen stood back to enjoy the sight of a cleared and sunny back yard inviting sitting out with little or no excuse.
It had been, for sure, a momentous task.
I had offered to help with the best intentions of a son-in-law but at many points in the operation I had seriously doubted my resolve and stamina to complete it. The part played by the Passat had been little short of heroic and by way of appreciation (as much as can be shown for a chunk of metal on four wheels) I spent much of the afternoon hoovering and valeting.
Knowing now the potential for load carrying opens up endless opportunites. Watch that space.
I am not a collector or enthusiast and whilst I do know about and appreciate the big wide world of cars I can in no way be described as a petrol head.
As a small child I took a very early interest in types and models of transport. Apparently I could, at the age of 7, identify most of the cars to be seen on local roads but in retrospect, given that in the 1960's there were little or no european or japanese marques about, this must have been an easy process. Perhaps I just learned to repeat "Morris", "Austin", "Vauxhall", "Rover", "Jaguar" and "Ford" in some random order and this would fall about right on any particular road journey.
My own car use involved sharing a 1966 Mini with my sisters before I entered the workplace and thereafter was fortunate to have a ready succession of brand new or nearly new company cars. These ranged from a sedate Vanden Plas Mini Metro which had belonged to the wife of my employer at the time to hot hatch early XR2's and XR3's and progressing through to sensible Volvo Estates, a brief affair with a 200 BHP version in garnet red (it was categorically not pink in hue!!), a madcap couple of years with a Skoda VRS in what I called male menopausal metallic blue and then, at the age of 50, reversion to type and opting for my first Volkswagen Passat Estate.
A desire for speed, tyre squeals and posing does eventually take a back seat being replaced by a fascination for fuel economy, quality of in car digital radio and load carrying capability.
Of course the box on wheel that characterises the larger Volvo Station Wagons has superb flexibility to take all manner of goods and chattels. I did in my time greatly exceed the advisory kerbside weight by packing into that cavernous load bay various flat pack boxes from furniture stores, bulky electrical appliances, timber decking planks and all leaving tiny spaces to accommodate my three children, thankfully young and small at the time and two dogs.
On one nightime return drive from Ikea, fully laden to bursting point, I could only manage a top speed of 50mph on the M62 Motorway. Any faster and over any slight irregularity in the carriageway would certainly cause the Volvo to ground and produce a trail of sparks. Flaunting quite a few traffic laws and exhibiting an absence of any common sense I eventually made it home but after that the car did feel a bit odd as though the chassis were irrevocably bent out of shape from such abuse.
At one stage of loading up at the store it was touch and go whether my son, aged 8, would have to be left behind as his namesake "Billy" bookcase was occupying his seat. On the upside I did record an amazing 59 miles to the gallon on that axle dragging return drive, a figure never again acheived in that vehicle.
My late Father was a great fan of VW cars and in order owned and maintained a camper van, Squareback, 412LE, Mark 1 and 2 Scirocco's and my Mother still runs a Polo. It was an inevitable genetic fact that I would have a Volkswagen and this destiny was fulfilled a couple of years ago with a Passat Estate followed by my current latest model.
Parked next to a Volvo V70 there is a noticeable difference in not only physical size but also gross volume to a Passat.
In the early period of VW ownership I did have reservations over load capacity but my newest vehicle, just yesterday, proved its durability and pedigree as a cargo carrier.
I was helping my Mother in Law to remove a 5 foot high pile of vegetation which was the result of the grubbing up of a large privet hedge from her back yard. The heap was piled up against the rear wall of the house and was starting to give off a distinctive odour of summer decay, a bit like a field full of silage.
The debris comprised large cut sections macheted at the base and then laid flat and overlaid with smaller offcuts and loose leaves.
Tugging at the protruding woody staff-like growths brought out the larger 2 metre or so lengths and I laid these flat in readiness for taking through the covered passage walkway to the street. I had helped to plant the privet some 20 or so years ago and it had certainly thrived in the south facing aspect against the boundary fence. The strong stems were too thick to try to cut into smaller sections and would have to be fed through the the open tailgate after folding down the rear seats. It would be a much bigger job than I had initially thought.
Severed end first was easiest but after only a few insertions the heads of foliage quickly filled up the open bay giving the appearance that the car was already full. It was a case of feeding through further stems one by one like threading a needle. There seemed to be no actual limit on how much could be squeezed in using this method. Surprisingly the back yard pile began to diminish quite raidly.
My Mother in Law plied me with tea and sandwiches in between her own display of immense strength for an 85 year old in extracting more of the burgeoning compost heap and making a secondary pile for me to work on.
The Passat ate up the vegetation with ease and style plus large green hessian bags of the smaller offcuts which could be packed into any void areas behind the driver and front passenger seats.
After three very full car loads taken to the Civic Amenity Facility plus a total of 12 filled garden bags me and Maureen stood back to enjoy the sight of a cleared and sunny back yard inviting sitting out with little or no excuse.
It had been, for sure, a momentous task.
I had offered to help with the best intentions of a son-in-law but at many points in the operation I had seriously doubted my resolve and stamina to complete it. The part played by the Passat had been little short of heroic and by way of appreciation (as much as can be shown for a chunk of metal on four wheels) I spent much of the afternoon hoovering and valeting.
Knowing now the potential for load carrying opens up endless opportunites. Watch that space.
Saturday 27 June 2015
The Price of Fashion
There are some distinct advantages of being naked and a few social conventions and just plain legalities representing the down side of being unclothed, particularly in public.
One of the main positives of sporting the old birthday suit is the avoidance of injury or worse arising from the actual wearing of clothes.
The facts and statistics of clothing related accidents and incidents are well documented and in some instances make quite disturbing and gory reading. We, of course, take our clothes entirely for granted and throw on just about anything to cover up our naked forms. There is however no longer a satisfaction with just a loin cloth or prehistoric style bikini. Somehow you do get the impression that our ancestors were just patiently waiting for the invention of underwear and top clothes not otherwise a by-product of something they had just killed for food.
There are many forms of threat from clothes.
This may be from the use of hazardous materials in their manufacture, sustaining an injury from wearing inappropriate clothing for a particular situation or even down to the way we actually get dressed. Particular examples amongst these categories of hazard are not hard to find.
A lady was badly burned when her cocktail dress caught fire. The garment had, as a key constituent, nitrocellulose which is an ingredient in gunpowder. A small child was also injured when the chaps on his cowboy suit trousers caught fire because of the use of unsuitable and unstable chemicals in the vinyl. Clothes can also cause an outbreak of skin complaints and irritations amongst a minority of wearers more sensitive to certain substances. We may persist in wearing a favourite article of clothing because it makes us look good and stylish but in the full knowledge that it is a major source of discomfort. That is the price of fashion.
It is advisable to select appropriate clothing for the activity or environment in which you find yourself. This is plain common sense in, for example, Arctic or other inhospitabale weather regions when , you would hope and expect that individuals would attire themselves correctly. There have been many reports of Mountain Rescue Teams retrieving walkers and climbers from high ground upon the closing in of winter storms and blizzards and expressing their shock and surprise at finding the shivering and hypothermia suffering survivors in flip flops and shorts.
It is not only cape-clad Superheroes who run the risk of being dragged into the engine ports of their craft. I did have access to a dossier, a thick dossier, from the Health and Safety Executive listing the results of their enquiries into fatal accidents on farms and on industrial sites. Beware that lumberjack tweed shirt with the flappy sleeves when operating a power take off shaft on a tractor or a straw bailing machine. It may look the part for the job but it will make short work of helping to remove a body part in conjunction with a mechanical process. Flared trousers and inappropriate wearing of Kaftans close to revolving or linear belted production facilities can also impose some inconvenience if getting trapped and introducing flesh and bone to the industrial machinations.
A recent study of hunting accidents in the US made strong recommendations for those partaking in the sport to wear fluorescent coloured clothing, specifically 'Hunter Orange'. This was logical given the inability of gun-wielding types to differentiate between their colleagues taking a dump in the foliage where the flash of bleached toilet paper readily mimics the hippity hoppity action of a startled white tailed rabbit.
Injuries arising from what can be an everyday action of putting on your clothes are also widespread and were reported on in detail recently by an Association representing Chiropractors. The wrestling action of getting into that Christmas jumper, perhaps a bit tighter than remembered 12 or 24 months ago, can easily throw out a shoulder or cause a muscle-pull. Apparently bra's are responsible for much front pain and back pain and it is my understanding that the proper measuring up for a brassiere can have wonderful benefits for health, well-being and posture. Of comparative significance for the male of the species is certainly that millisecond in time and micron in space that determines if your foreskin gets trapped in the zipper or does not.
The ultimate in cautionary tales aound clothing came from my Gran. She regularly told the story of the demise of the American Dancer, Isadora Duncan in 1927 caused by her (not my Gran I emphasise) casual discarding of a long scarf out of a moving motor vehicle. The subsequent action of the no doubt stylish and chic silk garment catching around the rear wheel and axle caused her neck to break.
I have ever since my Gran first and then repeatedly scared us all with this fact, refused to wear my expansive Doctor Who scarf whilst riding in any convertible vehicle.
One of the main positives of sporting the old birthday suit is the avoidance of injury or worse arising from the actual wearing of clothes.
The facts and statistics of clothing related accidents and incidents are well documented and in some instances make quite disturbing and gory reading. We, of course, take our clothes entirely for granted and throw on just about anything to cover up our naked forms. There is however no longer a satisfaction with just a loin cloth or prehistoric style bikini. Somehow you do get the impression that our ancestors were just patiently waiting for the invention of underwear and top clothes not otherwise a by-product of something they had just killed for food.
There are many forms of threat from clothes.
This may be from the use of hazardous materials in their manufacture, sustaining an injury from wearing inappropriate clothing for a particular situation or even down to the way we actually get dressed. Particular examples amongst these categories of hazard are not hard to find.
A lady was badly burned when her cocktail dress caught fire. The garment had, as a key constituent, nitrocellulose which is an ingredient in gunpowder. A small child was also injured when the chaps on his cowboy suit trousers caught fire because of the use of unsuitable and unstable chemicals in the vinyl. Clothes can also cause an outbreak of skin complaints and irritations amongst a minority of wearers more sensitive to certain substances. We may persist in wearing a favourite article of clothing because it makes us look good and stylish but in the full knowledge that it is a major source of discomfort. That is the price of fashion.
It is advisable to select appropriate clothing for the activity or environment in which you find yourself. This is plain common sense in, for example, Arctic or other inhospitabale weather regions when , you would hope and expect that individuals would attire themselves correctly. There have been many reports of Mountain Rescue Teams retrieving walkers and climbers from high ground upon the closing in of winter storms and blizzards and expressing their shock and surprise at finding the shivering and hypothermia suffering survivors in flip flops and shorts.
It is not only cape-clad Superheroes who run the risk of being dragged into the engine ports of their craft. I did have access to a dossier, a thick dossier, from the Health and Safety Executive listing the results of their enquiries into fatal accidents on farms and on industrial sites. Beware that lumberjack tweed shirt with the flappy sleeves when operating a power take off shaft on a tractor or a straw bailing machine. It may look the part for the job but it will make short work of helping to remove a body part in conjunction with a mechanical process. Flared trousers and inappropriate wearing of Kaftans close to revolving or linear belted production facilities can also impose some inconvenience if getting trapped and introducing flesh and bone to the industrial machinations.
A recent study of hunting accidents in the US made strong recommendations for those partaking in the sport to wear fluorescent coloured clothing, specifically 'Hunter Orange'. This was logical given the inability of gun-wielding types to differentiate between their colleagues taking a dump in the foliage where the flash of bleached toilet paper readily mimics the hippity hoppity action of a startled white tailed rabbit.
Injuries arising from what can be an everyday action of putting on your clothes are also widespread and were reported on in detail recently by an Association representing Chiropractors. The wrestling action of getting into that Christmas jumper, perhaps a bit tighter than remembered 12 or 24 months ago, can easily throw out a shoulder or cause a muscle-pull. Apparently bra's are responsible for much front pain and back pain and it is my understanding that the proper measuring up for a brassiere can have wonderful benefits for health, well-being and posture. Of comparative significance for the male of the species is certainly that millisecond in time and micron in space that determines if your foreskin gets trapped in the zipper or does not.
The ultimate in cautionary tales aound clothing came from my Gran. She regularly told the story of the demise of the American Dancer, Isadora Duncan in 1927 caused by her (not my Gran I emphasise) casual discarding of a long scarf out of a moving motor vehicle. The subsequent action of the no doubt stylish and chic silk garment catching around the rear wheel and axle caused her neck to break.
I have ever since my Gran first and then repeatedly scared us all with this fact, refused to wear my expansive Doctor Who scarf whilst riding in any convertible vehicle.
Friday 26 June 2015
Shackleton and the Recliner
I had walked into the cul de sac and was making my way along, looking for the house number 3.
The set of keys that I had been provided with were hanging from my index finger being just one more thing to carry in addition to my clip-board, equipment and ladders but I had to regularly check that they had not somehow fallen off noisily into a drain gully or silently onto a grass verge.
It was a short terraced block and so number 3 was just one house down from the narrow service road.
I nudged open the timber gate with my knee and edged up the garden path to the front door. Depositing all of my apparatus I was left with just the bunch of keys. I like to guess, out of a large cluster, which is the correct key. A Yale type lock is a bit of a give away, perhaps more so where the manufacturers brand name is engraved just below the aperture.
The handle and lock of number 3 looked a bit battered. This could be due to a forced entry or a recent, hasty change if the house has been, unfortunately, repossessed by a lender or loan company. My first selection was wrong. I should have taken that as an omen. The other slim keys either fitted snugly but would not turn or were a complete mismatch.
In frustration I rattled the front door and then stood back to think. One key on the ring was a traditional mortice type, thick barrel and shaped unique head. It must be a back door key. I checked to make sure that my pile of items on the path would be safe and walked out of the gate and along the frontage of number 1 to the opening of the service road.
As is the current trend to prevent trespass down the rear of terraced houses the usually open vehicle wide passage was firmly locked with a tall, stout wrought iron gate. I did not have a small key of the type needed. Back at my start position at the front door I decided to have a quick look through the living room window. Just inside, in an easy chair I could see an elderly lady. The small slit window adjacent had a hand written notice saying "door bell not working-knock hard on window".
I was worried in case a harsh knock startled the lady and so tapped lightly and hesitantly. Peering again through the glazing there was no movement whatsoever from the occupant of the chair. I knocked a little harder and more earnestly. There was a little bit of activity from the old lady indicating that she had in fact been asleep as she raised herself up a bit and resumed reading a magazine that had been hidden from me on her reclined lap. I knocked hard enough to cause the double glazing to rattle in the brick surround and waited for the door to open to me.
Nothing happened.
She remained seated and engrossed in articles on celebrity infamy and true life stories of lust and infidelity. In a final attempt to be noticed I rapped my knuckles so hard on the glass that they felt positively bruised and battered.
I decided to ring the client who had provided the keys. I hid my annoyance in a very professional manner and told him that I had not managed to get the door open. He was extremely surprised to hear that the house was lived in. It was, after all, a house that he rented out and to his knowledge it was completely vacant and devoid of furniture.
The mystery deepened as I checked my instruction sheet to read to him the address....number 3. He replied that I should actually be at 3a. I have not moved so swiftly as I did with all of my equipment at that moment exiting the garden and trying to appear to nonchalantly just wander up to 3a, just a few doors up the street.
I took longer than usual to inspect that property, occasionally checking from behind the blinds that I was not the target of a vigilante neighbourhood watch after my ceaseless harassment of a harmless and evidently very, very deaf local resident.
The set of keys that I had been provided with were hanging from my index finger being just one more thing to carry in addition to my clip-board, equipment and ladders but I had to regularly check that they had not somehow fallen off noisily into a drain gully or silently onto a grass verge.
It was a short terraced block and so number 3 was just one house down from the narrow service road.
I nudged open the timber gate with my knee and edged up the garden path to the front door. Depositing all of my apparatus I was left with just the bunch of keys. I like to guess, out of a large cluster, which is the correct key. A Yale type lock is a bit of a give away, perhaps more so where the manufacturers brand name is engraved just below the aperture.
The handle and lock of number 3 looked a bit battered. This could be due to a forced entry or a recent, hasty change if the house has been, unfortunately, repossessed by a lender or loan company. My first selection was wrong. I should have taken that as an omen. The other slim keys either fitted snugly but would not turn or were a complete mismatch.
In frustration I rattled the front door and then stood back to think. One key on the ring was a traditional mortice type, thick barrel and shaped unique head. It must be a back door key. I checked to make sure that my pile of items on the path would be safe and walked out of the gate and along the frontage of number 1 to the opening of the service road.
As is the current trend to prevent trespass down the rear of terraced houses the usually open vehicle wide passage was firmly locked with a tall, stout wrought iron gate. I did not have a small key of the type needed. Back at my start position at the front door I decided to have a quick look through the living room window. Just inside, in an easy chair I could see an elderly lady. The small slit window adjacent had a hand written notice saying "door bell not working-knock hard on window".
I was worried in case a harsh knock startled the lady and so tapped lightly and hesitantly. Peering again through the glazing there was no movement whatsoever from the occupant of the chair. I knocked a little harder and more earnestly. There was a little bit of activity from the old lady indicating that she had in fact been asleep as she raised herself up a bit and resumed reading a magazine that had been hidden from me on her reclined lap. I knocked hard enough to cause the double glazing to rattle in the brick surround and waited for the door to open to me.
Nothing happened.
She remained seated and engrossed in articles on celebrity infamy and true life stories of lust and infidelity. In a final attempt to be noticed I rapped my knuckles so hard on the glass that they felt positively bruised and battered.
I decided to ring the client who had provided the keys. I hid my annoyance in a very professional manner and told him that I had not managed to get the door open. He was extremely surprised to hear that the house was lived in. It was, after all, a house that he rented out and to his knowledge it was completely vacant and devoid of furniture.
The mystery deepened as I checked my instruction sheet to read to him the address....number 3. He replied that I should actually be at 3a. I have not moved so swiftly as I did with all of my equipment at that moment exiting the garden and trying to appear to nonchalantly just wander up to 3a, just a few doors up the street.
I took longer than usual to inspect that property, occasionally checking from behind the blinds that I was not the target of a vigilante neighbourhood watch after my ceaseless harassment of a harmless and evidently very, very deaf local resident.
Thursday 25 June 2015
Ginger Nut
In a quiet moment, you know the type, in between noisy moments, I got sidetracked into attempting to answer the questions in the British Citizenship Test.
I failed.
It was very technical and I would actually challenge the majority of born and bred Brits to do it and contend that they too would fall down under such telling questions of pomp, circumstance, parliamentary procedure, demographics, religious convictions and who was the least talented and convincing James Bond. Apparently not a)Connery, b) Lazenby, c)Dalton, d) Brosnan or D).Craig.
I was never very good at written examinations so wondered if there might be a practical test by which to qualify for ongoing membership of these isles. Also, could I possibly be a bit picky about which specific constituent part of the British Isles I would like to be a citizen of?
I would definitely choose Scotland. This is not on account of the oil reserves, a natural propensity to be successful when exiled to anywhere else in the world, no qualms about deep frying a Mars Bar, white pudding , a secret supply of single malt whisky to sustain life after the meteorite hits or the beautiful wide open spaces but because I have some ancestry and within a couple of generations.
I have already started to compile a scrapbook towards a formal application to be Scottish if for some reason I do not pass the DNA test to confirm beyond doubt my Viking bloodline.
The first page has a portrait photograph of me. Green eyes are inherently a characteristic of those natives north of the border. If I let my eyebrows and stubble grow out of control there is a distinctive and undeniable reddish tinge. I am, I have summised on many occasions, but a small amount of chromosones away from being a full blown ginger person. My Father, through whom the Scottish ancestry was perpetuated was a red-head and I have already warned my own children that their future offspring may well follow the strawberry-blonde route. They are prepared for the inevitable or at least as best they can without going into expensive and prolonged therapy.
Page 2 shows me in my tartan kilt in which I was wed. Those who have seen this photograph have mentioned, that for some reason the Thomson Tartan is somehow familiar. I keep quiet but only because the distinctive material was used by Vauxhall as a fancy upholstery finish for some of their Astra Hatchback models in the late 1980's.
Page 3 is of me holding a Practice Chanter when I enrolled into classes to learn to play the bagpipes. It was a horrible experience. Am I the only person who dares to say that all the notes, and there are very few of them anyway, are flat and quite tuneless? I hate myself for thinking this because I am always the first to experience genetic based emotional palpitations and stirrings when a Pipe Band inflate and tentatively start some march or dirge.
Page 4 is a montage of family photo's to prove a number of consecutive years of holidaying in Scotland. This has not just been the main tourist venues but some pretty remote and barren locations including a loch-side in Perthshire where we, as children, spent a week retrieving the fresh water bleached bones of sheep out of a mountain stream and almost collected enough to form a perfect skeleton back home in the playroom. Hazy images are not a fault of the photographer but a consequence of standing amongst clouds of ravenous blood thirsty midges. We camped a few yards away from the main electrified railway line from London to Inverness but did not realise until the night-sleeper thundered through like an avalanche. Whilst out on an idyllic walk on forest rides we would suddenly find ourselves cowering from fear under the flight path of very low flying RAF fighter bombers. As they say, Welcome to Scotland.
Page 5 consists of memories of my Scottish Gran. Helen was born in Wick, right up towards the north east corner of Scotland. I went up their once with my fiancée and we found the old house and also the grave of one of her brothers who drowned in the sea whilst fishing off the shore. I do not remember much about my Grandfather apart from his broad scots accent and chain smoking. I learnt a lot about the home country from my Gran and she did say she would put in a good word for me if I ever needed to flee across the border.
I am currently and at this very moment working on the contents for page 6. I have acquired a set of ingredients including beef heart, lamb lungs and oatmeal and, on this 25th January Robert Burns Night in commemoration of that great Scots Son and poet, they are blended and cooking through nicely in the oven. Served with neaps and tatties we will soon, as a family be feasting on a traditional Haggis. The wrapper in which it was purchased from Tesco's will compress down quite nicely under a pile of Sir Walter Scott books over the next week before being carefully inserted and glued into my Scottish Citizenship Application Folder. Oh, and they are running regular repeats of Braveheart on Freeview so that I can get the historical facts absolutely right in my mind just in case a question crops up.
(first produced 25.1.12 but thought it should have another airing)
I failed.
It was very technical and I would actually challenge the majority of born and bred Brits to do it and contend that they too would fall down under such telling questions of pomp, circumstance, parliamentary procedure, demographics, religious convictions and who was the least talented and convincing James Bond. Apparently not a)Connery, b) Lazenby, c)Dalton, d) Brosnan or D).Craig.
I was never very good at written examinations so wondered if there might be a practical test by which to qualify for ongoing membership of these isles. Also, could I possibly be a bit picky about which specific constituent part of the British Isles I would like to be a citizen of?
I would definitely choose Scotland. This is not on account of the oil reserves, a natural propensity to be successful when exiled to anywhere else in the world, no qualms about deep frying a Mars Bar, white pudding , a secret supply of single malt whisky to sustain life after the meteorite hits or the beautiful wide open spaces but because I have some ancestry and within a couple of generations.
I have already started to compile a scrapbook towards a formal application to be Scottish if for some reason I do not pass the DNA test to confirm beyond doubt my Viking bloodline.
The first page has a portrait photograph of me. Green eyes are inherently a characteristic of those natives north of the border. If I let my eyebrows and stubble grow out of control there is a distinctive and undeniable reddish tinge. I am, I have summised on many occasions, but a small amount of chromosones away from being a full blown ginger person. My Father, through whom the Scottish ancestry was perpetuated was a red-head and I have already warned my own children that their future offspring may well follow the strawberry-blonde route. They are prepared for the inevitable or at least as best they can without going into expensive and prolonged therapy.
Page 2 shows me in my tartan kilt in which I was wed. Those who have seen this photograph have mentioned, that for some reason the Thomson Tartan is somehow familiar. I keep quiet but only because the distinctive material was used by Vauxhall as a fancy upholstery finish for some of their Astra Hatchback models in the late 1980's.
Page 3 is of me holding a Practice Chanter when I enrolled into classes to learn to play the bagpipes. It was a horrible experience. Am I the only person who dares to say that all the notes, and there are very few of them anyway, are flat and quite tuneless? I hate myself for thinking this because I am always the first to experience genetic based emotional palpitations and stirrings when a Pipe Band inflate and tentatively start some march or dirge.
Page 4 is a montage of family photo's to prove a number of consecutive years of holidaying in Scotland. This has not just been the main tourist venues but some pretty remote and barren locations including a loch-side in Perthshire where we, as children, spent a week retrieving the fresh water bleached bones of sheep out of a mountain stream and almost collected enough to form a perfect skeleton back home in the playroom. Hazy images are not a fault of the photographer but a consequence of standing amongst clouds of ravenous blood thirsty midges. We camped a few yards away from the main electrified railway line from London to Inverness but did not realise until the night-sleeper thundered through like an avalanche. Whilst out on an idyllic walk on forest rides we would suddenly find ourselves cowering from fear under the flight path of very low flying RAF fighter bombers. As they say, Welcome to Scotland.
Page 5 consists of memories of my Scottish Gran. Helen was born in Wick, right up towards the north east corner of Scotland. I went up their once with my fiancée and we found the old house and also the grave of one of her brothers who drowned in the sea whilst fishing off the shore. I do not remember much about my Grandfather apart from his broad scots accent and chain smoking. I learnt a lot about the home country from my Gran and she did say she would put in a good word for me if I ever needed to flee across the border.
I am currently and at this very moment working on the contents for page 6. I have acquired a set of ingredients including beef heart, lamb lungs and oatmeal and, on this 25th January Robert Burns Night in commemoration of that great Scots Son and poet, they are blended and cooking through nicely in the oven. Served with neaps and tatties we will soon, as a family be feasting on a traditional Haggis. The wrapper in which it was purchased from Tesco's will compress down quite nicely under a pile of Sir Walter Scott books over the next week before being carefully inserted and glued into my Scottish Citizenship Application Folder. Oh, and they are running regular repeats of Braveheart on Freeview so that I can get the historical facts absolutely right in my mind just in case a question crops up.
(first produced 25.1.12 but thought it should have another airing)
Wednesday 24 June 2015
Punctured Pride
Two thorns as sharp as tin tacks could not be coaxed out of the front tyre casing using conventional methods.
This included squeezing as though a pimple, twisting the pliable rubber like wringing out a towel, picking at it with the end of the tyre lever and finally and successfully, pulling the stubborn little blighters out with my teeth.
The puncture repair kit was spilled out onto the tarmac of the imposing Inversnaid Hotel as I took to identifying the holes formed by the thorns. The standard contents of a repair kit, familiar to most cyclists, used to include a bright yellow crayon with which to outline the offending hole. Mine was missing or had never been in the plastic container in the first place.
Pumping a bit of air into the sad inner tube and running its limp form close to my ear did detect one of the holes but in preparing a patch and the rubber solution glue I lost sight of it and had to go through the procedure again...and again....and once more before finally pressing the red and black self adhesive on to seal the pinpoint hole.
The second hole was also elusive but I had just about perfected the performance and within a few minutes we were ready to set off back down the track.
The crowd of walkers at the hotel picnic tables had been enjoying the fiasco of the repairs and I was a bit disappointed not to be applauded for providing their lunchtime entertainment as I rode through and past.
In my mind the return ride would be horrific given what I had gone through physically and mentally in the previous hours and with no real recuperation possible because of the repair work. Just out of sight of the walkers the front tyre felt distinctly spongy.
I was now resigned to a return walk rather than a ride and that would be even more horrific. Pushing a mountain bike is hard work especially over ground that could be well traversed on two fully pumped up wheels.
I told my son to go on ahead as he was fully mobile and plodded on, head down and determined to tackle the 10 miles of track, trail, rocky ledges and that slippery grass bank that I had slid down fully frontal. At the slower pace it was possible to appreciate the magnificent views over the tree tops down to the Loch and the rivulets of snow stuck high up on the distant peaks.
I sat down on a granite rock and thought about trying to sort out the front tyre once and for all. Throwing the whole bike into the Loch did cross my mind. The peace of the hillside was almost painful to a city dweller generally acclimatised to sirens and shouts but nevertheless welcome respite. I could well imagine that the place had not changed much over the centuries and many Scots will have passed this same way in pursuit of their livelihoods or being pursued by the English invaders.
We had seen a strange structure by the trackway on our outward cycle which I later found referred to in a tourist leaflet as Rob Roy's Prison. That great Son of the Highlands had almost as many enemies and friends. I must, sometime, watch the movie depiction of his life with Liam Neeson as the main character.
I was brought back down to earth from my fanciful thoughts by the discovery of yet another thorn embedded in the tread of the tyre and with no real compulsion to hurry and this time no audience It was an almost pleasurable task to seek it out and repair it.
Three thorns in one ride was unprecedented.
Fully inflated I could think about remounting and riding at last. I had walked about five miles by now and was pleased to get back in the saddle although this coincided with a long uphill stretch which tested my fitness and stamina in the extreme.
My son was long gone but I could make out his distinctive wheel rut pattern in the muddy patches where the surface water was in the shade of the trees and had not evaporated. He was by now back at the holiday lodge for sure.
The final, long downhill was great fun although a bit hazardous over loose gravel, potholes, rocky extrusions and projecting tree roots. I had no need to pedal for a couple of miles and felt refreshed and energised for it. The flat, smooth tarmac road just by the Youth Hostel and towards the Rowardennan Hotel was like a finishing straight and I breezed up to the lodge with style imagining the roar of a massed crowd at what was, for me, to be regarded as a small victory but a victory nevertheless.
This included squeezing as though a pimple, twisting the pliable rubber like wringing out a towel, picking at it with the end of the tyre lever and finally and successfully, pulling the stubborn little blighters out with my teeth.
The puncture repair kit was spilled out onto the tarmac of the imposing Inversnaid Hotel as I took to identifying the holes formed by the thorns. The standard contents of a repair kit, familiar to most cyclists, used to include a bright yellow crayon with which to outline the offending hole. Mine was missing or had never been in the plastic container in the first place.
Pumping a bit of air into the sad inner tube and running its limp form close to my ear did detect one of the holes but in preparing a patch and the rubber solution glue I lost sight of it and had to go through the procedure again...and again....and once more before finally pressing the red and black self adhesive on to seal the pinpoint hole.
The second hole was also elusive but I had just about perfected the performance and within a few minutes we were ready to set off back down the track.
The crowd of walkers at the hotel picnic tables had been enjoying the fiasco of the repairs and I was a bit disappointed not to be applauded for providing their lunchtime entertainment as I rode through and past.
In my mind the return ride would be horrific given what I had gone through physically and mentally in the previous hours and with no real recuperation possible because of the repair work. Just out of sight of the walkers the front tyre felt distinctly spongy.
I was now resigned to a return walk rather than a ride and that would be even more horrific. Pushing a mountain bike is hard work especially over ground that could be well traversed on two fully pumped up wheels.
I told my son to go on ahead as he was fully mobile and plodded on, head down and determined to tackle the 10 miles of track, trail, rocky ledges and that slippery grass bank that I had slid down fully frontal. At the slower pace it was possible to appreciate the magnificent views over the tree tops down to the Loch and the rivulets of snow stuck high up on the distant peaks.
I sat down on a granite rock and thought about trying to sort out the front tyre once and for all. Throwing the whole bike into the Loch did cross my mind. The peace of the hillside was almost painful to a city dweller generally acclimatised to sirens and shouts but nevertheless welcome respite. I could well imagine that the place had not changed much over the centuries and many Scots will have passed this same way in pursuit of their livelihoods or being pursued by the English invaders.
We had seen a strange structure by the trackway on our outward cycle which I later found referred to in a tourist leaflet as Rob Roy's Prison. That great Son of the Highlands had almost as many enemies and friends. I must, sometime, watch the movie depiction of his life with Liam Neeson as the main character.
I was brought back down to earth from my fanciful thoughts by the discovery of yet another thorn embedded in the tread of the tyre and with no real compulsion to hurry and this time no audience It was an almost pleasurable task to seek it out and repair it.
Three thorns in one ride was unprecedented.
Fully inflated I could think about remounting and riding at last. I had walked about five miles by now and was pleased to get back in the saddle although this coincided with a long uphill stretch which tested my fitness and stamina in the extreme.
My son was long gone but I could make out his distinctive wheel rut pattern in the muddy patches where the surface water was in the shade of the trees and had not evaporated. He was by now back at the holiday lodge for sure.
The final, long downhill was great fun although a bit hazardous over loose gravel, potholes, rocky extrusions and projecting tree roots. I had no need to pedal for a couple of miles and felt refreshed and energised for it. The flat, smooth tarmac road just by the Youth Hostel and towards the Rowardennan Hotel was like a finishing straight and I breezed up to the lodge with style imagining the roar of a massed crowd at what was, for me, to be regarded as a small victory but a victory nevertheless.
Tuesday 23 June 2015
Push Bikes
The Tourist Map gave no real clue as to the actual terrain of the West Highland Way between Rowardennan and Inversnaid on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, Scotland, UK.
Perhaps, in retrospect the outlay of a few pounds sterling for a proper Landranger Ordnance Survey Map may have been wiser but the said leaflet, one of those picked up free from a visitor centre, motorway services or library, was after all free, gratis and for nothing.
My further reasoning behind not buying a Trossachs Region Map was that so far in my lifetime I had visited the area every forty years and such a purchase would therefore appear extravagant. Nothing much seemed to have changed on the east side of the Loch since my last family holiday in 1975 and this could well be the case looking ahead to my next scheduled visit in 2055, discounting of course any effects of a rise in sea level as a consequence of global warming or alternatively the return of an Ice Age.
Anything with Highland in the title should really suggest a mostly uphill terrain but as with most people on holiday any common sense and rationality just goes out of the window. It is hard enough being sensible for the 51 other weeks of the year so, what the hell, just relax and do not worry about anything.
I set off on my mountain bike from the log cabin just next to the Rowardennan Hotel, accompanied by my son who was just a few days out of his teenage decade.
The roadway was flat and hard surfaced but covered with a fine film of pine needles and mud from Forestry Commission, National Trust and Youth Hostel traffic the only real users of what was a dead end. After passing the gateway of the private driveway leading up to the purple granite built Hostel we were onto a rough, potholed track.
It was at this point, a mere few minutes into our planned trail ride, that I realised that I had completely underestimated the geography that lay ahead. As well as the unstable ground beneath our chunky tyres it started to rise up immediately and quite steeply.
The winding nature of the track meant that there was a limited sight line ahead and with the turn of every corner it was clear that the ascent would be relentless.
My son waltzed away easily and I knew that unless I upped my pedal rate I might not see him for the rest of the day. I struggled along for a couple of uphill miles. Fortunately for me we eventually reached a flat section, a short plateau which allowed me to catch him up followed by a good downhill stretch where my body mass momentum gave me an advantage. I edged in front for the first and what turned out to be the only time that day.
The track then narrowed to little more than a footpath width and we encountered the first of many intrepid hikers and travellers. Most had obviously spent the night at the Youth Hostel and were continuing their journey on one of Scotland's long distance paths. You would think that the noise of a bike, albeit well serviced and maintained, bouncing about on a loose surface plus my groans, moans and painful breathless grimaces would alert those on foot to a need to take evasive action. I do slow down on approach as in my experience walkers can be a bit vague and unpredictable but even so it is usually necessary to ask politely to pass.
There were a few surprised expressions upon sight of two bikes so far in the wilds and a few cloaked comments that we should not really be there anyway. This type of comment was comprehensible in any language and the contingent out that day were from many countries showing the attraction of Scotland as a tourist destination on a worldwide basis.
From high up in the tree line there were fantastic views over Loch Lomond.
Disappointingly there was a rumble of constant traffic from the main Glasgow to Fort William road which runs close to the opposite west shore of Loch Lomond and we could see convoys of tour coaches, heavy goods vehicles and obviously german motorcyclists to-ing and fro-ing on this well worn route.
With each painful push on the pedals to climb we could count on a bit of a rest on the downhill sections which took us right down to the loch side. A treat was to spy a cluster of wild goats nestled on a shingle bank on the edge of a mountain stream as it cascaded from the moorland of Ben Lomond above. Their appearance was biblical with prominent curled horns and shaggy coats.
Low down the ground was boggy and marshy under that inevitable shimmering haze of swarms of bloodthirsty midges. Those chunky tyres keep us afloat over the swampy parts although progress slowed down again to almost walking pace. I fell off with poor style just after passing a couple of French ramblers. My bike had stalled on a turn at the top of a bank and my desperate attempt to put a foot down was thwarted with the consequence that I parted company from the machine and slid face down through wet grass for what seemed like a mile but was actually only a few metres. I was just soaked and embarassed rather than injured or worse.
The French were giggling a bit at my misfortune as I remounted and rode off.
The following two miles were not passable on two wheels and we had to alternately push and carry to negotiate rocky outcrops, stone dressed drainage gullies and gradients that must have been 25% or more severe.
I managed a short ride on a straight and stone-clear section only to find rapid deflation of my front tyre.
Riding was impossible and so I resorted to more pushing until we reached the Inversnaid Hotel where conditions and terrain were more friendly to investigate the puncture. Two sharp thorns had penetrated the tyre casing. I reached for one of my two spare inner tubes only to find that I had packed the wrong ones with a car type valve and not one compatible with the bike pump we carried.
This was a fundamental schoolboy type error which jeopardised the whole adventure. The only option was to try to repair the damaged inner tube.
Most of the walkers and hikers that we had passed in the previous couple of hours had now caught us up and were taking their packed lunches out to enjoy on the picnic tables dotted about on the Hotel lawn.
I would have an audience for my emergency repairs for the duration.........
(Part 2 to follow tomorrow)
Perhaps, in retrospect the outlay of a few pounds sterling for a proper Landranger Ordnance Survey Map may have been wiser but the said leaflet, one of those picked up free from a visitor centre, motorway services or library, was after all free, gratis and for nothing.
My further reasoning behind not buying a Trossachs Region Map was that so far in my lifetime I had visited the area every forty years and such a purchase would therefore appear extravagant. Nothing much seemed to have changed on the east side of the Loch since my last family holiday in 1975 and this could well be the case looking ahead to my next scheduled visit in 2055, discounting of course any effects of a rise in sea level as a consequence of global warming or alternatively the return of an Ice Age.
Anything with Highland in the title should really suggest a mostly uphill terrain but as with most people on holiday any common sense and rationality just goes out of the window. It is hard enough being sensible for the 51 other weeks of the year so, what the hell, just relax and do not worry about anything.
I set off on my mountain bike from the log cabin just next to the Rowardennan Hotel, accompanied by my son who was just a few days out of his teenage decade.
The roadway was flat and hard surfaced but covered with a fine film of pine needles and mud from Forestry Commission, National Trust and Youth Hostel traffic the only real users of what was a dead end. After passing the gateway of the private driveway leading up to the purple granite built Hostel we were onto a rough, potholed track.
It was at this point, a mere few minutes into our planned trail ride, that I realised that I had completely underestimated the geography that lay ahead. As well as the unstable ground beneath our chunky tyres it started to rise up immediately and quite steeply.
The winding nature of the track meant that there was a limited sight line ahead and with the turn of every corner it was clear that the ascent would be relentless.
My son waltzed away easily and I knew that unless I upped my pedal rate I might not see him for the rest of the day. I struggled along for a couple of uphill miles. Fortunately for me we eventually reached a flat section, a short plateau which allowed me to catch him up followed by a good downhill stretch where my body mass momentum gave me an advantage. I edged in front for the first and what turned out to be the only time that day.
The track then narrowed to little more than a footpath width and we encountered the first of many intrepid hikers and travellers. Most had obviously spent the night at the Youth Hostel and were continuing their journey on one of Scotland's long distance paths. You would think that the noise of a bike, albeit well serviced and maintained, bouncing about on a loose surface plus my groans, moans and painful breathless grimaces would alert those on foot to a need to take evasive action. I do slow down on approach as in my experience walkers can be a bit vague and unpredictable but even so it is usually necessary to ask politely to pass.
There were a few surprised expressions upon sight of two bikes so far in the wilds and a few cloaked comments that we should not really be there anyway. This type of comment was comprehensible in any language and the contingent out that day were from many countries showing the attraction of Scotland as a tourist destination on a worldwide basis.
From high up in the tree line there were fantastic views over Loch Lomond.
Disappointingly there was a rumble of constant traffic from the main Glasgow to Fort William road which runs close to the opposite west shore of Loch Lomond and we could see convoys of tour coaches, heavy goods vehicles and obviously german motorcyclists to-ing and fro-ing on this well worn route.
With each painful push on the pedals to climb we could count on a bit of a rest on the downhill sections which took us right down to the loch side. A treat was to spy a cluster of wild goats nestled on a shingle bank on the edge of a mountain stream as it cascaded from the moorland of Ben Lomond above. Their appearance was biblical with prominent curled horns and shaggy coats.
Low down the ground was boggy and marshy under that inevitable shimmering haze of swarms of bloodthirsty midges. Those chunky tyres keep us afloat over the swampy parts although progress slowed down again to almost walking pace. I fell off with poor style just after passing a couple of French ramblers. My bike had stalled on a turn at the top of a bank and my desperate attempt to put a foot down was thwarted with the consequence that I parted company from the machine and slid face down through wet grass for what seemed like a mile but was actually only a few metres. I was just soaked and embarassed rather than injured or worse.
The French were giggling a bit at my misfortune as I remounted and rode off.
The following two miles were not passable on two wheels and we had to alternately push and carry to negotiate rocky outcrops, stone dressed drainage gullies and gradients that must have been 25% or more severe.
I managed a short ride on a straight and stone-clear section only to find rapid deflation of my front tyre.
Riding was impossible and so I resorted to more pushing until we reached the Inversnaid Hotel where conditions and terrain were more friendly to investigate the puncture. Two sharp thorns had penetrated the tyre casing. I reached for one of my two spare inner tubes only to find that I had packed the wrong ones with a car type valve and not one compatible with the bike pump we carried.
This was a fundamental schoolboy type error which jeopardised the whole adventure. The only option was to try to repair the damaged inner tube.
Most of the walkers and hikers that we had passed in the previous couple of hours had now caught us up and were taking their packed lunches out to enjoy on the picnic tables dotted about on the Hotel lawn.
I would have an audience for my emergency repairs for the duration.........
(Part 2 to follow tomorrow)
Monday 22 June 2015
You are offal..... but I like you
Scotland. Holiday and food.
McDonalds does not count inspite of what I said in yesterdays blog.
There is a great variety of national dishes and locally sourced produce to seek out and enjoy and behind every great holiday there is a great menu to be had. There is something very different to be seen on the supermarket shelves in this part of the United Kingdom even under the branding of the multiple retailers who dominate our shopping, eating and lifestyle habits whether intentionally or subversively.
Take the meat aisle.
There is the dominance of prepared and pre-packed products in pork intended for the breakfast table. Square, round and normal shapes of sausage meat with chops and black pudding. I can appreciate the logic that those battling against the Highland Climate and often highly physical workload require a huge calorific intake but not the love-affair with foodstuffs that will, eventually, clog the arteries and valves in a debilitating effect.
I avoided the temptation of a Scottish fry-up on this vacation although it would have been very helpful in getting me and my mountain bike up the tortuous West Highland Trail from our base at Rowardennan to the posh Inversnaid Hotel in reasonable style and back again with a little bit of energy left at all.
Still, there are plenty of other delicacies and treats to be had and here are just a few of them.
1) Haggis. This is a regular meal for our family every wednesday, almost without fail, although the day itself has no deep significance or symbolism. It is mainly because I can almost guarantee that the nearest Waitrose will have some in stock on that day and accompanied by mashed swede and mashed potatoes with spring onions it makes a delicious and inexpensive meal. You do have to be careful to check the authenticity of the ingredients as a one-off Tesco purchase of Haggis turned out to be made of everything apart from the proper bits of sheep.
2) Cured Salmon. The air in the Highlands is remarkably refreshing, so much so that to a townie like myself an intake of it whilst on holiday can be painful to lungs encrusted with urban grime until acclimatised and thereafter just bracing. The freshness is often mixed with that wonderful aroma of burning wood from open hearths, visitor's barbecues and the increasing number of traditional fish smoking houses. The Argyll sourced salmon pieces were amazing in a packed lunch. Soft fleshy fish, lightly smoked and so tasty.
3) White Pudding. I have written on this phenomena before being a regular recipient of it from friends and relatives returning from Scotland. It is a strange thing in form and texture but if you like, individually, oats, animal fat, rendered meat and skin wrapping then I can recommend it to you.
4) Irn Bru. It is a carbonated soft drink by Barrs of Glasgow and an iconic part of Scottish Culture. It is a drink that you either love unquestionably or, after studying the list of ingredients, make a pledge never to contemplate buying at all. There is a sort of a warning on the can that the use of certain of the ingredients can induce behavioural traits in young children. All I know is that it tastes nice and can also bring out a beautiful lustre to a stainless steel sink basin.
4) Home made soup. Many of the cafes in our holiday area championed home cooking and a particularly enticing menu item advertised an intriguing soup of the day as "Ranoot". The name, perhaps of Gaelic or Celtic derivation, gave no clues to its composition whether animal, vegetable or mineral. I had just cycled 17 miles in light drizzle and a cold breeze and the cafe was the mid point of the journey. My usual bike supplies are made up of chocolate bars and water and so the prospect of hot soup was appealing. I asked about Ranoot expecting to be given a detailed breakdown of its history and authenticity for the Highlands. Instead I was told there was none left, or as the sign clearly said it had Ran Oot.
It has been a good holiday week. Best of all the combination of good eating and harsh cycling in the Highlands has meant that I have not gained any weight at all. Perfect.
McDonalds does not count inspite of what I said in yesterdays blog.
There is a great variety of national dishes and locally sourced produce to seek out and enjoy and behind every great holiday there is a great menu to be had. There is something very different to be seen on the supermarket shelves in this part of the United Kingdom even under the branding of the multiple retailers who dominate our shopping, eating and lifestyle habits whether intentionally or subversively.
Take the meat aisle.
There is the dominance of prepared and pre-packed products in pork intended for the breakfast table. Square, round and normal shapes of sausage meat with chops and black pudding. I can appreciate the logic that those battling against the Highland Climate and often highly physical workload require a huge calorific intake but not the love-affair with foodstuffs that will, eventually, clog the arteries and valves in a debilitating effect.
I avoided the temptation of a Scottish fry-up on this vacation although it would have been very helpful in getting me and my mountain bike up the tortuous West Highland Trail from our base at Rowardennan to the posh Inversnaid Hotel in reasonable style and back again with a little bit of energy left at all.
Still, there are plenty of other delicacies and treats to be had and here are just a few of them.
1) Haggis. This is a regular meal for our family every wednesday, almost without fail, although the day itself has no deep significance or symbolism. It is mainly because I can almost guarantee that the nearest Waitrose will have some in stock on that day and accompanied by mashed swede and mashed potatoes with spring onions it makes a delicious and inexpensive meal. You do have to be careful to check the authenticity of the ingredients as a one-off Tesco purchase of Haggis turned out to be made of everything apart from the proper bits of sheep.
2) Cured Salmon. The air in the Highlands is remarkably refreshing, so much so that to a townie like myself an intake of it whilst on holiday can be painful to lungs encrusted with urban grime until acclimatised and thereafter just bracing. The freshness is often mixed with that wonderful aroma of burning wood from open hearths, visitor's barbecues and the increasing number of traditional fish smoking houses. The Argyll sourced salmon pieces were amazing in a packed lunch. Soft fleshy fish, lightly smoked and so tasty.
3) White Pudding. I have written on this phenomena before being a regular recipient of it from friends and relatives returning from Scotland. It is a strange thing in form and texture but if you like, individually, oats, animal fat, rendered meat and skin wrapping then I can recommend it to you.
4) Irn Bru. It is a carbonated soft drink by Barrs of Glasgow and an iconic part of Scottish Culture. It is a drink that you either love unquestionably or, after studying the list of ingredients, make a pledge never to contemplate buying at all. There is a sort of a warning on the can that the use of certain of the ingredients can induce behavioural traits in young children. All I know is that it tastes nice and can also bring out a beautiful lustre to a stainless steel sink basin.
4) Home made soup. Many of the cafes in our holiday area championed home cooking and a particularly enticing menu item advertised an intriguing soup of the day as "Ranoot". The name, perhaps of Gaelic or Celtic derivation, gave no clues to its composition whether animal, vegetable or mineral. I had just cycled 17 miles in light drizzle and a cold breeze and the cafe was the mid point of the journey. My usual bike supplies are made up of chocolate bars and water and so the prospect of hot soup was appealing. I asked about Ranoot expecting to be given a detailed breakdown of its history and authenticity for the Highlands. Instead I was told there was none left, or as the sign clearly said it had Ran Oot.
It has been a good holiday week. Best of all the combination of good eating and harsh cycling in the Highlands has meant that I have not gained any weight at all. Perfect.
Sunday 21 June 2015
Mary, Mungo and Midges
Scotland....
still part of the United Kingdom and my location for the past week for an early annual vacation with the family.
It is a magical place.
Mountains in and out of the mist, lochs and glens in and out of the mist and ravenous tiny, wee insects, something certainly to be missed.
Those pesky midges.
We giggled a bit on our first morning in Scotland seeing an obviously seasoned hill walker shrouded in a fine mesh veil over his head and face rather like a shy bride but for the rest of our week our admiration only grew for the man as we found ourselves pursued relentlessly by the beasties.Hiding behind an improvised net curtain or fly screen was inspirational.
Frantic scratching and itching gave, perhaps, a millisecond of relief from the incessant irritation and we had to resort to wholesale and mutual dabbing with a roll-on type insect repellent. The small cylindrical container with the chemical deterrent had a knack of becoming lost in a cagoule pocket, in the folds of a rucksack or disappearing under the car seat. These events incited huge panic amongst our party.
There were brief moments of escape behind the firmly fastened doors and windows of our vacation timber lodge but we had to draw lots to see which hapless individual had to go retrieve any items, such as food, from the car parked just thirty feet away. In the process we felt like we were sending a family member outside to confront a herd of zombies.
Other apparent midge free zones were to be found out in the middle of Loch Lomond on a water taxi ride, in a coffee shop of extortionate pricing (Mocha £3.10), at an altitude above 3000 feet (approx 1000 metres) where, according to my wife and daughter, the intrepid climbers of Ben Lomond, the sleat and snow in mid June were just too much for the creatures to maintain a direct course to extract blood.
I felt almost justified wandering into a McDonalds fast food restaurant to benefit from the rarified atmosphere, oh, and of course McDonalds has a Scottish Heritage making it permissible .
The week was very active with adventures on mountain bikes and in walking gear.
The changeable weather and threat of perforation by midges, should any bare skin be exposed, had no real impact on our determined pursuit of recreation and leisure after a very busy first half of the year in work and home life.
As that great son of Scotland, Billy Connolly said, "There is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong choice of clothing".
I am at that age, early fifties when I have an over-active interest in and fascination of the climate.
Scotland presents a wonderful opportunity to witness this at close quarters.
In the floor of the glacial valley that contains Loch Lomond, (the largest area of freshwater in the UK), there can, in the course of a few minutes, be alternate scorching sunshine, drizzle and torrential rain, significant variations in temperature, howling gale and complete stillness. For example, a rainbow suddenly appeared to us, flat to the surface of the black cold water only to evaporate within seconds. It was a marvellous, fleeting vision against the backdrop of steep pine clad hillsides and, in the distance, some residual snow filled deep gullies that had so far resisted the spring and summer thaw. On that theme a local resident was heard to say "I love summer in Scotland....it is the best day of the whole year"
We could carry out our own weather forecasting quite easily.
If we could see the upper slopes and summit of Ben Lomond from the log cabin window, looking north, then we could usually count on a few hours of reasonably predictable weather. Just to be safe we could also see through to the Loch shore itself. There was either a glassy sheen of perfect calm on the water or a maelstrom whipped up by winds funnelled through the Glen so that the handful of boats, at anchor, danced around with the clink, clink of masthead gear in accompaniment.
Most of these sights were, unfortunately, viewed through a strange shimmering.
We had seen this before whilst on a Mediterranean holiday as a heat haze effect but in Scotland you can attribute this to the clouds of midges just gathering in the Highlands for another feast on the oh, so foolish, English tourists.
still part of the United Kingdom and my location for the past week for an early annual vacation with the family.
It is a magical place.
Mountains in and out of the mist, lochs and glens in and out of the mist and ravenous tiny, wee insects, something certainly to be missed.
Those pesky midges.
We giggled a bit on our first morning in Scotland seeing an obviously seasoned hill walker shrouded in a fine mesh veil over his head and face rather like a shy bride but for the rest of our week our admiration only grew for the man as we found ourselves pursued relentlessly by the beasties.Hiding behind an improvised net curtain or fly screen was inspirational.
Frantic scratching and itching gave, perhaps, a millisecond of relief from the incessant irritation and we had to resort to wholesale and mutual dabbing with a roll-on type insect repellent. The small cylindrical container with the chemical deterrent had a knack of becoming lost in a cagoule pocket, in the folds of a rucksack or disappearing under the car seat. These events incited huge panic amongst our party.
There were brief moments of escape behind the firmly fastened doors and windows of our vacation timber lodge but we had to draw lots to see which hapless individual had to go retrieve any items, such as food, from the car parked just thirty feet away. In the process we felt like we were sending a family member outside to confront a herd of zombies.
Other apparent midge free zones were to be found out in the middle of Loch Lomond on a water taxi ride, in a coffee shop of extortionate pricing (Mocha £3.10), at an altitude above 3000 feet (approx 1000 metres) where, according to my wife and daughter, the intrepid climbers of Ben Lomond, the sleat and snow in mid June were just too much for the creatures to maintain a direct course to extract blood.
I felt almost justified wandering into a McDonalds fast food restaurant to benefit from the rarified atmosphere, oh, and of course McDonalds has a Scottish Heritage making it permissible .
The week was very active with adventures on mountain bikes and in walking gear.
The changeable weather and threat of perforation by midges, should any bare skin be exposed, had no real impact on our determined pursuit of recreation and leisure after a very busy first half of the year in work and home life.
As that great son of Scotland, Billy Connolly said, "There is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong choice of clothing".
I am at that age, early fifties when I have an over-active interest in and fascination of the climate.
Scotland presents a wonderful opportunity to witness this at close quarters.
In the floor of the glacial valley that contains Loch Lomond, (the largest area of freshwater in the UK), there can, in the course of a few minutes, be alternate scorching sunshine, drizzle and torrential rain, significant variations in temperature, howling gale and complete stillness. For example, a rainbow suddenly appeared to us, flat to the surface of the black cold water only to evaporate within seconds. It was a marvellous, fleeting vision against the backdrop of steep pine clad hillsides and, in the distance, some residual snow filled deep gullies that had so far resisted the spring and summer thaw. On that theme a local resident was heard to say "I love summer in Scotland....it is the best day of the whole year"
We could carry out our own weather forecasting quite easily.
If we could see the upper slopes and summit of Ben Lomond from the log cabin window, looking north, then we could usually count on a few hours of reasonably predictable weather. Just to be safe we could also see through to the Loch shore itself. There was either a glassy sheen of perfect calm on the water or a maelstrom whipped up by winds funnelled through the Glen so that the handful of boats, at anchor, danced around with the clink, clink of masthead gear in accompaniment.
Most of these sights were, unfortunately, viewed through a strange shimmering.
We had seen this before whilst on a Mediterranean holiday as a heat haze effect but in Scotland you can attribute this to the clouds of midges just gathering in the Highlands for another feast on the oh, so foolish, English tourists.
Sunday 14 June 2015
Thursday 11 June 2015
ALlarm Bells
There is a first time for everything.
Little did I know as I made my way across the grassy paddock that I would experience the strangest of sights and sensations.
I am a town dweller through and through, I make no excuses for that, but my workload does inevitably mean that I deal with rural folk and rural properties and landed areas. I make a few jokes about my urban origins to the country dwellers which seems to make them more at ease on a first meeting. This is usually on the theme of pretending to be scared about the wide open spaces, the possibility of falling into a ditch or worse, on trespassing and being confronted by a landowner with a weapon or making a comment about nasty smells that often accompany an idyllic country scene.
The job today was to measure up a parcel of land which was to be sold to a developer who had just bought a redundant public house in a hamlet and was converting it into a pair of houses. The land in question had been leased by my client to successive pub tenant landlords for use as a beer garden but would be a desirable thing to own outright if the pair of dwellings were to be rented out or eventually sold.
I had pulled up on the road frontage having arranged to meet the client outside the former Inn .Such was the collection of builders vans, labourers cars and the impending offloading of a JCB excavator from a low loader on the narrow lane that there was perhaps the first ever traffic jam ever in that location. This would make our intended liaison impossible.
On the far side of the crowd of overall clad operatives I noticed a countryfied lady, wearing a rugby shirt, jodhpurs and with sunglasses sat atop her dishevelled blond hair. Her appearance was so alien to the surroundings that she could only be the client.
She strode purposefully over and her handshake, strengthened by endless hours holding the reins of a horse, caused me to wince effiminately. I made a mental note to work on my own handshake in such situations as rural folk do value a first impression.
The mesh fencing around the construction site and an officious Foreman in high viz vest and hard hat prevented access to measure the land from the road side and so I climbed up into a dusty and hay strewn 4 x 4 with the horsey lady and we drove around a maze of lanes and through the grand gates of The Hall.
It was an impressive manor house with a gentrified Victorian facade but with thin facing bricks to the other elevations indicating 18th Century origins. I was a bit disorientated by the tour of the hamlet and it took a few minutes for me to get my bearings. This was only by sighting the back of the old pub beyond the fencing of a paddock.
I was watching where I was placing my feet, in my city shoes, although I did have the option of my steel toe capped wellies (inherited from my late Father in Law who had worked in Construction). Ground conditions were dry and so I stayed in my somewhat unsuitable worn leather soled footwear for the duration.
There was some undulation to the patchy grass and clumpy foliage and concentrating on my negotiation through such alien territory I did not fully hear what the client was saying.
I did catch the words in the latter part of a full sentence "they are quite harmless but may make a charge at you", and "spitting is quite normal and not aggressive".
I glanced around nervously for a herd of heifers (who can be quite excitable), a gaggle of geese, an errant donkey, ramblers perhaps, holidaying circus creatures or convalescing zoo residents.
The paddock looked empty and a bit forlorn but then I saw its occupants.
Quite close up, Llamas are pretty intimidating and not the scattey but affable pack-animals that we have been educated to accept.
The appearance of two of the beasts moving swiftly towards me was striking. Their long snaking necks, heads held upright and with an inscrutable and aloof expression on long muzzles. Stocky and muscly legs supported bulky torso's with thick matted mop top type fur.
I moved with purpose towards the lady of the Manor hoping that she would not be seen as a stranger or threat by the Llama's or at least with the possibility of using her as a human shield.
There followed a bit of a Peruvian stand-off in that paddock before they lost interest and galloped away through the daisies.
I remarked that I had not expected to see such animals to the east of Hull and my client commented that they had been a recent, impulse purchase. Whoever had sold them had marketed them on unique selling points of being able to scare off foxes intent on decimating the chicken population and with an appetite to consume huge amounts of dock leaves and other intrusive vegetation.
There was no surviving poultry to be seen and I stumbled over and cursed a little about the abundant broad leaved vegetation under foot.
On both counts the Llama's had failed spectacularly but they were just not bothered.
Little did I know as I made my way across the grassy paddock that I would experience the strangest of sights and sensations.
I am a town dweller through and through, I make no excuses for that, but my workload does inevitably mean that I deal with rural folk and rural properties and landed areas. I make a few jokes about my urban origins to the country dwellers which seems to make them more at ease on a first meeting. This is usually on the theme of pretending to be scared about the wide open spaces, the possibility of falling into a ditch or worse, on trespassing and being confronted by a landowner with a weapon or making a comment about nasty smells that often accompany an idyllic country scene.
The job today was to measure up a parcel of land which was to be sold to a developer who had just bought a redundant public house in a hamlet and was converting it into a pair of houses. The land in question had been leased by my client to successive pub tenant landlords for use as a beer garden but would be a desirable thing to own outright if the pair of dwellings were to be rented out or eventually sold.
I had pulled up on the road frontage having arranged to meet the client outside the former Inn .Such was the collection of builders vans, labourers cars and the impending offloading of a JCB excavator from a low loader on the narrow lane that there was perhaps the first ever traffic jam ever in that location. This would make our intended liaison impossible.
On the far side of the crowd of overall clad operatives I noticed a countryfied lady, wearing a rugby shirt, jodhpurs and with sunglasses sat atop her dishevelled blond hair. Her appearance was so alien to the surroundings that she could only be the client.
She strode purposefully over and her handshake, strengthened by endless hours holding the reins of a horse, caused me to wince effiminately. I made a mental note to work on my own handshake in such situations as rural folk do value a first impression.
The mesh fencing around the construction site and an officious Foreman in high viz vest and hard hat prevented access to measure the land from the road side and so I climbed up into a dusty and hay strewn 4 x 4 with the horsey lady and we drove around a maze of lanes and through the grand gates of The Hall.
It was an impressive manor house with a gentrified Victorian facade but with thin facing bricks to the other elevations indicating 18th Century origins. I was a bit disorientated by the tour of the hamlet and it took a few minutes for me to get my bearings. This was only by sighting the back of the old pub beyond the fencing of a paddock.
I was watching where I was placing my feet, in my city shoes, although I did have the option of my steel toe capped wellies (inherited from my late Father in Law who had worked in Construction). Ground conditions were dry and so I stayed in my somewhat unsuitable worn leather soled footwear for the duration.
There was some undulation to the patchy grass and clumpy foliage and concentrating on my negotiation through such alien territory I did not fully hear what the client was saying.
I did catch the words in the latter part of a full sentence "they are quite harmless but may make a charge at you", and "spitting is quite normal and not aggressive".
I glanced around nervously for a herd of heifers (who can be quite excitable), a gaggle of geese, an errant donkey, ramblers perhaps, holidaying circus creatures or convalescing zoo residents.
The paddock looked empty and a bit forlorn but then I saw its occupants.
Quite close up, Llamas are pretty intimidating and not the scattey but affable pack-animals that we have been educated to accept.
The appearance of two of the beasts moving swiftly towards me was striking. Their long snaking necks, heads held upright and with an inscrutable and aloof expression on long muzzles. Stocky and muscly legs supported bulky torso's with thick matted mop top type fur.
I moved with purpose towards the lady of the Manor hoping that she would not be seen as a stranger or threat by the Llama's or at least with the possibility of using her as a human shield.
There followed a bit of a Peruvian stand-off in that paddock before they lost interest and galloped away through the daisies.
I remarked that I had not expected to see such animals to the east of Hull and my client commented that they had been a recent, impulse purchase. Whoever had sold them had marketed them on unique selling points of being able to scare off foxes intent on decimating the chicken population and with an appetite to consume huge amounts of dock leaves and other intrusive vegetation.
There was no surviving poultry to be seen and I stumbled over and cursed a little about the abundant broad leaved vegetation under foot.
On both counts the Llama's had failed spectacularly but they were just not bothered.
Wednesday 10 June 2015
Truth and Consequence
The lady of the house followed me around incessantly.
I was not sure if she just didn't trust me in her home or if she was hanging around in a quest for knowledge of what to look for in her onward move, that is if I reported back to my clients, her purchasers that the place was in good condition and worth the money.
I would say that she did have some justification in being concerned in case I broke, damaged, disturbed or just plain fiddled with something that I ought not to.
I have been known to break the odd ornament, the emphasis being on odd, cause damage to decorative finishes, rip up tight fitted carpets and mess about with settings on boilers and electric showers.
It is not that I am clumsy, awkward, ham fisted or malevolent.
I do these things on occasion in pursuit of further information.
I am on the trail of something interesting and the answer may be in an otherwise concealed, innacessible or prohibited place. My clients, as prospective buyers, when availed of a key piece of information are usually thrilled but the house sellers are invariably far from it.
The shadowing lady led me to start a running commentary on what I was looking for in a particular room or location in her pristine home.
By way of a back story, my career in surveying started in 1985. It is true to say that at that time the only defects of note and mention were damp ,woodworm and dry rot. These horrors had captured the imagination of the house buying public through consumer programme features or articles in the media about how one's dream home could turn into a nightmare from the ravages of rising damp, the nibbling of wood to perforation by annobium punctatum (woodworm) or that phenomena of voracious fungal attack, dry rot.
In the 1980's and in my working area the cost of sorting out a damp and timber problem could be, on average, £500. In today's money that is hardly significant but bearing in mind that a two bedroomed terraced house, pre war built and that first step on the housing ladder was £14,750 the cost of the repairs was a tangible proportion of the transaction.
The now relatively paltry sum of £500 could be a real deal breaker.
But what of surveying today?
Well, I do not exaggerate by saying that I have driven an estate car for the last 15 years not out of choice, although they are useful, but mainly to cart around my equipment and a few box files of notes and information on problems to be expected in housing and environments in the modern age.
Take the beloved home of the lady trailing me through it.
It was built about 1970 in a seaside town as a true bungalow. Cavity walls, as per the norm for modern housing, tiled roof, solid floors so nothing unexpected or unconventional. To complicate matters, at some time in the 1980's a first floor was constructed.
As I explained to the lady I was checking for all manner of issues and by careful investigation these could be either eliminated as a problem or pursued, again, if there was a reasonable trail of suspicion to follow.
Take the roof, when built it was common to fit asbestos cement bonded sheets at the verge. Asbestos was then perceived and promoted as the wonder material being durable, low maintenance and cheap. I pointed it out to the lady.
The solid floors may have been laid onto rubble and waste from urban clearance sites as was the widespread and acceptable practice of the era. Over the passage of time the hardcore and any sulphates from old chimney linings could expand and push out the external walls of a house. The lady went a bit pale.
The cavity wall would be secured at regular spacings by metal ties. If as a child you ever trespassed on a building site you may have treasured the butterfly wire twists as legitimate booty. In a seaside town the salt sprays can cause the ties to corrode, expand and fracture the mortar joints.
The lady hesitated to follow me into the next room.
I explained that a first floor uplift on the footprint of a bungalow would require a lot of strategically placed steelwork to support the loadings of joists, floors, fittings, furniture and inhabitants. The lady noticeable ducked and shirked where she stood under a downstand beam in the hallway.
The upstairs floors were typically for the 1980's in large chipboard sheets. I explained to the lady that early chipboard was just not very good and was prone to sagging between the joist supports. My impression of John Cleese doing his Ministry of Silly Walks Sketch as I made my way across the master bedroom confirmed that, yes, the house contained the weak, undulating flooring.
I was not deliberately tormenting the lady but I could have written a text book on the basis of my visit to her house.
I dare not mention my mental checklist of potential problems but these included the clay subsoils beneath the foundations, the relative proximity of a crumbling cliff line, yet more asbestos in her ornate Artex decorative finishes, a few misted up and failed double glazing units, toxic mould in the shower cubicle, potential electro-magnetic fields around the electrical consumer unit, the possibility of lethal carbon monoxide from a poor flue arrangement for the gas fire in the living room and a threat to the foundations from a once ornamental tree but now oversized and sprouting from the base of the outer wall.
Similarly I did not disclose that my pre-visit investigations had considered but then dismissed such issues as radon, sink holes, mining activity, flight paths, flooding, landslip, subsidence, contaminative issues, socio-ecomomic factors and education catchment areas.
By now my host was a gibbering wreck. I reassured her that, in fact, I had not found anything unexpected given the type, age and location of her home. It was actually quite pleasant, nicely fitted out and decorated.
She did ask me, as I was preparing to leave, to give her a frank opinion as to what would be the best thing consider for her next purchase. I seem to think that I replied, flippantly, had she thought of a caravan.
I was not sure if she just didn't trust me in her home or if she was hanging around in a quest for knowledge of what to look for in her onward move, that is if I reported back to my clients, her purchasers that the place was in good condition and worth the money.
I would say that she did have some justification in being concerned in case I broke, damaged, disturbed or just plain fiddled with something that I ought not to.
I have been known to break the odd ornament, the emphasis being on odd, cause damage to decorative finishes, rip up tight fitted carpets and mess about with settings on boilers and electric showers.
It is not that I am clumsy, awkward, ham fisted or malevolent.
I do these things on occasion in pursuit of further information.
I am on the trail of something interesting and the answer may be in an otherwise concealed, innacessible or prohibited place. My clients, as prospective buyers, when availed of a key piece of information are usually thrilled but the house sellers are invariably far from it.
The shadowing lady led me to start a running commentary on what I was looking for in a particular room or location in her pristine home.
By way of a back story, my career in surveying started in 1985. It is true to say that at that time the only defects of note and mention were damp ,woodworm and dry rot. These horrors had captured the imagination of the house buying public through consumer programme features or articles in the media about how one's dream home could turn into a nightmare from the ravages of rising damp, the nibbling of wood to perforation by annobium punctatum (woodworm) or that phenomena of voracious fungal attack, dry rot.
In the 1980's and in my working area the cost of sorting out a damp and timber problem could be, on average, £500. In today's money that is hardly significant but bearing in mind that a two bedroomed terraced house, pre war built and that first step on the housing ladder was £14,750 the cost of the repairs was a tangible proportion of the transaction.
The now relatively paltry sum of £500 could be a real deal breaker.
But what of surveying today?
Well, I do not exaggerate by saying that I have driven an estate car for the last 15 years not out of choice, although they are useful, but mainly to cart around my equipment and a few box files of notes and information on problems to be expected in housing and environments in the modern age.
Take the beloved home of the lady trailing me through it.
It was built about 1970 in a seaside town as a true bungalow. Cavity walls, as per the norm for modern housing, tiled roof, solid floors so nothing unexpected or unconventional. To complicate matters, at some time in the 1980's a first floor was constructed.
As I explained to the lady I was checking for all manner of issues and by careful investigation these could be either eliminated as a problem or pursued, again, if there was a reasonable trail of suspicion to follow.
Take the roof, when built it was common to fit asbestos cement bonded sheets at the verge. Asbestos was then perceived and promoted as the wonder material being durable, low maintenance and cheap. I pointed it out to the lady.
The solid floors may have been laid onto rubble and waste from urban clearance sites as was the widespread and acceptable practice of the era. Over the passage of time the hardcore and any sulphates from old chimney linings could expand and push out the external walls of a house. The lady went a bit pale.
The cavity wall would be secured at regular spacings by metal ties. If as a child you ever trespassed on a building site you may have treasured the butterfly wire twists as legitimate booty. In a seaside town the salt sprays can cause the ties to corrode, expand and fracture the mortar joints.
The lady hesitated to follow me into the next room.
I explained that a first floor uplift on the footprint of a bungalow would require a lot of strategically placed steelwork to support the loadings of joists, floors, fittings, furniture and inhabitants. The lady noticeable ducked and shirked where she stood under a downstand beam in the hallway.
The upstairs floors were typically for the 1980's in large chipboard sheets. I explained to the lady that early chipboard was just not very good and was prone to sagging between the joist supports. My impression of John Cleese doing his Ministry of Silly Walks Sketch as I made my way across the master bedroom confirmed that, yes, the house contained the weak, undulating flooring.
I was not deliberately tormenting the lady but I could have written a text book on the basis of my visit to her house.
I dare not mention my mental checklist of potential problems but these included the clay subsoils beneath the foundations, the relative proximity of a crumbling cliff line, yet more asbestos in her ornate Artex decorative finishes, a few misted up and failed double glazing units, toxic mould in the shower cubicle, potential electro-magnetic fields around the electrical consumer unit, the possibility of lethal carbon monoxide from a poor flue arrangement for the gas fire in the living room and a threat to the foundations from a once ornamental tree but now oversized and sprouting from the base of the outer wall.
Similarly I did not disclose that my pre-visit investigations had considered but then dismissed such issues as radon, sink holes, mining activity, flight paths, flooding, landslip, subsidence, contaminative issues, socio-ecomomic factors and education catchment areas.
By now my host was a gibbering wreck. I reassured her that, in fact, I had not found anything unexpected given the type, age and location of her home. It was actually quite pleasant, nicely fitted out and decorated.
She did ask me, as I was preparing to leave, to give her a frank opinion as to what would be the best thing consider for her next purchase. I seem to think that I replied, flippantly, had she thought of a caravan.
Tuesday 9 June 2015
The Nemesis of Tony Blair
There seems to be an endless stream of major anniversaries and centenaries in this current year covering all manner of historic events and happenings in society and science.
One that has not really received much recognition and justifiable celebration is the marking of the milestone 100 years of the Women's Institute.
The organisation was quite prominent in my early years through the involvement in local branches by my Nanna, Nelly Janes. She was most active in the arranging and running of meetings and an abiding memory is, of course, whenever the WI is mentioned, an abundance of home made jam and home baked cakes.
It is however, a gross misunderstatement and injustice to stereo-type the organisation in such a way because the WI has, since its humble beginnings in Anglesey, Wales firmly staked a claim to independence and relevance through the decades and today is receiving around 1000 new enquiries about membership from a broad spectrum of women in terms of background and age.
When Prime Minister, in 2000, Tony Blair experienced a taste of the fiercely non political stance in a speech at that years National Conference in which he dared to use the opportunity as a platform for his own agenda. You could say that he was well and truly handbagged by the assembly members who heckled and jeered him for his misjudgement of his message relevant to those present.
He was aware of the power of the WI as his opening words, before his downfall, were that he had never been before such a terrifying audience.
Back to the harsh years of the First World War the idea of an organisation for women in rural areas had been adopted from a Canadian model with the emphasis on growing and preserving food to counter shortages and to give company to those whose menfolk were away on active duty.
The importance of this role was recognised by Government who through the Board of Agriculture gave subsidies to enable more local branches to be established.
Women in often remote rural areas had not had much by way of sisterhood and activities other than though local churches and so the offer of something with a difference was hugely welcomed.
As well as the trademark jam and cakes there was a strong ethical focus on taking on and championing campaigns.
In the inter war years Women's Rights were fought for including more female police personnel, pain relief in childbirth, mental health and, ahead of its time, equal pay for equal work.
This progressive thought did characterise the WI and successive decades saw a strong campaign to educate about Aids with speakers encouraging branch organisations to become blood donors and to practice safe sex.
In the 1970's the WI took on the causes of battered wives, rape in marriage and refuge accommodation for victims of domestic violence.
All of this became part and parcel of the WI who remained committed to womens fellowship, equality amongst members and furthering education in crafts and cookery. I was present at many Jumble Sales organised by my Nanna and these were often as not very interesting and entertaining events.
The image of a rather elderly, middle class and conservative membership could be no farther from the reality.
The current 250,000 strong members do not lack confidence in their lobbying power and have shown that they have had the attention of respective Governments but remain self funding and still non-political.
Yes, in the second world war the WI did produce around twelve million pounds weight of home made jam and the opening of local meetings by singing the stirring Jerusalem anthem persists but the centenary this year is truly a time for recognition and respect.
Nelly certainly got a lot out of her long and fruitful association and British Society has been the better for it. Hurrah, Three Cheers, Hip, Hip.....pass the jam and scones please.
One that has not really received much recognition and justifiable celebration is the marking of the milestone 100 years of the Women's Institute.
The organisation was quite prominent in my early years through the involvement in local branches by my Nanna, Nelly Janes. She was most active in the arranging and running of meetings and an abiding memory is, of course, whenever the WI is mentioned, an abundance of home made jam and home baked cakes.
It is however, a gross misunderstatement and injustice to stereo-type the organisation in such a way because the WI has, since its humble beginnings in Anglesey, Wales firmly staked a claim to independence and relevance through the decades and today is receiving around 1000 new enquiries about membership from a broad spectrum of women in terms of background and age.
When Prime Minister, in 2000, Tony Blair experienced a taste of the fiercely non political stance in a speech at that years National Conference in which he dared to use the opportunity as a platform for his own agenda. You could say that he was well and truly handbagged by the assembly members who heckled and jeered him for his misjudgement of his message relevant to those present.
He was aware of the power of the WI as his opening words, before his downfall, were that he had never been before such a terrifying audience.
Back to the harsh years of the First World War the idea of an organisation for women in rural areas had been adopted from a Canadian model with the emphasis on growing and preserving food to counter shortages and to give company to those whose menfolk were away on active duty.
The importance of this role was recognised by Government who through the Board of Agriculture gave subsidies to enable more local branches to be established.
Women in often remote rural areas had not had much by way of sisterhood and activities other than though local churches and so the offer of something with a difference was hugely welcomed.
As well as the trademark jam and cakes there was a strong ethical focus on taking on and championing campaigns.
In the inter war years Women's Rights were fought for including more female police personnel, pain relief in childbirth, mental health and, ahead of its time, equal pay for equal work.
This progressive thought did characterise the WI and successive decades saw a strong campaign to educate about Aids with speakers encouraging branch organisations to become blood donors and to practice safe sex.
In the 1970's the WI took on the causes of battered wives, rape in marriage and refuge accommodation for victims of domestic violence.
All of this became part and parcel of the WI who remained committed to womens fellowship, equality amongst members and furthering education in crafts and cookery. I was present at many Jumble Sales organised by my Nanna and these were often as not very interesting and entertaining events.
The image of a rather elderly, middle class and conservative membership could be no farther from the reality.
The current 250,000 strong members do not lack confidence in their lobbying power and have shown that they have had the attention of respective Governments but remain self funding and still non-political.
Yes, in the second world war the WI did produce around twelve million pounds weight of home made jam and the opening of local meetings by singing the stirring Jerusalem anthem persists but the centenary this year is truly a time for recognition and respect.
Nelly certainly got a lot out of her long and fruitful association and British Society has been the better for it. Hurrah, Three Cheers, Hip, Hip.....pass the jam and scones please.
Monday 8 June 2015
Diet Coke, The Truth behind the Lawnmowing Man
It was my turn.
I was the newbie amongst the Parks and Gardens Team and my apprenticeship, or rather endless series of stupid and childish initiations , had seemed to take forever. I had been sent to get a left handed bucket by colleagues who found that almost as hilarious as my fruitless quest for rocking horse manure.
My initial tasks had been mindlessly menial, sweeping out the yard at the Park Compound, washing the vans and pick-up trucks, bagging up the bark chippings and logs for public sale, fetching sandwiches and running every sort of errand you could dream up from collecting dry cleaning to placing a bet on a horse.
Then, gradually I assumed greater responsibilities. I was entrusted with some of the smaller, hand operated equipment including the leaf-blower, the backpack mounted strimmer, large scarifiers and the secateurs for the pruning of the small to medium sized ornamental trees for which our City Park was renowned.
My path into horticulture had been long and tortuous and perhaps, I admit, a bit of a cop-out from my original intentions in the sciences but even with a good class degree and reasonable inter-personal skills I had not been able to find meaningful employment in that sector.
I had always enjoyed being outdoors and I just sort of drifted into the Landscape Gardening scene following some vacation jobs doing labouring for a few companies in my home area. The decision to make Parks and Gardens my career was relatively easy and I took on some night school courses to get relevant qualifications.
So, here I was.
My workplace; amongst the greenspaces of the big City, my work clothes; just jeans, T'shirt and work boots, my workload; everything and anything to do with grass, plants, mulch, trees. bushes and flowers.
For the first time in my life I was genuinely happy and fulfilled. I felt that it could not get better but then again I had not had the pleasure of operating the Dennis Centurion Mower.
This piece of equipment looked a bit dated, after all it was just a lawn mower but in the hierarchy of mowing machines it was the equivalent of a thoroughbred, a heavy duty aggressive beast that just ate up the acres of grass leaving behind it a perfect stripe, regular and impressively rolled under its bulky weight.
The day that I saw my name on the work roster under 'Grass Cutting' was and always will be special to me.
I rushed over to the compound workshop to collect the Dennis.
It had just been stripped down and fully serviced so to be as good as new, even though it was a veteran of the Department. The mechanic, a wild eyed, scruffy almost eccentric looking individual ran through the specification and what he had been empowered to do over the last few weeks.
The running gear had been replaced with new manufacturer supplied parts. This extended to the ball bearings, sprockets, chains, blade, grass box and cables. I stood back in awe of this engineered marvel. The casing and superstructure glistened after a wipe over with an oily rag and the smell of WD40 and clutch oil were heady and evocative of a summers day.
The Kohler engine was a proven workhorse. It was purpose made to just idle for hours and then roar into life when the car type clutches were engaged for that extra power and for the cutting unit to bite into the unruly grass. I had heard a few urban myths about the brutal strength of the engine and transmission which, giving the Dennis its self propelled characteristics, had almost ripped the arms from the sockets of many an unprepared operator.
The flexible drive coupling was durable and functional but infinitely smooth and refined. The distinctive razor sharp cutting unit was made of special steel running on a set of grease lubricated ball bearings and with the slip-clutch was easily capable of exceeding 70 cuts per minute.
All of this raw power was nothing without the sophistication of the front and rear rollers. At the front, a removeable unit, 6 bladed cutting cylinder and at the rear in a 3 piece cast iron with machine cut gear differential running in an oil bath.
The designer knew what he was doing with this marvellous creation but still had a sense of humour by building in the trademark opposed spiral which with the mower in motion produced a mesmeric impression amongst the impressed onlookers. A fairground attraction in its own right.
I started up immediately from the workshop with the cutters retracted so that I did not churn and chew up the gravel dressed pathways leading to the lawned areas of the main public park.
It was about 1pm and a few couples were arranged like sardines on the grass, others were sat on the bench seating taking lunch and up on the crest of the slope I saw a group of female office workers enjoying the sunshine and a brief respite from commerce.
My audience blurred into the scenery as I was completely engrossed in my grass cutting with the pride, the flagship of Dennis Centurion Mowers. It was swift and seamless work but in the heat of the midday also quite tiring and sweat inducing.
The horizontally arranged lovers wisely moved away, lunchers munched on and I caught, in the corner of my eye, some animation amongst the cluster of ladies. They were, I was flattered to see, ogling me. I did flaunt and flirt a bit in overemphasising the sweeps and turns at the end of each rolled length of that stretch of the Civic space.
The machine became an extension of my body.
At my closest passing to the excited ladies I noticed that one of them, egged on by the others, had rolled a soft drink can down the hill towards me. This had happened to me before with lazy park users expecting me to deposit their litter in the bin for them. This always annoyed me but I always behaved as the model City employee and would duly collect up and dispose of the rubbish.
This time, however, the can was moving at some speed indicating that it was full.
I half feared an attempted assault and slowed my pace so as not to be physically struck by the projectile. With horror I realised that I had been selfish and the whirling spiral of the Dennis was under threat of being struck with the full force of the 330ml aluminium encased carbonated drink.
I intercepted it before it could do any damage but in picking it up the flimsy can exploded and showered me with the unpleasantly warm, sticky liquid. To onlookers it may have seemed like one of those dramatic, slow motion eruptions so favoured in film and television but it was actually just an unpleasant experience.
Fearing for my favourite daily use T shirt I hastily pulled it off and cautiously wrung the oozing solution out as best I could without affecting the 100% cotton fabric.
There was no sound from the previously rowdy group of ladies and I put this down to their embarrassment of disrupting the labours of an honest and hard working man.
I did not want to create a scene and so, with only the briefest of back glances in their direction I made my way to the Depot in anticipation of many more hours at the controls of the Dennis Centurion Mower.
It was , to me better than sex.
I was the newbie amongst the Parks and Gardens Team and my apprenticeship, or rather endless series of stupid and childish initiations , had seemed to take forever. I had been sent to get a left handed bucket by colleagues who found that almost as hilarious as my fruitless quest for rocking horse manure.
My initial tasks had been mindlessly menial, sweeping out the yard at the Park Compound, washing the vans and pick-up trucks, bagging up the bark chippings and logs for public sale, fetching sandwiches and running every sort of errand you could dream up from collecting dry cleaning to placing a bet on a horse.
Then, gradually I assumed greater responsibilities. I was entrusted with some of the smaller, hand operated equipment including the leaf-blower, the backpack mounted strimmer, large scarifiers and the secateurs for the pruning of the small to medium sized ornamental trees for which our City Park was renowned.
My path into horticulture had been long and tortuous and perhaps, I admit, a bit of a cop-out from my original intentions in the sciences but even with a good class degree and reasonable inter-personal skills I had not been able to find meaningful employment in that sector.
I had always enjoyed being outdoors and I just sort of drifted into the Landscape Gardening scene following some vacation jobs doing labouring for a few companies in my home area. The decision to make Parks and Gardens my career was relatively easy and I took on some night school courses to get relevant qualifications.
So, here I was.
My workplace; amongst the greenspaces of the big City, my work clothes; just jeans, T'shirt and work boots, my workload; everything and anything to do with grass, plants, mulch, trees. bushes and flowers.
For the first time in my life I was genuinely happy and fulfilled. I felt that it could not get better but then again I had not had the pleasure of operating the Dennis Centurion Mower.
This piece of equipment looked a bit dated, after all it was just a lawn mower but in the hierarchy of mowing machines it was the equivalent of a thoroughbred, a heavy duty aggressive beast that just ate up the acres of grass leaving behind it a perfect stripe, regular and impressively rolled under its bulky weight.
The day that I saw my name on the work roster under 'Grass Cutting' was and always will be special to me.
I rushed over to the compound workshop to collect the Dennis.
It had just been stripped down and fully serviced so to be as good as new, even though it was a veteran of the Department. The mechanic, a wild eyed, scruffy almost eccentric looking individual ran through the specification and what he had been empowered to do over the last few weeks.
The running gear had been replaced with new manufacturer supplied parts. This extended to the ball bearings, sprockets, chains, blade, grass box and cables. I stood back in awe of this engineered marvel. The casing and superstructure glistened after a wipe over with an oily rag and the smell of WD40 and clutch oil were heady and evocative of a summers day.
The Kohler engine was a proven workhorse. It was purpose made to just idle for hours and then roar into life when the car type clutches were engaged for that extra power and for the cutting unit to bite into the unruly grass. I had heard a few urban myths about the brutal strength of the engine and transmission which, giving the Dennis its self propelled characteristics, had almost ripped the arms from the sockets of many an unprepared operator.
The flexible drive coupling was durable and functional but infinitely smooth and refined. The distinctive razor sharp cutting unit was made of special steel running on a set of grease lubricated ball bearings and with the slip-clutch was easily capable of exceeding 70 cuts per minute.
All of this raw power was nothing without the sophistication of the front and rear rollers. At the front, a removeable unit, 6 bladed cutting cylinder and at the rear in a 3 piece cast iron with machine cut gear differential running in an oil bath.
The designer knew what he was doing with this marvellous creation but still had a sense of humour by building in the trademark opposed spiral which with the mower in motion produced a mesmeric impression amongst the impressed onlookers. A fairground attraction in its own right.
I started up immediately from the workshop with the cutters retracted so that I did not churn and chew up the gravel dressed pathways leading to the lawned areas of the main public park.
It was about 1pm and a few couples were arranged like sardines on the grass, others were sat on the bench seating taking lunch and up on the crest of the slope I saw a group of female office workers enjoying the sunshine and a brief respite from commerce.
My audience blurred into the scenery as I was completely engrossed in my grass cutting with the pride, the flagship of Dennis Centurion Mowers. It was swift and seamless work but in the heat of the midday also quite tiring and sweat inducing.
The horizontally arranged lovers wisely moved away, lunchers munched on and I caught, in the corner of my eye, some animation amongst the cluster of ladies. They were, I was flattered to see, ogling me. I did flaunt and flirt a bit in overemphasising the sweeps and turns at the end of each rolled length of that stretch of the Civic space.
The machine became an extension of my body.
At my closest passing to the excited ladies I noticed that one of them, egged on by the others, had rolled a soft drink can down the hill towards me. This had happened to me before with lazy park users expecting me to deposit their litter in the bin for them. This always annoyed me but I always behaved as the model City employee and would duly collect up and dispose of the rubbish.
This time, however, the can was moving at some speed indicating that it was full.
I half feared an attempted assault and slowed my pace so as not to be physically struck by the projectile. With horror I realised that I had been selfish and the whirling spiral of the Dennis was under threat of being struck with the full force of the 330ml aluminium encased carbonated drink.
I intercepted it before it could do any damage but in picking it up the flimsy can exploded and showered me with the unpleasantly warm, sticky liquid. To onlookers it may have seemed like one of those dramatic, slow motion eruptions so favoured in film and television but it was actually just an unpleasant experience.
Fearing for my favourite daily use T shirt I hastily pulled it off and cautiously wrung the oozing solution out as best I could without affecting the 100% cotton fabric.
There was no sound from the previously rowdy group of ladies and I put this down to their embarrassment of disrupting the labours of an honest and hard working man.
I did not want to create a scene and so, with only the briefest of back glances in their direction I made my way to the Depot in anticipation of many more hours at the controls of the Dennis Centurion Mower.
It was , to me better than sex.
Sunday 7 June 2015
Wiggins and 60 minutes
Any cyclist who looks serious will be asked one or more of the following three questions by a curious member of the public.
1) How much does your bike weigh?
2) What would a bike like that cost?
3)What is the top speed that you can go on it?.
Most keen sporting riders would be more than happy to answer particularly if they are riding a very lightweight, expensive and fast bike and just to see the jaw dropping reaction of the person making the enquries.
In my case, I am still riding a racing machine for which I was measured back in 1982. At that time, how long ago?, it cost £1000 which was wholly justified for the custom make by a frame builder at a local shop in Nottingham plus top of the range Campagnolo running gear, a good pair of wheels and the best components that my budget could stretch to. In today's money and on a like for like basis you are talking about three times that cost.
The frame was in 531 tubing, a light, strong material from Reynolds and the total completed weight was about, in old imperial terms, eighteen pounds or so. As for speed, well the best that I achieved over 10 miles and 25 miles in competition were times of under 22 minutes and just over the hour respectively. I do, however, like to recall being clocked by a motorist at 55 mph (he shouted it out to me as he passed) downhill in a bus lane in a Nottingham suburb breaking all sorts of local restrictions and being fully relieved of fear and common sense for once in my life.
Those markers of velocity have given me much comfort on those much more frequent occasions when I have averaged 10mph or less on an uphill gradient or into a howling gale force and rain spattered wind.
As I get older those moments of peak speed seem to get less and less, also tempered by a feeling of caution to not get injured in a fall or collision which could result in missing work and mortgage payments.
My old bike is still with me and I ride out on it as many times a week as physically and logistically possible given prolonged recovery periods from previous exertion and a busy working diary. In a moment of unusual energy last year I did jump on my mountain bike and tear off on a route out of my home city, along the by pass to the nearby commuter town and then back thorough the suburbs and all in under the hour.
I was very pleased and not a little surprised in my efforts at an average of 15mph which is pretty good on a large, heavy bike with chunky off road tyres and a narrow gear ratio intended for varied terrain rather than a tarmac dual carriageway.
Cyclists and 60 minutes as a unit of time do have a long, historic affinity for each other.
There can be an obsession with personal best times in an hour with the first recorded, timed effort being back in 1876 when a Penny Farthing rider achieved a distance of 16.5 miles.
There followed over the proceeding decades a steady stream of record attempts with the list of those taking on the challenge soon reading like a who's who of the greatest cyclists from the grand European Tours. In the 1950's Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil both held the hour record followed in the 1970's by Ole Ritter and perhaps the most well known rider ever, Eddy Merckx who at altitide in the Mexico City Velodrome reached 31.784 miles. This, claimed by Merckx to have been his toughest exploit on the bike became, with hindsight, the definitive performance in terms of the actual specification of the machine as in succeeding years technology and science dominated. Francesco Moser claimed the hour record in 1984 .
In 1993 Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman took on each others records in a much publicised battle especially as Obree built his own bike including washing machine bearings in direct contrast to the money no object campaign of Boardman and his carbon fibre mount. Both were relegated by new record rides by Miguel Indurain and Tony Rominger in 1994 until Boardman recaptured it in the Millenium year. The governing body of world cycling sought to standardise the regulations for the hour attempt and reverted in the year 2000 to the Merckx standard bike and equipment of 1972 which meant that the high tech rides on the roll of honour were disallowed.
This did not deter those wanting to take on the hour either as a crowning glory for an illustrious road racing career or just to get their name in the record books. In the last twelve months up until today the record has passed between a number of riders with Alex Dowsett at the top of the leader board at 32.89 miles from multiple laps of the Manchester Velodrome. The UCI again changed the regulations in 2014 stating that all technologies could now be used and by doing so the record became unified.
As I write, the British rider Sir Bradley Wiggins is setting off on his hour attempt hoping to well exceed Dowsett's impressive distance. The countdown begins..............................................................................................................
Bradley Wiggins has just pushed the world hour record to 33 miles (54.526km).
1) How much does your bike weigh?
2) What would a bike like that cost?
3)What is the top speed that you can go on it?.
Most keen sporting riders would be more than happy to answer particularly if they are riding a very lightweight, expensive and fast bike and just to see the jaw dropping reaction of the person making the enquries.
In my case, I am still riding a racing machine for which I was measured back in 1982. At that time, how long ago?, it cost £1000 which was wholly justified for the custom make by a frame builder at a local shop in Nottingham plus top of the range Campagnolo running gear, a good pair of wheels and the best components that my budget could stretch to. In today's money and on a like for like basis you are talking about three times that cost.
The frame was in 531 tubing, a light, strong material from Reynolds and the total completed weight was about, in old imperial terms, eighteen pounds or so. As for speed, well the best that I achieved over 10 miles and 25 miles in competition were times of under 22 minutes and just over the hour respectively. I do, however, like to recall being clocked by a motorist at 55 mph (he shouted it out to me as he passed) downhill in a bus lane in a Nottingham suburb breaking all sorts of local restrictions and being fully relieved of fear and common sense for once in my life.
Those markers of velocity have given me much comfort on those much more frequent occasions when I have averaged 10mph or less on an uphill gradient or into a howling gale force and rain spattered wind.
As I get older those moments of peak speed seem to get less and less, also tempered by a feeling of caution to not get injured in a fall or collision which could result in missing work and mortgage payments.
My old bike is still with me and I ride out on it as many times a week as physically and logistically possible given prolonged recovery periods from previous exertion and a busy working diary. In a moment of unusual energy last year I did jump on my mountain bike and tear off on a route out of my home city, along the by pass to the nearby commuter town and then back thorough the suburbs and all in under the hour.
I was very pleased and not a little surprised in my efforts at an average of 15mph which is pretty good on a large, heavy bike with chunky off road tyres and a narrow gear ratio intended for varied terrain rather than a tarmac dual carriageway.
Cyclists and 60 minutes as a unit of time do have a long, historic affinity for each other.
There can be an obsession with personal best times in an hour with the first recorded, timed effort being back in 1876 when a Penny Farthing rider achieved a distance of 16.5 miles.
There followed over the proceeding decades a steady stream of record attempts with the list of those taking on the challenge soon reading like a who's who of the greatest cyclists from the grand European Tours. In the 1950's Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil both held the hour record followed in the 1970's by Ole Ritter and perhaps the most well known rider ever, Eddy Merckx who at altitide in the Mexico City Velodrome reached 31.784 miles. This, claimed by Merckx to have been his toughest exploit on the bike became, with hindsight, the definitive performance in terms of the actual specification of the machine as in succeeding years technology and science dominated. Francesco Moser claimed the hour record in 1984 .
In 1993 Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman took on each others records in a much publicised battle especially as Obree built his own bike including washing machine bearings in direct contrast to the money no object campaign of Boardman and his carbon fibre mount. Both were relegated by new record rides by Miguel Indurain and Tony Rominger in 1994 until Boardman recaptured it in the Millenium year. The governing body of world cycling sought to standardise the regulations for the hour attempt and reverted in the year 2000 to the Merckx standard bike and equipment of 1972 which meant that the high tech rides on the roll of honour were disallowed.
This did not deter those wanting to take on the hour either as a crowning glory for an illustrious road racing career or just to get their name in the record books. In the last twelve months up until today the record has passed between a number of riders with Alex Dowsett at the top of the leader board at 32.89 miles from multiple laps of the Manchester Velodrome. The UCI again changed the regulations in 2014 stating that all technologies could now be used and by doing so the record became unified.
As I write, the British rider Sir Bradley Wiggins is setting off on his hour attempt hoping to well exceed Dowsett's impressive distance. The countdown begins..............................................................................................................
Bradley Wiggins has just pushed the world hour record to 33 miles (54.526km).
Friday 5 June 2015
Cats Eyes
Cats find their own entertainment during the long daylight hours.
If it is at the expense of a human being then even better although their natural aloofness and inscrutability mean that any glee and joy is well concealed from their victims .
I come across cats on a regular basis in my working day, a lot of them. Most are just lounging about luxuriously on beds, sofa's or in a shaft of sunlight as it crosses a carpeted floor. Some are lurking about in backyards and gardens and I am never sure if they actually belong at that address and so always ask the home-owner if it is indeed their animal.
If I am at an empty house I do make sure that there is no chance of a cat sneaking in behind me. I have heard tales of neighbours reporting seeing a distressed feline face at a window of just such a vacated property and this has usually triggered all sorts of panic involving the police, RSPCA and other charitable organisations in a frantic rescue bid.
There has also been the odd case of a cat being found in a closed-up loft space with no apparent clues as to how it got there. The invitation of a fully deployed access ladder is just too much to bare for an inquisitive cat.
I do like cats although they do not agree with me and I have a strange allergy that developed after my own tabby died when I was young. This was my first experience of pet mortality and I took it quite badly. Any exposure to or contact with fine hairs, whether on a carpet, fabric furnishing or just airborne causes my eyes and nose to stream uncontrollably.
Psychologists would have many volumes to write on my symptons given that the cat, Bonnie, and I were inseparable for her short, fateful life. She would even sleep at my feet under the bed covers.
In my adult years we took in a cat from a family who could no longer cope. After a couple of weeks I was prescribed a Ventolin Inhaler because of a very adverse reaction. Under the ultimatum of "it is the cat, or me", I surprisingly won out for once, yeah!
There is something of a stand-off now, an unwritten agreement to co-exist, live and let live and all of that between me and the cat empire.
We do still have a bit of fun at each others expense.
The intense red beam of my laser measure is tantalising if noticed by kittens or even their seniors and it is quite entertaining, although perhaps a bit cruel to tease in this way.
I was however exposed to the full treatment by way of revenge just a couple of days ago.
I had just opened up the patio doors to the rear of a house when I saw a ginger haired cat spying on me over a boundary fence. It was one of those comedy moments that can be found on a hourly basis posted on the internet and receiving millions of views. I just managed to take a photo.
Retreating back into the kitchen I heard the distinctive "flick-flack" from a cat flat in the wall and there at my feet sat the ginger cat.
In order to maintain my health I ignored this approach and looked back out to the garden. There, sat on the paving slabs, preening itself was the ginger cat.
I had not heard the flap and was amazed at the ground speed of the creature to enable it to be some 5 metres away in no more than a millisecond or so it seemed.
I had, after all, a job to do and turned to make my way into another room. Something caught my eye in the doorway to the lounge, a ginger cat.
This was getting weird.
To be in that position was an impossibility given the distance, time elapsed and with no noise emitted from the only access in- that flap.
I was getting a bit freaked out at this stage.
I made my way upstairs only to find a ginger cat looking down at me from the step on the landing. It was a case of having to hide my incredulity and shock.
After inspecting the upstairs rooms I descended the stairs to fetch my ladders to access the loft space. There, in the garden again was the ginger cat. Thoughts of time travel, Star Trek type transportation and plain voodoo magic crossed my mind at the sight of yet another manifestation.
The cat flap announced the arrival of the animal into the house and when I turned to look at the visitor all became clear.
Sat together on the kitchen vinyl floor were two identical ginger cats. We looked at each other and I sensed a bit of a wry upturn in the stout, fine set whiskers of the pair as though they were savouring a scheming victory over those darned humans.
If it is at the expense of a human being then even better although their natural aloofness and inscrutability mean that any glee and joy is well concealed from their victims .
I come across cats on a regular basis in my working day, a lot of them. Most are just lounging about luxuriously on beds, sofa's or in a shaft of sunlight as it crosses a carpeted floor. Some are lurking about in backyards and gardens and I am never sure if they actually belong at that address and so always ask the home-owner if it is indeed their animal.
If I am at an empty house I do make sure that there is no chance of a cat sneaking in behind me. I have heard tales of neighbours reporting seeing a distressed feline face at a window of just such a vacated property and this has usually triggered all sorts of panic involving the police, RSPCA and other charitable organisations in a frantic rescue bid.
There has also been the odd case of a cat being found in a closed-up loft space with no apparent clues as to how it got there. The invitation of a fully deployed access ladder is just too much to bare for an inquisitive cat.
I do like cats although they do not agree with me and I have a strange allergy that developed after my own tabby died when I was young. This was my first experience of pet mortality and I took it quite badly. Any exposure to or contact with fine hairs, whether on a carpet, fabric furnishing or just airborne causes my eyes and nose to stream uncontrollably.
Psychologists would have many volumes to write on my symptons given that the cat, Bonnie, and I were inseparable for her short, fateful life. She would even sleep at my feet under the bed covers.
In my adult years we took in a cat from a family who could no longer cope. After a couple of weeks I was prescribed a Ventolin Inhaler because of a very adverse reaction. Under the ultimatum of "it is the cat, or me", I surprisingly won out for once, yeah!
There is something of a stand-off now, an unwritten agreement to co-exist, live and let live and all of that between me and the cat empire.
We do still have a bit of fun at each others expense.
The intense red beam of my laser measure is tantalising if noticed by kittens or even their seniors and it is quite entertaining, although perhaps a bit cruel to tease in this way.
I was however exposed to the full treatment by way of revenge just a couple of days ago.
I had just opened up the patio doors to the rear of a house when I saw a ginger haired cat spying on me over a boundary fence. It was one of those comedy moments that can be found on a hourly basis posted on the internet and receiving millions of views. I just managed to take a photo.
Retreating back into the kitchen I heard the distinctive "flick-flack" from a cat flat in the wall and there at my feet sat the ginger cat.
In order to maintain my health I ignored this approach and looked back out to the garden. There, sat on the paving slabs, preening itself was the ginger cat.
I had not heard the flap and was amazed at the ground speed of the creature to enable it to be some 5 metres away in no more than a millisecond or so it seemed.
I had, after all, a job to do and turned to make my way into another room. Something caught my eye in the doorway to the lounge, a ginger cat.
This was getting weird.
To be in that position was an impossibility given the distance, time elapsed and with no noise emitted from the only access in- that flap.
I was getting a bit freaked out at this stage.
I made my way upstairs only to find a ginger cat looking down at me from the step on the landing. It was a case of having to hide my incredulity and shock.
After inspecting the upstairs rooms I descended the stairs to fetch my ladders to access the loft space. There, in the garden again was the ginger cat. Thoughts of time travel, Star Trek type transportation and plain voodoo magic crossed my mind at the sight of yet another manifestation.
The cat flap announced the arrival of the animal into the house and when I turned to look at the visitor all became clear.
Sat together on the kitchen vinyl floor were two identical ginger cats. We looked at each other and I sensed a bit of a wry upturn in the stout, fine set whiskers of the pair as though they were savouring a scheming victory over those darned humans.
Thursday 4 June 2015
Bridge over Troubled Water
Heights and me just do not get on.
I can sometimes surprise myself by crawling to the precipice, holding onto something firmly rooted or grounded and timidly peering over but that is certainly an exception.
I may have acheived it a couple of times just for the sake of standing next to my children when they were mere fledgling toddlers, strictly for the purposes of parental supervision of course.
This rather irrational fear is a mystery to me.
I think that I can track it back to when I was not at all a good swimmer. Most large drops that I encountered on family holidays on clifftops or looking into deep valleys or just going to the shops in a town with 2 rivers and a number of crossings did feature water as the eventual recipient for a plummeting body. Worst fears would be compounded by a low parapet wall over a bridge, the type where it only comes up to your knees even when a small child.
Even if there was a good sturdy, timber slatted walkway over the mildest of watercourses this instilled great angst if the calm, shallow and millpond demeanour was actually visible through the gaps. They were after all the sort of gaps where something precious could be dropped through and lost forever. For this reason I would keep my hands firmly in my pockets tightly grasping car keys, loose change and the inevitable collection of interesting pebbles and stones. Perhaps I was also not very good at loading up my pockets in a balanced way as well.
This was, I hesitate to admit, at its absolute worst on a suspended bridge, high up over a narrow gorge in Scotland. The thin structure, exposed to the wind could be sensed both vibrating and swaying and only with two persons on board. The cascading torrent of a mountain stream had been audible even when parking the car some distance away but with the heightened sensory experience of seeing it through the planking deck plus the lateral and oscillating movement I was fixed to the spot in rigid terror. My wife found this quite hilarious and I can accept that in a grown man, a former scout for goodness sakes, this was a ridiculous predicament to be in. I did not cross the bridge and would not have done so even if resident Troll had made demands of me.
Steep slopes with narrow, terraced paths are also a problem and torment to me. In most cases the width of the track suggests it was made by procession of sheep rather than a team of dedicated volunteers working for the National Parks and adopting a good wide size 10 walking boot as the model for safety and passability.
One particularly terrifying example is embedded in that part of my brain reserved for bad experiences. The north side of Trevone Bay in Cornwall has an interesting feature in a deep chasm, a blow-hole. I was told it was about 80 feet deep but I did not personally verify this. In its visible depths there is an opening in the adjacent cliff base and under certain stormy high seas or tidal conditions the hole is seen to live up to its geographical description.
The large and to my mind, very unstable feature, was on the route for one of my Wife's all time favourite coastal paths from Trevone to Padstow. This is amongst some of the most magnificent scenery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and unfortunately for me, includes the steepest sheer face cliffs and sharp rock strewn potential watery graves ever.
I started the walk accompanied by our three very young children and friends but did not find it even remotely fun or inspiring as the rest of the group were intent on making it. Other peoples dogs were cavorting about as if in complete oblivion or denial of the very real dangers that I was perhaps the only person on the cliff to appreciate. I tried to warn the others about what they were getting into but with no success whatsoever.
If I feel in mortal danger on a gradient I just sit down and thereafter find it very difficult to find the momentum or spirit to get up again. The others continued merrily on their way leaving me behind and by all accounts had a marvellous, safe, carefree and scare-free time as they revelled in telling me later that day.
I seem to remember that, as Johnny no-mates I spent the rest of the day at the very reassuring sea-level.
It was great.
I can sometimes surprise myself by crawling to the precipice, holding onto something firmly rooted or grounded and timidly peering over but that is certainly an exception.
I may have acheived it a couple of times just for the sake of standing next to my children when they were mere fledgling toddlers, strictly for the purposes of parental supervision of course.
This rather irrational fear is a mystery to me.
I think that I can track it back to when I was not at all a good swimmer. Most large drops that I encountered on family holidays on clifftops or looking into deep valleys or just going to the shops in a town with 2 rivers and a number of crossings did feature water as the eventual recipient for a plummeting body. Worst fears would be compounded by a low parapet wall over a bridge, the type where it only comes up to your knees even when a small child.
Even if there was a good sturdy, timber slatted walkway over the mildest of watercourses this instilled great angst if the calm, shallow and millpond demeanour was actually visible through the gaps. They were after all the sort of gaps where something precious could be dropped through and lost forever. For this reason I would keep my hands firmly in my pockets tightly grasping car keys, loose change and the inevitable collection of interesting pebbles and stones. Perhaps I was also not very good at loading up my pockets in a balanced way as well.
This was, I hesitate to admit, at its absolute worst on a suspended bridge, high up over a narrow gorge in Scotland. The thin structure, exposed to the wind could be sensed both vibrating and swaying and only with two persons on board. The cascading torrent of a mountain stream had been audible even when parking the car some distance away but with the heightened sensory experience of seeing it through the planking deck plus the lateral and oscillating movement I was fixed to the spot in rigid terror. My wife found this quite hilarious and I can accept that in a grown man, a former scout for goodness sakes, this was a ridiculous predicament to be in. I did not cross the bridge and would not have done so even if resident Troll had made demands of me.
Steep slopes with narrow, terraced paths are also a problem and torment to me. In most cases the width of the track suggests it was made by procession of sheep rather than a team of dedicated volunteers working for the National Parks and adopting a good wide size 10 walking boot as the model for safety and passability.
One particularly terrifying example is embedded in that part of my brain reserved for bad experiences. The north side of Trevone Bay in Cornwall has an interesting feature in a deep chasm, a blow-hole. I was told it was about 80 feet deep but I did not personally verify this. In its visible depths there is an opening in the adjacent cliff base and under certain stormy high seas or tidal conditions the hole is seen to live up to its geographical description.
The large and to my mind, very unstable feature, was on the route for one of my Wife's all time favourite coastal paths from Trevone to Padstow. This is amongst some of the most magnificent scenery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and unfortunately for me, includes the steepest sheer face cliffs and sharp rock strewn potential watery graves ever.
I started the walk accompanied by our three very young children and friends but did not find it even remotely fun or inspiring as the rest of the group were intent on making it. Other peoples dogs were cavorting about as if in complete oblivion or denial of the very real dangers that I was perhaps the only person on the cliff to appreciate. I tried to warn the others about what they were getting into but with no success whatsoever.
If I feel in mortal danger on a gradient I just sit down and thereafter find it very difficult to find the momentum or spirit to get up again. The others continued merrily on their way leaving me behind and by all accounts had a marvellous, safe, carefree and scare-free time as they revelled in telling me later that day.
I seem to remember that, as Johnny no-mates I spent the rest of the day at the very reassuring sea-level.
It was great.
Wednesday 3 June 2015
Zombie Runaround
It is very important to have a contingency plan for just about any scenario or predicament.
In the past I have considered a suitable course of action for the explosion of the sun and obliteration of our galaxy thanks to a bit of scaremongering in the Star Trek Annual of 1974. It arose because I took at face value the shattering implications of this for the 11 year old that I was but omitted to carry on reading over onto the next page which indicated that this event was not expected for something like a zillion years.
In the 1980's every household in the UK received a booklet about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. It was a case of taping up windows against a blast wave, sitting under the kitchen table after draping it with white sheets and stockpiling essential goods. The precautions recommended by the Civil Defence authorities at that time did not vary much from those shown in the grainy black and white Public Information films from a couple of decades earlier.
In the 1990's I suppose it was fear of terrorism from dissident domestic groups and in the early years of the 21st Century more of the same but upscaled to overseas factions adopting aircraft assaults and the threat of dirty bombs plus of course the doctrinally neutral climate change.
More recently there has been the damage and anxiety exerted by flood and storms with many having to take a crash course in filling up sandbags or barricading their homes against tidal or river surge.
On a mundane day to day basis a contingency plan is just good practice to cover escape from fire and to generally keep out of harms way.
However, at the moment my primary concern relates to Zombie Apocalypse.
This has been hammered home in my psyche by watching, back to back, the first two series of "The Walking Dead" which is set in the uncertain and desperate days following a non-specific combination of global catastrophes resulting in most of the world's population dressing down, drooling and snarling and a few brave souls trying to make sense of it all and survive within the tatters of a moral code of decency and compassion.
The drama is accentuated by no real explanation of what transpired but yet the disintegration of society and mankind is rapid and very, very violent.
In successive scenes in the TV series I have placed myself in the role of some of the main non-Zombie-fied characters and really soul searched as to what I would do in the reality of the situations portrayed. It is plain to see that things would not pan out well for me. I do not possess currently what could be described as a ruthless or selfish trait but such qualities would be paramount in the decision making process when confronted by one or worst case, a whole herd of Zombies.
This was illustrated by my walk back from a football match last evening. It is quite rare to get a large mass of bodies all moving in the same direction and at the same speed unless exiting from a stadium venue. We collectively lumbered along, a bit stiff limbed from sitting on hard seats and with limited legroom. The sensible amongst us were well wrapped up on a cold February night and this further influenced restricted movement. Our team had won and so there was an upbeat tone in the conversations but interspersed with grumbles about how laboured the performance had been. It was not a great stretch of the imagination to liken the exodus to the incoherent mutterings and random, erratic motions of Zombies. (No disrespect meant or implied to supporters of Hull City).
I took it on as a practice session.
If I kept towards the outer edge of the populus this would give me enough time to formulate that contingency plan. It was important not to draw attention to myself, make eye contact or even draw out of my coat pockets the last of the Extra Strong Mints that had got me through the tedious second half of the game. At least Zombies are a bit slow and I was confident of being able to outrun them unless they overran me or I got legged up by someone else trying to evade being eaten alive. I would be confident in being able to make my way home through the inevitable half chewed bodies, burnt out smouldering cars and abandoned military vehicles using all of the guile from a Cub Scout training that I have never forgotten.
I broke clear of the crowd just by the gates of the bread factory. Most Zombie movies feature a cohesive and attentive group of survivors, heavily armed and motivated. I was however on my own and fearful for other Johnny No-Mates in the post apocalyptic environment.
Reaching home I sneaked in under the electric door to the integral garage and closed it again before a full operating cycle. I calculated what would be required to blockade the stairwell up to the first floor which would be the main living area and from which to keep a look out over the street for marauding hordes. Behind closed blinds I felt that I could at last relax, safe for the time being from carnivorous neighbours and friends.
Of course, my daughter shattered my contingency plan by mentioning in passing that there were actually many different types of Zombie. Fast ones, bullet-proof ones, those able to spring and leap large obstacles, intelligent and reasoning ones, scheming and cantankerous ones. I would have to review my contingency for the Zombie Apocalypse or else I was at risk from being stuffed........and savoured as the main course.
In the past I have considered a suitable course of action for the explosion of the sun and obliteration of our galaxy thanks to a bit of scaremongering in the Star Trek Annual of 1974. It arose because I took at face value the shattering implications of this for the 11 year old that I was but omitted to carry on reading over onto the next page which indicated that this event was not expected for something like a zillion years.
In the 1980's every household in the UK received a booklet about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. It was a case of taping up windows against a blast wave, sitting under the kitchen table after draping it with white sheets and stockpiling essential goods. The precautions recommended by the Civil Defence authorities at that time did not vary much from those shown in the grainy black and white Public Information films from a couple of decades earlier.
In the 1990's I suppose it was fear of terrorism from dissident domestic groups and in the early years of the 21st Century more of the same but upscaled to overseas factions adopting aircraft assaults and the threat of dirty bombs plus of course the doctrinally neutral climate change.
More recently there has been the damage and anxiety exerted by flood and storms with many having to take a crash course in filling up sandbags or barricading their homes against tidal or river surge.
On a mundane day to day basis a contingency plan is just good practice to cover escape from fire and to generally keep out of harms way.
However, at the moment my primary concern relates to Zombie Apocalypse.
This has been hammered home in my psyche by watching, back to back, the first two series of "The Walking Dead" which is set in the uncertain and desperate days following a non-specific combination of global catastrophes resulting in most of the world's population dressing down, drooling and snarling and a few brave souls trying to make sense of it all and survive within the tatters of a moral code of decency and compassion.
The drama is accentuated by no real explanation of what transpired but yet the disintegration of society and mankind is rapid and very, very violent.
In successive scenes in the TV series I have placed myself in the role of some of the main non-Zombie-fied characters and really soul searched as to what I would do in the reality of the situations portrayed. It is plain to see that things would not pan out well for me. I do not possess currently what could be described as a ruthless or selfish trait but such qualities would be paramount in the decision making process when confronted by one or worst case, a whole herd of Zombies.
This was illustrated by my walk back from a football match last evening. It is quite rare to get a large mass of bodies all moving in the same direction and at the same speed unless exiting from a stadium venue. We collectively lumbered along, a bit stiff limbed from sitting on hard seats and with limited legroom. The sensible amongst us were well wrapped up on a cold February night and this further influenced restricted movement. Our team had won and so there was an upbeat tone in the conversations but interspersed with grumbles about how laboured the performance had been. It was not a great stretch of the imagination to liken the exodus to the incoherent mutterings and random, erratic motions of Zombies. (No disrespect meant or implied to supporters of Hull City).
I took it on as a practice session.
If I kept towards the outer edge of the populus this would give me enough time to formulate that contingency plan. It was important not to draw attention to myself, make eye contact or even draw out of my coat pockets the last of the Extra Strong Mints that had got me through the tedious second half of the game. At least Zombies are a bit slow and I was confident of being able to outrun them unless they overran me or I got legged up by someone else trying to evade being eaten alive. I would be confident in being able to make my way home through the inevitable half chewed bodies, burnt out smouldering cars and abandoned military vehicles using all of the guile from a Cub Scout training that I have never forgotten.
I broke clear of the crowd just by the gates of the bread factory. Most Zombie movies feature a cohesive and attentive group of survivors, heavily armed and motivated. I was however on my own and fearful for other Johnny No-Mates in the post apocalyptic environment.
Reaching home I sneaked in under the electric door to the integral garage and closed it again before a full operating cycle. I calculated what would be required to blockade the stairwell up to the first floor which would be the main living area and from which to keep a look out over the street for marauding hordes. Behind closed blinds I felt that I could at last relax, safe for the time being from carnivorous neighbours and friends.
Of course, my daughter shattered my contingency plan by mentioning in passing that there were actually many different types of Zombie. Fast ones, bullet-proof ones, those able to spring and leap large obstacles, intelligent and reasoning ones, scheming and cantankerous ones. I would have to review my contingency for the Zombie Apocalypse or else I was at risk from being stuffed........and savoured as the main course.
Tuesday 2 June 2015
Bob the Builder
I always get a bit confused and disorientated when I have to venture onto the huge housing estate which, on a daily basis (such is the rapid progress of development) continues the urban sprawl northwards of the regional city of Hull.
The only physical barrier to perpetual expansion is the banked course of the River Hull which meanders along before spilling out into the tidal Humber Estuary. When I first started working in the city in 1985 the now built up area was very much out in the countryside and with little by way of roads or transport links to even give a realisation that it would one day be covered in residences, schools, shopping areas and a commercial zone.
The first sector to be built upon was a bit bleak and remote back in the mid to late 1980's. It grew up alongside one of the largest Social Housing areas in the UK, itself marking an earlier phase of expansion in the 1960's when the inner city slums were finally demolished and cleared and the population, either very willingly or not, were relocated some four miles away. There was a standing joke that the new influx of owner occupiers would have to nominate one of their number to stay at home all day to ensure that the neighbouring tenants did not get up to mischief or worse.
Within a decade the private housing far outnumbered the social sector stretching some two miles westwards and a mile or so deep with a supporting infrastructure that allowed the estate dwellers to be almost self sufficient apart from, critically, still having to commute some distance to a place of work elsewhere in Hull or the wider region.
A few National Builders, Regional and local companies have been and remain active as further phases emerge out of the ground,
Each builder has presented their own catalogue of house types and designs and their marketing suites and media campaigns have emphasised the unique individualism of their output but yet there is a bland and very similar appearance to every street which is the main reason for my confusion and total disorientation.
There is, granted, a mix of house sizes from 5 to 6 bed executive detached through to the most common 2 and 3 bed terraced or semi detached houses. Recent trends have seen coach house type properties consisting of accommodation over garaging, three storey living experiences, flats in clusters rather than traditional blocks, one bedroomed units over two floors and strange designs introducing descriptions of link, quarter detached and back to back,
Periodically a builder may try something quite different in terms of style, finishes, materials of construction and layout in order to attract the interest of prospective buyers but purchasers of new build estate housing are not, by nature, pioneers or particularly radical or ambitious animals and will always revert, by default, to the plain four square walls format.
Under this overriding commercial pressure what the public want is what the public get hence the acre upon acre of featureless house types, give or take a few dummy window apertures, timber finials and decorative coursing in mock cottage or Georgian town house homage.
I usually get to visit the various sites at an early stage with an instruction to look at a Plot number on a development named after a tree, such as The Pines, a local landmark such as Abbey View or just something completely inane such as Inspiration, Aspire or Imagine.
Some time later the roadways are given actual postal names and the plot numbers change to usually unrelated postal numbers. This gives me considerable problems especially when required to carry out a final inspection of a property previously identifiable only by the plot and phase references.
I struggled today to find a road called Northgate.
I can usually get a broad idea of location from the grouping together of themed names, again trees are popular along with stately homes, UK rivers and cathedral cities but Northgate, well, no chance.
Sat Nav systems cannot, even with regular updates, keep pace with the rate of expansion of the housing stock and my in car and usually reliable system was no help at all.
I lapped the main circulatory roads a few times hoping to ask a pedestrian for directions but everyone was out at work or car bound which thwarted that intention.
A friendly postie was not to be seen but then again it would take all day just to deliver the mail to a small area of the vast estate. Northgate appeared to be a new village style name and so I concentrated my search in the vicinity of School View, Pasture View and The Manor.
After another 30 minutes of fruitless circling I thought about pulling over to have a rethink about strategy. The estate roads are all double yellow lined to discourage clogging up by resident's and visitor vehicles and the only available space at a break in a row of terraced houses.
I happened to glance into what was a narrow footway serving an off road block. I had found Northgate, how quaint.
I put the wasted hours down to experience, sure and certain in the knowledge that I would not be waylaid again if called upon to visit that particular street any time soon. Of course, that would be true if the rate of development in the area just stopped but such is the relentless pressure of progress and the demand for new housing that Northgate would inevitably be swamped and absorbed pretty soon.
The only physical barrier to perpetual expansion is the banked course of the River Hull which meanders along before spilling out into the tidal Humber Estuary. When I first started working in the city in 1985 the now built up area was very much out in the countryside and with little by way of roads or transport links to even give a realisation that it would one day be covered in residences, schools, shopping areas and a commercial zone.
The first sector to be built upon was a bit bleak and remote back in the mid to late 1980's. It grew up alongside one of the largest Social Housing areas in the UK, itself marking an earlier phase of expansion in the 1960's when the inner city slums were finally demolished and cleared and the population, either very willingly or not, were relocated some four miles away. There was a standing joke that the new influx of owner occupiers would have to nominate one of their number to stay at home all day to ensure that the neighbouring tenants did not get up to mischief or worse.
Within a decade the private housing far outnumbered the social sector stretching some two miles westwards and a mile or so deep with a supporting infrastructure that allowed the estate dwellers to be almost self sufficient apart from, critically, still having to commute some distance to a place of work elsewhere in Hull or the wider region.
A few National Builders, Regional and local companies have been and remain active as further phases emerge out of the ground,
Each builder has presented their own catalogue of house types and designs and their marketing suites and media campaigns have emphasised the unique individualism of their output but yet there is a bland and very similar appearance to every street which is the main reason for my confusion and total disorientation.
There is, granted, a mix of house sizes from 5 to 6 bed executive detached through to the most common 2 and 3 bed terraced or semi detached houses. Recent trends have seen coach house type properties consisting of accommodation over garaging, three storey living experiences, flats in clusters rather than traditional blocks, one bedroomed units over two floors and strange designs introducing descriptions of link, quarter detached and back to back,
Periodically a builder may try something quite different in terms of style, finishes, materials of construction and layout in order to attract the interest of prospective buyers but purchasers of new build estate housing are not, by nature, pioneers or particularly radical or ambitious animals and will always revert, by default, to the plain four square walls format.
Under this overriding commercial pressure what the public want is what the public get hence the acre upon acre of featureless house types, give or take a few dummy window apertures, timber finials and decorative coursing in mock cottage or Georgian town house homage.
I usually get to visit the various sites at an early stage with an instruction to look at a Plot number on a development named after a tree, such as The Pines, a local landmark such as Abbey View or just something completely inane such as Inspiration, Aspire or Imagine.
Some time later the roadways are given actual postal names and the plot numbers change to usually unrelated postal numbers. This gives me considerable problems especially when required to carry out a final inspection of a property previously identifiable only by the plot and phase references.
I struggled today to find a road called Northgate.
I can usually get a broad idea of location from the grouping together of themed names, again trees are popular along with stately homes, UK rivers and cathedral cities but Northgate, well, no chance.
Sat Nav systems cannot, even with regular updates, keep pace with the rate of expansion of the housing stock and my in car and usually reliable system was no help at all.
I lapped the main circulatory roads a few times hoping to ask a pedestrian for directions but everyone was out at work or car bound which thwarted that intention.
A friendly postie was not to be seen but then again it would take all day just to deliver the mail to a small area of the vast estate. Northgate appeared to be a new village style name and so I concentrated my search in the vicinity of School View, Pasture View and The Manor.
After another 30 minutes of fruitless circling I thought about pulling over to have a rethink about strategy. The estate roads are all double yellow lined to discourage clogging up by resident's and visitor vehicles and the only available space at a break in a row of terraced houses.
I happened to glance into what was a narrow footway serving an off road block. I had found Northgate, how quaint.
I put the wasted hours down to experience, sure and certain in the knowledge that I would not be waylaid again if called upon to visit that particular street any time soon. Of course, that would be true if the rate of development in the area just stopped but such is the relentless pressure of progress and the demand for new housing that Northgate would inevitably be swamped and absorbed pretty soon.
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